“But that’scancer.”Finlay’s voice had risen a bit. “You don’t want to tell us because you don’t think we can cope, but we can. And if you have cancer, you have to get treatment and things, so you’ll need us to keep helping! We have toknow.”
“It wasn’t—” She looked at Zane, who said, “Whatever you think.”
Well,thatwas heaps of help.
51
THE AWKWARD FACTS OF LIFE
Zane wanted to jump in here, but he couldn’t, could he? This was up to Skylar.
She was still hesitating when Scarlett said, “How did you get leave, Dad? The All Blacks don’t give leave for things like somebody being ill. Only when somebody dies.”
“I knew it,” Finlay said. “Mum’s dying, isn’t she?”
“No,” Scarlett said, “the person has to actually be dead. So he couldn’thave got leave for that.”
“But he couldn’thave got back on time anyway!” Finlay said. “Not from Fiji, when Mum wasn’t even out of hospital yet!”
“Yes, but he’d only have been one day late,” Scarlett said. “And it’s beenthreedays. So how?”
How indeed? He had no clue how to answer this.
Skylar came to the rescue once again. Or maybe not, because she said, “It wasn’t cancer. It was a pregnancy.”
The kids all looked at each other. Then Scarlett said, “You had anabortion?”
“No,” Skylar said. “I had an ectopic pregnancy. The fertilizedegg implanted in the wrong place, where it couldn’t grow, so it had to be removed.”
Scarlett said, “How would that happen? We learned about pregnancy in school, and the egg always goes to the same place. To the uterus.”
“Oh, gross,” Finlay said.
“You were the one who wanted to know,” Scarlett said. “And it’s how you were born. If it’s how you’re born, how can it be gross? You grew in your mum’s uterus, and then you came down out of her?—”
Skylar said, “All right. That’s enough of that. We don’t need to go into all that now. People aren’t interested in that.” She’d been looking tense, though, and now, she was trying not to laugh at the revolted expression on Finlay’s face, so that was better.
Duncan said, “I’d like to know how people get born. They never tell you stuff like that in school.”
“Yes, they do,” Scarlett said. “They just haven’t told you yet, because you’re not mature enough.”
“I am so,” Duncan said. “Anyway, why would you have to be mature just to learn something?”
Olive said, “They tell you in books, too.”
“Whatbooks?” Duncan said. “Not in the books I read.”
“I want to know too,” Georgia said. “We learned about how rats get born, but not about babies. Are you going to have a baby, Skylar? You aren’t fat enough, I don’t think.”
“You don’t get fat straight away,” Scarlett said. “The baby grows, like I said. But the whole point is that sheisn’tgoing to have a baby. She was going to, but it was growing in the wrong place.”
“Oh,” Georgia said. “But where did the baby go?”
“It died,” Scarlett said.
“It did?” Georgia looked stricken. “Were you very sad, Skylar? If a baby died, I would be very sad.”
“I’d be sad too,” George said. “We had a cat before Snowball, and it died. A baby would be even sadder.”
