Things I Want My Daughters to Know_ A Novel - Elizabeth Noble [135]
They’d known Mum was going out with someone. She would never have kept something like that a secret. She’d never have had the nerve, after she’d extracted every nugget of information from Lisa about every boy she’d been out with. She’d told them, on the phone, that a guy had come into the shop and that they’d got talking, and that he’d asked her to lunch. They knew she liked him. Beyond that, neither of them had thought about it much—Jennifer busy trying to read train timetables in six different European languages, and Lisa spending days and weeks and terms passing in a fog, literally and metaphysically.
So it was a bit of a conversation stopper, when it came.
“I thought you should know, it’s getting serious.” She’d mixed them all a white wine spritzer, laughing, as she had done before, because she was so glad they were both finally old enough to drink with her.
“How serious?” Jennifer had asked.
“Very serious, actually…”
“How serious is very serious?” Lisa echoed, taking in the inane grin spreading across their mother’s face. “Are you in love with him?”
“Oh, yes. Very much in love with him.”
Jennifer had squirmed a little. This was far more Lisa’s territory. She wasn’t sure she wanted to think about Mum being in love.
“I suppose I’d better meet him, then, hadn’t I?”
It hadn’t happened, so far. Now Jennifer couldn’t remember whether that was by Lisa’s design, or by her mother’s. It hadn’t seemed important.
“I’ve met him,” Jennifer added unnecessarily. She was pleased, for once, to have something to lord it over Lisa about. Lisa always made her feel so…gauche, and immature. No one else did that.
“Good for you!” Lisa’s tone told her that her remark had hit home. Of course, reprisal was swift. “But forgive me if I don’t think you’re the ultimate judge of men.”
“That’s a horrible thing to say. Pot calling the kettle black. Do any of your blokes stick around long enough for you to get to know them?”
“Girls…don’t fight.” Mum’s tone was light. Like she wasn’t really listening to the squabble.
“Did you hear what she said, Mum?”
“I heard what you both said. This isn’t about you, believe it or not. I’m trying to tell you both something.”
“What?”
“Mark’s asked me to marry him. And I’ve said yes.”
Jennifer spat a mouthful of spritzer back into her glass.
“Bloody hell, Mum!”
“Yes, well, I’m sorry to shock you. Seemed to be the only way I could get your attention.”
It had worked.
“And while you’re busy catching flies and looking stupefied, I better tell you the rest.”
“There’s more?”
“There’s a lot more. I’m having a baby.”
“You’re what?”
“I’m having a baby, with Mark.”
“What do you mean, having a baby? You mean you want to have a baby, with Mark? Mum, you’re forty-five. You’re…like…well, you’re way too old to have a baby.”
“I do not mean I want to have a baby. Well…that’s not true. Of course I want to. You’re making me nervous….” For the first time, they heard a slight tremor in her voice. “I mean I am having one. I hate to defy medical science and burst your bubble, Lisa, but I’m pregnant. I’m three months pregnant.”
Neither of them had a single word to say, and Barbara had said everything she had to say for now. For long, long seconds, the three of them sat there, staring at one another, and at Barbara’s offending uterus—Jennifer looking like she might cry, Lisa with an expression of pure revulsion, and Barbara, defiant and, in every sense of the word, expectant.
Lisa broke the silence. She burst out laughing.
“Why are you laughing? I’m not joking. You realize I’m serious.”
“But I’ve never met him.”
“I know. You haven’t been home. You’ll meet him now. You can meet him tonight, if you want to.”
“Does Amanda know him?” Amanda was at school.
“Yes, of course. She lives here! This isn’t some flash in the pan, girls. I know it’s a shock.”
On reflection, that year was probably the