A Ring for the Greek's Baby

‘That might’ve been because I took that vile-tasting liquid supplement you gave me.’

Her mother gave a snort. ‘You haven’t taken any of it. I checked the bottle last time I was over at your place.’

Emily had always thought her mother had missed her calling as a forensic detective. Which was why she’d been avoiding her until she’d told Loukas about the baby. Her mother would have ferreted out that stash of pregnancy tests like a sniffer dog on a drug bust. ‘I’m hopeless at remembering to take medication—you know that.’

‘Clearly you’ve neglected to take your contraceptive pill. How far along are you?’

She let out a jagged breath. ‘I wasn’t on the pill—I was taking a break after all those years on it. I’m four weeks or thereabouts.’

‘You didn’t think about terminating?’

‘No.’ It shocked Emily that it hadn’t been the easiest decision to make. She’d always thought she would be thrilled about one day falling pregnant. But when she’d missed her period the panic had consumed any sense of thrill. The doubts and worries had rained on her like arrows: how would she cope with a baby? What if Loukas didn’t want to have anything to do with their child? What if he hated her for keeping it? Or, worse, hated the child? She had worked at a law firm long enough to know there were men out there who began to hate their children because they’d been conceived with a partner they now detested.

It wasn’t the way she had pictured her life panning out. She had pictured a white wedding to a man she loved and who loved her back, and then raising a family with him, a dream family, as she had longed for during her peripatetic childhood.

‘Well, having a kid is one thing, but marrying the guy is another,’ her mother said. ‘Who marries because of a baby these days? It wasn’t mandatory even in my day.’

All the same, it would have been nice to find out the guy’s name, even if you didn’t end up marrying him.

Emily didn’t say it out loud because every time she said anything about her mother’s casual approach to sex she ended up sounding like a nineteen-fifties Sunday School teacher. ‘I want my baby to have a father in its life.’

‘I know you think you’ve missed out on having a father but not every man is cut out to be a dad,’ her mother said. ‘Some men can’t cope with the responsibility.’

Nor can some mothers.

Emily sometimes felt her mum didn’t enjoy being a mum and had only given birth to her so she could tick the box marked ‘Mother’. Her approach to motherhood was the same as her approach to everything else. She would do it with great passion for a period of time and then the novelty would wear off and she would abandon it to sign up for something else that had seized her interest. Emily had barely been out of nappies when her mother had started offloading her to other people whenever she could to go on yet another yoga, mind or body retreat. Most of her school holidays had been spent in holiday care because her mother had always had better things to do than hang out with her.

‘Why are you marrying this man?’ her mother asked. ‘Do you love him?’

Emily had no choice but to lie. She couldn’t tell her mother the truth. She would never hear the end of it. ‘Of course I love him.’

‘You said you were in love with Daniel and look how that turned out,’ her mother said. ‘I told you he was hiding something the first time I met him. He gave off a furtive vibe. You wasted years on him. Years and years and years.’

Don’t remind me.

‘Look, I really have to go now, as—’

‘You always do that,’ her mother said. ‘You run away from stuff that cuts too close to the bone. That’s why you stayed with Daniel so long. You refused to face up to what was staring you in the face. If you’d listened to me from the get-go, you would’ve saved yourself a heap of heartache. His chakras were blocked. I knew it from the first time I met him but did you listen to me? No.’

‘I’m marrying Loukas, Mum, okay? We’re in love and can’t wait to be a family.’

‘When do I get to meet him?’ her mother asked. ‘I’ll do a chart for him. What’s his birth date?’

Emily mentally gulped. ‘Erm...’

Her mother made a sound that had a broad hint of ‘got you’ about it. ‘You don’t know, do you? How well do you know this man if you don’t even know when his birthday is?’

‘I do know him,’ Emily said. ‘I know enough about him to know he’s a good man who’ll stand by the baby and me no matter what.’

‘He’s pretty wealthy according to the press,’ her mother said. ‘Funny, but I never took you for a gold-digger. You didn’t trap him, did you?’

‘How can you even think that?’ Emily asked. ‘Surely you know me better than that?’

Her mother gave a long-winded sigh. ‘Sometimes I wonder if I know you at all, Emily Grace.’

Likewise.

‘Look, I have to go—I’ll talk to you some other time. Bye.’ Emily clicked off the phone and then turned it to silent in case her mother called back and began another lecture. She sat on the edge of the bed and took a few seconds to calm herself. Not an easy task after a conversation with her mother.