10) Decision Time
'This can't be happening! It mustn't! This just can't be happening!' Myra tried to banish what she knew deep down was happening to her by repeating these words in her mind like a mantra. They didn't of course have any effect – she was just as pregnant three days later and she knew it was only a question of getting it confirmed when she went to see the doctor.
How was she supposed to deal with the situation? She was still a teenager, a mother of two, a widow and now she was pregnant again, and the father was an unknown black man! The only thing she knew about him was that his name was Andrew and that he was a bingo caller from South London. How could she have been so stupid as to go with him to his hotel room that night? And how unlucky can one person be? Thinking these thoughts on her way from the doctor's office, she decided to stop at Shirley's and talk to her best friend. Shirley listened and tried to be supportive, but they both knew that Myra had to make a really difficult decision. Should she tell her parents and risk their anger or should she arrange to have an abortion this time? Her father didn't really need to know and he even might approve this time, if he knew all the circumstances.
Myra knew that abortion might be the most sensible solution to her problems. Still, she wasn't sure whether that was the right decision for her. After the initial shock of realising she was pregnant again, she really started thinking about the tiny little thing as her baby. Funny how things can change like that. When she'd got pregnant at sixteen, she'd really wanted to have that abortion and then she wasn't allowed to, and now when the power actually was in her own hands, she didn't really want to have one.
As she opened her front door that afternoon, she knew that she'd made up her mind. She was gonna have the baby and deal with whatever consequences there might be. She knew she was strong enough. That's why she sat her parents down already that evening and told them calmly about her situation.
Her father went mental upon hearing that his daughter had once again got herself knocked up, and this time by a black guy! He called her nasty names but Myra just sat there quiet and calm and allowed him to get it out. Her mother cried a little to begin with but her husband's rage shook her up and she told him not to use words like that about anyone in her house, least of all their own daughter. If he couldn't be civil, he should rather say nothing at all.
With that, Myra's father stood up and left the room and he didn't talk to his daughter for two weeks, not until he heard the sound of her morning sickness coming from the bathroom. At that moment, his anger vanished in an instant and he quietly opened the bathroom door and walked over to the toilet where he held his daughter's forehead while she threw up.