Chapter Twenty-Seven

Still reeling with the shock of it, she slowly walked back to her dormitory, leaving the test in her little cubbyhole in the bathroom. She sat down at her computer and opened her email, typed out a few words, and hit send.

Madame Pommier was just checking her email when an email popped up in her inbox.

To: Michéle Pommier

From: Alison Taylor

Re: conversation

You were right.

Her eyes widened, even though she had been expecting that answer. It was one thing to speculate about being pregnant and quite another to actually hear that it was true.

What are you going to do? She typed back.

The answer came quickly: I don't know. See a doctor, I suppose.

Are you thinking about an abortion?

NEVER.

Madame Pommier was slightly shocked by Alison's vehemence. She typed hesitantly: Are you very anti-abortion?

No.

Then why not get one? It might be the smartest thing to do. Think practically. You are in college: you cannot support a child. You should do it quickly before the fetus gets too old. There will be a lot of paperwork involved.

I don't care. I'm not doing it. "Not if there's a chance it might be Erik's," she whispered.

All right, but I would just like to remind you that it's probably the better and safer option.

Madame Pommier waited to hear Alison's reply, but the answer never came. Alison had closed her email and begun looking up obstetricians.

On the first visit, they were able to tell her that her child would be a boy.

After she had told her friends, the news spread through the school like wildfire. All of the people with an active sex life kept going up to her and apologizing. "I'm sorry that this happened. Did the condom break? Are you getting an abortion?" She answered both questions with a short "No" and moved on.

Some of the others scolded her. "You really should have been more careful. Was birth control that hard?" They lectured her about the practical issues with having a child in college. She just brushed them aside and kept walking.

Kylie was completely stunned. Alison had always been very practical and generally stayed away from sex. After Alison told her, she was silenced for a moment and then said, "Who's the daddy?"

Alison hesitated. "I don't know."

"What? How can you not know? How many people did you have sex with when you were away?"

Alison looked at her with irritation. "Technically, it was two, but I don't count the second one. And the timing of the birth won't help because they were both in the space of two days. Now again, you can't judge me. I'm not going to explain it fully to you. Suffice it to say that the second one… was against my will."

"You were…"

"I said, I'm not going to explain it. But maybe you might have a reason now to understand why I really hope that the father is the first one and not the second."

"Yeah, no kidding."

She dreaded the conversation with her parents, but knew that it had to happen at some point. She called them with trepidation to tell them the news.

Their response…was very different from the one she had expected.

"Oh, honey, that's wonderful! Do you know if it's a boy or a girl?" her mother asked enthusiastically.

"Um… it's a boy," she replied, a little disconcerted.

"Congratulations! Just make sure that he doesn't call me Grandma. I'm not ready to be called a grandmother yet. It makes me feel old."

"Why are you congratulating me? I thought you were going to be mad at me."

"No. You sound happy about it. You were nervous about telling us, but it makes you happy, I can hear it in your voice. It'll be a lot of work, we all know that, but you're responsible and reliable. You'll make it work."

Everyone close to Alison noticed immediately the change in her behavior following the news that she was pregnant. Before, she had seemed sad and depressed, not wanting to communicate with the world. Everyone had expected her pregnancy to make it worse, but it had the opposite effect. She became much more cheerful and happy. She threw herself back into her schoolwork and her grades went up. She spent more time talking with her friends and began to laugh again.

She also played a lot of music for the child. Since she had spent so much time with Erik and worked in the opera house, she had gotten used to the presence of music all around her as she went about her day. So she replicated it, playing classical music from her computer as she did her homework and all kinds of other music as she went through everyday life. She sang along with a good deal of it, unconsciously acclimating the baby to her voice.

She was surprised how quickly her son had become a large part of her thoughts. She imagined what he might look like all the time, giving him some of Erik's features mixed with her own.

She kept her mind focused on the idea that the child was Erik's. She reassured herself in all kinds of irrational ways that it might be his. The truth was that she was terrified that it might be Patrick's. How could I love a child of rape? How could I care for him and look at him every day, knowing the circumstances under which he was conceived? How could I ever do that? Please, let me not have to. Let it be Erik's child and then all of it will be okay.

She had been holding on to the idea of Erik's child, using it as her lifeline. It gave her a reason to live, to function, to do well. Without it, she was sure that she would have lost her fight and slipped into depression. The child was her last link to Erik, to the life she had known and loved.

She talked to him, just randomly. She always spoke French to him, telling him about everything that happened to her: her hopes, her dreams, even what went on in her regular day. She talked to him about Erik quite a lot, wanting him to at least know the idea of his father, even though she knew that her son would never get to meet him.

In her happiness, she was still very afraid. The future scared her. What was she going to do with a child? She had decided to take a semester off when the baby was born to take care of him, and then return to college. She knew she had to finish college, if for no other reason than to give her baby the life he deserved.

As the baby grew bigger, so did her belly. She began to feel self-conscious and awkward. None of her clothes fit her anymore and she began trying to avoid looking in mirrors. She snapped at people randomly and other times, cried for no reason at all. When she asked the obstetrician about it on one of her visits, his answer was illuminating, if not helpful in controlling them. "Hormones."

Far more quickly than she was expecting, it was the end of the year. Summer sun shone down on everyone walking around campus. All of the students were waiting impatiently for the school to end and for summer to arrive. Alison was nine months gone and felt like an elephant. She had to go to the bathroom all the time and felt fidgety. When was her baby going to come?

She still dreamed of Erik all the time. Her mind remembered every last detail and recreated it in her mind, tantalizing her with what she could never have. She saw his face in her head all the time, particularly his beautiful, mismatched, blue-and-green eyes. She had loved his eyes. Every small thing about him haunted her memory. She even caught herself humming his music. She still loved him, in spite of the distance, in spite of the fact that she would most likely never see him again.

Two days before school ended, she fell asleep dreaming of his eyes.

When she woke up, the contractions began.

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