excerpt
‘He doesn’t? Why tell me before you tell Robert?’
‘Because it’s your baby.’
Michael sat forward in the chair, his smile lost in a look of shock and surprise and disbelief. ‘My baby. No it can’t be.’
‘It is yours, Michael. No one else’s.’
‘But …’
‘Robert and I haven’t slept together for months. We don’t even sleep in the same bed anymore.’ Connie leaned back comfortably in her chair and closed her eyes against the sun’s blinding glare. Her attitude appeared to be one of unconcern.
‘But it can’t be mine,’ Michael protested. ‘I’m …’
‘Sterile? No you’re not. I thought you were. Robert told me you were. But you’re not. I’m carrying your baby.’
Michael remembered the evening, soon after Robert and Connie first stayed in the cottage. Connie was down in the Boylans’ house; Robert and Michael were drinking Scotch with beer chasers. The Hanlons had changed little in the cottage. A couple of Robert’s framed drawings hung on the whitewashed walls, and the two armchairs, on which Michael and Connie were now sitting, had been fitted into the room, replacing the old, sagging armchair that used to stand to the side of the hearth. The table and hard chairs were still arranged against one wall, the crook and crane held the same blackened kettle above the fire, and the ancient dresser still displayed its hoard of plates and bowls, mugs and cups. A couple of sketch books lay on the table beside a cardboard box that contained numerous tubes of paint, a watercolour paintbox, various brushes, drawing pencils, erasers, pens, nibs and Indian ink.
Robert had asked Michael why he and Caitlin had had only one child.
‘Caitlin had a rough time bringing that one into the world,’ Michael answered, staring thoughtfully, regretfully, into his glass of whiskey, where the light from the fire gleamed and the glass sparkled in his hand. ‘The doctor had to cut her open to get the baby out. We almost lost both Caitlin and Nora. That was a bad night, I can tell you. Caitlin can’t have any more children. And as it turns out I couldn’t give her any even if she could get pregnant again. I’m as sterile as a mule, Robert.’
Michael was still staring at the whiskey glass without actually seeing it. Robert watched a tear slide from each eye and slowly roll down his cheeks.
‘I’m sorry, Michael,’ he said in a solemn voice. Then after a brief pause he said in the same solemn voice. ‘Then Nora isn’t yours. Is she adopted?’
Libros Libertad 