The Fourth Child by Jessica Winter (best classic novels TXT) 📕

She handed Lauren the phone, winked, and closed the bathroom doorbehind her.

“Lauren, my love.” It was really Mom. “I miss you so much, but this call is going to cost a fortune.”

“I need to talk to you.”

“I know, baby, but can we talk when I’m back? Mirela and I are flying home in a couple of hours. We’re gonna catch the red-eye.If they don’t run us out of town before then.”

“Mom, I need you to come home.”

“Lauren, I just told you—”

“No, you don’t—I need—”

She wanted Paula’s mom. She wanted Paula. She wanted to make Mom understand, because she needed Mom to come home to her, butshe couldn’t, because she was someone else’s mom now, and this wasn’t her home, and she wasn’t herself.

 

The Rumson parking lot was three-quarters empty after Lauren’s appointment. The midafternoon sun was fat and congenial, lendinga blood-orange glow to the interior of the dragon wagon. Lauren slumped in the back, behind the driver’s seat, her arms crossed,staring at nothing. Mirela beside her, slumped and staring, too, as Mom was strapping her into her car seat.

“Where are you? Where is Mirela?” Mom was asking. She tapped two fingers on Mirela’s cheek, tickled her ribs. Nothing. No-Mirela.

“Leave her alone,” Lauren murmured. “She’ll come out of it on her own.”

Mom did as she was told. Back in the driver’s seat, she put the key in the ignition without turning it. She folded her handsin her lap. “Lauren,” she said. “My darling girl. Why don’t you sit up here with me? I feel like a chauffeur. You’re rightbehind me but I can’t see you.”

Lauren said nothing.

“So. We have a big decision here.”

Lauren mumbled a response so that Mom couldn’t hear it.

“What did you say?” Mom’s eyes in the rearview, straining to see her.

“No ‘we.’ We don’t have a decision.”

“Okay. You have a big decision.”

Lauren mumbled.

“Lauren, I can’t—”

“There’s no decision!” Lauren yelled.

“Lauren, keep your voice down—”

“It’s not a yes-or-no, will-I-or-won’t-I situation. It’s happening.”

“But you have a—you have a choice.” It sounded like Mom was reading the words off a placard held aloft outside the clinic.

“That is hilarious coming from you,” Lauren said. “The hock—the hiccup—” She shook her head and flushed.

“Are you trying to say hypocrisy?” Mom asked.

“You are a joke,” Lauren said.

“I am a hypocrite, Lauren,” Mom said. “I confess to it. But right now, we’re not talking about all the craziness from before. Weare talking about today. We are talking about you.” Mom looked away from the rearview and into the mostly empty parking lot.“I’m not proud of what I got caught up in,” she said. “With Father Steve and all of that. I made a mistake.”

Lauren pfffed a scoffing sound.

“You made a mistake, too—”

“You know nothing,” Lauren said, and Mom shut her eyes against the impact.

“Lauren,” Mom said, “who—who did this to you?”

“I did this to me,” Lauren said.

“Honey—was it the Rosen boy? Skip?”

Lauren threw her head back and gagged. “Yeah, Skippy Rosenboy. That’s the one. We’re getting a shotgun marriage, just likeyou and Dad did.”

“Honey—”

“The abortionist’s son. That could be the title of a great romance novel, right?”

“Lauren, was it Skip?”

“His name is Stitch, and no. We’re friends. Is it so beyond you that a girl and a guy could just be friends?”

“Who is it, my love?”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s my choice,” Lauren said, in a mocking whine. “Just like you said. That’s all you need to know. I decided.”

“Lauren—it’s so early. You understand me, yes? It’s so early. We wouldn’t have known for weeks, for months, maybe, if youhadn’t needed to see the doctor anyway.”

“So what?”

“It’s barely even—”

“It’s barely even what?”

“They could take care of it and it would be like it never happened. You’ve—it’s barely started.”

“It’s barely a baby?”

“It might—end on its own. It happens a lot.”

“It’s barely a baby? Is that what you mean?”

“This doesn’t have to define you for the rest of your life. You can decide something different for yourself.”

Lauren said nothing.

“You don’t have to go through—you can decide to end—”

She couldn’t say it. She was talking to no one. No-Lauren.

“We also have to consider the practical side of things. If this happens. How will I be able to help you and also care for Mirela?” Mom asked.

“I don’t need your help.”

“What help don’t you need, Lauren? Financial help? Help taking care of a baby?”

“Any of it. I can do it. I can decide for myself.”

“Oh, it’s that easy, is it, Lauren?”

“Maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s hard. But that’s no reason for murder. Isn’t that your whole thing? That it’s murder?”

“I don’t know what my whole thing is anymore, honestly, Lauren.”

“Using Mirela as an excuse for murder is pretty gross, Mom.”

“Shush,” Mom said, eyeing Mirela in the rearview. No-Mirela was still staring, eyes filmy, lips parted.

“You want me to do it because you wish you’d done it,” Lauren said. “When you had the chance.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“It’s not true that you wish you’d done it? Admit it.”

“First of all, this isn’t about me. It’s about you and your future. And second—”

“I have a future because you had me. Because you didn’t do it. So I don’t want to do it, either. There. Done. End of story.”

“It’s different. It’s not the same thing. You are you, and I am me—”

“I am me because you didn’t do it!”

“—and our lives are different. Your life belongs to you.”

“What if this was me? What if it was me inside of me?”

“It’s not you. It’s not you! You are here.”

“But I wasn’t always! Not like this!”

“No—what—”

“You regret having me! Just admit it!”

“We’re not—Lauren, keep your voice down, remember Mirela—we’re not talking about me, we’re—”

“Yes, we are. If we are talking about you and the decision you made, we are talking about me. It is literally the exact same thing. You are—”

“Lauren, honey, listen to me. Your life has value—”

“I totally agree! Thank you for proving my point!”

“—your life has value independent of any other person or any other thing. Independent of me. No one’s mother can regret their—regretdoesn’t work—it doesn’t work like that. A person