Blood Ties: Part 3 of 3: Family is not always a place of safety. Julie Shaw

Copyright

      Certain details in this story, including names, places and dates, have been changed to protect the family’s privacy.

      HarperElement

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      First published by HarperElement 2016

      FIRST EDITION

      © Julie Shaw and Lynne Barrett-Lee 2016

      Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016

      Front cover photograph © Sarah Monrose/Gallery Stock

      A catalogue record of this book is

      available from the British Library

      Julie Shaw and Lynne Barrett-Lee assert the moral

      right to be identified as the authors of this work

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      Source ISBN: 9780008142919

      Ebook Edition © February 2016 ISBN: 9780008142902

      Version: 2015-12-04

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Chapter 19

       Chapter 20

       Chapter 21

       Chapter 22

       Chapter 23

       Chapter 24

       Chapter 25

       Chapter 26

       Acknowledgements

       Also available in the Notorious Hudson Family series

       Moving Memoirs eNewsletter

       About the Publisher

Chapter 19

      Having had no real mother in her formative years with whom she could discuss such things, Kathleen knew almost nothing about pregnancy. She knew a little, though; enough to feel a welling of certainty that her Aunt Sally was spot on in her diagnosis.

      Now she thought about it rationally it all made perfect sense. However much time she’d spent poring over the calendar, and that comforting ‘only three days a month’ thing stuck in her mind, other facts now struck her as well. Such as the fact that you could get pregnant without even ‘doing’ it. Hadn’t she been told that back in school, too? When that lady had come in and shown that film to them? Such as the fact that her last period had been not quite as expected. Hardly anything even – and another thought hit her. Hadn’t her friend Sandra said you could have a period even when you were pregnant?

      God, what an idiot she’d been! ‘Yes, Terry,’ she’d say, every time he’d asked her if it was safe. ‘Yes, it’s fine,’ she’d say blithely, ‘I’ve worked it out.’ Such an idiot! An idiot wrapped up in a big bow of ignorance – of thinking everything was fine because of some half-baked optimism; that things like that didn’t happen if you were ‘careful’. She almost laughed as she set off to walk the long way to the pub. Being ‘careful’ doing something where she’d never felt so carefree, or passionate, or abandoned. Well, now she was paying the price, and she still didn’t know how to feel. Only enough to know that perhaps clambering over walls wasn’t the best thing to be doing.

      For the first time she could remember, she was actually hoping not to see her dad. She even crossed her fingers as she let herself into the pub – as quietly as possible – and continued to do so mentally as she set about the cleaning, moving around the various rooms like a burglar. God forbid she’d see him; something would show on her face, she didn’t doubt that. And the last thing she wanted was for him to get any sort of inkling; not before she’d been to the doctor’s and confirmed it – if that were even possible? How would the doctor be able to tell? And definitely not before breaking the news to Terry.

      Heart in mouth. That was the expression for what she was feeling, she thought distractedly, as she hurried round the taproom and the bar area and cleaned. For all that Sally’s diagnosis had made her head spin, and it had, grim reality was beginning to creep in – in the form of questions she couldn’t answer. An unmarried mother at her age. What would people think? And what if Terry hated the idea? Was cross with her, even? Or worse – the idea came to her in a cold draught of anxiety – what if he didn’t accept the truth of it? That she’d simply been stupid and naïve and dozy. What if he thought she was trying to trap him into marriage? For the first time, Irene’s situation with Darren and Monica’s father hit her hard. What if Terry was furious? What if he threw her out?

      The little bubble of unreality suddenly popped.

      Kathleen returned home after finishing at the pub, thankfully having seen no one. Not even Monica, who she’d heard leave while on her hands and knees behind the bar. And once home, she’d stayed home, for a long, thoughtful hour, drinking tea and dithering about going to the doctor’s on Park Avenue where she’d be bound to see someone she knew. The morning surgery finished at eleven, and she knew she’d probably have a wait; they did a first-come-first-served thing and if you weren’t there when the surgery doors opened, you could have a dozen or more patients in the queue in front of you, especially at this time of year, with