Page 56 of Stella is Starting Over

‘Florrie’s pregnant,’ he says the second he walks through the front door.

I nod. ‘I kind of thought that might be it. Tea?’

He nods and I make him a cup of tea because that’s the sort of thing you’re supposed to do when someone’s having a crisis.

‘This tea is horrible,’ he says, sipping it.

‘I know,’ I say. ‘I don’t drink tea; those teabags are probably three years old.’

He takes another gulp. ‘Fuck me,’ he says, sounding dazed. Then he looks at Rose, who is throwing all the balls out of the mini ball pit that I deeply regret buying her. ‘Sorry.’

‘I don’t want to ask an inappropriate question,’ I venture. ‘But she’s sleeping with other people, right? It’s an open relationship?’

Dom nods.

‘So if she were pregnant, would it be, you know. . . yours?’

He looks down at the mug. ‘I’m the only person she’s had that kind of sex with in the last month, apparently. She doesn’t always “do” penetration with her lovers.’

‘Bet that makes you feel special,’ I say, marvelling at how Florrie can be five years younger than us and yet from a different world.

He laughs. ‘Very.’

‘Does she know what she wants to do?’

He shakes his head. ‘She said she needed to be alone, and then she left, and she hasn’t replied to any of my messages.’

‘If she wants to be alone, then that’s fair,’ I say. ‘Finding out that you’re pregnant is terrifying, even if it’s on purpose and with someone you know really well. Finding out like this, it’s pretty much every woman’s worst nightmare.’

Dom looks blank. ‘I’ve been having sex for nearly twenty years and this hasn’t ever happened to me. We were being so careful, like, literally using-condoms-and-she’s-got-the-implant careful.’

I shrug. ‘These things happen sometimes.’ There’s a pause and then I say the thing that I know I really need to say. ‘You’ve told her that it’s her choice what she does, right?’

‘She knows that.’

‘Dom, seriously, it doesn’t matter if she knows it, she needs to hear it. From you. She needs to know that you’re not going to judge her if she decides to get an abortion.’

He looks over at Rose, horrified.

‘Dom, she’s one, she doesn’t know what the word “cow” means, let alone what “abortion” means.’

Dom sort of laughs. ‘I’ll send her another message and I’ll make sure she knows.’

‘Good,’ I say. ‘Now what are you going to do for the rest of today?’

‘No idea,’ he says. ‘Wish it was a weekday so I could go to work and take my bad mood out on other people. Go home and wait for Florrie to call me and tell me whether we’re having a baby, I guess. Watch TikTok until my eyes bleed.’

I sigh, knowing that I’m about to turn my little lie into a much bigger lie, and not feeling great about it. ‘Come to the zoo with us.’

‘Really?’

‘Absolutely.’

He finishes the horrible tea and half a packet of Hobnobs while I pack an enormous bag of spare clothes, nappies, wipes, snacks, books, toys and a blanket, and shove it all under the pram. ‘How long are we going for?’ Dom snipes.

‘If you don’t have absolutely everything then you might as well have nothing, baby rule number one,’ I say.

‘I can’t think about babies right now.’