Page 113 of Tears of Gold

“If I worked in Monsoon or some other clothes shop, I’d wear their clothes to work,” I shoot back.

“But wouldn’t you take them off at the end of the day? Take the uniform off so to speak?”

“I can’t take my ink off; it doesn’t work that way.”

“If you could, would you?”

“No!”

“What made you call me this week?”

"I didn’t realise there was a time limit on when I could call?”

She meets my gaze, unflinching. “There isn’t.” She doesn’t say anything else, letting the awkward silence work for her.

“My fiancé left,” I blurt. “I can’t tell him everything and he says he can’t live with secrets.”

“What secrets? You have everything out in the open now, don’t you?”

“Yes.” I stare at my fingers picking at my nails. “I guess maybe I didn’t want to think about some things myself.”

Again with the silence.

“We are having a baby and I am happy about it. Now. But Elijah wants me to tell him everything… but I just can’t. He thought I’d never been pregnant before. I’ve never mentioned anything otherwise to him.”

“But you have?”

“It was being pregnant that made me speak out about my abuse. I found out I was pregnant, and I hated the thought it had come from something so vile and violating.”

“If Elijah had told you he’d got another girl pregnant at some point in his past how would you have felt?”

I twist my fingers. “Jealous, I guess. But it wasn’t like that for me. I hated it, hated the fact that he’d managed to put something inside me. It was revolting.”

“But you never told Elijah those things?”

“No.”

“Why? He’d understand, wouldn’t he? He loved you.”

My skin prickles with sweat. “Because I always think a baby is put there out of choice; it’s a decision, an act of love.”

“Is that how the baby you are carrying now was made? Did you make a conscious decision to get pregnant?”

“No. It was a surprise.”

“Were you conceived out of love, Faith?”

“I love Elijah and I want our baby, more than anything.”

“I don’t doubt that at all.” She crosses her legs. “But were you born out of love?”

I reach for my glass. “I don’t know. I never met my mother. Well, if I did, it’s an early memory that I can’t recall.”

“So, you don’t know. You have nothing to base your appraisal of motherhood on, nothing to base your understanding of how babies come into the world on, just what you’ve told yourself.”

Well fuck. I don’t know how to answer that. I don’t even think I want to.

“Why didn’t you tell everyone about what your brother was doing earlier?”