Owning Jacob - SA Read Online Free PDF

didn't like driving.
    'I know we could, lad, but Alice wanted to get home.
    You know how she is.' Ben did. She had never forgiven Sarah for moving to London twice, the first time to find work, the second after they had taken her back home when Jacob was born. 'How's she coping?'
    'Not bad.' His tone said otherwise. 'She's in bed now.
    You've got to take these things a day at a time, haven't you?' An awkwardness came between them. Ben sensed the older man's reluctance to end the conversation, even though there was nothing for either of them to say that hadn't already been said. He knew how keenly his father-in-law felt Sarah's death.
    Talking to her husband was a way of holding on to her, a cold comfort but al he had, and better than the lonely house with the mourning wife asleep upstairs. It was as much to prolong the contact between them as to appease any final doubts that Ben said, 'I've been thinking about when Sarah had Jacob.'
    'Only seems like two minutes ago. I can't believe it's six years.'
    "Was it a quick birth?' he asked, already knowing the answer.
    'Two hours, that's al . We always said he was in a rush.

    Poor Alice was hopping mad. We'd only just been down to London a day or two before, and if she'd known the baby was going to be born six weeks early you couldn't have dragged her away in chains. Myself, I was just glad Jessica had been there.'
    'There was no sign that Jacob was going to be premature, then?'
    'None at al . No, that was why it was such a surprise.
    Sarah'd had cramps a few days before - that was why Alice insisted on going down to see her. But they'd stopped by the time we got there. Alice dragged her off to the doctor's, but he said everything seemed fine.' A note of consternation entered his voice. 'There isn't a problem, is there? With Jacob, I mean?' Ben felt the last trace of doubt slough away. 'No, he's fine. I was … wel , I was just curious.' Her father abruptly sounded tired and old. Whatever brief comfort he'd drawn from the reminiscence had gone. 'I often wondered if Jacob being early had anything to do with … you know. The autism.'
    'I don't think so.' There were different ideas about what caused autism, but so far as Ben knew premature birth wasn't one of them.
    'No, I expect you're right' Geoffrey made an effort to sound cheerful. "Wasn't as if he was a poor tiny thing, or anything.' Later, Ben wished that he'd stopped the conversation there, with the question of Jacob's birth resolved in his mind. But he didn't.
    'Wasn't he?' he said, no longer real y listening.
    Sarah's father chuckled. "We always kidded that someone had got their dates wrong. He weighed over six pounds. If u didn't know better you'd have thought he was a ful m baby.'

Chapter Three
    Jessica lived on the fourth floor of a block of squat council flats in Peckham. The lift was working, but when Ben saw the vomit drying on the floor and spattering the wal he took the steps instead. He was out of breath before he had reached the third level. He reminded himself that he ought to get back into playing footbal fairly soon. Or doing something. It was too easy to let it slide, and before he knew it he'd be forty and a fat bastard. There were stil eight years to go, but already he'd found it only took a few weeks for the rot to set in, and it was becoming more of an effort to shake it off again.
    Trying to pretend he wasn't winded, he hauled himself p to the fourth floor. The walkways ran along the front f the flats, open except for a chest-high concrete wal . He ad never been there before. He and Jessica had never made any pretence of liking each other. He'd general y gone out henever she cal ed around to see Sarah, and on the few occasions when they couldn't avoid one another they barely managed a minimal degree of civility for her sake.
    The antipathy between them had been immediate and iStinctive, on Ben's part largely because he could tel that le disliked him, on Jessica's for reasons she kept to herself.
    But he