Shadows Over Paradise Read Online Free PDF Page B

soul to some stranger! In any case there’s nothing
to
explore. Yes, lots of women want children, but there are lots who don’t, and I’m one of them. So seeing a counselor won’t make any difference. I mean, you’re the one who’s changed, Rick, not me, yet you’re making the condescending assumption that I don’t know my own mind!”
    “No, Jen, I’m just trying to work out why you feel as you do. Because you
like
children. You go out of your way to be with them.”
    “That’s not true.”
    “It is—you come into school every week and read to them.”
    “I … do it for you.”
    “Jen …” Rick looked bewildered. “That’s how we
met
.” Another silence fell. I could hear a magpie chattering in a nearby garden. “Well, it’s hardly a big deal, especially as my flat was practically next door. And liking children doesn’t mean I want to have them myself. I don’t.”
    “Yet you’ve said that if I’d been divorced, with children, you’d happily have had those kids in your life.”
    “Yes.”
    “But you won’t have a child of your own.”
    “No.”
    “I wish I knew why
not
. If you told me that it was because you felt that having children would wreck your career, or your lifestyle, or your body, I could at least understand that. I could try to accept it. But to say that you won’t have children because you’d be too scared …”
    I put my hand on the table, tracing the grain with my fingertips. “I would be,” I insisted quietly.
    “Why?”
    I looked up. “I’ve told you. I’d be scared that something would go wrong. Or that I’d make a terrible mistake—that I’d drop the baby, or forget to feed it or give it enough to drink.”
    “Babies don’t let you forget, Jen; that’s why they cry. And you’ve just written a
book
about babies. Hasn’t that made you feel you could cope?”
    “It’s given me knowledge of how to care for them,” I conceded. “But it hasn’t taken away my fear that something bad would happen.” Panic swept through me. “Like … crib death, God forbid, or that I’d turn my back for a few seconds—that’s all it would take—and the child would fall down the stairs, or run into the road, or that there’d be some terrible accident that I could never, ever, get over.” Tears stung my eyes. “Parenthood’s a white-knuckle ride, and I don’t want to get on.”
    Rick gave a mystified shrug. “Most people probably feel the same way, but they control their fears. You let them govern your life. You’re normally so levelheaded, but with this I think you’re being—”
    “Don’t tell me—irrational?”
    “Yes.”
    “It’s
not
irrational to avoid anxiety and stress.”
    “It
is
irrational to presume that things will go terribly wrong—especially as you’ve no reason to think you wouldn’t be a good, careful parent. What’s your real fear, Jenni? That you wouldn’t love the child?”
    “On the contrary; I know that I would—which is precisely why I don’t want to have one.”
    He groaned. “But you know, Jen, this isn’t just about whether or not we have a family.”
    “What do you mean?”
    Rick gave a frustrated sigh. “We get on so well, Jen.” I nodded. “We respect each other. We love being together, we talk easily—and we’re attracted to each other.”
    “We are,” I agreed with a pang.
    “But you’re just not … open with me. Every time I ask you about your childhood you avoid my questions, or change thesubject. And you never mention your mother, or explain why it is that you’re virtually estranged.”
    “I
have
explained.”
    “You haven’t—at least not in any way that I can understand. And as time’s gone on, it’s bothered me more and more. This feeling I have, that although I love being with you, and desire you, I don’t really
know
you.” He sighed. “You said that your mother neglected you.”
    “No. She looked after me. But she was distant and cold.”
    “That
is
neglect.” Rick chewed