Woman Like Me | Keith Richards ✅

17

Linda was in her and Paul's bedroom, a room which I had only been in a few times since arriving at 7 Cavendish Avenue two weeks previously. She was sitting on her bed, waiting for me to join her.

I did, albeit cautiously.

"Lin?" I asked, "what's all this about...?"

She sighed. "Lenny," she said slowly, "do you remember when you slept with Keith?" My face grew hot at the memory of our skin colliding, our tongues in each other's mouths... but even more so in embarrassment at telling Linda about it now that she was my adopted mother. I nodded. "Did you... did you use protection?" By the way that she was talking, I guessed that this conversation was as awkward for her as it was for me.

"D-does it matter?" I asked her, biting my lip.

Linda sighed again. She stood up and went into her ensuite bathroom. I didn't follow her, though I could hear her rifling through the medicine cupboard and some drawers looking for something.

After a few seconds, she said, "found it!" She came back into the bedroom, the item behind her back. Linda sat back down beside me. "Don't think badly of me because of what I'm going to ask you to do next, Lenny," she said, "but we have to be sure - you have your whole life ahead of you and something like this could change everything -"

"What are you talking about, Lin?" I asked quietly, a feeling that I already knew exactly what she was saying.

She produced the item from behind her back and held it out to me. "I think you should take a pregnancy test."

Wordlessly, I stared at the box for the test. "Why do you even have a pregnancy test in there?"

Linda hesitated before she said, "Paul and I are a very... loving... couple."

I pretended to retch before I looked back at the boxed test. "I don't think..."

"It's just a precaution," she assured me, "you might be genuinely sick."

"Lin," I said, "I can't be... not... I'm not pregnant, Linda."

Linda leaned over and took me into her arms. "It'd explain your mood swings, weird food cravings -"

"Dipping my fish fingers in soy sauce is not a food craving." I argued, keeping a calm tone. The last thing I wanted was to argue with Linda.

"Then how do you explain the throwing up in the morning?" She asked. I was about to tell her that it had only been today I'd been sick, but she interrupted me, "and don't say it's only this morning - I've heard you in the bathroom retching every single morning for the last two weeks." I closed my mouth again.

"Lin!" I cried, suddenly tears fell from my eyes, "I can't be!"

She hugged me, shushing me gently. "It's not the end of the world, Lennon," she assured me, "babies can be -"

"I'm eighteen!" I sobbed, "I'm too young for a baby and Keith isn't interested -" I cut myself off, "oh my God," I said, "would I even tell him?"

Linda pressed a soft kiss to my cheek, "well that's up to you, isn't it?" She asked in a tone that sounded so motherly it made my heart ache for the mother I had lost not so long ago.

I took a deep breath and the pregnancy test from her hand. "I'll do it." I said. "But it has to be now - I'll chicken out otherwise." Linda nodded in understanding and gestured to the bathroom.

"I'll wait right here." She promised. I hugged her tightly once more and then took a deep breath. I stood up and walked into the bathroom, locking the door behind me.

"Whatever the result is," Linda said as I came out of the bathroom with the capped pregnancy test stick in hand, "I still love you, and Paul does too, okay? If it's positive and you choose to get rid of it, then -"

"Lin," I said, cutting her off. "Do you mind if we don't talk about it until... until it's ready?"

She nodded, giving me her best encouraging smile. "Come sit," she patted the bed again, "we'll play a game."

"A game?" I raised an eyebrow. "Like what?"

"Scrabble?" She suggested.

Twenty minutes later, I looked up at her. Linda had her tongue poking out the corner of her mouth. "Lin," I said, "it's time."

She looked up from her letters. "You're sure it's been long enough?" I nodded, but made no effort to check the test. "Do you want me to do it for you?" I nodded and handed it to her. Linda looked directly at me and then turned the test over to see the result.

From the way she looked back up at me almost immediately, I knew the answer.

"Oh my God..." I trailed off, unsure of what else to say.

"We can sort everything out for you if you -"

I looked at her, and Linda was silent. "I have to ring him, don't I?" I hadn't spoken to Keith since I had put the phone down on him two weeks ago after I had told him about my mother's death.

Linda sighed. "You should tell him."

I took a deep breath and nodded. "I need to tell Paul first." She agreed. We put Scrabble away, disposed of the pregnancy test and washed our hands before going downstairs.