Hiding Anna

Chapter Thirty-Four: Baby

Everything sort of passed by in a blur. People came in and out of the suite, nurses and midwives yet I hardly noticed any of them. All I heard was the pain Anna emitted from her contractions as they began to get closer and closer together.

We must have stayed in that room with Anna for about an hour, when finally my mum said I should go outside and wait until after the baby was born, even if that took several hours. She came with me, after George persuaded her with that charming, powerful way he had with her now that he'd do a better job at calming Anna than she would. He said he'd call her back in when she starts getting closer to ten centimetres.

A question suddenly popped to my head as we sat down in the hospital cafeteria. Warmth surrounded my hands from the cappuccino I was shakily circling, and my mum almost mirrored me.

"Why are you stressing so much over her?" I asked. "You've only known Anna for a couple of months."

Her flaxen bob swayed to the side as she contemplated her answer. "When I first found her, she reminded me of myself."

It was the most ridiculous thing I could have heard, both of them did not look nor acted alike. "How?"

"You know your father and I were high school sweethearts." She said, completely ignoring my question. "But then one broken condom lead us to a problem and that problem was... dealt with... fairly quickly. We were too young, and abortion was the easiest answer-"

"Wait, you got pregnant?" I cut in, barely believe my ears.

It crossed me that I hardly knew anything about my mum. Not her teen years, not her childhood, nothing.

"It was an accident of course, and we even used protection. This is why the pill is so important as a back up. Anyway, when I saw Anna that day in her room, pregnant and the same age I was when it happened to me I realised how much I'd missed of your lives. My kids' lives. I mean, it could have been you Cassie. You could have been pregnant and because I was away so much I wouldn't have even known until it was too late. That's why I decided to move back in, it wasn't because of Anna - well that was obviously an reason too, I couldn't have left her as your responsibility - it was mostly because I wanted to be back with my kids. Kids I'd pushed to the back of my mind since your dad died because I was a coward." She swallowed. "But I refuse to be a coward anymore. After this baby is born I'm going to be working from home, still at the business, but from home so I can see you every day after you finish school and on the weekends and before you leave for school in the mornings."

"You know that's the first thing that's ever come out of your mouth that a mother would say." I said quietly, locking with her russet eyes that matched mine.

There was suddenly an earnest, solemnity to those hard gems that I'd never once considered it possible to glance upon, nonetheless on me. Yet, there it was. My mother, sad because she wasn't really a mother. A glaze passed over the spheres, and next several tears trailed down either side of her angular nose like the first drop of rain after a heavy drought.

Silence stilled around us for about an hour. Both of us lost in thought, rarely looking up from the coffee in our hands. I guess there was a certain similarity between my mother and I. We'd both had something bad happen to us young and it shaped the way we were today.

"You know, I loved your father so much, more than anything in the world." She started. "He'd be so disappointed in me now."

I didn't agree nor disagree. I simply let her get everything she wanted out of her head.

"I think he was disappointed when I had that baby aborted too. He always dreamed of a big family, and he got three children years later, but thinking back he must have been disappointed when I immediately went to the doctors and murdered what could have been our child." She choked out her words. "It was a coward move." She turned to me. "But he was a coward too. Killing himself-" Why did it hurt so much to hear that? "-was just as bad as me working abroad and leaving you three with a nanny." She lifted her head to look at me. "I'm proud of you, Cassie. And Abi, and Harry. You're all so beautiful, and even when faced with tough times you fought on. You found people you love." My face reddened and I looked away. "You and George, you're like nothing I've ever seen. You care for each other so deeply yet there's still so much passion between you. Together you are stronger than on your own. It might be an even stronger love than your father and I. I see you lasting. I'd like to meet his parents soon."