The Flavours of Love by Dorothy Koomson Read Free Book Online Page B

what to say, what to do, how best to navigate this unknown rocky road our lives have veered onto.
    ‘Are you going to tell him you’re pregnant?’ I ask.
    ‘I need my phone,’ she insists.
    The slug-damaged plants all need to go in the bin. The earth needs to be turned over, aerated, then left to rest before I replant things. I could make her do it. I could make her dig up all this stuff and dig over my land before I hand back her phone. Or, I could accept that right now, when I’m still blindsided by the situation, I need to pick my battles.
    I place my gloved hand into my front pocket and take out the phone. ‘You’ve got a doctor’s appointment tomorrow,’ I say before I return her secrets, her line to the boy who helped to get her into this situation. ‘Nine o’clock.’
    ‘What for?’
    ‘You’re pregnant. You need to see a doctor about that.’
    ‘Fine. Whatever. You obviously know everything about everything.’
    My lip hurts when I clamp down on it, like my tongue did yesterday. Giving in, picking my battles, is not something I’m good at. I like to win. I like to do things the proper way. Talking to her much longer could involve me attempting to win this battle by any means necessary. I hold out her phone. She snatches it out of my hand, scowls at me before storming towards the house.
    ‘You didn’t say thank you,’ I call at her retreating back.
    I drop to my knees and start to dismantle the last days of Sodom and Gomorrah as played out in my vegetable patch.
12 years before
That Day
(February, 1999)
    ‘She’s a girl,’ Joel said. His face was a mess of tears, his eyes a bright red after he scrubbed at them with the heels of his hands. ‘We got a girl one.’
    ‘Is she OK?’ I sobbed. I couldn’t hear her crying, I hadn’t seen her in the seconds after she was born and I was scared after nine months of taking care of her that I hadn’t done it right at the last minute. That once again I’d let everyone down and there was something wrong.
    ‘She’s perfect,’ Joel said.
    ‘Are you sure she’s OK?’ I sobbed. ‘Why isn’t she crying?’
    ‘Not all babies cry,’ the midwife said. ‘Some are really chilled.’ The midwife laid the squirming bundle on my bare chest for skin-to-skin contact.
    I was sobbing so much I could barely move my arms to hold her. I hurt so much I didn’t know what part of me was sinew, blood and bone and what was pain. My heart felt as if it had expanded to fill my entire chest cavity, which was why I could only inhale and exhale in gasping, sobbing breaths.
    My gaze focused on her, and I could see I’d done it. She was here. She was a wrinkled milk chocolate brown smeared with white; her right arm was extended towards my face, her mouth was wide open, showing us the two parallel ridges of her gums.
    I stared at my chilled daughter. ‘We did it, Joel. We did it.’
    ‘You did it, Babes,’ he said, scrubbing at his eyes again. ‘You did it and you were amazing.’
    ‘“Phoebe” is right for her,’ I said. This was the name he’d chosen. He’d had a reason for it, but I couldn’t remember right then what it was. But it was right for her, it was who she looked like. Phoebe.
    ‘You sure?’ he asked.
    ‘Yes, absolutely. She absolutely looks like Phoebe.’
    ‘She does. And she is absolutely amazing.’
    *
    My mobile vibrates in my jeans pocket. I tug the thick gardening glove off my right hand before I retrieve the phone. I vaguely recognise the number flashing up but it’s not stored so I almost don’t answer it. After my recent history, though, I know that would be folly. That would be like convincing yourself that you believe you can’t get pregnant the first time you have sex.
    ‘Hello?’ I say into the phone, half-expecting a pause then a recorded message claiming I need some sort of financial advice.
    ‘Mrs Mackleroy?’ the person on the other end asks, politely.
    ‘Yes?’ I reply cautiously because although I recognise the voice,