Happy Birthday by Danielle Steel

three months before he had slept with her.
    “And who are your parents, that they’re being so noble about this?” She looked startled by the question. It was hard for him to imagine parents of a thirty-year-old woman who were willing to be so supportive of her. He didn’t even know parents like that, and surely not his own, whom he hadn’t seen in ten years and didn’t want to see again.
    “My parents are perfectly nice, normal people,” she answered him directly. “My father is a medieval art professor at Columbia, my stepmother is a speech therapist and a wonderfulwoman, and my mother is Valerie Wyatt, she talks about home decorating and weddings on TV.” She said it as though she had a job like everyone else as he stared at her.
    “Are you kidding?” he said. “That’s who your mother is? Of course … Wyatt … why didn’t I think of that? For chrissake, your mother is the arbiter of everything that happens in the home, or at a wedding. What do they think of this? Don’t they think you’re crazy to have this baby too? How are you going to manage a restaurant and a kid all on your own?”
    “That’s my problem, not yours. I’m not asking you to show up and change diapers. You can visit it if you want to, but if you don’t, that’s fine too.”
    “What if I want more than that?” he said angrily. He was furious at her now, for what she and fate had done to him. He realized it had happened to her too, but she had decided to keep it. He never would have. And her plan to have it sounded utterly stupid and wrong to him. It wasn’t fair, in his opinion, to bring a child into the world with parents who didn’t know or love each other. But it seemed even worse to her to get rid of it, so she was having it, whether he liked it or wanted to participate, or not. “What if I want to be a father and want joint custody, for instance? I’m not saying I do, and I don’t. But what if I did? Then what would you do, since you’re so independent about it? Would you share the child with me?” She looked stunned by the idea. She hadn’t thought of that possibility at all.
    “I don’t know,” she said quietly. “I guess we’d have to talkabout it, and come to some agreement.” She didn’t like the sound of it. She didn’t know him well enough to know if she’d trust a child with him, or a baby, but he had a point. He was one of the baby’s parents too.
    “Well, you’re off the hook on that one. I don’t want children. I never did. My childhood was a nightmare, with alcoholic, abusive parents. My parents hated each other, and me. My brother committed suicide when he was fifteen. And the last thing I want in this world is a wife and children. My own childhood was screwed up enough, I don’t want to fuck up someone else’s. A month before I met you, I broke up with a woman I was in love with. We were together for five years, and she finally put it to me. She wanted to get married and have babies, or find someone else who would. I gave her my blessing, kissed her goodbye, and left her. I don’t want a baby, April, yours or anyone else’s. I don’t want to be responsible for anyone else hurting the way I did as a kid. I don’t feel suited to be a parent, but I don’t want to abandon someone either. If I don’t see this child, or involve myself in its life in some way, it will always feel that I rejected it. It’s not right that you’re doing this to me, or the kid. It’s fine for you to say you’ll manage on your own and your parents will help you. But how are you going to explain the father that walked out on you and him or her? What’s that going to do to a child? Did you ever think of that when you decided to keep it? It may sound cruel to you to have an abortion, but there’s nothing between us, and there never will be. It’s not fair to bring a child into thisworld with only one parent who wants it, and another one who never did.”
    “What if we loved each other and were married,