Free The Family by Martina Cole

see. We'll buy a little house and we'll show the world that we are meant to be together. That we can give our kid a good life.'
        She nodded then, unable to speak with the emotion inside herself. The enormity of what had happened to her was suddenly crushing down on her. The knowledge that her life as she knew it was finished overwhelmed her. All her so-called independence had just been wiped out as if it had never happened. She was too young to have a baby, too young and too frightened. She wanted to have a life first, have some real freedom. She had wanted them to have a few years together, go abroad, experience the world. Now she was just another girl who had got caught out, another teenage mum dependent on everyone around her again. It was so unfair. There was no abortion for her, and she wouldn't, couldn't do something like that even if it was possible. She would never be able to live with herself; after all, this child had a right to life. It was what she had been brought up to believe, and believe it she did. Phillip's attendance at Mass was all her mother had ever found in his favour. He was a good Catholic, everyone in his family was, even Breda in her own way.
        But Christine was not happy about this child at all. She had wanted to marry Phillip more than anything in the world until now, until this second. Now she felt trapped.
        Maybe the hormones were affecting her already. After all, she had given up everything and everyone in her life for just this moment, and now it was here she was plagued with doubt. Her terror was so real it was almost physical. She actually felt sick with apprehension, but that could be the result of her pregnancy. Women felt sick in the early stages, that was how they knew they had a child inside them. It was the morning sickness that had alerted her to her predicament in the first place.
        Christine felt Phillip squeeze her once more until she was almost melded into his body. He always held her to him with a strength that until now had made her feel safe and secure, but suddenly his embrace felt claustrophobic; it reminded her that she was now his, wholly and for ever. The intensity of his feelings for her felt wrong somehow, felt unnatural. She had a deep sense of foreboding that his love for her would overpower everything she wanted. And guarantee she would never again be her own person.
        As if he was aware of her sudden reluctance, Phillip tightened his hold on her and she felt again the sheer power of his physical strength. His arms felt like a steel band. He and this baby had ensured that any hopes or dreams its mother might have been harbouring were long gone from her. A child growing inside you soon made you wake up to just how one-sided childbirth really was. Phillip's life wouldn't change, not one iota. Whereas her life on the other hand, would change out of all recognition.
        She would be a mother before she was even legally eligible to vote. She would be tied to a child before she had left her own childhood behind. She almost hated Phillip then, for his male- ness, for doing this to her even though she had been a more than willing participant. She hated her disloyalty towards him, but a baby, she knew, would ensure that she would never be able to walk away from him. Phillip Murphy would never allow that to happen.
        But why was she thinking these things? Why would she even consider leaving him? What was wrong with her? She was crying, and she had not even realised it.
        Phillip laughed gently in the darkness. The smell of him permeated the small room; the aroma of their bodies, of their joint sexual encounters was so strong Christine felt as if she would never get the stench from out of her nostrils. He seemed almost sinister to her now, and she knew at that moment that he had wanted this to happen, had made it happen. She had been too naive to see what he was doing.
        Yet, this baby had been created with love.