Free The Silent Wife by A. S. A. Harrison Page A

he shouts.
    Of course he wants children, though children may not be the word for what he wants. Natasha wants children , meaning helpless little beggars who need her constant attention and bringher a sense of kinship and belonging. What he wants is not that. What he wants is descendants, heirs, or just one heir, preferably a son, someone who shares his DNA, a variant of himself to replace him when he’s gone. As a younger man he never gave this any serious thought and would have kept on like that had he not awakened one morning with a lust for progeny that shot through him like a virus, and then, when he met Natasha, mutated into a rampant longing that never left him. It made him feel that his life, as it stood, was a wasteland. It gave his pursuit of her an urgency that was unrelenting. That she could love him meant that it was not too late.
    â€œOf course I want children,” he repeats. “Just not like this.”
    â€œNot like what?”
    â€œLike this. With you springing it on me at lunch.”
    â€œWhen should I have sprung it on you?”
    â€œWe’ve never even discussed this.”
    â€œYes we have. You want children.”
    â€œThat’s beside the point.”
    He’s shouting again, and he can see from her face that he’s lost her. She stands up, takes her knapsack from the back of her chair, and leaves the restaurant. He gets out his wallet, slides some bills under a plate, and hurries after her, fearing that she might have run off and disappeared, but there she is, standing idly by.
    â€œI have to get to class,” she says.
    He drapes an arm across her shoulders and keeps it there as they walk up Loomis Street toward Harrison.
    â€œI can have an abortion,” she says.
    â€œYou would do that?”
    â€œIf that’s what you want.”
    It’s a ray of light, and with the hope it brings his panic subsides a little. He stops walking and swings her around to face him. “How far along are you?” he asks. “I mean, is it doable?”
    She gives him a look of such intense hatred that he physically recoils.
    â€œYou’re the one who brought it up,” he says.
    As the bickering continues he forgets to press his point about how this could have happened. It doesn’t occur to him that she might have done it on purpose. He is not by nature suspicious or vindictive, and without knowing it he moves past blaming her and starts on the process of puzzling things out, much as he would a plumbing leak or a bad debt. Now he’s saying things like: “Don’t worry … we’ll get it straight … it’s going to be okay.” But this kind of talk falls short.
    â€œYou’re still talking about it like it’s a problem,” she says.
    â€œOkay, fine. But I’m not twenty-one. I have a history and that complicates things. I’m not, at the moment, a free man.”
    â€œWhose fault is that? You were supposed to tell her about us ages ago.”
    He wonders if this could be true. He doesn’t recall any discussion with Natasha in which he agreed to talk to Jodi. He only knows that Natasha has been pressuring him to talk to Jodi.
    â€œI don’t think I was supposed to tell her,” he says. “But I’ll have to tell her now.”
    The reality of this is dawning on him. If Natasha won’tconsider an abortion, people will have to know. Maybe not immediately but eventually. Jodi will have to know. And Dean.
    â€œI don’t think you should tell your father,” he says. “Not right away.”
    Natasha has started walking again. She’s several steps ahead of him. “I’ve already told my father,” she says, tossing the words over her shoulder.
    He lengthens his stride and catches up with her. “You told Dean? When did you tell him?”
    â€œAfter I spoke to you .”
    â€œI can’t believe you would do that.”
    She shrugs, and he understands that she