I Am Not Your Master; I'm Your Partner Book Three

An Impossible New Reality

By the time they reached the top of the bluff, Dan had more or less convinced Caroline to take another pregnancy test, just in case.

"Do you really think it's possible?" The girl asked, wide-eyed and disbelieving.

"Anything is possible, "Dan replied. "Look at me, yeah?" He grinned and rubbed the sides of his protruding belly. Caroline and Phil laughed.

Phil had the foresight to bring Noah's sling wrap. The little Neko had fallen asleep on each of the prior evening's walks. It only took one two-arm carry to convince Phil to pack the wrap. Noah didn't stir with his father's movements. In fact, it seemed that he was altogether quite peaceful against his father's warm torso.

In the last hour, they learned that Caroline had no intention of returning to her family home, pregnant or not. They also discovered that the child that she still hoped to be carrying would be Noah's full sibling.

"I'm only eighteen," she reasoned, "why, I'm in no better position to care for a child now than I was then." Caroline let the weight of her thoughts take her head forward until her pointed chin rest upon her breastbone. She sat still for a moment and thought about who she was then.

The unplanned pregnancy had come as a shock. It frightened her to know that she was already responsible for another life. She felt alone and afraid. She kept her secret somewhere between her throat and her ribcage until the shape of her body finally betrayed her.

Her parents argued about what should be done as if her situation was the fatal fissure in an otherwise healthy family dynamic. This of course was not the case. The Bradley family had been falling apart at the seams since its very conception.

Caroline sat on the floor with a blanket wrapped tightly around herself like a cloak, hoping to become invisible, and her chin rested between her knees. Invisible she was. Her parents did not ask her how she felt about the situation, nor did they offer their support or guidance. They simply lobbed extremes back and forth until her mother finally settled on termination.

"No!" Caroline shouted from beneath the folds of the blanket. "No," she whispered again to herself.

Caroline knew that she was in over her head. She understood that she was in no position to care for a baby without the support of her parents – and she had been right not to expect as much. Still, she was unwilling to terminate, and besides, it was well past that time. Hadn't her mother considered that? No, she was hysterical and more concerned about her family's image than her daughter's welfare, never mind the reality of her own flesh-and-bone grandchild.

"It's too late," Caroline cried, "and even if it wasn't..." She turned her wet cheek into the blanket as if she could find comfort there. "No."

"Very well," her mother spoke in an uppity tone after a few moments of stoic silence. "If you insist on keeping this baby, you will not do it under our roof. This is your mistake Caroline - not mine, not ours," she waved her hand between herself and her husband, who incidentally had become quite pale and stiff. "You've marked yourself, but I'll be damned if you're stupidity will implicate us as well. Call your grandmother; see if she'll have you."

As it was, Caroline's grandmother sided with her daughter and son-in-law. Caroline faced homelessness, though after a heated discussion following a visit with the family's clergy, Caroline's mother finally agreed to let her daughter stay on the condition that she place her baby for adoption.

"Place the child for adoption," she said. "It's the only option you've got left. "Let someone else find a blessing in this situation."

And so it was that Caroline found herself in a meeting with the kind woman named Rosalie at Hearts United Adoption Agency on a snowy December day.