“Don’t worry about money,” I replied, doing more than enough worrying for the both of us, as I sank down beside her. “I’ll figure it out.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean if your father can’t take me on full-time at the garage, I’ll find something else to tide us over.” I shrugged. “I told you that I would look after you, and I will, okay? Money is the last thing you need to worry about right now. Let me do that for us.”
“What about school?”
“What about it?” Sighing heavily, I hooked my arms around my knees. “Babies aren’t cheap, Molloy.”
“No.” She shook her head. “No way, Joe. You need to finish school.”
“No, you need to finish school,” I corrected. “I don’t need a piece of paper to bring in money. I can do that now.”
“You heard my dad,” she argued. “He’ll agree to your apprenticeship, but only after you finish school and sit your leaving cert exams.”
“Aoife, what am I going to do with a piece of paper? Wipe my ass with it?” I shook my head. “It’s an exam that doesn’t mean shit for me. For you, yes, absolutely, but me? Not so much, baby.”
“I’m not due until September,” she hurried to add. “We can both finish school before we even have to think about anything else. We only have two months left, Joe. Two months and we’re finished with BCS.”
“September?” Jesus Christ. “You’re due in September.”
She nodded. “The twentieth.”
“Right after your birthday?”
She nodded.
I blew out a breath. “How many weeks does that make you now?”
“Um, fourteen weeks and two days, I think?”
“Jesus, you’re already in the second trimester, Aoif.”
“I know,” she squeezed out. “I’m terrified.”
“Don’t be,” I tried to soothe, while I mentally went into panic mode as I struggled to rack my brain around the constant stream of life-changing information that just seemed to keep coming at me.
“If you’re due late September, and it’s April next week, then we have five and a half months to get a handle on this.”
“A handle?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Save up some cash, Molloy.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re not quitting school.”
“Listen, there’s no point in wasting two months in a classroom, working for something both of us know I will never need. Not when I could be actually working for the money that we are definitely going to need,” I tried to reason. “Come on, Molloy, think about this. You know I’m right.”
“I have thought about it,” she argued back. “I’ve done little else these past few weeks, and it’s not happening, Joe. We started BCS together and we’re going to see it out together.”
“You still can,” I shot back. “I want that for you. All I’m trying to do is get a head-start on this, Molloy. We’re going to need a lot of stuff, and it all costs money. Money neither of us has. The baby’s going to need a cot, and clothes, and nappies, and formula. There’s a long list of shit we’re going to need, and I can’t provide that on a part-time wage from the garage.”
“You already work yourself to the bone.”
“It’s not enough.”
“Mam said I can stay at home,” she offered, like it was something I wanted to hear. “We don’t have to worry about where to go when the baby’s born.”
I balked. “I’m not living apart from you and my baby.”
Her eyes widened. “You’re not?”
“Fuck no.” I shook my head. “I’ll get us a flat, Aoif.”
“Joe, if it’s at the expense of your education, then I don’t want it.”
“You just need to let me worry about the money side of things,” I argued. “I’ll take care of everything.”
“Are we together, Joe?”
I rolled my eyes. “Obviously.”
“Are we going to do this together?”
I gave her a hard look. “Where are you going with this?”
“Are we a team or not?” she demanded.
“Yeah, fuck, we’re a team,” I conceded.
“Then we’re both finishing school,” she ground out. “Together.”
“Listen, I don’t want to fight with you about this.”
“Then don’t,” she cut me off. “Because as far as I’m concerned, it’s a done deal. You’re finishing school and that’s that. Apartments and houses can come afterwards.”
“You’re not thinking clearly here.”
“You’re not thinking at all.”
“Molloy.”
“Lynch.”
Frustrated, I reached into the brown paper bag on her lip, grabbed a soggy chip, and grimaced the moment it touched my tongue.
It tasted like shit.
With a mouthful of chips, Molloy offered me a sheepish smile. “Too much vinegar?”
I gave her a look that said always, before asking, “How are you feeling?”
“About the vinegar?”
“No, genius, about being pregnant.”
Anxiety flashed in her eyes and I watched as a small shiver rolled through her. “Oh, I think it’s safe to say that I’m sufficiently terrified to my core, you?”
Oh, I’m right there with you. “I’m fine.”
“Fine.” She arched a disbelieving brow. “Bullshit.”
Of course I was bullshitting, but I had the wherewithal to not reveal just how panicked I was to the girl who’d clearly gotten the shorter end of the straw in this deal.
“Are you mad?” she asked again, but this time, she chewed on her lip nervously before adding, “That I’m having it?”
“Having it?” I frowned. “That’s generally how this kind of thing goes.”
“Not always.”
“Don’t go there.”
“You know what I mean.”
Yeah, I did, and I didn’t like where this was heading one bit. “I would never ask you to do that.”
“But if you could choose?” she swallowed deeply. “Would you?”
“No, Molloy.” I shook my head. “I wouldn’t want you to do that.”
There was a hopeful note in her voice when she said, “You wouldn’t?”
“Never.”
Relief flickered in her eyes. “Really?”
“Really,” I confirmed. “If you didn’t want to have my baby, I’d understand – hell, I’d hold your hand the whole way over and back, but I know that’s not what you really want.”
“Maybe it should be, Joe.”
I leveled her with a hard stare. “Is it?”
She stared back at me for the longest time, before blowing out a breath and shaking her head. “I want to keep it.”
“Exactly,” I replied, nudging her shoulder with mine. “Looks like we’re doing this.”
“Yeah.” Sighing heavily, she slipped her arm through mine, and leaned her cheek on my shoulder. “Looks like we are.”