The Flavours of Love Read Online Free Page A

intensified, of course, when the sun is out. Some mornings I come in here before the sun comes up and sit at the table with a cup of coffee, staring at the blackberry stain while the room gradually becomes a multicoloured glow.
    ‘Who’s the father?’ I ask Phoebe, clattering our plates onto the butterfly-covered place mats I have laid on the table in the two minutes it took to cook the gnocchi.
    Phoebe picks up the fork I placed in front of her earlier, and spears a rocket and basil pesto-covered potato dumpling. When I ask my question, she doesn’t raise the food from the plate to her mouth, instead she leaves it there, jammed onto the fork, sitting against the plate. Eventually, she gives a small, discreet shrug of her bony shoulders as her reply.
    Panic billows up inside. ‘You don’t know who the father is, or you’re not going to tell me?’ I ask.
    Phoebe treats me to another shrug, this time with one shoulder.
    I inhale slowly and deeply, then exhale at length. I know what Joel would say right now. He’d remind me that she’s fourteen, she’s terrified and that there are worse things you could do than get pregnant. He would tell me not to scream. He would tell me to remember how it felt to be in a similar position to her. He’d tell me all these things and he would be right.
    Picking up my fork, I remind myself of the sheer terror of sitting in front of a parent you are already scared of upsetting after they’ve been to the headteacher’s office about you, after they’ve learnt things about you that you thought would go away. I remember the words that came quietly spilling out of my mother’s mouth when I was in a similar position to Phoebe, how each syllable was a stinging blow that I can recall without trying too hard. I remember the way I didn’t speak at all until she stopped, and how I stayed silent as she ignored me for a whole week because I’d brought such shame onto our family.
    This is different, though: ignoring this will not make it go away; pretending it’s not happening is not going to cure anything. I lower my fork and rest its prongs up on the edge of my plate. ‘The thing is, Phoebe, you can’t shrug this away.’ My voice is calm and reasonable, not at all how I feel inside. ‘It might be the way you want to deal with this, but you can’t handle an adult problem by behaving like a child.’
    ‘That’s how you see me, isn’t it?’ she says on the edge of a screech, her face screwed up like a wounded, cornered wild animal about to attack. ‘As a problem! That’s all I am to you, isn’t it? A problem!’
    I have no idea what I’m doing here, of course. Joel would probably know. He’d work out how to deal with this, the right thing to say, the correct way to act. Me?
    I keep thinking: SHE IS PREGNANT.
    I keep thinking: SHE HAS BEEN HAVING SEX.
    I keep thinking: SHE DIDN’T TELL ME.
    Twelve months ago my daughter was still asking me to buy hercuddly toys. Six months ago she was still racing her brother to the top of the slide in the park and screaming in joy as they slid to the bottom. Three months ago she was thirteen and still a little girl. My little girl. But she’s been having sex like an adult for God knows how long. And getting pregnant like an adult. Then reacting like a child. How am I supposed to know how to deal with it?
    ‘Are you going to deal with this situation like an adult or a child, is what I meant to say. You can’t shrug what is happening away. I need to know what’s going on. Who the father is. If you’ve told him. What he thinks if you have told him, if we’re going to tell him if you haven’t already.’
    Despite her outburst, Phoebe has been eating, but now she stops shovelling down food and instead moves gnocchi around her plate with the tip of her fork, smearing the creamy green-flecked pesto in its wake. Joel used to do that with the sauce on his food. He would move it around and around as if trying to paint a picture on the plate. Phoebe