The Accidental Mother Read Online Free Page A

else’s.
    And Sophie’s mum was crazy only about dogs. Carrie’s mum, on the other hand, was a leader in the field when it came to bitter recrimination and emotional blackmail.
    “What about Louis,” Sophie remembered having asked Carrie. “I bet he doesn’t want it. You could say he’s put his foot down and blame him, couldn’t you?” Carrie hadn’t answered for a moment, and Sophie had been able to hear the new baby gurgle and cough down the line.
    “Oh well, no…I just. Well, no, it doesn’t matter. I’ve said yes now.” Carrie’s laugh had seemed a little thin. “Poor Bella, God knows what she’ll make of it, getting water chucked over her head by a bloke in a dress at nearly three years old! Mum’s even sorted out godparents, dreadfully pious cousins from Tottenham. But I put my foot down. I said I’d have at least one friend that I chose. You will do it, won’t you, Soph? I don’t think I can face the whole eternal guilt trip thing all on my own. You are a product of Our Lady’s too—at least you understand. And anyway, you’d make a good godmother, set the girls a good example and all that.”
    Sophie had laughed at Carrie’s description of her relationship with her mother and the church. Carrie had declared herself an atheist and a vegetarian at fourteen. She and Mrs. Stiles had been engaging in a gargantuan battle of good and evil ever since, each thinking that the other was on the wrong side.
    “Of course I will,” she’d said, looking forward to mulling over old times with Carrie. “But you won’t be alone, will you? Louis will be there, won’t he? He’ll stop your mum checking you into a nunnery!”
    Sophie tried to remember if Carrie had laughed at the rather feeble joke, but she couldn’t.
    “Louis can’t come,” Carrie had told her, her voice wobbling as Sophie imagined her jiggling the baby in her arms. “It’s work. I told him not to worry about it. This whole thing is for Mum anyway. It’s her show.”
    Sophie thought of the one time she had met Louis, at Carrie’s sacrilegious registry office wedding. Carrie had been eight months pregnant, in a white crocheted smock with wildflowers entwined in her brown curls making her look like an earth goddess. Mrs. Stiles had managed to overshadow the whole event by not being present. Sophie had barely spoken to Louis. He’d seemed slightly drunk, even during the ceremony, and she’d thought the very least he could have done was combed his hair and shaved off his near-full beard of dark stubble. He was personable enough and friendly, but secretly Sophie had disapproved of the whole relationship; it was too impulsive and somehow hurried.
    Carrie had met Louis while she was on a long-planned painting holiday in St. Ives. He was into surfing and photography. They shared a love of art and of the sea. “Met most marvelous hunk,” Carrie had written on the postcard she sent to Sophie. “Am going to keep him.” She was pregnant three months later. They were married five months after that. Sophie had privately given it six months, as she made her excuses and slipped out of the pub wedding reception. She had felt out of place in her lilac suit and matching shoes, her long blond hair ironed straight over her shoulders. Everyone else had been tie-dyed and sort of a hippie. Carrie asked her to stay longer, but Sophie had explained she had to drive back up to London that night. She’d been working toward a promotion even then. The marriage had lasted longer than six months, and Sophie had been proved wrong, a new baby proved her wrong conclusively, she’d supposed. She had agreed to be the girls’ godmother.
    The christening had gone exactly as Sophie had expected. It was long, the church was cold, and no one understood what the charming but heavily accented Dominican priest was saying. The baby had screamed relentlessly for the duration of the service, and the toddler—Bella—had had the sort of thick cold that made Sophie feel