No brother expects to be handed a positive pregnancy test from his sister. No brother expects this to happen in a Chipotle. No brother expects the silent announcement to include, "Will you adopt it?" But that's what James got anyway.
Six weeks. Ruth had known she was pregnant for six weeks. Both James and Ruth knew very well who the biological father was but neither of them was willing to contact him. This child, or parasite as Ruth considered it, would stay between them.
"Of course I will, Ruth," James said, "We can work out any paperwork right now." Ruth sighed relief and smiled grimly.
"I know you're only doing this because it'll make you look good," she was right, "but know that once this thing is born I'm done. We'll go back to how things were and you'll never see me again." Ever so blunt of a woman but who could blame her? James knew he had wronged her in the past and if taking care of the baby she didn't want would help, he was willing to do it. Of course, he expected to gain something out of it, Ruth knew that very well, but it wasn't her business what he planned to achieve.
"As long as you're not killing it." Ruth scoffed.
"Of course you'd bring that up," James prepared to hear a lecture from his sister on bodily autonomy and how health will always triumph over religion but the lecture never came. She sighed, interlaced her fingers together, propped her arms on the table, and rested her head against her fists. "The thought never crossed my mind, James, no matter how much I don't want this I've never thought about ending it." James was slightly shocked by how much Ruth was revealing to him. Before their relationship turned sour, she had always been a dam. All her opinions came out slowly and with control, her feelings were kept safely behind her walls, but dams do crack over time. An unplanned pregnancy seemed to be hers.
“I’m sorry,” was all James could say. He had so much he wanted to, needed to apologize, for specifically but there was too much to say and too little time to say it. At that Chipotle table at 3:35 on a Wednesday afternoon, he became the father of his sister’s baby.
