Karen didn't knock before entering the caretakers office. She stood in the doorway and felt all the tears she had tried to keep inside start fall the moment he looked at her. Within a moment he was beside her and holding her close. She could feel his hands stroking her hair and he was whispering comforting words into her ear. He didn't push her for anything. He merely stood there holding her until the sobs passed and she was ready to talk. He took her over to his desk and sat her on his chair. He pulled up a school chair he had recently fixed and sat opposite her with his hand on her knee.
"It's...Jess." Karen choked out the words. The torrents of tears had left her short of breath and she was gulping still on the words.
Rob nodded. They had all left the house this morning knowing that Karen was planning on talking to Jess about the babies father. Even he had to admit that he wasn't expect it to leave Karen in this state. "Did she tell you who he is?"
Karen shook her head. "She just...well she just came in and asked me..." Karen took a deep breath and shook her head trying to compose herself. "Rob she just asked me to pay for an abortion for this afternoon..." She broke off the sentence, she wanted to tell him about the cut...
"There's something else Karen...I can tell by the way you're looking at me." He lent forward further. "You can trust me...I promise."
Karen nodded. "She's got a cut on her face...Charlie...we can't make a scene because we need to focus on her but..." Karen stopped again. This time she was unable to stop a tear rolling down her cheek. "She's my girl Rob...and I can't protect her. What sort of mother does that make me?" Her voice broke on the last word and more tears started falling down her cheek.
Rob wrapped his arms around her again and tried to comfort her. "Karen, she came and told you. That must show you how much she trusts you..." He was trying not to say too much. It was taking all of his will-power not to run out the office and find Charlie, but as Karen had said. That wasn't going to help anyone.
"I think...well she was fine this morning Rob...the father must be someone in school...she must have seen him this morning when we came in and we were so early so the only people here..." She broke off again. She didn't want to voice what she was thinking, as that would make it seem more real.
"They were teachers." Rob finished off what Karen was trying to say. "It would make sense...you knew she was seeing someone, but not who. She seems scared of him." Rob looked straight at Karen. He could see what this was doing to her. He couldn't forget how useless he had felt when Aiden had told him about his girlfriend being pregnant. Rob had automatically blamed himself and his parenting skills. "None of this is your fault Karen. Not Charlie, Maria or this...and we can sort this. Has Jess booked the appointment?"
"No. I asked her to think about it and that we would talk later...but what am I going to do. If that's what she wants then I can't say no...but I think...well I know that if she does it then it's for the wrong reasons. Everyone can see how much she wants that baby..."
Rob nodded. It was true. Even through everything with Charlie and Maria people were still commenting on the fact that Jess was glowing. She was loving every minute of being pregnant and couldn't stop talking about how much she was looking forward to being a Mum. "We need to figure it out Karen...and I know you don't want to...but we need to do it for Jess." He looked at her and stoked the side of her face. "I'm not going anywhere and we can do it together."
Karen nodded. She knew that what Chris was saying was true, she also knew how scared she was of the truth. The reality was starting to sink in that the father of Jess' baby was probably one of the teachers in her school.
...
For the second time that day Jess sat waiting for her Mum outside the office However this time it wasn't from her own choice. She had been sent out of Charlie's finance lesson and they were short on staff meaning there was no one to run the cooler and a fast track ticket to the head teachers office. Any other day Jess would have been fine with it. Her and her Mum would have talked about what had gone wrong and Jess would promise to be less mouthy next lesson and to keep her head down in her Dad's class. Not today though, she hadn't been able to stop thinking about the conversation this morning. Part of her couldn't believe that it had been her in the room, she knew her Mum had been unconvinced and Jess wasn't surprised. The turnaround from excited Mum to be to asking for an abortion had been ridiculous.
"You waiting for me?" Jess was snapped out of her thoughts by the familiar voice. She looked up to see her Mum and Rob stood in the doorway. She nodded.
"I've been sent out of Dad's lesson..." It didn't take much to guess that her Mum had been talking to Rob about Jess, and she wasn't surprised, or angry.
Karen nodded. "Right...well we were hoping we could talk to you anyway...so we can do both at once." Karen walked past Jess and opened the door to her office before motioning to Jess and Rob to go inside. Jess went first and then Rob. Karen took a deep breath before following them in.
