Claimed by the Hunk

Chapter 4

Cassandra’s POV

My mother had the brains to do anything and the heart to know I needed her to stay with me, at least some of the time. So she lived a sort of wise compromise. She had time to leap and bound in the academic world and time to play our silly-wonderful games. I think she needed that. How can we ever be our best selves without the ability to meet new challenges?

So it came as a shock to me when she said that I had brought shame on the entire family by even indulging in something like this. That I could not tell her the name of the father who had sired my child and made me pregnant. It came as a rude awakening to me when she asked our Rabbi to tell me that the life of the child I was carrying might be innocent but I certainly was not and the way that it had been conceived was no good deed as well.

I did not stay that night in my home. I called up my friend from school who I knew was now working and asked if she would like a roommate.

“Is it really you Cassie?” asked Nita.

“Yeah, Nits. It is really me. Look I don’t have a lot of time in my hand and neither do I have a lot of strength to do this. Just tell me if you can give me some space for living a few days so that I can find an accommodation for myself,” I said.

“That goes without saying. My roommate shifted last week with her boyfriend and I have been living alone only. But the room is small, not a big one, do you think you can adjust? I mean, I have seen the room in which you lived when we were at school….it might be a bit of a shock to you,” said Nita and I wanted to laugh at the irony of the situation.

“Well a lot of things have been coming as a shock to me, Nita. But first I need to get out of here. Can you text me your address?” I asked. The door of my bedroom was locked and I knew that my mother was talking to our Rabbi about what to do with me.

“Yeah. Sure. I am sending it to you now,” she said as my mobile pinged immediately and I said that I received it and hung up the call.

There was a knock on my bedroom door and I opened it. If I was leaving my house then I was going to end everything today itself. In my family no one had ever done anything like this before. They accepted my cousins who were gay with open arms but an unwed pregnant daughter was going to blacken the name of their entire family. Hypocrisy needed to have its limits.

“Yes Ma!” I said as I opened the door.

“Cassandra, we need to talk,” she said as she entered my room and stood with her hands folded.

“Of course, Ma. We do need to talk. I agree on that,” I replied her back.

“I just want to know, that why did you do something like that? Something so entirely against all the values that you have been raised? Have I not paid enough attention to you? Did you not get enough love? What is it that was lacking that you had to go and open your legs to a stranger??” she thundered with her dark expression clouding her entire face and I looked at her and thought who was this.

“You have nothing to worry about Ma. You don’t need to feel guilty or accuse yourself of anything at all. I am not the only child that you have borne. You have two other sons and daughters who are wonderful and perfect. I am entirely certain that you will not even remember me when I am not here any longer. Burn my pictures if that is helpful,” I replied as I turned away from her and then pulled out my case from my closet and opened it on the bed.

“What do you think that you are doing? Are you trying to make a statement or just simply rile me up?” asked my mother, Samantha Lowell.

“Do you think that you can hold of Pa for me? I mean before I leave I want to talk to the both of you,” I replied as I started piling up clothes in my bag.

“Where do you think you are going? There is no man in your life, you don’t have any place to go to and I know very well that this is not a situation where you can do whatever you want,” she said again. Her pitch was increasing and I just inwardly smiled. How could I have been so blind my entire life?

The thing that I thought love and care and possessiveness of parents was nothing else but control and she just wanted everything to be perfect so that she did not have to listen to anyone at the family dinners that would lead to conversations about her family or about her kids who are against the norms.

“Look Cassandra, I know that this is not correct but I also don’t want you to get hurt. If you are going to be like this then who is going to marry you from our community? What will you do the rest of your life? You are only thinking of now and what is happening but those are the maternal hormones, sweetie. You know that this is not correct for you….why are you so hell bent on ruining your entire life?” she asked and now she was pleading as she found that I had almost finished packing.

“What do you suggest I do, Ma?” I asked her gingerly as I turned back in her direction.

“Get rid of it, sweetheart. You are young and you will have plenty of chances of having kids again but right now….you cannot take the risk of being an unwed mother. You have not even started your career…do you think that raised you all these years to finally listen that your daughter is nothing but a w***e who cannot control her urges?” she asked and for the first time in my life I wanted to slap her.

“And what if I want to keep this child? What if I want to have the baby? This is also not what you taught me, Ma…to kill an innocent life just for my selfish gain,” I exclaimed. I knew that I was just playing her. And I only wanted to see her reaction.

“Why would you even want to do this, baby?” she asked. Her voice was breaking as she knew that her plans for me were also getting ruined for my stubbornness.

“What do you mean, ma?” I asked. I knew that before I left I would speak of this to both my parents. They thought that no one knew about what they did in their own lives and they thought they could point fingers at me.

“If you want to keep the child then I have to find some good nice boy to marry you as soon as possible. We cannot be late. You are already eight weeks pregnant so we can afford no luxury now,” said Samantha.

“You will find some nice innocent naïve boy to hoist me off?” I asked her incredulously.

“Of course. If you want to be pig headed about a bastard child that you are carrying then it becomes my responsibility to make sure that he or she is not a bastard and has the name of a father,” she replied with such confidence and conviction that I was stunned. I was too stunned to speak for a moment after hearing this.

“I cannot even think that my best baby girl would do something like this at all…you have been a model child from the very beginning. The top of the class, the best student in extracurricular with a voice of an angel….whhy? Baby why?” she asked me the question and even I did not know an answer to that question.

“Maybe because you taught me too much to become like you, ma,” I said as I shrugged as I finished my packing and smirked at her. The expression on her face was one that should have been captured but I could not do that at that point.

“Since you cannot tell Pa to come home now, Ma, I think it is better that you tell him that I am never going to come back here since you think I am nothing but the black sheep. You have been so scared of your own mistake that you did not have the guts to let us learn from our own mistakes and have created two hypocrites as your children. And I am thankful that I am nothing like you or your elder kids. And Ma, I am warning you tonight and this is the first and last time that I shall be telling you this, if you think that you can hurt my child before or after being born then I shall make sure that you rue the day that you gave birth to me,” I told her and then I picked up the bag from the bed.

“I don’t even recognize who you are now,” she whispered as she looked at me.

“That is a good thing, Ma. The next time you see me, I shall pray that you don’t and I hope that you also will pray for the same thing, the next time you do, you would not know that you were talking to your daughter,” I said as I started rolling out my bag out of my bedroom. I looked at her and she was standing still with so much rage that she would have killed me if she could.

“I don’t need a man in my life to give birth to and raise a child. And my child will be named after me and not after the father. So rest assured, I am not going to come back here again,” I said.

“Yes you will. All the girls do. They have to come back with their bastards to their father only so that we can feed you,” she screamed.

“Not this one. I don’t need you guys to help me out to raise my child, Ma. I can do find on my own,” I said as I went out of the front door and closed my parent’s door behind me for life. I hailed a cab and then gave the cabbie the address for Nita’s home.

On the way as the cool night air blasted on my face a plan started formulating in my mind.