The sight of father and daughter is heartbreaking. Although I don't know them very well, the pain they felt from their separation is so intense that it almost knocks me off my feet. However, it does not affect the train. The door stonely closes, Pascal Hillard and Vanessa Carpenter are still trying to touch their palms on either side of the glass. However, the train starts relentlessly and Pascal Hillard tries to run along the station for a while to keep the feeling of not losing his daughter. But the platform ends after a short time and his palm slips off the glass. His shape will become smaller and smaller until he is no longer visible. Vanessa still presses her hand to the glass, as if they were still there for the other. Pitiful sight.
"Come on, you're too striking!" I ask her.
She looks at me like she's waking up from a dream. She nods and then fumble with her bags for a while. I can't stand to see her clumsiness so I pick up her sports bag just in the very next moment the weight of the bag pulls my arm down like the Coyote hitting a hole in the rock, in the animation. The bag is extremely heavy! I look at the girl in surprise, suddenly I don't even know she imagined herself carrying this alone with a plastered arm. Then I am surprised again because I can no longer see the plaster on her left arm. Probably the doc took it off. At night, as if I heard some screaming sound, but I didn't pay attention to it. I didn't even link it to removing the plaster. However, this way Vanessa's left arm is still weak.
"Bring the other two packages!" I ask her, and she miraculously obeys.
We go into a free booth - an advantage of old trains - and I put the sports bag in the trunk and then the other two packs as well. I don't pay attention too much to the girl, I have to place my own package too. Meanwhile, the conductor also comes, snapping our tickets from our phones. After he leaves, Vanessa fumbling with the device for a while, until she turns it off, then sits down and looks at the landscape rigidly. I wonder that she doesn't plunge into the internet or play some kind of game on the phone. She doesn't even have earphones to listen to music. Well. Let's just say I'm happy because that's how I have the opportunity to talk to her. But for now, I don't know how to approach it.
So I sit across from her and look at the landscape as well. Not with much success because my eyes wander to Vanessa over and over again. Before the girl misunderstands my interest, I dig a novel out of my backpack and try to delve into it. Unsuccessfully, I keep peeking at the girl over the book. But to my surprise, I'm not the only one with this problem. Vanessa's gaze glides at me from time to time. Eventually, our eyes catch on, but she is the one who turns her own from me in fright. I smile. Does yesterday's little tiger turn out to be made of paper? We hope not. I still want her as my disciple, though I don't know how I can solve this while avoiding my sisters and ex-wife with her daughter yet. Anyway, I'll close the book and decide it's time to give it a try.
"How are you?" I ask her just to start the conversation.
"Thank you, fine" she replies uncertainly.
"Do you want to talk?"
"No, not really," she says after some thought. "Do you want to?"
"I like to talk on the train, this is how you can meet interesting people."
"With interesting people?" she says in disbelief, then a shock moves into her eyes. "Am I interesting?"
"I don't know yet," I say with a smile, trying hard not to look like a sugar daddy. "We haven't talked too much yet."
"We have talked yesterday," Vanessa says hesitantly, remembering that we've done something deeper than just talking.
"Er, uh, are you are asking for your underwear back?" I wonder, but I think I'm blushing.
"No, thank you," she replies, but she also blushes to the memory of how her intimate garment came to me.
"If you think I'll sew it before I give it back… "
"No need. Throw it out!" she shouts, screaming softly.
We remain silent in our confusion for a while and try to look the other way. It's not going well. My dreams of going home with her are also starting to dissipate.
"I don't dare offer to buy another one, but if you will send the bill, I'll pay. I'll give you my address, okay? What's your Number?"
I take out my phone to send her my contacts to her, and in the meantime I rejoice that I can get the girl's contact information. In vain, I'm a flamethrower in a stressful situation.
"Wait a bit" she asks, then pulls out her phone. She presses it for a while, then looks at me in confusion. She looks back at the device and keeps trying to press and caress. It seems to be ineffective. She finally gives up. "Didn't you accidentally bring paper and pen?"
I'm stunned.
"Is your phone broken?" Vanessa nods. "Show me!"
She hesitantly hands me the device. I'm amazed. The daughter of one of Hardersfield's richest men has a fossil smartphone. Okay, okay, we also don't change our phones every year either, we don't even use that much, in fact! Moreover Andrew has another old flip phone, he dug it out of the depths of the net anyway because he likes it. But for a young girl to have such a device, it is more than surprising. Neither Savannah nor Taylor get used to this. I am trying for a while under Vanessa's watchful eye, but the phone stays deaf. I disassemble in the end, the battery and sim card look a bit rusty. This requires a mechanic.
"I'm sorry, but you have to take it to a service center" I say, returning the phone to him.
"It is needless, what it had to do, it already did," she sighs, then bites into the edge of her mouth in fright.
The air freezes. Recognition splits into me in an instant. It all makes sense what I heard, saw, and what Vanessa said. According to my sister, no one loves Vanessa in the town, but she lived a fairly free life, especially with boys. Sylvia also grumbled something like that when we went to Pascal Hillard because of the DNA test, that the doc is famous for supporting girls in need of abortion. Doc Hillard, on the other hand, said Vanessa was dating Ivo before my sister slammed Ivo off her hands.
So Vanessa Carpenter is pregnant. However, if it is already turned out, she is probably at least 10-12 weeks pregnant, if you add the summer break as well. Plus, in all likelihood, Ivo Hillard is the father. I guess she originally wanted to keep and raise the baby with him, but yesterday she had to realize that Ivo no longer loved her. I don't look an abortion out of her, and it could also be that she already doesn't have time to terminate her pregnancy. A full, heavy bag, a lot of money suggests that she is planning to hide until she will give birth to the baby. Pascal Hillard has helped her to disappear in secret, in deep silence, so she wouldn't be driven out of society by the town.
My plans are freezing. I didn't expect this. A pregnant girl. In no time she wouldn't be able to help us in the chores. She is very young, probably she doesn't even know how to do the chores in the household. We have to teach her. By the time she will learn everything, she will be unable to do them, with her big belly. But the camps end in three month, so her belly wouldn't grow that big until that time.
The pregnancy doesn't even shows up on her, though the black circles under her eyes indicate her exhaustion. A baby. Let's say it's not a big hurdle, if all goes well, there will be two more ones in the Anchorage next summer anyway, so there will simply be one more of them. I don't think Heather and Erica would reject a girl in a situation like this. The others don't care. I wanted to go back to the mountains with my wife and a little girl anyway. Now it's all up to Vanessa. By the time her baby is born, it's at least half a year. Maybe during this time I can convince her to continue practicing martial arts. My mom didn't stop either, even though she gave birth to three. I decided. No matter what condition she is in, I will take her with me to the mountains.
I just have to make sure she wants that too.