To give myself time to think I poured us another tea, sat opposite her and held her eyes in mine. She seemed so nervous and there were tears trickling down her cheeks. To be honest, I’d been feeling a bit broody for months now, realising the years were slipping away. “You want me to have a baby to Brian? He’s my brother!”
She sort of pulled herself together. “Yes, Trish. We’ve talked this over time and time again. We need a mother for his baby and just don’t want a stranger involved. If you would do it, we would be able to ensure that conditions for your pregnancy would be the best we could get, and we would both feel much more involved if we saw all the changes in you as they happened.”
“Well,” I responded after a few minutes thought, “if I were to have his baby, it could be deformed or something. He’s my brother. Aren’t children born to close relatives deformed?”
“We’ve been looking into that and have both been researching the issue for two or three weeks, since we discussed the possibility. Yes, it’s possible that there can be genetic problems but they are not usually significant, certainly for the first generation of inbreeding. So there’d be only a small increase in risk between you and Brian. He says your mother was Norwegian and your father was of the last generation of tin miners from Cornwall so there’s no chance of them being related. None of your family has had any of the major health problems, at least as far back as your grandparents. ‘Expert’ opinion would be that the two of you would be OK.”
“Put it like that, I would agree with you – although I’d want to see the research you have done. But how would we do it? I wouldn’t want any artificial methods so that would mean I, we, would have to make the baby the old fashioned way.” I was amazed with myself that I would even consider such things.
“Brian and I both feel the same way about hospitals, doctors, syringes and all that stuff. A baby is made with love.” My sister-in-law reached across the table and took my hands in hers. “Would you make love to your brother and build us a baby? Please?”
Her final plea was almost heart-rending and she didn’t push it any further, just held onto my hands, squeezing gently as I turned the whole idea over in my mind. I had come to no decision when we were interrupted by the sound of Mel slinging her school bag into the hall. Trish withdrew her hands and I said, “I’ll think about it.”
The rest of the day went as normal but I was constantly churning the remarkable idea over. As I dished up our evening meal, I looked at Brian with a different eye, as a man who could impregnate me, not as the brother I had known and loved all my life.
Truth be told, he was a big, handsome man. In his late thirties, he had a kind of rugged, ‘lived-in’ face, tanned from all his trips abroad. Laugh lines contoured his mouth and eyes. He had a lean, fit body which smelled nice and spicy. Yes, if he were not my brother, I could certainly make love to him. But he was my brother and the incest taboo kept shading my thoughts.