We were living in London, but she was in Paris at the time, working.

I got an urgent message to call her. The last urgent message from Paris was that she was cooking dinner for friends and didn’t know how to fix rice. She wasn’t much of a cook.

This time the urgent message was that she was pregnant.

I don’t remember how much discussion took place. I don’t remember what it was. I suspect it was all very rational. The decision was that she’d have an abortion. I think she might’ve been the one to suggest it first.

There was only one abortion clinic for all of Europe, it seemed. It was on the outskirts of London. Women came from all of Europe to go to this place.

I met her at the airport. There was an Italian girl we overheard asking directions to the clinic. We were hyper aware, and it seemed like every young woman getting off a plane at Gatwick was either an American tourist or there for an abortion.

There was a trip to a clinic first, to get vetted by a doctor and visit a therapist. Next door was a record shop run by a couple of African guys. They had a bunch of stuff from the Congo. Those records are hard to find so I busied myself there, came out with some treasures I was delighted to show her when she came out of the clinic.

She never developed a taste for African music. I wonder why.

A few days later I took her to the abortion clinic in South London. Beautiful morning, beautiful tree-lined residential street, very discreet place. I was the only guy there. Everyone seemed very impressed that a man could be so caring.

I was proud of myself for being such a good guy.

I could’ve stayed, but I didn’t. The thought of them digging into her to abort my baby was more than I could handle.

All I could think of was that I was the only son of the only son, and he was dead. There were no cousins, no uncles, no nothing. My identity was wrapped up with being the legacy of my father. The family ended with me. The child we would’ve had had circumstances been different, was my legacy, and his legacy. The kid wouldn’t have existed outside of that, wouldn’t have had an identity any more than I did, and maybe even less; twice removed from the dead man.

It wasn’t an unplanned pregnancy. It had just been planned for later. At least in my mind. I have no idea what her plans were.

I hit a bar in Camden Town and drank alone. I knew what time the surgery was scheduled and raised a toast in memorial to the legacy lost. There were a couple of messages from her on the machine when I got home. The first was from before the surgery. She’d met the Italian girl who was from Milan. She got her number. The second was from after. She said what time to pick her up in the morning.

The beautiful morning was marred by a bad hangover. I picked her up at the abortion clinic. We took the metro home. A little small talk. She headed back to Paris the next day.

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