The front door flew open and in came Dad with a crease in his brow and fire in his eyes.
“OK, what’s wrong, Ethel?”
“He knows,” I thought. I could tell by the look in his eyes.
“Well, John, come sit down, now. Judy has gotten into some trouble.”
“Trouble? What kinda trouble?”
Mom gave a sigh and said, “Now just be calm.”
“Trouble! Don’t tell me she’s pregnant?” Dad asked.
“Yes, John, she is. She told Jackie about it yesterday.”
“Oh ferchrissakes, are we sure about this?”
“She’s missed several periods.”
“Oh my God. Sonofabitch.”
The veins on Dad’s neck popped out and his voice began to rise with fury. Although the last time I got hit was a toddler spanking, I thought this might be the time he would do it again. His body was stiff, drenched with anxiety pulsing through his core. He paced back and forth on the living room floor like he was caught in a place he didn’t want to be, like he was desperate for a way out.
My father seemed taller than usual. He had on his same old khaki pants and a white shirt. Maybe it was his head. It looked huge as I looked up at him from my lower position on the couch. Mom was tired of those khakis, said he should shop for new pants, but he always wore them. Today I hated those khakis too.
“Judy, how could you do this? Don’t you know any better? Haven’t we taught you anything?”
My tongue was frozen.
“Do you know who the father is?”
Dad’s rage was mounting. My bones vibrated with fear.
“Of course I know who the father is,” I said. My voice squeaked through my constricting throat. I was thoroughly insulted by his question. I tried to hold back the tears. He must have thought I was messing around with a bunch of guys and didn’t even know who the father was. Anger radiated into my veins, but fright won over and I became meek. My throat felt like it was in a tightening vice.
“It’s Mick, Dad. You know Mick,” I whined.
“That son of a bitch!” Dad said. “Did he force you into it?”
“No. No, Dad. It’s not Mick’s fault. He didn’t force me into anything.” I wanted to protect Mick from the innate hatred my dad had for him. This definitely put the nail in the coffin for Mick.
“Do his parents know about this?”
“No. He hasn’t told them.”
“Good. Let’s keep them out of it. There isn’t any reason they have to get involved. We’ll handle it.”
I was surprised by this turn of events. I imagined our parents getting together and discussing the situation. I was relieved Dad wanted to keep them out of it and relieved for Mick.
Dad’s lips stiffened and he said, “If that boy was any kind of a man he would be here right now, goddammit.”
Mom fired up the wheelchair and rolled over to the window. She backed herself in so she was closer to my spot on the couch.
“Does anyone know about your condition?” Dad asked.
“Well, Mick knows, and I told Annie and Jane.”
“You should not have done that, Judy,” he said. “The fewer people involved in this, the better.”
I knew in my heart that I wouldn’t have been able to tell anyone if I hadn’t first told my friends. They gave me the strength to move ahead with telling Jackie. I hoped they wouldn’t tell anyone at school, but really, I wasn’t even worried about that. I trusted their vow of secrecy.
“Well, I forbid you to ever see that boy again. Do you know the disgrace you are bringing upon the family?”
“I’m sorry, Dad.”
“I’m extremely disappointed in you, Judy. I can’t believe you’ve done this.”
I sat silent, taking the heat. Then Dad’s face relaxed a little, like he had an idea.
His next words shot me like an arrow in the gut.
“You’ll have an abortion. That’s the best solution. An abortion, that’s all there is to it.”
Dad didn’t get it. I guess I hadn’t told him that the baby was now a large moving mass in my belly. An abortion? Was it possible? I had been feeling my baby kick and roll within me for over a month. The skin on my stomach was stretched thin and substantially rounded. My lips quivered and my hands cooled to ice. The shakes started in my throat and settled to my gut. I was too scared to cry outwardly, but inside I was heaving.
Dad’s anger had always made me want to run for cover, but the thought of an abortion sickened me. It was different when it was just an idea, but now I could feel it roll and kick. I wondered how I could do this to a live being inside of me. It was too late for an abortion, wasn’t it? I knew it in my heart. But yet, I was too scared to protest. I said nothing. To think that it could all be over in a matter of hours with some kind of operation. Could it be possible? Oh, how could I let them do that to me?
“I’m going to call Dr. Keller,” Dad said. Dr. Keller was Dad’s fishing buddy and our family doctor. I had met him up at the cabin and always just said my hellos but never spent time around him. I hated the thought of Dad’s friend knowing about me. I wished it was a stranger. I was relieved that my punishing lecture was brought to a halt by the phone call.
“Hello, Doctor, this is John. We have a problem here. Judy has gotten herself pregnant. Can you do something to fix this? Can she come in and see you today?”
Then Dad turned to me and said, “Judy, Dr. Keller is asking when you had your last period?”
“September fifteenth,” I said. It was now the middle of March.
Dad relayed the date. He talked for a few more minutes and banged the phone back in the cradle.
“What’d the doctor say?” Mom asked.
“He said he doubts if Judy is that far along, because she would be showing. He’ll give her a pregnancy test and examine her. We can get her in there in the morning.”
“A pregnancy test, what a joke,” I thought. These people think I’m imagining my condition.
As bad as it was telling my dad, it was a pain that felt good. It was the end to the unknown, the end of my silence, and I felt free. Free from the hiding. Done. Whatever happened to me now would be the penance that I was due. It would be nothing compared to the five months of secrecy and gloom that I had lived through. It was a great lesson to me of the added pain one encounters by procrastinating instead of resolving a problem.
Confiding in Dad during my five months of secrecy was just not something I even considered. I was afraid Dad would blow up into a crazy maniac. But why didn’t I tell Mom sooner? When Mom was in the hospital, I thought she was too sick and fragile and feared the news might kill her. When she came home, I couldn’t do it then, either. I just hoped my problem would disappear on its own, like the setting sun. I knew that if I told either of my parents, it would be like lighting the fuse to an explosion. Why would a sane person subject themselves to that kind of abuse? Mom and I started off on the wrong foot: first, when I was thoroughly embarrassed by our sex talk at nine years old and when I got caught playing doctor and then again when I couldn’t tell her how much I wanted that bra.
I see now that if Mom and I had had a closer relationship when I was a teen, it might have filled some of the need I had to seek love at such a young age. Perhaps some mature input could have put some steadiness into my blundering steps into womanhood. Does anyone have that kind of relationship with their mom?
As a little girl I idolized Mom: I knew she was beautiful and smart and comforting in all aspects. She thought the same about me and believed I could do no wrong. I know I disappointed her horribly and was most sorry for how I had failed to live up to the woman she intended me to be. I am sure that Mom and Dad felt like they failed miserably in raising me, evidenced by the trouble I got in.
CHAPTER 21
A VISIT TO DR. KELLER
The next day Dad called Regina to tell them I had a doctor’s appointment. This was the last truth he told tho
se nuns at Regina Dominican. We took the thirty-minute drive to downtown Chicago via Edens Expressway riding in silence, except for the one question Dad asked when we got in the car.
“Judith Ann, how could you let this happen?”
“I don’t know.” Then the mind chatter gave me a beating. “I don’t know? Oh, that was an intelligent and clever answer.”
As I watched the rails of the expressway slide by, the posts one by one, I wondered how I could let it happen. What was I thinking? I obviously wasn’t thinking. Well, it was a mistake. If the rubber hadn’t broken, if the party wasn’t held on the day I was spitting an egg, if I hadn’t drunk Love Potion No. 9, if I hadn’t met Mick…. I hated my weakness and lack of self-control. A wave of shame washed through me and tightened my breath.
I wondered if I really was on my way to getting an abortion. It sounded so violent. Deep inside, I felt the roll and kick. It’s no lump; it’s a baby. It was too big and too real to snuff away. I felt an urgent need to find a toilet.
We pulled into the underground parking on Wabash Avenue and took the elevator up to the fourteenth floor. I found a bathroom next to Dr. Keller’s office and poured everything out of me. Once inside the examining room, the nurse instructed me to take off my clothes, handed me a folded white-and-blue striped gown, and left the room. I wondered if “take off my clothes” meant take off everything. It must. “I hate this,” I thought. The gown had strings on the neck. I wondered if I should tie it in back or front. I tied it in back to cover the important parts in front. The back flap opening allowed cold air to waft around my bareness. Then I wondered if I was supposed to sit on the chair or the examining table. I stepped on the stool and scooted back on the crinkly white paper that covered the table. I sat upright with my legs dangling down. Steel stirrups protruded from the bottom corners of the table. I knew what they were for, and I didn’t like it. Shaking from the draft that swirled around, I wrapped my arms around my body and noticed a chart on the wall. It was a side-cut view of a woman’s belly with a baby curled inside. I wondered how the head ever squeezed through that tiny tube to make its way out.
The door swung open. It was Dr. Keller. “Hello, Judy. I’m sorry to hear about your situation. Let’s take a look. Can you lie down?”
I lay back and let my legs hang over the table. I felt vulnerable and naked. Dr. Keller tapped on the pillow at the other end. “Judy, can you scoot your head up here?” I scooted up so that my legs were on the table. When he leaned over me, I could see the hairs in his nose. He had short brown hair, green eyes, and was of small stature. His expression was serious but soft with kindness. He put his hands on my bare belly and gently pushed the mass from side to side. He took out a tape measure and stretched it lengthwise across my belly. When he read the hatch mark, his eyebrows lowered and he shook his head.
He put his hand behind my neck and said, “You can sit up now, Judy.”
I was relieved that I didn’t have to put my feet in those steel things.
“Well, Judy, there’s no sense doing a pregnancy test. You’re well along, I can see that. Do you know when you had your last period?”
“I know when I conceived the baby, if that helps,” I said. I was proud that I knew this. It obviously showed that I had only one boyfriend and we didn’t just have sex all the time.
“Well, that won’t be necessary; we go by the last period.”
He reached into a drawer and pulled out a white cardboard wheel.
“Do you know when that was?”
“September fifteenth.”
Dr. Keller spun the little cardboard wheel, read it, and recorded something on my chart.
“Judy—if, after all this is over, you need some birth control pills, you can contact me.”
“Oh, I won’t need those,” I said. “I’m not allowed to see my boyfriend.”
“Well, that’s fine and good, but maybe when you get to college or sometime later you might need them. I just want you to know that’s available to you.”
I was insulted by this. Didn’t he know I learned my lesson? I wasn’t ever going to have sex again until I was married. I was done with the black feelings of remorse and impurity. I thought his offer unnecessary.
How naive I was to think I would abstain from sex until marriage. Dr. Keller knew better. Several years later, it would be seeing Mick again that prompted me to take Dr. Keller up on his offer.
“Why don’t you get dressed and then come into my office? We’ll meet your father in there and talk about this.”
The nurse led me into the office. The doctor’s desk had pictures of his darling and innocent children. I thought they probably wouldn’t be the type to screw up like I had. The nurse went to the waiting room to get Dad. He walked in, looking at the floor, and settled in the chair. I could see the last bit of hope lingering on his face.
Dr. Keller came in, shook Dad’s hand, and said, “Hi, John. It’s good to see you. I wish it was under better circumstances.”
“Yeah, me too, Doc. What did you find out?”
Dr. Keller walked around the desk and sat behind it.
“John, I’ve examined your daughter. She is definitely pregnant and well along. I don’t think it would be a good idea for her to have an abortion.”
“Come on, Doc. If you can’t do it is there someone else who can?”
“Oh, no, John. That’s not the point. She measures twenty centimeters, which means she is over five months along. It would be too dangerous for her. If she was under twelve weeks, it might be a different story, but at this point it would be very unwise.” They were talking about me like I wasn’t even there, which was fine with me. I wanted to pretend that too.
With the doctor’s words, a quiet sigh released the knot in my gut. I knew I was too far gone. I couldn’t bear an abortion after feeling the baby kick and move inside my belly. And yet I knew that I would have done whatever my father said. I felt like I forfeited my rights about the time I missed my first period. Dr. Keller was a good man and Dad trusted him.
“Well, what the hell do we do now?” Dad asked.
“Well, John, she’ll just have to go ahead and have the baby.”
“Holy Christ, that’s a helluva note.”
“John, there are homes for unwed mothers that might be able to take her. She could go away, have the baby, give it up for adoption, and then come home when it’s all over. Nobody has to know anything about it.”
“Where are these places? I never thought I’d be sending my child to a place like that.”
“If you’d like, I can do some checking on it and get back to you. There are several homes in Illinois and Wisconsin.”
“I’d appreciate your help on this, Doctor. Give me a call when you find something out.”
Dad was deep in thought with one hand on the wheel and a scowl on his face. After we turned onto the expressway, Dad cleared his throat and said, “You know, Judy, if you’d come to us sooner we would’ve had some options.”
“I was too scared to tell anyone.”
“That was a mistake.”
That was that. I regretted that I didn’t tell Dad sooner. He would have helped me take care of this situation, but I kept holding out and praying that I would miscarry on my own. We drove the rest of the way in a crushing silence. I couldn’t wait to get home and get out of the car. But yet, I was feeling relieved that the doctor visit was over and my secret was out. I was not going to have an abortion, and I was done keeping the lie for now.
My relief was short-lived as my mind took hold of a frightening thought.
What if my secret had slipped out and everyone at school now knew about me? How would I ever face my classmates? They’d be saying things like, “Did you hear about Judy Liautaud? She’s pregnant. Oh my gawd, I can’t believe it.” The gossip would spread like flies on road kill. I would go down as the slut of the class of ‘68.
The next day, Dad had a plan that would protect me from the disapproval
of my peers and the nuns at school. The plan would cover my ass and all the other asses that were related to me.
CHAPTER 22
GOOD-BYE, MICK
It stung my tender spot for Mick when Dad said, “If he was any kind of a man, he would be here.” Maybe Mick was lily-livered. Yet I could understand Mick’s reluctance to face my dad. If there was any way I could have skipped the Come-to-Jesus talk, I would have done it, too. With Dad’s plan to keep his parents out of it, Mick could just stay hidden. I imagined him flirting with girls in his class, free as a bird as he flitted among the flock to find a new chick. Maybe he had one already. I imagined his parents thinking, “Ah, what a good boy we have, so responsible with his good grades,” when in reality he had gotten some girl pregnant and off she went into the abyss.
As I built resentment toward Mick, my allegiance switched to my parents. I was giddy and light that I had come clean and my dad was going to find some kind of solution for me. I had hurt them enough. I would do whatever they wanted now. For the first time in a long time, I felt like everything was going to be okay. I couldn’t wait to tell Mick he was off the hook. He would be happy about that.
That day at McDonald’s when I first told Mick I was pregnant, I somehow expected him to fix it for me. Instead, he was quiet about it and didn’t seem to want to talk about where we would go from there. At no point did he ever say, “Hey, we have to talk to someone about this. We have to figure this out.” Instead, we just let it sit there for five months like a festering wound right between us.
Our last conversation was a sorry good-bye …
I went up to my bedroom, closed the door, lay down on my bed, and called Mick.
“Guess what?” I said. “I finally told my parents about the whole thing. I’m so relieved.”
“Already? What happened?” he asked.
“My dad freaked out. He wanted me to have an abortion, but the doc said I was too far along.”
“So will you have the baby then?”
“Yeah, there isn’t much else I can do.”
Sunlight on My Shadow Page 10
