The Prodigal's Return

by Anna DeStefano

  “THEY DID AN ULTRASOUND this week when I went in for my first prenatal visit,” Traci said as she poured gravy over her mother’s mashed potatoes—instant mashed potatoes that Traci had made herself. But Jenn had beamed proudly as if the teenager made them all by herself.

  The Carpenters had actually agreed to dinner at the Cain house. Jenn was still having trouble believing it. Well, Betty had agreed after answering the door yesterday to Traci’s I won’t take no for an answer invitation. Bob had come along for the ride, but that didn’t mean the man wanted to be there. But he was there, and Traci finally had her chance to talk with her parents one-on-one, without any outside interference.

  Nathan had eaten earlier in the den with Mandy. He was falling asleep in front of one Mandy’s favorite videos now, and Neal was out for another run. Jenn caught herself checking her watch and wondering when he would be back. The house felt different without him there. Everything felt different, and he was gone more and more often every day.

  Knock it off.

  Focus on the awkward chitchat.

  Chitchat that had just veered into dangerous territory.

  Traci had wanted her parents to make the first move. She wasn’t going to force them to talk about her pregnancy. But after twenty minutes of strained silence, the girl had cracked.

  “Is…” Betty’s forkful of butter beans returned to her plate. She glanced at her husband, and then to Jenn, of all people. Anyone but Traci. “Is everything okay with the baby?”

  “Everything’s fine.” Traci cast Jenn a frustrated glance. Jenn gave extra attention to cutting in to her overcooked baked chicken. “In fact, everything’s great. They’ve given me a delivery date. The baby’s due late in August.”

  Jenn watched the Carpenters’ reaction from under her lashes, continuing to eat as if this were normal dinner table conversation between a close-knit family. Traci had asked her to stay for moral support, otherwise she’d have joined Nathan for the Disney double-feature in the den.

  “That’s…” Betty glanced to her husband. “You’re birthday’s in August, Bob.”

  “Cool, huh?” Traci pounced on her mother’s feeble show of interest. She seemed to be intentionally not noticing the way her father hadn’t eaten a bite the entire meal. The way his hands were now clenched on either side of his plate. “You’re going to have the same sign, Dad.”

  “Cool?” Bob’s face turned a nasty shade of red. “Astrological signs? You’re having a baby you have no idea how to take care of, and the best you can come up with is, cool?”

  “No.” Traci swallowed a lump of mashed potatoes. Her wobbly but brave smile met her dad’s glare. “The best is that I’m healthy, and so is the baby. I may not know everything I need to yet, but I know I’m going to finish high school, with honors, even if you don’t get to throw the world’s most perfect graduation party because you’ll be too ashamed of your knocked-up daughter to celebrate. And I talked to the school counselor this week about junior colleges. Jenn’s helping me learn to cook, and to do laundry, so I can be a good mom, and—”

  “Junior college?” Bob dropped his napkin on top of the untouched plate of food Traci had worked hours to prepare. “You wanted to be a journalist last time I checked. Ivy League with your friends was all you’d talk about. How do you propose to get the degree and experience you’ll need while you’re going to some nowhere college and trying to support a baby on your own?”

  “I won’t be alone,” the teenager countered, reassuring herself while she pushed her dad over the edge. “I’ll find the help I need from…from somewhere.”

  Bob Carpenter pushed back from the table with a shriek of chair legs against hardwood. “What are you going to do for child care, Traci? For money to buy the food you’re learning how to cook, or buy the clothes you’re suddenly so interested in knowing how to clean? Up till now, your idea of sorting laundry has been tossing your designer duds on the floor and pulling the tags off something from your bottomless closet. A couple of days of home ec with Jenn, and now you’re ready to be a mom? Have this baby on your own, and you’ll never make it.”

  Every ugly word came from a place of worry and concern for his daughter. Jenn could see that from his haggard expression and the lines of fatigue bracketing his frown. She doubted the man had slept a night since Traci moved out. But every word had been absolutely the wrong thing to say.

  “Actually—” Jenn covered Traci’s hand, trying to put as much support as possible into the squeeze she gave the girl’s fingers “—Traci’s a fast study. I don’t think there’s anything she can’t learn, once she sets her mind to it. She couldn’t even boil water a couple of days ago, but she pulled tonight’s dinner together herself. All I did was chop a few things here and there and supervise.”

  Bob scanned the table full of food. All of his favorites. Traci had made sure of it.

  Betty gave his arm a tentative pat. “Isn’t it wonderful? Everything’s so delicious. I don’t think I could have done better.”

  “Jenn’s signed me up for parenting and baby-care classes at the clinic in Colter.” Traci sat straighter, calm and determined now, where just a week ago she would have chosen rebellion to beat back at her father. “I have a lot to learn. But I can do this. I know that now. I want this baby to have the best I can give—”

  “You don’t have anything to give it! You’re only seventeen. This is your doing.” Bob glowered at Jenn. “You just don’t know when to quit.”

  “I—” Jenn began.

  “Jenn’s encouraged me to move home all along, Daddy. I’m still here in spite of her advice, not because of it. And even though she doesn’t always agree with me, she’s supporting me instead of telling me what I can’t do. So are Reverend Gardner and Mr. Cain. You should be thanking them, not pointing fingers.”

  “Thanking them?” Bob looked ready to scream. “You’re my child not theirs, and—”

  “I’m not a child anymore!” Traci shouted back.

  “Bob—” Betty’s hand clenched on her husband’s arm.

  “No.” He pushed out of his chair. “I’m not going to sit here while my daughter tells me I should be thanking the people pandering to her irresponsible fantasies.”

  “Trust me, Daddy. I’m not living a fantasy!” Traci shot up from her seat, too. “I’ve been puking into a toilet every morning. I’ve lost my friends, my family. And by the fall, I’m going to have another life depending on me. Me, Dad! I’m about as responsible as I can get. So don’t worry. I get it. I’ve totally messed up. And if it weren’t for Jenn I don’t know where I’d be right now, but you can bet it sure wouldn’t be here in Rivermist. So maybe you should be angry with her. It’s her fault I’m not out of your hair and off messing up somewhere else where you don’t have to watch.”

  “We don’t want you anywhere else.” Betty reached for her daughter, as if desperate to hold on, in case the teen ran that very second. “We want you to come home.”

  “No.” Traci moved away. “I can’t. Not if going home means spending the rest of my pregnancy being told day after day that this baby is a mistake. That I should be ashamed, and be sorry, and that I can’t do this. My child’s future depends on me, and I’ll never make it if all I hear is how young and weak and stupid I am. Here with Jenn, or somewhere else where there are centers where girls like me can start over, at least I’ll have people who support me. Total strangers who’ll at least lie to me and tell me I can do this, so I don’t just curl up in a corner somewhere and quit.”

  “Honey, we want to support you.” Betty’s eyes filled with tears. She turned to her husband. “Tell her, Bob. Tell her we want her to stay in Rivermist, to come home. That we’ll do whatever it takes to make this work.”

  “Of course we don’t want you to leave.” Bob’s chin wobbled.

  The first encouraging sign Jenn had seen.

  She peeked in Traci’s direction to find the teenager blinking valiantly at her own tears.

  “But you don’t want me home
, do you? Not me.” A single tear fell. Traci wiped it away. “You want your little girl back. Your perfect high school graduate with a college scholarship and a prom to plan. You don’t want me, messed-up and making you crazy. I want things you don’t want. Things you don’t approve of, and you can’t deal with that.”

  “We want you safe.” Bob cleared his throat. “We want your baby safe. We’ll do whatever we have to do to make that happen.”

  Traci cocked her head to the side, pondering her father’s pseudoconcession. Jenn held her breath. Reached for the faith her father had once helped her believe could breathe life into unsteady hope, until it was strong enough to fly on its own.

  She wanted this so much for Traci. For Traci, she reminded herself. This family’s success and failure had nothing to do with Jenn or whatever happiness she managed to find in her life.

  Her father was right. So was her boss back in North Carolina. She became too attached to the lives of the people she helped. Identified too much with their ups and downs, rather than riding her own roller-coaster. She wasn’t going to do that this time. Not to Traci.

  “This isn’t just my baby, Daddy.” The teenager covered her still-flat tummy and smiled. “This is my child. Your grandchild. Being safe isn’t enough. I want this baby to be loved.”

  “Traci,” Betty said. “We love you. Please, come home.”

  But Traci wouldn’t look away from her father. A man who couldn’t seem to say another word. Shaking her head, she grabbed her plate and silverware and headed for the kitchen. When Betty stood to follow, Jenn reached for the woman’s arm.

  “Give her some time, Mrs. Carpenter.”

  “Don’t tell us what to do with our child.” Bob pulled his wife against his side. “This entire situation never would have happened if you’d done your job and let us do ours.”

  “You know—” Jenn picked up the bowls of potatoes and beans “—your first step might be to stop blaming your daughter, and me, and whoever else is convenient at the time for what’s happened. All blame accomplishes is pushing people away. Traci made a mistake. She accepts that. Why can’t you?”

  “We have accepted it.” His eyes hardened. “We’ve asked her to move home. But it seems you’ve still won, haven’t you? She’d rather be here than with us.”

  “This has nothing to do with me.” Jenn worked hard to believe that.

  The girl’s family situation was so much like the one she had lost, it wasn’t easy. The realization that Traci was stronger than Jenn had been at her age, that the girl had the grit to keep reaching for the kind of happiness Jenn had finally stopped believing in all together, made it even harder.

  “The only people who are going to lose if you can’t accept your daughter the way she is,” she continued, “are you and your wife. I have no doubt that Traci’s going to come out of this just fine. She’s an amazing young woman, and she and her baby are going to have an amazing life not only full of hard work and obstacles, but full of joy and hope, too. You can either be a part of that, or not.”

  She headed for the kitchen before she said anything else. Before more of what she wanted, what she’d never had, touched this situation that wasn’t about her at all. The room was empty, the back door ajar. Through the window above the sink, Jenn caught a flash of Traci’s sweatshirt—the girl was standing beside Jenn’s car.

  Her shoulders shook with emotion as Jenn approached. From around front came the slam of car doors shutting. An engine firing. Traci flinched as she listened to her parents driving away.

  “They’re never going to forget what I said in there,” she cried. “I can’t believe I talked to my dad like that.”

  “Never is a long time, sweetie. You were sure Brett would never talk to you again.” Jenn hugged her, rocking slowly as she did when she was soothing Mandy. “Didn’t you say he offered to help you if you needed it?”

  “That’s different.” She shrugged off Jenn’s embrace. “That…that’s friendship. My parents are all about control. What I think. What I feel. What I do. They’re never going to change. They think this baby is something to be ashamed of, because they’re ashamed of me. It’s their grandchild, and they can’t be happy about it. This is never going to work! I might as well…I…I need to get out of here.”

  Jenn stilled at the teen’s words. Get out of the house for a while, or out of town? She couldn’t let that happen! She wouldn’t accept another—

  Accept?

  She closed her eyes against the echoes of her own past. Traci’s choices weren’t hers to accept or change. This wasn’t about her life, her happiness. No matter how much she wanted to go back and find a way to keep believing in the future, the way Traci had up until this moment. The way Jenn had to believe the teenager still would once she had a chance to calm down.

  Help the girl, Jenn. Focus on the girl!

  Focusing on someone else. Jenn’s specialty.

  “Go ahead,” she said, digging her keys from her jeans pocket. “Take my car if you need to go for a drive. While you’re gone, I’ll…” Get my head out of my ass and get my priorities straight? “I’ll take care of the dishes.”

  Jenn watched the teen drive slowly away, her heart breaking at the sight of Traci’s tears. The girl still had a chance, a chance she’d given herself by staying in Rivermist through all this confusion instead of running. A chance that circumstances and loss and too much grief had stolen from Jenn. Traci would find another way. Jenn had to believe that.

  She walked back toward the broken-down house that had become a home again. Thought of the men who lived there together now, even if only temporarily. Thought of all the reasons she’d returned to Rivermist and stayed—for Mandy, for her father, and then for Nathan and Traci. Her hope had been that they would all find their way before it was too late.

  God, please don’t let it be too late, she pleaded.

  But for the first time she wasn’t thinking of the other lives she’d spent so much time and energy helping. As she sat at the picnic table where Neal had kissed her for the second time since coming home—coming home to both his father and her—she realized she was pleading for herself.

  Neal wanted to love her. To find a way to be happy again…with her.

  Lord, how she wanted that, too. Only she was too scared to even try.

  The people she cared so much about were responsible for their own happiness. Her training told her that. But them having their happiness to find meant leaving her to search for her own.

  Watching Traci fight for her and her child’s future left Jenn shaken. Maybe even made her a little jealous.

  What about her life? The happiness she’d never stopped to fight for, because there’d always been something else, someone else, that needed every scrap of energy she had. And because she’d known she’d never survive losing anything she wanted as badly as love again.

  Nathan had Neal again. Mandy had her grandfather and her new start in Rivermist. And Traci had her baby and the confidence to make her way, even if her parents didn’t wise up and decide they needed to be part of it all.

  What about me? Jenn asked herself.

  What did she want? And did she have to guts to actually let herself reach for it, believing she could survive if it all went to hell again?

  God, please don’t let it be too late.

  TRACI PULLED INTO the same gas station parking lot she’d first called Jenn from. She was crying so hard, she couldn’t see to drive.

  The last time she’d been there Jenn had promised that they’d make this work. That it was going to be okay somehow and that Traci wasn’t alone. And she hadn’t been, not for a second since she’d turned to the woman for help. Even when she’d packed her bags with every intention of heading for the bus station.

  First Jenn and her father, and then Mr. Cain. She’d had adults around her every step of the way, making sure she was okay. Even having Mandy around had been great—as Traci had watched a living, breathing reason why going through with the abortion she’d wan
ted was never going to happen.

  So how did she end up back here at this crummy gas station, feeling so totally alone?

  Jenn was trying to make things sound so optimistic still, but even she had looked defeated back at the house. And if Jenn Gardner couldn’t find a reason to keep believing, what the hell was the point?

  Her friends were gone. Her parents would never accept her child. Even the one boy who’d loved her must have been relieved to get their “talk” out of the way yesterday, so he could get on with avoiding her like everyone else.

  It was just her and her baby, and nothing Jenn said was going to make that sound any less lonely. She had years of getting used to lonely ahead of her, whether she was ready for it or not. Her dad didn’t even think she could make it through junior college now, and maybe he was right. How the hell was she going to make college work on her own? Forget the school counselor’s pep talk that she could do it. She couldn’t look to the so-called friends or the guys who’d once swarmed around her for help—not the father of her baby, that’s for sure. And she couldn’t count on her parents, unless she went back to pretending to be exactly what they wanted her to be.

  All she had was Jenn, who had a daughter of her own to worry about.

  Traci had nothing.

  Panic welled up along with the tears. Her dad was right! What kind of mother had a baby when she had nothing? Jenn had done it, but Traci wasn’t that strong. She hadn’t even been strong enough to stay and finish things with her parents. To see through a loser guy who refused to protect her with condoms and then had slapped her in the face instead of taking care of the new life he’d helped create.

  Wiping at the trail of wetness running down her cheek, she pulled away from the gas station. Approaching one of the two stoplights in town, she slowed as the noise in her head increased, chanting loser and I told you so until she wanted to scream.

  Night was closing in around her, and so was the future she’d been so sure she was ready for just a few months ago. Sure enough to ignore everything her parents had tried to teach her, throwing away her chance at the carefree tomorrow she’d never dreamed she could lose.