Not My Daughter

by Barbara Delinsky

  "No. That's the problem," Susan said and told her about Phil. She hadn't even finished before Sunny was shaking her head.

  "Uh-uh. I refuse. This is too humiliating. It'd be one thing if Jessica was in love with someone, like Mary Kate is. She could get married and be part of an adorable young couple who, by the way, is having a baby, but that's not the case at all. Jessica has no intention of getting married and every intention of keeping this baby. I'm so angry with her, I don't know what to do."

  "I'm angry at Lily--"

  "Not like this. Trust me. I don't want my daughter around, and she knows it. Why do you think she's been at your house so much?"

  Susan realized it was true. "I know, but this doesn't solve the problem," she argued. "We need help."

  "I can't go public."

  "Not public. Just Phil."

  "Phil is public," Sunny cried in a frantic whisper, gripping the laces that framed her V-neck. "You can't imagine how I feel. I swear, this is in the genes. Jessica called my mother last night--my mother, the queen of quirky--and she's just fine with her teenage granddaughter being pregnant, or so Jessica says. I have to take her word for it, because I am not about to discuss this with my mother."

  "It is not your fault."

  "Dan blames me."

  "That's because he needs to blame someone, but he's wrong."

  "Is he?" Sunny asked. Her V-neck was narrowing as she clenched the laces. "He says I never confronted the issue of my mother head-on, and maybe he's right. I've talked to Jessica until I was blue in the face about the right and wrong way of doing things, but did I ever come out and say my mother is a misfit? Did I ever call her unbalanced or selfish or ... or evil? Well, she isn't evil, just totally outrageous--but no, I don't call my mother names in front of the kids, because a good person doesn't do that. Oh, and Dan blames you and Kate for not controlling your daughters, because Jessica would never have done this alone."

  Susan felt the same qualm she had earlier with Kate. These friends meant the world to her. With so much happening, she needed them on her side. "Going after each other won't help. Playing the blame game is destructive."

  "Tell that to Dan."

  "Is he going after Adam, too?"

  "No, because Jessica won't confirm that it was Adam, and Dan won't confront anyone on the outside yet. He wants to keep this as quiet as possible. In the meanwhile, he has me to upbraid."

  Susan loved Dan for enabling Sunny to create the structured life she needed, but he had strong opinions and was judgmental without ever raising his voice. "Speak up, Sunny. Tell him he's wrong."

  "Easier said than done." She continued to tug at her neckline. "You don't know what it's like to have a husband."

  Coming from a stranger, it might have been a slap in the face, but Susan knew Sunny wasn't criticizing her; she was simply complaining about Dan.

  Susan covered her friend's hand lest she choke herself. "He's being unfair."

  "He's my husband."

  It wasn't anything new. In all the years Susan had known her, Sunny had deferred to Dan on every major issue. There had been times, even during the creation of PC Wool, when he had been an uninvited presence, second-guessing every decision. Much as the others coached her, though--much as Sunny promised not to ask his permission when she wanted, say, to buy a new coat--she always fell back to the default.

  But Susan didn't have the strength to argue. "I just think we should get Phil on our side."

  "You're worried about your job," Sunny hissed, "but what about mine? What about Dan's? Fine for you to act in your own best interest, but what about ours? Your daughter may be making waves, but mine is barely seven weeks pregnant. I don't need to go public yet. It'll be another three months before anyone even guesses."

  "I thought the same thing about Lily, and look what happened," Susan pointed out. Yes, she was acting in her own best interest, but the line between what was best for her and what was best for her friends was fluid. She squeezed Sunny's hand to soften the words. "Who's to say Abby won't blab about Mary Kate and Jessica, too?"

  "You need to be talking to her, not to me."

  Not a bad idea, Susan realized. But the basic problem remained. "This month, next month, the month after--it doesn't matter, Sunny. You can put it off all you want, but sooner or later the story will break."

  "Later is better. At least the holidays will be over. Next week is Thanksgiving, for God's sake. If this comes out now, with us going to Albany to see Dan's family, it'll ruin everything."

  If it wasn't Thanksgiving, it would be Christmas. There would never be a good time for this, Susan knew. But she could wait a week.

  News of Lily's pregnancy spread. Back in her office, Susan received a call from the middle school principal, who was ostensibly more curious than disapproving, though Susan imagined the latter was there. When she stopped at PC Beans for coffee on her way to a varsity football game, she felt other customers staring. And when she went to the supermarket on her way home, she knew the checkout clerk was darting her questioning looks.

  The following day, she and Kate were the only ones at the barn. Sunny was baking pies to take to her in-laws, and Pam was preparing for the Thanksgiving open house the Perrys hosted each year.

  They didn't dye yarn, didn't even play with colors. Neither of them had the heart for it. So they knitted. Susan's work in progress was a T-shirt for Lily, Kate's a set of cotton place mats. They admired each other's work and talked about the menu for their own Thanksgiving at Kate's, the rise in postal rates, the weather. Neither of them mentioned that Lily's T-shirt wouldn't fit her for long, or that the place mats might not hold up well spattered with baby food.

  On Sunday, Susan worked on her budget, with papers spread over the kitchen table beside her laptop and a calculator nearby. She wrote up several teacher evaluations that she had neglected earlier that week. She composed her Monday bulletin, giving a plug for the concert at school Tuesday night, a reminder of the food bank drive that would start after Thanksgiving, and a get-well wish for the school librarian's husband.

  Lily's singing group, the Zaganotes, usually practiced Sunday afternoons. With the Thanksgiving concert imminent, the practice today started earlier and ended later. Normally, Susan would have hated the silence of the house and would have either met a friend for coffee or asked someone over.

  This week she stayed home. The house was dead quiet and too lonesome for comfort, but she didn't have the strength to go out. She told herself she was tired and, once she had finished her work, burrowed into the den sofa with the Sunday paper. But she couldn't focus on news. The silence of the house was too loud. So she picked up her knitting--not the T-shirt for Lily, but a pair of socks for herself. When she had a split-second thought that she ought to be knitting baby booties, she ignored it.

  The problem was, her life seemed to be made up of split seconds now--a split second imagining Lily having sex, a split second hearing the gossips in town spreading the word, a split second wondering what her parents would think--all horrendous thoughts, none of which she could bear to dwell on. Put all those split seconds together, though, and she wasn't thinking about much else.

  Except Lily. Always Lily. She missed their closeness, missed the way they could finish each other's sentences, the way they could watch a movie they both loved, the way they could knit together in silence and feel totally at peace.

  Lily had ruined all that, which made Susan angry. A good mother loved her daughter no matter what.

  She did love Lily. She just didn't like her very much right then, and that upset her even more.

  By Monday, she was receiving calls from random friends, from a parent of one of her students who had graduated the year before, even from a woman who had worked at PC KidsCare when Lily was first enrolled. As she had done Friday afternoon, Susan imagined each caller hanging up and instantly calling five friends.

  Rather than go to the gym after work, Susan went straight home. She had a quiet dinner with Lily. It lasted all of
ten minutes. Afterward, she knitted. She had botched shaping her sock's heel gusset the day before, so she ripped out what she'd done and tried again. She had to do it three times before she was finally pleased, but she welcomed the forced concentration.

  Still, she heard the shower go on and off, heard Lily come down for a drink, heard the phone ring. Normally, she would have stopped by Lily's room two or three times before going to bed, but she didn't this night. Nor did Lily come in to see her.

  Not that Susan could blame her. Lily clearly felt Susan's disapproval. Having been in her shoes, Susan knew how that was. When she had been pregnant, she had consciously avoided confrontations with her parents.

  History was repeating itself.

  On Tuesday, Lily made the final cut for the varsity volleyball team. Ebullient, she ran to Susan's office with the news. She saw this as a personal vindication, a See, I can do this! moment.

  Susan tried to be happy for her, but all the while, part of her was thinking that the coach had no business taking on a pregnant player, that it was sending the wrong message to other students, that Lily had no right to have her cake and eat it, too.

  Later that afternoon, when Lily dashed into the house barely twenty minutes before being picked up for the concert, and declined to eat any of the dinner Susan had made, Susan reminded her that her baby needed to eat even if she did not. Moments later, feeling guilty for the sharpness of her tone, she went scrambling to find the black sweater Lily wanted to wear and was in a tizzy trying to find.

  After Lily raced out the door, Susan felt abandoned. She sat down to have some of the chicken pot pie that she and Lily both liked, but eating it alone killed her appetite.

  Leaving the table, she opened her laptop on the kitchen counter. E-mail was backing up, including a new one from Phil about the budget she had just submitted. She had to address his queries, had to answer urgent parent questions, had to write college recommendations for three students she had taught as freshmen and with whom she remained close. As she stared at the screen, a note arrived from the woman heading the auction that was held every February to raise money for class trips. She was reminding Susan that copy was due for the PC Wool contribution she had offered, which got Susan to thinking that the past few Saturdays had been a bust workwise, that they hadn't begun testing spring colors, much less produced something to photograph for Pam. She wondered if Pam was going to want to go ahead at all once she learned the whole truth--which got Susan into a snit, because she loved PC Wool and couldn't bear the thought that it might be at risk because Lily had decided she needed to have a baby.

  Beside herself with dismay, Susan strode into the den, snatched up her knitting, and settled cross-legged on the sofa, but she didn't have the wherewithal to focus on finishing the heel. She needed straight, simple stockinette stitches. Tossing the sock aside, she stomped back into the kitchen, pulled the T-shirt from her knitting bag, and, for a minute, standing there at the table set for a dinner that wasn't to be, she knit feverishly. She was thinking that she was doing a lousy job--lousy knitter, lousy principal, lousy mother--when a loud knock at the door interrupted her.

  Startled, she jumped up, dropping a handful of stitches, and, tossing the knitting aside in disgust, went to answer the door.

  Chapter 8

  Rick McKay had always affected Susan. True to form, her heart began to race when she saw him on the other side of the glass. The cause of it this time, though, wasn't excitement but fury. She continued to glare as he turned the handle and let himself in, his handsome face lit by a smile.

  "Hey," he said. His eyes never left her face, nor did his smile falter as he leaned against the door to close it. He was clearly delighted to see her, which infuriated Susan all the more.

  "If you're looking for your daughter, she just left. She breezed through here with no interest in eating the dinner I took the effort to make--though she did wail for help, child that she is, when she couldn't find the sweater she wanted to wear. It's like nothing has changed! She just made the volleyball team, though I can't imagine she'll be able to play the late games in March, but she's barreling ahead as if everything's okay. Only it isn't. She doesn't seem to see any consequences. But I'm feeling them already. People are talking--and they don't even know about the other two"--she waved the thought away--"I can't begin to go there yet. My boss is furious even without it--at me, not at Lily, at me. What did I do wrong, except raise her the best way I know how?" Eyes tearing, she crossed her arms. "Why are you smiling? This is serious, Rick."

  "Boy, have I missed you," he said in that rich voice of his.

  "That is irrelevant!" she cried, fighting panic. "We're in a crisis here, only my daughter--your daughter--doesn't seem to understand that. Three girls pregnant? Every time I think about it, I start to shake. If she wanted to rebel, couldn't she have dyed her hair pink, or pierced her navel, or gotten a tattoo?"

  "She says it isn't rebellion."

  "No," Susan allowed, "not rebellion. She wants a family. So how does that make me feel? I've worked my tail off to be her family. If she was that desperate for a bigger one, she should have told me. I could have adopted a baby. I could have gone to a sperm bank."

  "You could have asked me."

  "Rick, this isn't funny. She's pregnant, refuses to identify the guy, and doesn't have a clue what her future will be like."

  "Would it help if she did?" he asked in a tone so reasonable that Susan's anger ebbed.

  "Maybe not." She sighed. "She knows I'll always be there."

  "Because you're a good mother."

  "I'm a lousy mother," Susan cried, quickly restoked. "I'm behaving badly, and I can't seem to help it. I resent her confidence. I resent her cavalier attitude. I'm even feeling jealous--jealous--because she's going through the same thing I did, only she'll have it easier. I've struggled to get us to this place. People respect me, Rick. I've worked so hard to redeem myself for doing what everyone in my life said was irresponsible, and I actually thought I'd made it. Now Lily has taken that away. Negated everything. I feel betrayed. By a seventeen-year-old."

  "She's not just any seventeen-year-old."

  "No. So maybe some of my anger is justified--but I'm doing exactly what my mother did, everything I swore I would never do, and that's sick."

  His expression softened. Saying nothing, he reached out and brought her close. And, of course, she was lost. He had that power--could clear her mind of rational thought with a touch--not that she was complaining. This was the first respite from worry that she'd had in two weeks. However briefly, her problems were shared.

  She didn't know how long they stood there, but she didn't hurry to leave. Everything about Rick was familiar. For all the different places he'd been and people he'd met, he remained the same man--same warmth, same smell, same heartbeat. Her connection with him was as strong as ever.

  The slow breath he took as he held her said that he felt the same. Coming after her outburst, that meant a lot.

  Finally, raising her head, she managed a small smile. "You're here for Lily's concert."

  His eyes were on her mouth. "I wasn't sure I'd be able to make it. My dad's expecting me for Thanksgiving, so I came in across the Pacific, but I kept thinking that Lily and I needed to talk in person. She won't tell me much on the phone. So I touched down in LA and took right off again. I've been traveling for thirty-six hours. Missed every connection possible."

  Susan knew Rick. He was a seasoned traveler who could catnap anywhere. But, yes, his eyes were tired. "You need sleep."

  "I need a shower more." He glanced at his watch. "How much time before the concert?"

  "Thirty minutes."

  "Plenty. First a shower." He shot a covetous look at the chicken pot pie that sat on top of the stove. "Is that what she didn't want to eat?"

  "It is."

  "I do. Can I?"

  Susan and Rick arrived at the high school with minutes to spare. With five different groups performing, the auditorium was packed, so they stood at
the rear wall. Rick kept ducking back into the lobby until the very last minute, hoping to catch sight of Lily, but none of the singers appeared.

  Susan searched the rows of seats for Mary Kate and Jess but didn't see them. She couldn't imagine they wouldn't be there to support Lily--unless they were simply keeping a low profile, which she could totally understand. Hadn't she been content to arrive at the auditorium at the last minute and not have to mingle with parents herself?

  The house lights dimmed, and the concert began with performances by the string quartet and the jazz band, before, finally, the Zaganotes ran down the side aisles and onto the stage singing their trademark "Feelin' Groovy." There were a dozen willowy girls, each with long hair swaying, fingers snapping, their smiles vibrant against black turtlenecks.

  Lily wasn't among them.

  "Where is she?" Rick whispered.

  "I have no idea," Susan whispered back. She took out her phone, but there were no messages. She glanced back at the door, but there were no girls waiting to join the others onstage--and besides, the Zaganotes had a dozen singers, and a dozen were already there. Susan knew who was in the group and who wasn't. One of the girls onstage, Claire DuMont, was new.

  "Think Lily got sick?" Rick whispered.

  "She'd have called," Susan whispered back.

  "What if she couldn't, if it was something serious?" He was thinking about the baby, Susan knew.

  "One of the other girls would have come to get me."

  The group sang Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time," then a spectacular arrangement of Seal's "Kiss from a Rose," but Susan's eyes were on her phone. WHERE R U, she texted and waited nervously. When Lily didn't text back, she slipped out of the auditorium and tried phoning, but the voice that came on was the bright, recorded one saying, "Not here, say where." Rick was beside her, looking as worried as she was, when the phone rang.