“I … no … I … gee, Mom … I don't know … I didn't …well … oh God …,” he agonized as he ran a hand through his hair and looked panicked. “I can explain. It's not what it looks like.”
“She's just fat?” his father asked hopefully, and Tommy looked rueful.
“Not exactly.”
“Oh my God,” his mother whispered.
“You'd better sit down,” John said to him, and Tommy sank into a chair, as Liz continued to stand and stare at him in horror.
“I can't believe this,” she said, in anguished tones. “She's pregnant …Tommy, what have you been doing?”
“I haven't been doing anything. We're just friends.
I … all right …we're more than that …but … oh Mom …you'd like her.”
Oh my God' his mother said again, and this time she sat down. “Who is she? And how did this happen?”
“The usual way, I guess,” Tommy added, looking bleak. “Her name is Maribeth. I met her this summer.”
“Why didn't you tell us?” But how could he tell them anything? They never talked to him anymore, or each other. Their family life had ended when Annie died, now they just drifted, like flotsam on a lonely ocean. “How pregnant is she?” his mother asked, as though that would make a difference.
“Six and a half months,” he said calmly. Maybe it was better that they knew after all. He had wanted to ask his mother to help her for a long time, and he had always thought she would like her. But now Liz looked even more horrified.
“Six and a half months? When did this start?” She tried desperately to count backwards, and was too upset to do it.
“When did what start?” Tommy looked confused. “I told you, I met her this summer. She only moved here in June. She works at a restaurant I go to.”
“When do you go to a restaurant?” His father looked even more confused than his mother.
“Lots of times. Mom never cooks anymore. She hasn't in months. I use some of my paper money to pay for dinner.”
“That's nice,” his father said tartly, glaring at his wife reproachfully, and then at his son again, in confusion. “How old is this girl?”
“Sixteen.”
“I don't understand,” his mother interrupted. “She moved here in June, and she's six and a half months pregnant …that means she got pregnant in March, or somewhere around then. You got her pregnant somewhere else, and she moved here? Where were you?” He hadn't gone anywhere that they knew of. But they also didn't know that he frequently went out to dinner, nor that he had a pregnant girlfriend. Six and a half months made the baby imminent. Liz trembled as she thought of it. What were they thinking of, and why hadn't he told them? But as she thought about it, she began to understand. They had all been so distant and so lost since Annie died, particularly she and John, no wonder Tommy had gotten himself into trouble. No one had been paying attention.
But Tommy had finally understood the nature of their questions. “I didn't get her pregnant, Mom. She got pregnant back home, in Onawa, and her father made her leave until after the baby. She went to live in a convent and she couldn't stand it, so she came here in June. And that's when I met her.”
“And you've been going out with her all this time? Why didn't you tell us?”
“I don't know,” he sighed, “I wanted to, because I really thought you'd like her, but I was afraid you wouldn't approve. She's wonderful, and she's all alone. She doesn't have anyone to help her.”
“Except you' His mother looked pained, but his father was relieved. “Which reminds me,” Liz asked as she began to unravel the story, “have you been taking her to Dr. MacLean?”
Tommy looked startled by her question. “Why? Did he say anything?” He shouldn't have, he had promised he wouldn't, but his mother shook her head as she watched him.
“He didn't really say anything. He just said what a nice boy you were, and I couldn't figure out how he remembered. It's been six years …and then one of the teachers saw you with her last week, and said she looked extremely pregnant.” She looked up at her sixteen-year-old son then, wondering if he intended to marry the girl, out of real emotion for her, or even just to be gallant. “What's she going to do with the baby?”
“She's not sure. She doesn't think she can take care of it. She wants to put it up for adoption. She thinks it's kinder to do that, for the baby's sake. She has this theory,” he wanted to explain it all to her at once, to make them love her as much as he did, “that some people pass through other people's lives just for a short time, like Annie, to bring a blessing or a gift of some kind …she feels that way about this baby, as though she's here to bring it into the world, but not to be in its life forever. She feels very strongly about it.”
“That's a very big decision for a young girl to make,” Liz said quietly, sorry for her, but worried about Tommy's obvious infatuation. “Where's her family?”
“They won't speak to her or let her come home until after she gives up the baby. Her father sounds like a real jerk, and her mother is scared of him. She's really on her own.”
“Except for you,” Liz said sadly. It was a terrible burden for him to bear, but John wasn't nearly as worried now that he knew it wasn't his baby.
“I'd like you to meet her, Mom.” She hesitated for a long time, not sure if she wanted to dignify the relationship by meeting her, or simply forbid him to see her. But that didn't seem fair to him, and she glanced silently at her husband. John shrugged, showing that he had no objection.
“Maybe we should.” In a funny way, she felt that they owed it to Tommy. If he thought so much of this girl, maybe she was worth meeting.
“She's desperate to go to school. I've been working with her every night, lending her my books, and giving her copies of everything we've done. She's way ahead of me by now, and she does a lot more papers and independent reading.”
“Why isn't she in school?” his mother asked, looking disapproving.
“She has to work. She can't go back to school till she goes home, after the baby.”
“And then what?” His mother was pressing him, and even Tommy didn't have all the answers. “What about you? Is this serious?”
He hesitated, not wanting to tell her everything, but he knew he had to. “Yeah, Mom …it's serious. I love her.”
His father looked suddenly panicked at his answer. “You're not going to marry her, are you? Or keep the kid? Tommy, at sixteen, you don't know what you're doing. It would be bad enough if the baby was yours, but it isn't. You don't have to do that”
“I know I don't,” he said, looking like a man as he answered his father. “I love her. I would marry her if she would, and keep the baby, but she doesn't want to do either one. She wants to go back to school, and college if she can. She thinks she can still live at home, but I'm not sure she can. I don't think her father will ever let her get an education, from the sound of it. But she doesn't want to marry anyone until she's gotten an education. She's not trying to pressure me, Dad. If I married her, I'd have to force her to do it.”
“Well, don't,” his father said, opening a beer, and taking a sip. The very idea of Tommy getting married at sixteen unnerved him.
“Don't do anything you'll regret later, Tommy,” his mother said, trying to sound calmer than she felt. But after all she'd heard, her hands were shaking. “You're both very young. You'll ruin your lives if you make a mistake. She's already made one mistake, don't compound it with another.”
“That's what Maribeth says. That's why she wants to give the baby up. She says keeping it would be just one more mistake that everyone would pay for.
I think she's wrong, I think she'll be sorry one day that she gave it up, but she thinks it deserves a better life than she can give it.”
“She's probably right,” his mother said sadly, unable to believe that there was anything sadder in life than giving up a baby, except maybe losing one, especially a child you'd loved. But giving up a baby you'd carried for nine months sounded like a nightmare. “T
here are lots of wonderful people out there, anxious to adopt …people who can't have children of their own, and would be very good to a baby.”
“I know.” He looked suddenly very tired. It was one-thirty in the morning, and they had been sitting in the kitchen for an hour and a half, discussing Maribeth's problem. “I just think it sounds so sad. And what will she have?”
“A future. Maybe that's more important,” his mother said wisely. “She won't have a life, if she's dragging a baby around at sixteen, with no family to help her. And neither will you, if you marry her. That's not a life for two kids who haven't even finished high school.”
“Just meet her, Mom. Talk to her. I want you to get to know her, and maybe you can give her some stuff from school. She's already gone way past me and I don't know what to give her.”
“All right.” His parents looked worried as they exchanged a glance, but they both nodded agreement. “Bring her home next week. I'll cook dinner.” She made it sound like a major sacrifice. She hated cooking anymore, but she did it when she had to, and now she felt guiltier than ever about it, if it had driven her son to eating in restaurants, like an orphan. She tried to say something to him about that as they turned off the lights and walked down the hall. “I'm sorry I … I'm sorry I haven't been there very much for you' she said, as tears filled her eyes, and she stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “I love you … I guess I've been kind of lost myself for the past ten months.”
“Don't worry about it, Mom,” he said gently, “I'm fine.” And he was now, thanks to Maribeth. She had helped him even more than he had helped her. They had brought each other a great deal of comfort.
Tommy went to his room, and in their own room Liz looked at John and sat down heavily on their bed, looking shattered.
“I can't believe what I just heard. You know, he'd marry the girl, if we let him.”
“He'd be a damn fool if he did,” John said angrily. “She's probably a little slut if she got herself pregnant at sixteen, and she's selling him a bill of goods about wanting an education, and college.”
“I don't know what to think,” Liz said, as she looked up at him, “except that I think we've all gone pretty crazy in the past year. You've been drinking, I've been gone, lost somewhere in my own head, trying to forget what happened. Tommy's been eating in restaurants and having an affair with a pregnant girl he wants to marry. I'd say we're a fair-sized mess, wouldn't you?” she asked, looking stunned by everything she'd just heard, and feeling very guilty.
“Maybe that's what happens to people when the bottom falls out of their lives,” he said, sitting down on the bed next to her. It was the closest they'd been in a long time, and for the first time in a long time, Liz realized she didn't feel angry, just worried. “I thought I was going to die when …” John said softly, unable to finish his own sentence.
“So did I … I think I did,” she admitted. “I feel like I've been in a coma for the past year. I'm not even sure what happened.”
He put an arm around her then, and held her for a long time, and that night when they went to bed, he didn't say anything to her, or she to him, he just held her.
Chapter Seven
Tommy picked Maribeth up on her day off, and she had put on her best dress to go to his house and meet his parents. He had come to pick her up after football practice, and he was late, and he seemed more than a little nervous.
“You look really nice,” he said, looking at her, and then he bent down and kissed her. “Thank you, Maribeth.” He knew she really wanted to make an effort to meet his parents. She knew it was important to him, and she didn't want to embarrass him. it was bad enough that she was almost seven months pregnant. No one else in the world would have taken her to meet anyone, let alone their parents, except Tommy.
She was wearing a dark gray wool dress, with a little white collar and a black bow tie, that she had bought with her salary when she outgrew everything else she owned, and Tommy started taking her out for dinner on her days off from Jimmy's. And she had combed her bright red hair into a tight ponytail tied with a black velvet ribbon. She looked like a little kid hiding a big balloon under her skirt, and he smiled as he helped her into his dads truck. She looked so cute, and she hoped that the meeting with his parents would go smoothly. They had said very little to him after their long talk the week before, except that they wanted to meet her. And Maribeth was excruciatingly quiet on the drive over.
“Don't be nervous, okay?” he said, as they stopped in front of his house, and she admired how tidy it looked. It was freshly painted and there were neat flower beds outside. There were no flowers there at this time of year, but it was easy to see that the house was well cared for. “It's going to be fine,” he reassured her as he helped her down, and walked ahead of her into his house, holding her hand as he opened the door and saw his parents. They were waiting in the living room for them, and he saw his mother watch Maribeth as she quickly crossed the room to shake her hand, and then his father's.
Everyone was extremely circumspect and polite, and Liz invited her to sit down and then offered her tea or coffee. She had a Coke instead, and John chatted with her while Liz went to check on dinner.
She had made pot roast for them, and the potato pancakes Tommy loved, with creamed spinach.
Maribeth offered to help after a little while, and she wandered into the kitchen to join Tommy's mother. The two men glanced down the hall after her, and John touched Tommy's arm to stop him when he seemed about to follow her into the kitchen.
“Let her talk to your mom, Son. Let your mother get to know her. She seems like a nice girl,” he said fairly. “Pretty too. It's a shame this had to happen to her. What happened to the boy? Why didn't they get married?”
“He married someone else instead, and Maribeth didn't want to marry him, Dad. She said she didn't love him.”
“I'm not sure if that's smart of her, or very foolish. Marriage can be difficult enough sometimes, without marrying someone you don't care about. But it was brave of her to do that.” He lit his pipe and watched his son. Tommy had grown up a lot lately. “It doesn't seem fair that her parents won't see her until she has the baby,” John said, looking at his son carefully, wondering how much this girl meant to him, and he could see that she meant a great deal. His heart was bare for all to see, and his father's heart went out to him.
When Liz called them to dinner finally, she and Maribeth seemed to have become friends. Maribeth was helping put things on the table, and they were talking about a senior civics class Liz was teaching. When Maribeth said she wished she could take something like it, Liz said thoughtfully, “I suppose I could give you some of the material. Tommy said you've been trying to keep up with your school-work, by doing his with him. Would you like me to look over some of your papers?” Maribeth looked stunned by the offer.
“I'd love that,” she said gratefully, taking her place between the two men.
“Are you submitting anything to your old school, or just doing it for yourself?”
For myself mostly, but I was hoping they'd let me take some exams when I go back, to see if I could get credit for what I've been doing.”
“Why don't you let me look at it, maybe I could submit it to our school for some kind of equivalency here. Have you done all of Tommy's work?” Maribeth was quick to nod in answer, and Tommy spoke up on her behalf as he sat down between Maribeth and his mother.
“She's gone a lot further than I have, Mom. She's already finished my science book for the whole year, and European history, and she's done all of the optional papers.” Liz looked impressed and Maribeth promised to bring all her work by that weekend.
“I could give you some extra assignments actually,” Liz said, as she handed the pot roast to Maribeth. “All of my classes are for juniors and seniors.” They both looked excited as they continued to discuss it. And by the end of dinner, Liz and Maribeth had worked out an excellent plan to meet on Saturday afternoon for a few hours, and on Sunday Liz was going to give her hal
f a dozen special assignments. “You can work on them whenever you can, and bring them back when you have the chance. Tommy says you work a six-day week at the restaurant, and I know that can't be easy.” In fact Liz was surprised she still had the energy to work ten-hour shifts on her feet, waiting on tables. “How long will you be working, Maribeth?” She was embarrassed to ask about her pregnancy, but it was difficult to avoid it, her stomach was huge by then.
“I'll the end, I think. I can't really afford not to.” She needed the money her father had given her to pay for the delivery and Dr. MacLean, and she needed her salary to live on. She really couldn't afford to quit early. Just supporting herself after the baby for a week or two was going to be a challenge. Things were pretty tight for her, but fortunately she didn't need much. And since she wasn't keeping the baby, she hadn't bought anything for it, though the girls at the restaurant kept talking about giving her a shower. She tried to discourage them, because it just made it all the more poignant, but they had no idea she wasn't keeping her baby.
“That's going to be hard on you,” Liz said sympathetically, “working right up until the end. I did that when Tommy was born, and I thought I'd have him right in the classroom. I took a lot more time before Annie,” she said, and then there was sudden silence at the table. She looked up at Maribeth then, and the young girl met her eyes squarely. “I suppose Tommy has told you about his sister,” she said softly.
Maribeth nodded, and her eyes were filled with her love for him, and her sympathy for his parents. Annie was so real to her, she had heard so many stories, and dreamt of her so many times that she almost felt as though she knew her. “Yes, he did' Maribeth said softly, “she must have been a very special little girl.”
“She was,” Liz agreed, looking devastated, and then quietly, John reached his hand to her across the table. He just touched her fingers with his own, and Liz looked up in surprise. It was the first time he had ever done that. “I suppose all children are,” she went on, “yours will be too. Children are a wonderful blessing.” Maribeth didn't answer her, and Tommy glanced up at her, knowing the conflict she felt about the baby.
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