The Gift

by Danielle Steel

  They talked about Tommy's next football game then, and Maribeth wished silently that she could join them.

  They chatted for a long time, about Maribeth's hometown, her schooling, the time she had spent that summer at the lake with Tommy. They talked of many things, but not her relationship with their son, and not her baby. And at ten o'clock, Tommy finally drove her home, she kissed both his parents goodbye before she left, and once they were in the truck, she heaved a sigh of relief and lay back against the seat as though she was exhausted.

  “How was I? Did they hate me?” He looked touched that she would even ask, and leaned over to kiss her ever so gently.

  “You were wonderful, and they loved you. Why do you think my mother offered to help you with your work?” He was enormously relieved. His parents had been a lot more than polite, they were downright friendly. In fact, they had been very impressed with her, and as John helped Liz do the dishes once they'd left, he complimented Maribeth on her bright mind and good manners.

  “She's quite a girl, don't you think, Liz? It's such a damn shame she's gone and done this to herself.” He shook his head and dried a dish. It was the first dinner he'd enjoyed as much in months, and he was pleased that Liz had made the effort.

  “She didn't exactly do it to herself,” Liz said with a small smile. But she had to admit he was right. She was a lovely girl, and she said as much to Tommy when he came back half an hour later. He had walked Maribeth to her room, he kissed her and could see that she was really tired and her back had been aching. It was a long day for her, and in the past couple of days she had begun to feel uncomfortable and awkward.

  “I like your friend,” Liz said quietly as she put the last dish away. John had just lit a pipe, and nodded as Tommy came in, to indicate his agreement.

  “She liked you too. I think it's been really lonely for her, and she misses her parents and her little sister. They don't sound like much to me, but I guess she's used to them. Her father sounds like a real tyrant, and she says her mother never stands up to him, but I think it's really hard for her being cut off. Her mother has written to her a couple of times, but apparently her father won't even read her letters. And they won't let her communicate with her sister. Seems kind of dumb to me,” he said, looking annoyed, and his mother watched his eyes. It was easy to see how much he loved her, and he was anxious to protect her.

  “Families make foolish decisions sometimes,” his mother said, feeling sorry for her. “I would think this will hurt them for a long time, maybe forever.”

  “She says she wants to go back and finish school, and then move to Chicago. She says she wants to go to college there.”

  “Why not here?” his father suggested, and Liz looked surprised at the ease with which he said it. It was a college town, and it was a very good school, if she could get a scholarship, and if she wanted to, Liz could help her with her application.

  “I never thought of it, and I'm not sure she did either,” Tommy said, looking pleased. “I'll talk to her about it, but I think right now, she's mostly worried about the baby. She's kind of scared. I don't think she knows what to expect. Maybe,” he looked hesitantly at Liz, glad that the two women had met. “Maybe you could talk to her, Mom. She really doesn't have anyone else except me to talk to, and the other waitresses at Jimmy D's. And most of the time, I think they just scare her.” From the little Tommy knew about what she'd be going through, it scared him too. The entire process sounded really awful.

  “Ill talk to her,” Liz said gently, and a little while later they all went to bed. And as Liz lay next to John, she found herself thinking about her. “She's a sweet girl, isn't she? I can't imagine going through all that alone … it would be so sad …and giving the baby up …” Just thinking about it brought tears to her eyes, as she remembered holding Annie for the first time, and Tommy …they had been so adorable and so warm and dear. The thought of giving them up at birth would have killed her. But she had waited for them for such a long time, and she was so much older. Maybe at sixteen it was all just too much, and Maribeth was wise to realize that it was more than she could cope with. “Do you suppose Avery will find a family for the child?” She was suddenly concerned about her. Like Tommy, she couldn't resist the fact that Maribeth had no one else to turn to.

  “I'm sure he does it more often than we suspect. It's not uncommon, you know. It's just that usually girls in her situation are hidden away somewhere. I'm sure he'll find someone very suitable for her baby.”

  Liz nodded, as she lay in the dark, thinking about both of them, Maribeth and her son. They were so young and so much in love, and filled with hope. They still believed that life would be kind, and trusted in what their destinies would bring them. Liz no longer had that kind of faith, she had suffered too much pain when Annie died. She knew she would never trust the fates again. They were too cruel, and too quixotic.

  They talked about her for a while, and then John finally drifted off to sleep. In some ways, they were no closer than they had been, but these days the distance between them seemed less forbidding, and every now and then, there was some gesture or kind word that warmed her. She was making a little more effort for him, and dinner that night had really shown her that she needed to get back to cooking dinner. They needed to be together at night, needed to touch each other again, and listen and talk and bring each other hope again. They had all been lost for too long, and slowly Liz could feel them coming out of the mists where they had hidden. She could almost see John, reaching out to her, or wanting to, and Tommy was there, where he had always been, only now Maribeth was standing beside him.

  She felt peaceful for the first time in months when she drifted off to sleep that night, and the next morning, at the school library, she began pulling books for Maribeth and writing down assignments. She was completely prepared for her when she came to visit that Saturday afternoon, and she was surprised by the quality of the work Maribeth handed her. She was doing higher quality work than most of the seniors.

  Liz frowned as she read some of it, and shook her head. And Maribeth panicked as she watched her. “Is it bad, Mrs. Whittaker? I really didn't have much time to do it at night. I can do more work on it, and I want to do another book report on Madame Bovary. I don't think that one really does the book justice.”

  “Don't be ridiculous,” Liz chided her, glancing up with an unexpected smile. “This is extraordinary. I'm very impressed.” She made even Tommy's work seem weak by comparison, and he was a straight-A student. She had written a paper on Russian literature, and another on the humor of Shakespeare. She had done an editorial piece on the Korean war, as a writing assignment for English comp, and all of her math work was meticulous and perfect. It was all the highest quality work Liz had seen in years, and she looked up at the immensely pregnant girl and squeezed her hand gently. “You did a wonderful job, Maribeth. You should get a whole year's credit for this, or more. You've actually done senior-caliber work here.”

  “Do you really think so? Do you think I could submit it to my old school?”

  “I have a better idea,” Liz said, putting the folders in a neat pile. “I want to show these to our principal, maybe I can get you credit here. They might even let you take equivalency exams, and when you go home, you could go right in as a senior.”

  “Do you think they'd really let me do that?” Maribeth was stunned, and overwhelmed by what Liz was suggesting. It could mean jumping ahead a whole year, and maybe even finishing in June, which she really wanted. She knew that even the next few months at home would be painful. She had proven to herself now that she could take care of herself, and she wanted to go home again, just to be there, and see her mother and Noelle and finish school. But she knew now that she wouldn't be able to stay for very long. She had come too far, and would have grown too much to stay at home for another two years after she gave up her baby. She knew they would never let her live it down, especially her father. Six months, until graduation in June, would be plenty. And then she could move
on, get a job, and maybe one day, if she was lucky, get a scholarship to college. She was even willing to go at night. She was prepared to do anything for an education, and she knew her family would never understand that.

  Liz gave her a number of additional assignments then, and promised to see what she could do at school, and she told Maribeth she'd let her know, as soon as they told her.

  They talked for a while after that, about other things than school, mostly about Tommy, and his plans. Liz was obviously still worried that he would marry her, just so she wouldn't have to give up the baby, but Liz didn't say that. She just talked about the colleges she hoped he would attend, and the opportunities open to him, and Maribeth understood her completely. She knew what Liz was saying to her, and she couldn't help herself finally. She looked straight at her, and spoke very softly.

  I'm not going to marry him, Mrs. Whittaker. Not now anyway. I wouldn't do that to him. He's been wonderful to me. He's the only friend I've had since all this happened. But we're both too young, it would ruin everything. I'm not sure he really understands that,” she said sadly, “…but I do. We're not ready for a child. At least I'm not. You have to give it so much, you have to be there for your kids …you have to be someone I'm not yet …you have to be grown up,” she said with eyes filled with tears, as Liz's heart went out to her. She was barely more than a child herself, with a child of her own in her belly.

  “You seem very grown up to me, Maribeth. Maybe not grown up enough to do all that …but you've got a lot to give. You do whatever is right for you …and for the baby. I just don't want Tommy to get hurt, or do something foolish.”

  “He won't,” she said, smiling as she wiped her eyes, “I won't let him. Sure, sometimes I'd like to keep the baby too. But what then? What am I going to do, next month, or next year … or if I can't get a job, or there's no one to help me? And how is Tommy going to finish school, with a baby? He can't, and neither can I. I know it's my baby, and I shouldn't be talking like this, but I want what's right for the baby too. It has a right to so much more than I can give it. It has a right to parents who are crazy about it, and not scared to take care of it like I am. I want to be there for it, but I know I just can't …and that scares me.” The thought of it tore at her heart sometimes, especially now, with the baby so big and so real, and moving all the time. It was hard to ignore it, harder still to deny it. But for her, loving her child meant giving it a better life, and moving on to where she was meant to be, wherever that was.

  “Has Dr. MacLean said anything to you?” Liz asked. “About who he has in mind?” Liz was curious. She knew a number of childless young couples who would have been happy to have her baby.

  “He hasn't said anything,” Maribeth said with a look of concern. “I hope he knows I really mean it. Maybe he thinks Tommy and I …” She hesitated on the words and Liz laughed.

  “I think he does. He kind of hinted to me a while back what a great 'young man' Tom was. I think he thought the baby was his. At least that was what I thought when I first found out. Scared me to death, I'll admit …but I don't know. I suppose there are worse fates. Tommy seems to be handling it pretty well, even though it's not his, and that must be even harder.”

  “He's been fantastic to me,” Maribeth said, feeling closer to his mother than she had felt to her own in years. She was loving and warm and intelligent, and she seemed to be coming alive again after a nightmarish year. She was someone who had grieved for too long, and knew it.

  “What are you going to do for the next two months?” Liz asked as she poured her a glass of milk and gave her some cookies.

  “Just work, I guess. Keep on doing work for school. Wait for the baby to come. It's due Christmas.”

  “That's awfully soon.” Liz looked at her warmly. “If I can do anything to help, I want you to let me know.” She wanted to help both of them now, both Maribeth and Tommy, and before Maribeth left late that afternoon, she promised to see what she could do for her at school. The prospect of that filled her with excitement, and Maribeth told Tommy all about it that night when he picked her up and took her to the movies.

  They went to see Bwana Devil, in 3-D, and they had to wear colored glasses to get the three-dimensional effect. It was the first movie of its kind, and they both loved it. And after that, she told him all about the time she had spent with his mother. Maribeth had a great deal of respect for her, and Liz was growing fonder of her daily. She had invited her to dinner the following weekend. And when Maribeth told Tommy about it, he said that having her around his family sometimes made him feel almost married. He blushed when he said the words, but it was obvious that he liked it. He had been thinking about that a lot lately, now that the baby was coming so much closer.

  “That wouldn't be so bad, would it?” he asked, when he took her home, trying to seem casual. “Being married I mean.” He looked so young and innocent when he said it. But Maribeth had already promised his mother, and herself, that she wouldn't let him do it.

  “Until you got good and sick of me. Like in a year or two, or when I got really old, like twenty-three,” she teased. “Think of that, it's seven years from now. We could have eight kids by then, at the rate I'm going.” She always had a sense of humor about herself, and about him, but this time she knew he wasn't joking.

  “Be serious, Maribeth.”

  “I am. That's the trouble. We're both too young, and you know it.” But he was determined to talk to her about it again. He wasn't going to let her put him off. She still had another two months to go, but before it was all over, he wanted to make her a serious proposal of marriage.

  And she was still avoiding it, the following week, when he took her skating. They had just had the first snow, and the lake was shimmering. He couldn't resist going there, and it reminded him of Annie, and all the times he had taken her skating.

  “I used to come here on weekends with her. I brought her here the week before …she died.” He forced himself to say the words, no matter how much they hurt him. He knew it was time to face the fact that she was gone, but it still wasn't easy. “I miss the way she teased me all the time. She was always bugging me about girls …she would have driven me crazy about you.” He smiled, thinking of his little sister.

  When she had gone to their house, Maribeth had seen her room. She had wandered into it accidentally, while looking for the bathroom. And everything was there. Her little bed, her dolls, the cradle she put them in, the bookcase with her books, her pillow and little pink blanket. It tore at Maribeth's heart but she hadn't told any of them that she had seen it. It was like visiting a shrine, and it told her just how much they all missed her.

  But she was laughing, listening to him now, as he told her stories about the girls Annie had scared off, mostly because she thought they were too dumb or too ugly.

  “I probably wouldn't have made it either, you know,” Maribeth said, sliding out on the ice with him, and wondering if she shouldn't. “Especially now. She'd probably have thought I was an elephant. I certainly feel like one,” she said, but still looked graceful on the ice in the skates she had borrowed from Julie.

  “Should you be doing this?” he asked, suspecting somehow that she shouldn't.

  “I'll be fine,” she said calmly, “as long as I don't fall,” and with that she made a few graceful spins to show him that she hadn't always been a blimp. He was impressed with her ease on the ice, and she made her figure eights look effortless, until suddenly her heel caught, and she fell with a great thud on the ice, and Tommy and several other people looked stunned and then hurried toward her. She had hit her head, and knocked the wind out of herself, and it took three people to get her up, and when they did, she almost fainted. Tommy half carried her off the ice, and everyone looked immensely worried.

  “You'd better get her to a hospital,” one of the mothers skating with her kids said in an undertone. “She could go into labor.” He helped her into the truck, and a moment later was speeding her to Dr. MacLean, while berating her, and himself,
for being so stupid.

  “How could you do a thing like that?” he asked. “And why did I let you? …How do you feel? Are you all right?” He was an absolute wreck by the time they arrived, and she had no labor pains, but she had a good-sized headache.

  “I'm fine,” she said, looking more than a little sheepish. “And I know it was dumb, but I get so tired of being fat and clumsy, and enormous.”

  “You're not. You're pregnant. You're supposed to be like that. And just because you don't want the baby, you don't have to kill it.” She started to cry when he said that, and by the time they reached Dr. MacLean's, they were both upset, and Maribeth was still crying, while Tommy apologized and then yelled at her again for going skating.

  “What happened? What happened? Good heavens, what's going on here?” The doctor couldn't make head or tail of it as they argued. All he could make out was that Maribeth had hit her head and tried to kill the baby. And then she started crying again, and finally she confessed, and explained that she had taken a spill on the ice when they'd gone skating.

  “Skating?” He looked surprised. None of his other patients had tried that one. But they weren't sixteen years old, and both Tommy and Maribeth looked seriously mollified when he gave them a brief lecture. No horseback riding, no ice-skating, no bicycling now, in case she fell off, especially on icy roads, and no skiing. “And no football,” he added with a small smile, and Tommy chuckled. “You have to behave yourselves,” he said, and then added another sport they were not supposed to indulge in. “And no intercourse again until after the baby.” Neither of them explained that they never had, nor that Tommy was a virgin.

  “Can I trust you not to go ice-skating again?” The doctor looked at her pointedly, and she looked sheepish.