No Matter What

by Janice Kay Johnson

  No.

  Lying on his bed, he groaned and pushed the heel of his hand against his forehead. He needed her to say it because she meant it. But he also knew that wasn’t happening. Because she was majorly, totally screwed over. And it was his fault.

  His phone rang and he rolled over to snatch it up. Not that it would be Cait, but… He was disappointed anyway when he saw the number. Bree’s. She’d left a couple messages, and he hadn’t called her back.

  This time, after a brief hesitation, he answered.

  “Hey,” she said. “You’ve disappeared.”

  “Yeah, well, things have been…” He tried to think how to explain without explaining. “Happening,” he finally concluded.

  “Like what? Did you decide to go out for basketball?”

  “No.” Man, he knew the coach would still take him, and there were moments when he really missed playing, but… How fair was it if he got to play a sport he loved while Cait had to quit dance?

  “Do you tell Mom everything?” he said abruptly.

  His sister huffed. “You know I don’t. Did I ever tattle?”

  A grin tugged at his mouth. “Yeah, when I shaved the head on every one of your Barbie dolls.”

  “I was five! And that was mean.”

  “They’d gone to boot camp.” Another huff. He was still grinning. It was wiped from his mouth, though, when he took a deep breath. “This is not for Mom. Swear?”

  “Swear.”

  “My girlfriend is pregnant. Um…she used to be my girlfriend.”

  There was a long, shocked silence. “Used to be? You’ve only been there for, like, three months?”

  “Yeah, uh, we didn’t last long.” He sat up on the edge of the bed.

  “Long enough.”

  Trevor blinked at his sister’s tart tone. Suddenly she didn’t sound so much like a kid. He grimaced. A kid? She was…not even a year younger than Cait. He knew when both their birthdays were. Eight months and…six days.

  In sudden alarm, he asked, “Have you, um…?”

  “Had sex? No way!”

  “I’ll bet some of your friends have,” he said.

  “Well, sure. But I haven’t met anybody I liked that much. And even if I did…I’m going to try to wait until I’m in college,” she finished in a rush.

  He was surprised by his tangle of emotions. He hated the idea of some guy screwing his little sister. Scoring. Even worse—wow—of her pregnant.

  “That’s a good idea,” he said.

  “One you’ve lived by.” Before he could counter that, she went on. “Is the girl a senior, too?”

  “Uh, no.” He realized how much he’d been saying that: uh. To give himself time to think, maybe. “She’s a sophomore.”

  “And you got her pregnant?”

  “She was there, too.”

  Bree made a sound he took as disgust, and Trevor let his head fall forward. I am such an asshole. And there’s no way I can make it better.

  “What are you going to do?” his sister asked.

  “I don’t know.” It was a really hard thing to admit. To accept.

  Almost as hard as accepting that there probably wasn’t anything he could do.

  * * *

  “HOW WERE THINGS AT school today?” Molly asked brightly. She drained the spaghetti.

  “I didn’t puke, if that’s what you mean,” her daughter said disagreeably.

  “That’s not what I meant, but I’m glad. The medicine’s helping, then.”

  “I guess.”

  Cait did help carry food to the table and filled her plate although then she looked down at it in dismay. “I’m so hungry! When I’m not sick, all I want to do is eat. I’d be a whale if I…” She put on the brakes.

  Molly opened her mouth to say, You’re eating for two, but, thank God, thought better of it in time. “You’re active,” was all she said. “Didn’t you dance today?”

  “Yeah. It does make me hungry.” Apparently she gave herself permission to eat, because she started in on the spaghetti with enthusiasm.

  Molly finished a bite of broccoli. “So, did you have any thoughts about yesterday?” she asked, ultracasual.

  Pasta dangling from her fork, Cait stared at her. “Yesterday?”

  “You know. The two agencies.”

  She shrugged and put the bite in her mouth.

  “I think I liked the first one better. I don’t know how you’d feel about an open adoption, but they sound as if they embrace the concept instead of offering it grudgingly. It might be easier, if you choose adoption, not to close the door on your child.”

  This stare smoldered. “Can’t you let it alone, Mom?”

  “Sometimes talking things out is the best way to clarify your thinking,” she said very carefully.

  “Is that what you’re doing? Clarifying your thinking, so you can make up your mind what I should do?”

  Molly put down her fork. She was beginning to be fed up with Cait’s sullen, “me against you” attitude. “No,” she said. “You know that’s not what I’m doing.”

  “Do I?”

  “Have you told any of your friends?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Then who do you have to talk to?”

  Silence.

  “Trevor?”

  “I don’t want to talk to him!” Cait was flat-out glaring now. “He’s the one stalking me now.”

  “Because you won’t talk to him.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because you have to talk to somebody,” Molly said, trying for patience when the well was dry. “Seems to me, your choices are him or me.”

  “Both of you want to decide for me. You don’t listen. You tell me what to do. You always have,” she claimed, in that sweeping way teenagers had of making a parent feel guilty for every single decision ever made. She dropped her fork with a clatter. “I’m not hungry anymore,” she announced, pushing back her chair.

  Molly might have felt really crummy if Cait’s hand hadn’t snaked out and nabbed a piece of garlic bread, which then disappeared behind her.

  “All right,” Molly said, voice steely. “Here’s the deal. You’re now over seven weeks pregnant. You and I both know you shouldn’t take more than three more weeks to make up your mind about an abortion. After that, it’s off the table. Do you fully understand that?”

  “Yes!” Cait yelled, face red and tears starting. She ran from the room.

  Taking the garlic bread with her.

  * * *

  MOLLY WOULD HAVE GONE out to the garage to make her phone call, if only it wasn’t so cold. As it was, phone in her hand, she strolled to the foot of the stairs to be sure Cait really was safely closeted in her room before dialing.

  “Molly,” Richard said, in that quiet, deep voice that for no good reason seemed to settle some of her turmoil. She’d been counting on it. “I was hoping you’d call tonight.”

  “Hah!” She kept her voice low and walked to the living room, where she could hear any footsteps on the stairs—and wasn’t right beneath Cait’s room. “You were probably hoping for a few days of peace.”

  “No. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  She could hear his smile, which made her grow one, too, however wry and painful it was. “Thank you for saying that. I hope you meant it. About listening. Talking.”

  “I meant it.”

  Sincere? Not? Given that she’d already made the phone call, what could she do but take him at his word?

  “So what’s up?” he asked.

  “Oh, the usual drama with my daughter. How dare I try to open a discussion about the adoption agencies, open versus closed adoptions, never mind the fact that she’s seven plus weeks along. Seven weeks!” She was breathing hard again. She wished suddenly that he was here. That—maybe—he was holding her hand. The first time he’d done that, she’d hardly noticed on a conscious level, but the feel of his big, warm hand wrapping hers was nonetheless imprinted on her sensory memory. When was the last time anyone had
offered physical comfort to her? Anyone but Caitlyn, who used to be generous with hugs but now seemed to bitterly resent her mother?

  “Yeah, that’s been on my mind, too,” Richard said.

  Molly had to think what he was talking about. Seven weeks. That was it. “What is she thinking? No, don’t even try to answer that.”

  “I wasn’t going to.” There was an undertone of amusement, but sympathy, too.

  “Has Trevor opened up to you any?”

  “Initially he did. More recently, he’s been closemouthed. Less angry, though. It’s as if once he realized how badly he’d screwed up, he became a little less focused on the flaws of his bumbling parents.”

  “One of his teachers commented in passing that Trevor blew him away with a paper.”

  “A paper? He actually turned one in?”

  “Apparently.”

  “Huh.”

  On a spurt of resentment, she thought, Crisis hits, his kid turns a corner for the good and mine for the bad. How fair is that?

  Fair enough. Trevor was older. He should be more mature.

  “So, did you get her talking at all?” Richard asked.

  “Only long enough for her to yell that all I ever do is tell her what to do. I don’t listen.”

  There was a moment of silence, long enough for her to remember Richard, too, had told her she didn’t listen.

  “I was pissed,” he said. “I didn’t mean it.”

  “You read my mind?”

  “Hard not to.”

  She sighed. “Maybe I don’t.”

  “From all I can gather, your daughter was popular, amazing at dance—according to Trevor—and smart. Not a cheerleader only because it would have gotten in the way of dance. Homecoming princess.”

  “Straight-A student. That’s more important than popular.”

  “Agreed. She’s gotten mixed-up lately. Doesn’t mean you didn’t raise a great kid. Give yourself some credit.”

  Molly drew her legs up, dug her toes into the sofa cushions and rested her forehead on her knees. “Thank you. I needed somebody to say that.”

  “You’re very welcome.” The undercurrent of amusement was in his voice again.

  She cleared her throat. “So. I was thinking.”

  When she didn’t continue immediately, he made an interested sound.

  “What if you and Trevor were to come over for dinner?” Molly said in a hurry. “If we ruled no talk about…you know.”

  This silence had her antsy. She lifted her head. Did I just say that? What was I thinking? That we could all be friends?

  “There’s nothing I’d like better,” he said. “Well, that’s not true. Dinner without our kids, that might be better.”

  She laughed, her unease settling. She loved how he could do that.

  “I can run it by Trevor,” he said. “But from what he says, Cait won’t willingly be on board.”

  “Maybe it should be a surprise party.... No, forget I said that. There’s a disaster in the making. I tried that already, didn’t I, and you and Trevor didn’t like it very well. Okay, it’s a lousy idea.”

  “No, it’s not,” Richard said, to her surprise. “Chances are Cait feels isolated, but is scared of being pushed into a decision before she’s ready. Maybe something like this could make her feel…supported.”

  “And maybe,” Molly said slowly as the realization hit, “I’m involving you and Trevor when I shouldn’t be. You wanted to be kept in the loop. That’s, um, a courteous, long-distance relationship, not an up-close and personal one.”

  “I like up-close and personal.”

  Her pulse tripped. “You’re being nice,” she said lightly.

  “No.” His voice deepened some. “I almost asked you out once.”

  “Once?” she repeated stupidly. “During one of our congenial little chats?”

  Richard chuckled. “High school dance.”

  Oh, God. That’s why he’d loitered beside her, hands in his pockets, making pointless conversation? He was waiting to get her alone?

  Her heartbeat had rocketed now. “I didn’t have a clue.”

  “I noticed. And realized I’d picked a really stupid time and place to ask. Pretty poor month and year, too, when we were bound to be dealing with each other over Trevor. I decided to wait until he’d graduated.”

  “Oh.” Brilliant. I am so out of practice. Then, Do I want this? “Instead, we may be cograndparents.”

  “Not quite what I pictured,” he admitted. “Anyway, I thought it was fair to tell you.”

  A panicky fear that the subject might be closed for good had her speaking up. “I…don’t know what I would have said. You’d gotten tangled up in my mind with Trevor. By the time of the dance, I guess I knew you weren’t the irresponsible parent I’d imagined you, but…”

  “You were still mad.”

  “Yes.”

  “If you hadn’t been?”

  No question there. “I’d have said yes.”

  “Ah.” His quiet satisfaction was apparent. “Well, why don’t we hold the thought? Or bring our kids on our first date.”

  He made her laugh so easily. “Let’s do that. I’ll sound out Cait. You do the same with Trevor.”

  “Got it.” The smile was there again, which warmed her. “Did we talk out your mood?”

  “Yes, I think we did. Thank you. You’ve been a lifesaver.”

  “When I wasn’t threatening you with my buddy the superintendent.”

  “Do you know him?” she asked, curious.

  “Yes, he put an addition on his house a couple of years ago. I’m not so sure he’d agree that the fact that I wired it made us best buds, though.”

  The call ended on another laugh. Molly was left wondering what she would have said that night, if Richard had taken her by surprise the night of the dance and asked her out.

  * * *

  TREVOR STOOD IN THE DARK, looking up at Cait’s bedroom window. Her blinds were closed, but not tightly. He could see that her light was on.

  He’d expected to have to climb over their back fence, but found he had been able to reach over and unlatch the gate. Light poured through the kitchen window and the French doors, so he’d had to move carefully to reach the back of the house without getting spotlighted like a deer by night hunters. Now he cautiously eyed the possibilities.

  They had an arbor, too. Not as sturdy as Dad’s, but doable. It didn’t reach quite underneath Cait’s window, either, but he thought he could knock on the glass. If she’d open up, he could grip the sill and swing himself up.

  Assuming she didn’t freak, of course. Scream. He’d left the back gate open for a quick getaway, in case.

  Was this a totally dumb-ass idea?

  No. He had to talk to her. As far as he was concerned, she’d chosen the time and place. Dad said she’d checked out adoption agencies last weekend—without telling him a word about it. He especially wanted to talk before they both got to participate in the nice, civilized dinner party put on by her mother. Because that would relax him and Cait, sitting down to eat under their parents’ eagle eyes.

  Do it, he decided, crouched and jumped. Easy as a slam dunk, his fingers locked over the rough wood of the crosspiece. He dangled for a moment, swung and, when the momentum was right, levered himself up. He sat atop the beam for a moment, then rose to a crouch, toed over to the house and braced an open hand on the siding. Okay, now, if he leaned…stretched… Yeah. He rapped lightly on the glass.

  For a moment, nothing happened. Then the blinds were parted and he saw her face. He waggled his fingers. Blinds snapped shut. He waited, until finally they rose and then she opened the window.

  “Trevor?” she whispered.

  “Yeah, can I come in?”

  “Are you nuts?” Her hair was tousled, her face scrubbed clean, making her look even younger than usual and she wore… Wow. Some kind of saggy-baggy T-shirt thing.

  He kept his voice low. “No. I want to talk to you.”

  “Now?”


  “When?”

  “What if my mom comes in?”

  “Does she?”

  “She’s watching a TV show. She probably won’t come up until it’s over.” The answer was grudging. Cait stuck her head out and looked down and then sidelong to where he stood atop the arbor. “What if you fall?”

  “I won’t.”

  She rolled her eyes but relented. “Oh, fine.”

  He got a grip okay, but there was one distinct thud as his feet hit the side of the house. Cait and he both went still. The strain on his shoulders was huge. Even so, he let a good minute pass before pulling himself up and half falling through the window.

  Cait immediately let down the blinds and pointed to bare floor behind her bed. “Sit down there. If Mom comes, drop flat, okay?”

  “Sure.” He sat, back to her bedside stand, and stretched out his legs. He couldn’t see all of her room from here, but enough. It was almost as girlie as Bree’s at Davis’s house. A couple of posters of ballerinas were the eye-catchers. One was doing some kind of leap and seemed suspended in air. Impossible and dazzling, he had to admit. Another was being lifted by a guy, who looked gay in tight dance clothes but obviously had some serious muscle.

  Otherwise, her bedspread was fluffy and powder pink, there was a barre like at the dance school screwed into one wall intersecting with the one that had floor-length mirrors on the closet doors and the whole room was completely neat. Unreal.

  She plopped on the bed cross-legged and looked down at him. She was not happy. “Say whatever it is you want to say.”

  “Why are you avoiding me?”

  “Because I know what you want.”

  They’d had this conversation before. And, no lie, Trevor did want to say again, Get an abortion. Please, for both our sakes, get an abortion so we can both forget this ever happened. But he’d seen the way she reacted last time, and whether he liked it or not, he heard what she’d said.

  He felt queasy when he thought, What if Mom had aborted me? Well, duh, I wouldn’t be here. Cait wouldn’t be pregnant. Or, at least, I wouldn’t be the father. There might’ve been some other guy.

  “No,” he said. “That’s not it. I wanted to say…I was an asshole. I know I was. And I want to make up for it, if I can. I wish you’d talk to me. That’s all.”

  “Right. Sure. You want to hold my hand and dry my tears and be super nice guy.”