Mourning Becomes Cassandra

by Christina Dudley

  “That’s not it,” I objected. “I told you on the way to Portland that I was warming to the idea of marrying him—”

  “Well go ahead and unwarm,” Joanie interrupted curtly. “Forget that idea. Crap almighty! How can this be happening? You don’t have a job, you don’t have a husband—and you’ll never get one if you’re saddled with this kid—and you won’t be able to afford to live anywhere except California with your parents.”

  “Does she have the gift of encouragement, or what?” I asked Phyl wryly.

  Joanie wasn’t in a humorous mood. “Speak to her, Phyl. She won’t listen to me—clearly.”

  Phyl fidgeted uncomfortably, being the least confrontational of the three of us. “Cass, we will love you and be your friends no matter what you do, and if it were up to us, that baby could just move into the Palace and be part of our— ”

  “Never mind, Phyl!” groaned Joanie, “This isn’t time to be supportive—it’s time to slap her around.” She turned on me again. “I can see by your face it’s no use. All I can hope for is that Nadina has a miscarriage or changes her mind and gives the kid to someone else.”

  “She won’t,” I said. “Do either. Don’t ask me how I know, but I know. Come on, Joanie. If my doom is inevitable, won’t you love me anyway? You don’t want me to move to California, do you?”

  “No, you idiot,” she cried passionately, “I want to keep on living here just like we’re living here, forever and ever. I’d even put up with the crack baby if I thought Daniel would ever go for it. Why do you have to go and ruin everything?”

  “And you call me an idiot,” I reproached her. “It couldn’t last forever, crack baby or no. At the very least, Phyl would say yes to Wayne eventually, and you would pick someone—anyone—and get married too.”

  “I’m not going to get married,” said Joanie unexpectedly in a low voice.

  I stared at her, sidetracked. “What, are you joining a convent or something?”

  Avoiding my eyes she picked at an unraveling thread on the sofa arm. “No, I just—I’ve decided I’ll never get married. I don’t like the guys who like me, and the guy I like isn’t interested, so that’s that.”

  “You’re not talking about Roy, are you?” I said uneasily. Joanie’s scoffing sound answered my question. “Joanie, look at me. You’re talking about Perry.”

  “Oh my God!” exclaimed Joanie, “I knew you guessed. I didn’t even know myself until we saw him last weekend for that stupid musical. He’s not even my type and his divorce isn’t final and—worst of all—he doesn’t think of me that way.”

  “Joanie,” I said bracingly, “you know I love you like a sister, but you and Perry? He’s never had a real job in his life—that would drive you crazy. Even if he fell for you, you’d get sick of him just like Betsy did, and I don’t want his heart broken again. He needs to marry some independently wealthy, older woman who wants to keep him as a boy toy.”

  “You think he could fall for me?” she asked, perking up.

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh, probably. Isn’t that how it works with you and Daniel? Either one of you could most likely get anyone you really wanted. I’m asking you—don’t break Perry’s heart.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, I’m asking you not to adopt Nadina’s baby, but are you going to listen to me? No, you’ll move to California to sponge off your parents, and I’ll never see Perry or you again. Life sucks.”

  It wasn’t the end of the conversation. No, that went on for another hour or two of that day and continued every time thereafter that Joanie found me alone. Phyl, thank heavens, decided to leave Joanie and me to go at it in single combat, but Joanie was enough. She seemed convinced that the only way she could persuade me would be through unrelenting, no-holds-barred badgering and second-guessing. Many things were said in those days—very many—but you get the idea.

  • • •

  My parents greeted my news with stunned silence. I forced them both to get on the line so I wouldn’t have to do this twice. What could they say? I was an adult—a deluded and deranged one, perhaps, but an adult nonetheless. Mom made soft, bubbly choking sounds, as if someone were holding her under tapioca pudding.

  Dad recovered first. “Tell me about this certainty you had when you talked to her.” Joanie absolutely refused to credit this part of the story, but my father always had a quiet streak of deep feeling. He could hear Spirit talking to spirit.

  There was another silence when I finished my account—even Mom must have crawled ashore out of the tapioca because I couldn’t hear her anymore—and then Dad said, “Cassandra, this will be tough. But your mother and I love you and support your choices 100%. You have to do what you have to do.”

  “Larry,” chided Mom, finding her voice at last, “Larry, that’s all very well, but someone’s got to connect the dots here. Cass, where are you going to live? That Daniel is very nice, but he doesn’t seem the type of man interested in running a day care.”

  “I wouldn’t ask him to,” I answered hastily. “I’ll have to move, but I’ve got a while yet. I’m getting Nadina in to the doctor this week, but we figure she’s only about two or three months along. I think I’ll have until around mid-September to get my ducks in a row.”

  “How will you live in the same town as Nadina?” she pressed. “You can’t show up to mentor her every week with her own baby in tow.”

  “I don’t know how everything will work,” I said again, aware of spirals and loops of panic in my gut.

  “You could always come here,” Mom pursued. “Dad and I will want to help you and our—our grandchild.”

  My throat closed suddenly. I hadn’t thought of that—that whatever child I adopted would have a claim on my family. It would have grandparents and an uncle, besides a mother. Children made it with less.

  “Mom, Dad,” I murmured. “You two are the best. Thank you thank you thank you. I’ll keep you in the loop. Just give me a little time to figure things out, Mom, okay?”

  • • •

  After telling Joanie and my parents, the next person I wanted to talk to was Mark Henneman, but Nadina wouldn’t hear of it yet. “I don’t want everyone friggin’ looking at my stomach, and since I’m having the kid, why do they need to know?”

  But it ate at me: would it strike people as shady—the mentor who adopted the student’s baby? As if I had exploited her, wanted to get close to her for that purpose. And it seemed to me the longer we waited to speak to Mark Henneman, the shadier I would appear.

  Nor would Nadina consent to telling her mother. “You’re still on her medical insurance,” I pointed out. “She’s going to wonder when she gets the statement from the Ob/Gyn.”

  “Mike first,” Nadina insisted. But if I asked when she would break it to Mike, she waffled and put me off. Not that I blamed her—I hadn’t yet worked up the courage to tell James.

  • • •

  These days I was spending a lot of time in my closet, praying. In normal size houses, a bedroom felt intimate enough for prayer, but not in the Palace. In order not to feel adrift in the universe, I preferred to sit on the floor of my closet, leaning against the wall under my folded and stacked sweaters, lights out. By Saturday, after a week of Joanie’s hounding and chasing my tail with Nadina and getting increasingly anxious about James’ reaction, I went straight into the closet after breakfast and sat there for at least an hour. Psalm 61 came to mind and stuck: “When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” My heart is overwhelmed. Remind me that you’re with me. Remind me that you love me and Nadina and the baby, and our lives are in your hand.

  By this point I was no longer sitting up; I was flat on my back on the floor, looking up unseeingly to where the ceiling would be, if I had the light on. I might have dozed a little, having not slept well for the last few nights. In any case I began to think that any positive effects of prayer would soon be counteracted by oxygen depletion if I didn’t come out soon, so reluctantly I rose and emerged into the glare of lat
e winter sunshine filling my room.

  It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, but when they did I blinked to see Daniel standing by my desk, turned in surprise toward me, something in his hand. It was the picture of Troy holding Min: they were both grinning, and little one-year-old Min had one plump little hand clutching her father’s shirt and the other reaching out to me, as I held the camera. That picture had spent months in my desk drawer, face down, but recently I had pulled it out again and set it next to my computer monitor.

  “Excuse me,” Daniel said quickly, half-dropping the picture so that it hit the desk with a rattling sound. I wasn’t used to seeing him clumsy or ill-at-ease and only looked at him questioningly. “I was…going to write you a note,” he continued, pointing vaguely at a pen and paper lying on the desk. “I thought you weren’t home. Didn’t expect you to spring out of the closet.”

  His discomfiture made me wonder how long he’d been in my room. For all that the Palace was his, he never ventured upstairs, as far as I knew. “Sorry to startle you,” I answered. “I was…praying. Did you want to talk to me?”

  He nodded, running his hands through his hair. When I gestured toward the window seat, he sat down, and I sat on the cushion across from him. Daniel cleared his throat. “I just didn’t get a chance to talk to you alone this week, and I was wondering what was going on with Nadina.”

  “She’s pregnant,” I said shortly.

  “Did you—have you asked her what she’s going to do?”

  “She’s going to have the baby and give it up for adoption,” I replied. My voice was steady and calm. Maybe this was good practice for telling James.

  His face lit up, and he reached in his shirt pocket. “That’s great news, Cass. The best you could have hoped for. I got the business card for my spoon-chested, harelipped, law-school friend with the three eyes.” He grinned at me, holding out the card.

  Ordinarily I would have laughed, but his joke reminded me that adoptive parents usually paid all the legal fees. “Thank you,” I said automatically, “but I don’t know if I could afford her.”

  “What do you mean ‘you’? It would be the adoptive parents who paid.”

  Unable to find words, I merely looked at him, and after a second, his hand dropped. “You’re going to adopt the baby.” It was a statement, not a question.

  I nodded.

  Daniel inhaled sharply and ran his hand through his hair again. He put the business card back in his pocket and stared out the bay window.

  The silence made me uncomfortable—why should he be upset? “You must think I’m crazy,” I ventured. “Joanie does. She hasn’t made a secret of it.”

  “Will you and James get married before the baby comes, then?” was his abrupt question.

  “What?” I yelped. I felt my cheeks warm.

  “You’re going to get married, aren’t you?” Daniel asked. “He’s not going to let you do this alone.”

  Somehow, whenever Daniel spoke of James, there was always that implied criticism, and I felt myself rallying defensively. “He doesn’t know yet. I haven’t told him. This was my decision.”

  The blue eyes met mine. “It won’t matter, will it? If he wanted to marry you before this, this won’t change his mind. Because he loves you.” How did he know James wanted to marry me?

  I shook my head, flustered. “I don’t know. It hardly seems fair to expect him to honor an offer that was made under completely different circumstances—an offer I didn’t even agree to at the time.”

  “Would you agree to it now?”

  Would I? The reasons I gave James for not marrying him when he asked a couple weeks ago now seemed moot. How could I balk at marriage and children and say it was too soon, when I had since agreed to an equally lifelong, binding relationship? If anything, Joanie was right, and James would feel hurt that I jumped at one opportunity after refusing the other.

  “I would,” I said slowly. “If James will still have me.”

  Daniel made an impatient sound. “If he loves you, he will.”

  “Honestly, Daniel,” I reproved, “who are you to lecture James on love?”

  Anger flashed across his face, and I sat back, startled, but an instant later it was gone, wiped clean. “Of course not, Cass,” he said coolly. “You’ve always been very up-front with your opinion of me, and I know you think me incapable of love, as you define it.”

  It was the day at the Café all over again, when I hurt him by calling him my landlord. Fumblingly, I tried to smooth things over. “Forgive me. How would I know what you’re capable of? You’ve been so kind to me lately.” Rather than appearing mollified, Daniel grimaced when I called him kind, and I hastened on. “I’m just a little anxious about how James will respond. It is a lot to spring on a person, and I wouldn’t blame him if he thought I changed my mind so suddenly because I was scared and thought the baby should have a father.”

  “Are you scared? Do you think the baby should have a father?”

  “Scared to death!” I admitted. “And I’d love for the baby to have a father—I’d love for all babies to have two parents—but that wouldn’t be why I would marry him.”

  There was another pause, and then Daniel stood up. “Well, if you…love him… I’m sure he’s not such a fool—he’ll believe you.” He was almost to the door when he stopped and added, “Let me know if there’s anything you need from me.”

  For a moment it was on my lips to beg to be allowed to stay at the Palace if James rejected me. Hearing my intake of breath, he waited, but then I shook my head. How could I? He might even say yes because he liked me and wanted to help, but I shouldn’t ask it of him. Why would a confirmed bachelor want a tenant encumbered by a squalling infant? What would he tell his girlfriends then?

  “Thank you, Daniel,” I murmured at last. “I’ll remember that.”

  Chapter 36: To Hell in a Handbasket

  Sometimes people let you down. Sometimes you let others down. My conversation with James was some of both.

  Nadina and I finally agreed that Sunday would be D-Day. I told her that I would be seeing James and didn’t think I could keep my secret any longer, and if James was going to be enlightened, Mike would have to follow. Not to mention Mark Henneman and Nadina’s mother.

  “This is totally gonna suck,” she complained. “Mike is gonna freak, and he’s been so cool lately.”

  “What’s it to him?” I said for the hundredth time. “So you’ll get a little fat for a few months. He doesn’t have to deliver the baby, and then it’ll all be over.” Yeah, Mike was going to have it easy, compared to James. “Call me tomorrow, and we’ll compare notes. Don’t chicken out on me.”

  The weather was warming slightly as we headed into March, and James had it in his head that he wanted to go snowshoeing up at Snoqualmie while it was still possible. After the morning service, where I came within a breath of revealing all to Louella, I waited out front for him to swing by and pick me up.

  “Good morning to my favorite girl,” he said, leaning across to give me a kiss on the cheek. “How was church? Did the roof open and angels ascend and descend?”

  “For a while.” I had been debating whether to spill my guts on the drive up or to dump the news on him while we were snowshoeing, but his expression this morning was so sunny that I hated to spoil things. “You’re cheerful today.”

  “Of course I am,” he teased, “I didn’t have to get up to attend an 8:00 service.” He reached for my hand and held it while he drove. “Not to mention it’s been a great week at work. I was hoping you’d come in so I could brag some because I didn’t want to tell you the news over the phone.”

  “It’s been a crazy week,” I answered vaguely. “How did that dinner with the new game publisher go Thursday? We missed you at open house.” A white lie—with Nadina’s gag rule still in effect, I’d been relieved not to see him.

  “That’s just it!” James exclaimed. “I think they’re really close to picking up Antarctiquest! and maybe one other game from Vil
’s team. They were impressed how we managed to get Tolt out at the eleventh hour before Christmas. You wouldn’t believe Riley—he’s redone his cube in a polar theme to celebrate. You’ve got to come in next week to give him the pleasure of bragging.”

  “And to relieve Jeri,” I laughed. “I’m sure she’s had enough.”

  James chuckled. “No joke. I think a couple more days of it, and she might quit. Then you’d have to come on full-time, which wouldn’t be all bad…I could see your gorgeous face whenever I wanted.” I gulped, and he gave my hand a squeeze. “But what’s been going on with you? I feel like I haven’t seen or heard from you in forever. Did you get that chance to corner Nadina and lay a pregnancy test on her?”

  I took a deep breath. “Didn’t need to. Pete guessed right—she’s pregnant, and she already knew it. But she hasn’t told anyone.”

  “What’s she going to do about it?”

  I paused. “I think I’ve convinced her to have the baby and give it up for adoption.”

  Like Daniel, James was excited, knowing how much I wished for such an outcome. “That’s great! And you didn’t even call me to tell me? In between working my tail off this week and meeting with those publishers I’ve been worried for you.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m sorry. I thought I’d…tell you in person.”

  He whistled appreciatively. “Yeah, that’s good news. I bet Mark Henneman will be relieved. Was she hard to convince? I know it’s tough for anyone to say no to you, but if anyone could, I would bet on Nadina.”

  “She was pretty wary and hostile at first,” I remembered. “I think she’d already guessed where I was coming from and what I might say. But there was a turning point in the conversation. It felt like God really wanted me to tell her how much he loved her. When I did, she was more open.”