By the time her mother’s car pulled up in the driveway, Neal had showered and dressed, ridden her bicycle to the drugstore for a home test, and confirmed the fact that she was, indeed, pregnant. Now she sat with her grandmother at the kitchen table and waited as her mother opened the door, saw them and waved, and made her way toward them through the living and dining rooms.
“I’m scared,” Neal whispered.
Her grandmother patted her hand. “It’ll be all right. I promise.”
“Birdie found the greatest new place for brunch,” Mom was saying as she approached the kitchen. “We should go sometime. I had eggs Benedict, and Birdie got the pecan waffles. It’s down on Wall Street next to—”
She stopped and stared at the two of them. “What’s up?”
When neither answered, she put her hands on her hips and grinned. “Come on, out with it. What are you two conspiring about?” She came to the table, leaned over, and felt Neal’s forehead with her wrist. “How’s that stomach virus, honey? You look better.”
“I’m OK,” Neal said.
“Did you get something to eat?” She went to the refrigerator and looked inside. “There’s leftover chicken. I could make chicken salad sandwiches if anyone’s hungry.”
“Abby, sit down,” Granny Q commanded. “Nobody’s hungry, and we need to talk.”
Neal took a deep breath and tried to steady herself as her mother returned to the table and sat down.
“It’s almost two,” her mother said. “Won’t Mike be here any minute?”
“Mike’s not coming,” Neal said. “I called him and postponed. I can’t face him right now.” I don’t really want to face you, either, she thought. But she didn’t say it.
“I know you’ve been nervous about breaking up with him, but putting it off won’t make it any easier. Maybe—”
“Mom, please—” Neal interrupted. “Please, just listen.”
Edith sat in silence while Neal Grace began to stumble her way through her confession. She prayed silently that her granddaughter would have the courage to say what had to be said, and that her daughter would have the grace to hear it without condemnation. She had raised Abby to be a loving, empathetic person, but Edith also knew that it was easier to be understanding from a distance, when one’s own offspring and future weren’t directly involved. This situation was going to demand a great deal of up-close and personal compassion.
“What I’m trying to tell you, Mom,” Neal Grace was saying, “is that Mike and I—well, we slept together.”
Abby went white. “You slept together,” she repeated. “I’m assuming you don’t mean taking a nap in the same bed.”
“We made love,” Neal said. And then, before her mother could respond, she corrected herself. “No. We didn’t make love. We had sex.”
“Did he force you? You said he had a bad temper—”
Edith opened her mouth to intervene. Of course Abby would be looking for an excuse, some reason she could wrap her mind around. She couldn’t imagine that her daughter would ever willingly do something like this.
“It wasn’t rape, if that’s what you’re asking. I agreed to it. It was a stupid thing to do, but I have to take responsibility for my part in it.”
“That’s very—uh, mature,” Abby said, obviously groping for words and trying to keep a lid on her emotions. “But I don’t quite understand. I thought we had talked about all this, Neal. About not taking sex lightly, about waiting . . .”
“Yeah,” Neal Grace said.
Abby exhaled heavily. “Well, I’m glad you told me. I don’t want any secrets between us. And it’s clear you regret what you’ve done. I can only hope you’ve learned from your mistake, and—”
Edith closed her eyes and shook her head. She supposed it was too much to ask that Abby could completely avoid launching into Mother Mode. “Abby—,”she began.
But Abby wasn’t listening. “I know you’re aware of these things, but I’m going to say them anyway because I’m your mother,” she said to Neal Grace. “This could have been much worse, you know. If you’d had unprotected sex, you might have contracted—”
“Abby!” Edith shouted.
Her daughter stopped speaking and turned to look at her as if she’d lost her mind. “What is it, Mother? We’re in the middle of a conversation here.”
“A conversation has two sides.” Edith fixed her with a glare. “Let Neal Grace finish.”
“I thought she was finished. What else is there?” She turned back to her daughter. “Neal?”
Neal Grace was staring down at the table, her fingernail tracing the spot where she had carved her initials when she was ten.
“Neal?” Abby repeated.
Neal looked up. “Mom, we didn’t always have protected sex. I’m . . . I’m—”
Abby’s gaze flitted from Neal to Edith and back again.
“I’m pregnant.”
A silence descended over the kitchen. Edith could hear the faint buzz of the clock on the oven.
“No,” Abby breathed.
“Yes.”
“You can’t be. You’re not even eighteen years old.”
“I’m old enough to have a baby, Mom.”
“How did this happen?”
The tension in the room had been strung as tight as a piano wire. With Abby’s question, it snapped, and Edith began to laugh. “How’d it happen?” she repeated. “I distinctly recall having an extended conversation with you about the facts of life when you were eleven years old. Do we need a refresher course at this late date?”
Abby was not amused. “I wasn’t talking about biology, Mama. As you know perfectly well.” She turned back to Neal Grace. “Is it possible you’re just late?”
Neal shook her head. “I took a home pregnancy test this morning. It was positive.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“I couldn’t believe it, either,” Neal muttered. “But it’s true.”
Abby shut her eyes and pressed a hand to her mouth. “What are you going to do?”
“I believe what your mother is asking,” Edith said quietly, “is what are we going to do?”
Abby looked up and gazed into Edith’s eyes. “Of course,” she agreed. “We’re in this together.”
“Yes and no,” Neal countered. “I mean, I appreciate the support you’re trying to give me and all that, but there are some decisions I need to make myself.”
Edith gazed at her granddaughter. She seemed braver now, more resolute, as if the very act of telling the truth had roused some inner strength deep in her soul.
“As I see it,” Neal went on, “I have four options. First, I could marry Mike. He’s already asked me to live with him. He’s not real thrilled about the idea of marriage, but with a baby on the way, he might change his mind.”
She paused and looked away, then rushed on as if determined to finish before she lost her courage. “Second, I could have an abortion. End of baby. End of problem.”
Abby opened her mouth to interrupt. Edith kicked her under the table. She shut her mouth again.
“Third, I could have the baby and give it up for adoption once it’s born. And fourth, I could have the baby and keep it.”
She stopped speaking, put her head in both hands, and began to massage her temples. Edith watched her granddaughter struggle and felt her own heart breaking. The girl was little more than a child herself. And now, because of one mistake, her whole future had been turned on its axis, her dreams and hopes diverted. College. Dating. Falling in love. Planning a career. Getting married. All the experiences a young woman should be able to enjoy without the pressure and responsibility of caring for a child.
She looked across the table at her daughter. Abby’s hopes for Neal Grace’s future had gone up in flames, too. She could see it on Abby’s face—the loss, the grief, the confusion and agony.
Abby met her gaze, her expression thoroughly miserable, her eyes glazed with unshed tears. She lifted her shoulders in a gesture of helplessness.
Edith laid a hand on her granddaughter’s arm. “Are you ready to talk about those options?”
Neal Grace looked up. “I guess so.” Her countenance took on a hard, determined expression. “You might as well know right up front that I have no intention of marrying Mike Damatto.”
For the first time since the kick under the table, Abby spoke. “Well, that’s a relief.”
Neal turned to her. “Really? I thought you might try to talk me into getting married—you know, so I’d be respectable, so my baby would have a father and a name.”
“Absolutely not,” Abby said. “From what you’ve told me today of that boy, he’s a loser and a jerk and a potential wife-beater. No daughter of mine is going to marry someone like that, not as long as I have breath in my lungs to protest.” She waved a finger in Neal Grace’s face. “And believe me, I am trusting that the genes you’ve inherited from this family will be very, very dominant.”
Neal Grace grinned. “I’ll do my best, Mom.”
“And since I seem to be on a roll here,” Abby continued, “let’s talk about Option #2.”
“Just chill, Mom,” Neal Grace said. “I’m not going to have an abortion any more than I’m going to marry Mike.”
Abby looked up. “But you said—”
“I said it was an option. A possibility. I have to consider all my alternatives, don’t I, even if I reject them?” She ran a hand through her hair. “I . . . I just couldn’t do it. On the surface it feels like it might be easier in the long run—one trip to the clinic and bam! Problem solved. I bury the secret, get on with my life, go to college, meet a nice guy. But I don’t think I could live with myself if I made that choice.”
She looked up into her mother’s eyes. “You must be terribly disappointed in me.”
Abby sighed. “Honey, I’m disappointed for you. For the price you will have to pay.”
“So if I don’t marry Mike and don’t get an abortion, I’ve got two remaining options,” Neal continued. “To keep the baby or give it up for adoption. Either way, it’s going to be very difficult— not just for me, but for you and for Granny Q as well.”
“And how will you make that decision?” Edith asked.
“I don’t know,” Neal admitted. “And I may not know for a while.” She rubbed a hand over her eyes. “I’m sorry for all of this. I wish I could go back, do things differently, change what’s happened.”
“No one can change the past,” Abby said. “We can only do our best with the present and try to make the future better.”
Her daughter’s words triggered something in Edith’s mind— memories of Grandma Gracie and her own mother, Abigail, of herself as a child, of Sam and little Abby and Gracie’s parting words. She saw herself in middle age, holding her fretful infant granddaughter, calming her, easing her into a noisy, frightening new world. And she saw something else, too—a vision of the great-grandchild who was to come, cradled in the same way, loved and protected by her old Great-Granny Q.
She had been left here for a reason. And at this moment, with a clarity that reverberated through her soul, Edith knew what that reason was. She couldn’t change the past, but God willing, she might be able to help change the future.