Chapter Eleven

Jessa pulled a blanket out of the stroller and placed it on a patch of loose pine bark on the church lawn, thinking Lydie could use some “tummy time” like she received these days at daycare. Her father was holding the baby while Jessa arranged everything.

“We used to do the same thing with you on this very lawn,” Rev. Lancaster said to her. He didn’t coo at the baby, didn’t say little things in the squeaky voice he reserved for babies from the congregation. Jessa knew her father delighted in children, for she’d seen him with Sunday Schoolers and in the nursery. Heck, she remembered how he fussed over her and her sister when they were little. Lydie was receiving no affection from him, and she was squirming and screaming. Rev. Lancaster didn’t do anything to calm her down.

So Jessa scooped up her baby from his arms, and Lydie stopped fussing. Jessa felt victoriously maternal. She turned to her father and smiled.

He was frowning over how she held Lydie.

“Don’t ever do that,” Rev. Lancaster said to his daughter. “If you pick her up every time she cries, she’ll figure it out and use it against you forever.”

Jessa hesitated, assuming her father probably knew more about parenting than she did. But she couldn’t give him the satisfaction. She placed the baby on the blanket on her tummy, watching as her chubby little arms couldn’t even lift herself up. Soon, the baby dozed off.

“Just keep talking to me about what happened with that Wade,” Rev. Lancaster told her.

“I don’t know, Dad,” Jessa tried to explain. “It’s like he’s checked out most of the time, finding excuses to not come home—or he’s yelling at me. And, this morning, he locked the baby in his car and went in his mom’s house.”

“He used you for what he wanted, and now he can’t face up to the consequences of it.”

“It’s not like that, exactly,” she replied. “He wasn’t the one who wanted—”

“You were manipulated, Jessa,” Rev. Lancaster said. “Wade ruined you, telling you he’d be there for you, and now it’s all too real for him.”

“Maybe that’s some part of how he feels, Daddy. He didn’t promise me anything, but he’s provided more for me lately than you or Mom have. Also, Wade didn’t ruin me. Girls can’t get ruined any more than boys can.”

“Show me any good man who would take you on now,” Rev. Lancaster said, waving toward the baby. “With that kind of baggage.”

“Baggage?” Jessa asked, insulted for her baby’s sake.

“You know what I mean,” he scoffed.

“Yes, but I’m tempted to have you say it out loud so that you can hear yourself.”

“Does he physically hurt you, Jessica?” her father asked, a bit eager for more reason to hate Wade. He had known Wade from around town for years, but now, betrayed, he talked about the boy like he was a total stranger.

“Not so far,” Jessa said, carefully selecting her words. “But Wade does have a temper. Sometimes I worry he’s just going to blow up at someone someday.”

“I’m scared for you, dear,” her father said.

“Then let me come home.”

Δ

Five minutes later, as her father watched and her baby slept, Jessa called Wade’s cell. It went to voicemail.

“Wade, call me when you get this,” Jessa said. “When you get out of class or whatever. Just call me soon. It’s important.”

Her father scowled.

“Of course, that little shit didn’t answer,” he said.

“Daddy, you’re still at work,” Jessa said to him. “Someone from inside might hear you.”

Rev. Lancaster shrugged.

“They’d be more scandalized by you and the baby than they would be by hearing me say four-letter words.”

“Really, Daddy?” Jessa said. “I know for a fact that some of the babies in the daycare here are just as ‘scandalous’ as I’ve been.”

“You’re my daughter, though,” Rev. Lancaster asserted.

“I’m a preacher’s kid, behaving the way preacher’s kids always have,” Jessa said. “It’s so cliché they write songs about it, Daddy.”

He laughed.

The tension had lightened between them, all it took was one heart-to-heart and a couple exaggerations about Wade being dangerous. And it had been decided. She could come home, bringing the baby with her, by the end of this week. All Rev. Lancaster had to do was clear it with Jessa’s mom, which wouldn’t take much convincing. Apparently, Mrs. Lancaster had been crying randomly for two months, all through Christmas and then sporadically since. There were days when the woman wouldn’t get out of bed, Rev. Lancaster said. They could give living under one roof again a try, he said. You and the baby, he said. He wouldn’t call Lydie by her name. That would change in time, Jessa hoped.

Δ

Wade and Mary’s house had been a nice house, and Mary in particular was so sweet with the baby. Wade was sweet and loving, too, but Mary was a seasoned mom and a seasoned nurse. She knew what to do. She was nurturing. Wade fumbled and tried and loved Lydie. But he didn’t love Jessa, and Jessa could feel it. Since she moved in, they’d been like roommates instead of lovers. They fought too easily. Jessa felt like she was intruding whenever she walked into their kitchen. She was like a houseguest who stayed long past her welcome, and she wanted to go home.

This would not be an easy transition or an easy breakup. But it was better to do it now before the baby got used to this situation, Jessa thought. She wanted her own family back. She wanted her baby to have the people that she grew up with loving her the way they’d loved Jessa.

Her mom had made her a pageant girl, taught her manners and how to be agreeable. Jessa and Traci were always in the prettiest dresses their mom could find. They were a model church family.

Now, though, they’d be a modern church family. And maybe the Baptists would like that, Jessa prayed, knowing she was lying to herself.

“We’ll figure this out, baby,” Rev. Lancaster said to his daughter. “I don’t want you around that horrible boy anymore.”

Jessa looked in her father’s eyes, noting the anger behind them. It wasn’t just toward Wade. She knew he was still mad at her, too, and that he’d make her pay for it once she got home. But she still wanted to be home.

Suddenly, from the lawn, Lydie erupted in screams and tears, twisting on her stomach, a weird, urgent tone that immediately alarmed her mother. Like nothing, Jessa grabbed her girl.

Her father remained seated.

“What is it?” Jessa asked, trying to keep her voice neutral and sing-songy. “What is it, honey?”

The cries continued to echo weirdly, as though Lydie didn’t have the breath for them. The baby trembled, continuing to scream.

And a wasp flew off the baby’s leg, a sight Jessa noticed from the corner of her eye as a blur.

“Daddy, what’s wrong with her? She’s changing color.”

“I, uhhh—” her father said, finally rising from his seat.

“Daddy, please! I think she got stung!”

He grabbed his daughter by the arm, led her to his SUV.

“Is she allergic?” he asked frantically as they rushed through the hallway, into the parking lot to his reserved space.

“What about the car seat?” Jessa asked, holding her baby tight. Her tears were coming fast. “We need her car seat!”

“Just hold her,” her father ordered. “We’re going to the emergency room.”

Lydie wailed in her mother’s arms as her grandfather sped them down the road, her body tense and burning with pain.

Δ

Ten minutes later, as they sat in Triage and waited for a doctor, Jessa called Wade again, the baby screaming in her arms. His phone still off, she delivered a second voicemail.

“Come to your mom’s hospital when you get this!” she shouted. “We’re in the emergency room. Something’s wrong with Lydie.”

Rev. Lancaster closed his eyes and prayed, afraid to look at the baby. He didn’t want to be scared for this baby. He didn’t want to care about it. He didn’t want to love her. God wasn’t playing fair.

For months, he had wished that his daughter hadn’t been disgraced or caused him shame. He wished he hadn’t been so mad at her. He wished she hadn’t turned his home life into utter chaos, rendering his wife practically immobile with sorrow and disappointment.

Now, after only a morning where he momentarily allowed his resolve to weaken long enough for one conversation, Rev. Lancaster prayed that his baby granddaughter wouldn’t die before he got to know her.

Lydie continued to cry, growing weaker from the effort and turning red and splotchy from the sting.

Jessa looked from doctor to doctor, hoping that anyone might be the person sent to examine Lydie. She texted Mary to let her know that they were there and that she should come downstairs as soon as she could.

“Daddy, why is this taking so long?” Jessa pleaded with her father.

Rev. Lancaster glanced around the room, stopping the first person in scrubs he could find.

“Sir, I think my granddaughter is having an allergic reaction,” the reverend pleaded.

“Sorry, sir, it’ll be just a moment,” the doctor said. “Ambulance just brought in a guy with his skull cracked open.”