Deadline for a Critic

“I wasn’t.”

“So,” she had now become quite angry, “that’s the type you are, after all! Just get your kicks with a girl and then leave her!”

“Jane, that’s not the way it was. That’s not the way it is. You know better than that.”

“What makes it any different?”

“You said it yourself. It was an accident. We didn’t know what we were getting into . . . at least I didn’t”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Bringing out the Scotch and having good-sized belts of it on a nearly empty stomach wasn’t my idea.”

“You mean to suggest that I planned the whole thing!”

“No, that’s not what I mean!” Now he was becoming angry. “Just that it was not all my idea. Or all my fault. It wasn’t an act of love.” (God, how he hated talking about this!) “If we must face what happened squarely, we were just getting to know each other when you brought out the liquor.

“We got intoxicated, to put it bluntly. We were no longer rational. We were animals. And we did what irrational animals do: We got carried away by our emotions. It’s silly to say we were in love. We were just getting to know each other. It’s silly to say it was an act of love. It was an act of drunkenness. That’s all it was.”

“That’s all it was, was it? Then what’s this?” In a few rapid motions that seemed rehearsed, she flung open her coat and raised her blouse, exposing bare midriff.

Groendal was stunned. “Jane! What are you doing? Cover yourself! People can see!” He looked around quickly; not only was no one watching, he could see no one in sight. Nevertheless, what she was doing seemed shameful. “Pull your blouse down!”

“Not until you look! Long and hard!”

He forced himself to look. If anything, she seemed to have put on a little weight. “Well?”

“It’s just beginning to show!”

“Show? Show what?”

“That I’m in the family way!”

“You’re what?”

“Pregnant!”

The word hit him a stunning blow. He had no reply.

“Yes, pregnant!” she repeated.

“How—”

“How else? What you did to me!”

“How do you know?”

“I haven’t had a period in almost four months.”

That meant little to him. Oh, he certainly knew of pregnancies. He had some vague ideas of how that was accomplished. Such information, in the seminary curriculum, was postponed until the final courses in moral theology. Good Catholic parents scarcely ever discussed such things either with their children or each other. In effect, Groendal, in his ignorance of conception, was somewhere between delivery by the stork and the flood of sexual information that would inundate society in just a few more years.

“I mean,” Groendal amended, “how do you know it was me? How do you know I’m the father?”

Jane’s eyes widened. She struck at him. Instinctively, he blocked the blow. First, his body was still too sore to endure another onslaught. Second, he was not as willing to accept penance for this sin. This was an affair in which they both had participated.

“It’s a reasonable question,” he insisted.

“Didn’t you see the blood? On you? On me? On the floor? It took me hours to clean that carpet! You took my virginity!”

Another new concept. He knew that women who had never had intercourse were considered virgins. Among others, he had the Blessed Virgin Mary to thank for that information. But how one “took” virginity was another question. Whatever was involved finally seemed to explain the blood that he’d found on himself and about which he’d had all those nightmares.

Ridley said nothing. He could think of nothing to say. He felt overwhelmed, as if he were being backed into an inescapable corner.

“Well?” Jane challenged.

“Well, what?”

“What do you intend to do about this?”

Again he was silent. He could think of no practical answer. The idea that he might pray for her occurred to him. But it seemed less than sufficient, so he didn’t mention it.

“What do you intend to do about my pregnancy? What do you intend to do about our child?”

The term “our child” grabbed his attention as nothing before had. He began to lose sight of Jane. All he could think of was that he didn’t need this. Not now. He had not yet recovered from the tragic end to his relationship with Charlie Hogan and the loss of a vocation that meant the world to him. He was still reeling from those severe traumas and here was this young woman demanding that he take virtually lifelong responsibility for “our” child.

In his panic he was not conscious that the muscles in his throat were constricting. In a very short time, he would experience great difficulty in breathing.

“What about our child?” Jane sensed she had scored heavily and wanted to press home her advantage.

As if by miracle, the answer came. “Adoption! You can adopt it out!”

“Adoption! Give my baby—our child away to some stranger! Over my dead body!”

“Jane, be reasonable. There are lots of reputable agencies. Catholic Charities can do it. And you’d know it would have good Catholic parents who would give it a home. So much more than we could give it.”

“Not if we get married.”

“What?”

“If we got married, we could give our child everything anybody else could give. More, really, because we would have our baby. It’s the only honorable thing to do.”

“Jane!” Could it have suddenly gotten much warmer? He was perspiring profusely. “Jane! I just got kicked . . . I just lost . . . I have no . . . I can’t . . .” He felt as if he were about to faint although he had never before done that. He couldn’t faint here in the middle of a public park! He had a weird vision of caretakers digging a hole beside his inert body, rolling him into the hole, and covering it over. He had to get out of here, and fast!

Not caring any longer what Jane might think of all this, Groendal rose and ran. It was not a graceful exit. He moved the way a desperate man would escape if, say, because he’d been tortured he couldn’t run up to his full, normal capability. He more staggered than ran up Vernor. He was oblivious to stares. He assumed he’d left Jane standing in the park with her damned baby. But he could focus on only one thing: He must find sanctuary before he died. It didn’t matter who offered sanctuary, the church or his home.

It was only because home lay between him and the church that he turned in when he got to his house. By the time he reached the front hallway, his clothing was sweat-drenched. He’d torn open his shirt trying to make it easier to breathe.

Mary Groendal had been waiting impatiently for her son’s return. She had long since concluded that he was spending entirely too much time with that woman this afternoon. The conviction was growing, too, that her son’s loss of priestly vocation was the fault of that woman. Long before Ridley lurched through the front door, she had decided to have it out with him.

However, when she saw his pallor, his sweat-covered face and drenched clothing, she gasped. Shocked, she could think of nothing to say.

Ridley felt as an elephant might upon finding the burial ground. It was now safe to collapse. So he did.

When he came to, he had the impression he had awakened many times since losing consciousness in the front hallway. But he couldn’t remember things clearly. He couldn’t remember anything clearly. Oddly, he felt rather comfortable without memory. As if there was nothing in his past worth remembering.

He was too tired to move anything but his eyes. He was in some sort of institution. He knew he’d reached that conclusion before, but he couldn’t recall how or why.