and she couldn't stand it, so she came here in June. And that's when I met her.”
“And you've been going out with her all this time? Why didn't you tell us?”
“I don't know,” he sighed, “I wanted to, because I really thought you'd like her, but I was afraid you wouldn't approve. She's wonderful, and she's all alone. She doesn't have anyone to help her.”
“Except you' His mother looked pained, but his father was relieved. “Which reminds me,” Liz asked as she began to unravel the story, “have you been taking her to Dr. MacLean?”
Tommy looked startled by her question. “Why? Did he say anything?” He shouldn't have, he had promised he wouldn't, but his mother shook her head as she watched him.
“He didn't really say anything. He just said what a nice boy you were, and I couldn't figure out how he remembered. It's been six years …and then one of the teachers saw you with her last week, and said she looked extremely pregnant.” She looked up at her sixteen-year-old son then, wondering if he intended to marry the girl, out of real emotion for her, or even just to be gallant. “What's she going to do with the baby?”
“She's not sure. She doesn't think she can take care of it. She wants to put it up for adoption. She thinks it's kinder to do that, for the baby's sake. She has this theory,” he wanted to explain it all to her at once, to make them love her as much as he did, “that some people pass through other people's lives just for a short time, like Annie, to bring a blessing or a gift of some kind …she feels that way about this baby, as though she's here to bring it into the world, but not to be in its life forever. She feels very strongly about it.”
“That's a very big decision for a young girl to make,” Liz said quietly, sorry for her, but worried about Tommy's obvious infatuation. “Where's her family?”
“They won't speak to her or let her come home until after she gives up the baby. Her father sounds like a real jerk, and her mother is scared of him. She's really on her own.”
“Except for you,” Liz said sadly. It was a terrible burden for him to bear, but John wasn't nearly as worried now that he knew it wasn't his baby.
“I'd like you to meet her, Mom.” She hesitated for a long time, not sure if she wanted to dignify the relationship by meeting her, or simply forbid him to see her. But that didn't seem fair to him, and she glanced silently at her husband. John shrugged, showing that he had no objection.
“Maybe we should.” In a funny way, she felt that they owed it to Tommy. If he thought so much of this girl, maybe she was worth meeting.
“She's desperate to go to school. I've been working with her every night, lending her my books, and giving her copies of everything we've done. She's way ahead of me by now, and she does a lot more papers and independent reading.”
“Why isn't she in school?” his mother asked, looking disapproving.
“She has to work. She can't go back to school till she goes home, after the baby.”
“And then what?” His mother was pressing him, and even Tommy didn't have all the answers. “What about you? Is this serious?”
He hesitated, not wanting to tell her everything, but he knew he had to. “Yeah, Mom …it's serious. I love her.”
His father looked suddenly panicked at his answer. “You're not going to marry her, are you? Or keep the kid? Tommy, at sixteen, you don't know what you're doing. It would be bad enough if the baby was yours, but it isn't. You don't have to do that”
“I know I don't,” he said, looking like a man as he answered his father. “I love her. I would marry her if she would,
“Well, don't,” his father said, opening a beer, and taking a sip. The very idea of Tommy getting married at sixteen unnerved him.
“Don't do anything you'll regret later, Tommy,” his mother said, trying to sound calmer than she felt. But after all she'd heard, her hands were shaking. “You're both very young. You'll ruin your lives if you make a mistake. She's already made one mistake, don't compound it with another.”
“That's what Maribeth says. That's why she wants to give the baby up. She says keeping it would be just one more mistake that everyone would pay for.
I think she's wrong, I think she'll be sorry one day that she gave it up, but she thinks it deserves a better life than she can give it.”
“She's probably right,” his mother said sadly, unable to believe that there was anything sadder in life than giving up a baby, except maybe losing one, especially a child you'd loved. But giving up a baby you'd carried for nine months sounded like a nightmare. “There are lots of wonderful people out there, anxious to adopt …people who can't have children of their own, and would be very good to a baby.”
“I know.” He looked suddenly very tired. It was one-thirty in the morning, and they had been sitting in the kitchen for an hour and a half, discussing Maribeth's problem. “I just think it sounds so sad. And what will she have?”
“A future. Maybe that's more important,” his mother said wisely. “She won't have a life, if she's dragging a baby around at sixteen, with no family to help her. And neither will you, if you marry her. That's not a life for two kids who haven't even finished high school.”
“Just meet her, Mom. Talk to her. I want you to get to know her, and maybe you can give her some stuff from school. She's already gone way past me and I don't know what to give her.”
“All right.” His parents looked worried as they exchanged a glance, but they both nodded agreement. “Bring her home next week. I'll cook dinner.” She made it sound like a major sacrifice. She hated cooking anymore, but she did it when she had to, and now she felt guiltier than ever about it, if it had driven her son to eating in restaurants, like an orphan. She tried to say something to him about that as they turned off the lights and walked down the hall. “I'm sorry I … I'm sorry I haven't been there very much for you' she said, as tears filled her eyes, and she stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “I love you … I guess I've been kind of lost myself for the past ten months.”
“Don't worry about it, Mom,” he said gently, “I'm fine.” And he was now, thanks to Maribeth. She had helped him even more than he had helped her. They had brought each other a great deal of comfort.
Tommy went to his room, and in their own room Liz looked at John and sat down heavily on their bed, looking shattered.
“I can't believe what I just heard. You know, he'd marry the girl, if we let him.”
“He'd be a damn fool if he did,” John said angrily. “She's probably a little slut if she got herself pregnant at sixteen, and she's selling him a bill of goods about wanting an education, and college.”
“I don't know what to think,” Liz said, as she looked up at him, “except that I think we've all gone pretty crazy in the past year. You've been drinking, I've been gone, lost somewhere in my own head, trying to forget what happened. Tommy's been eating in restaurants and having an affair with a pregnant girl he wants to marry. I'd say we're a fair-sized mess, wouldn't you?” she asked, looking stunned by everything she'd just heard, and feeling very guilty.
“Maybe that's what happens to people when the bottom falls out of their lives,” he said, sitting down on the bed next to her. It was the closest they'd been in a long time, and for the first time in a long time, Liz realized she didn't feel angry, just worried. “I thought I was going to die when …” John said softly, unable to finish his own sentence.
“So did I … I think I did,” she admitted. “I feel like I've been in a coma for the past year. I'm not even sure what happened.”
He put an arm around her then, and held her for a long time, and that night when they went to bed, he didn't say anything to her, or she to him, he just held her.
Tommy picked Maribeth up on her day off, and she had put on her best dress to go to his house and meet his parents. He had come to pick her up after football practice, and he was late, and he seemed more than a little nervous.
“You look really nice,” he said, looking at her, and then he bent down and kissed her. “Thank you, Maribeth.”
