The Bay at Midnight

thing I know right now is that you can’t move away.”

“Tanner and I have talked about this for hours and hours,” she said. “We want to do this right. We want to —”

“You cannot go to Colorado with a baby and a total stranger,” I said. “I don’t know if you’ve thought through what it’s going to be like for you to be a mother at seventeen.”

“I’ll be eighteen when the baby’s born.”

“You’re still more of a child than a woman,” I said, “and the fact that you got pregnant to begin with is proof of that.”

“Mother,” she said. “Don’t start.”

“I know you’ve been having sex,” I continued. “And I knew you were on birth control. I’ve seen your pills around—you’ve made no secret of it. I haven’t said anything to you about it and I’ve tried to be really…” I frowned at her in bewilderment. “How did you let this happen?” I asked. “Did you do it on purpose? Did you feel like you weren’t ready for school? What is going on with you, Shannon? I feel as though I don’t know you anymore.”

She stood up, toe to toe with me but two inches taller. “I am a woman who is going to have the baby of the man she’s deeply in love with,” she said. “That’s who I am, Mother.” There were tears in her eyes. “And there’s really nothing you can do about it. I just thought I should let you know. And now I’m going back to Dad’s.”

She turned on her heel and walked out of the room, and I didn’t know what to say to stop her. I heard the door slam behind her and I sank numbly to the love seat. I couldn’t have said how long I sat there before I finally lifted the phone and dialed Lucy’s number.

“Hey, sis,” Lucy greeted me.

“Shannon’s pregnant,” I said.

There was silence on her end of the phone that went on for too long.

“You knew?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Lucy, damn it! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I haven’t known long,” she said. “And I was going to tell you but wanted to give her a chance to talk to you herself first.”

“Oh, my God,” I said. “I just can’t believe this. I can’t believe my class president, straight-A, musically gifted daughter is pregnant by some guy in Colorado I’ve never even heard of. This is just insane.”

“I know,” Lucy said, and it scared me that she agreed, because there was very little that Lucy considered insane. “You know, the only thing that I find completely unbearable is his age,” she added.

“Which is…?” I’d figured he was a little older than Shannon, since he was already in college.

Again the silence from my sister.

“Lucy.”

“He’s twenty-seven,” she said. “I assumed she’d told you.”

“Oh, my God,” I said again. “Oh, Lucy. It’s statutory rape.”

“No.” Lucy sounded so damned calm. “She would have to be under sixteen for that.” I heard her sigh. “I just don’t know what to say, Julie. I don’t get this any more than you do, and I’m upset, too. The thing is, it’s happened, and she plans to have this baby. We need to check this guy out, of course, but I think that this is just going to happen and we have to do whatever we can do to be there for her.”

“How can we be there if she’s in Colorado?” I asked.

“I hope she’ll reconsider that,” Lucy said.

I thought of all the colleges we’d visited. The nerve-racking auditions. The waiting for acceptances. Her excitement at getting into Oberlin. “All her plans…” I said, my voice trailing off. There was not much to say about those plans. They had little meaning now.

“I know,” Lucy said. She hesitated, then finally spoke again. “On another cheery topic,” she began. “Did you tell Mom about Ned’s letter?”

“Yes,” I said. My voice had gone flat. I felt weary to my bones.

“Oh, Lord,” Lucy said. “What did she say?”

“She got really quiet. She went into the house and lay down. I was worried about her and I checked on her before I left, but she said she just wanted to sleep.” I looked at my watch. “I was going to call her in a few minutes, but I’m a little too shaken up to do it right now.”

“I’ll call her,” Lucy volunteered.

“Thank you,” I said. “Shannon could still have a safe abortion at eighteen weeks, couldn’t she?”

“Wow, I can’t believe I’m hearing you say that,” Lucy said. “Everything changes when it’s your own kid, doesn’t it?”

“Don’t lecture me, all right? Could she?”

“Yes,” she said. “But that’s not what she wants.”

“How does she even know what she wants?” I asked. “She’s not thinking straight. None of this makes sense. Do you think Glen knows?”

“She told me she’d tell him after she told you, so I guess he will know very soon.”