Not My Daughter

issue of my mother head-on, and maybe he's right. I've talked to Jessica until I was blue in the face about the right and wrong way of doing things, but did I ever come out and say my mother is a misfit? Did I ever call her unbalanced or selfish or… or evil? Well, she isn't evil, just totally outrageous-but no, I don't call my mother names in front of the kids, because a good person doesn't do that. Oh, and Dan blames you and Kate for not controlling your daughters, because Jessica would never have done this alone.'

Susan felt the same qualm she had earlier with Kate. These friends meant the world to her. With so much happening, she needed them on her side. 'Going after each other won't help. Playing the blame game is destructive.'

'Tell that to Dan.'

'Is he going after Adam, too?'

'No, because Jessica won't confirm that it was Adam, and Dan won't confront anyone on the outside yet. He wants to keep this as quiet as possible. In the meanwhile, he has me to upbraid.'

Susan loved Dan for enabling Sunny to create the structured life she needed, but he had strong opinions and was judgmental without ever raising his voice. 'Speak up, Sunny. Tell him he's wrong.'

'Easier said than done.' She continued to tug at her neckline. 'You don't know what it's like to have a husband.'

Coming from a stranger, it might have been a slap in the face, but Susan knew Sunny wasn't criticizing her; she was simply complaining about Dan.

Susan covered her friend's hand lest she choke herself. 'He's being unfair.'

'He's my husband.'

It wasn't anything new. In all the years Susan had known her, Sunny had deferred to Dan on every major issue. There had been times, even during the creation of PC Wool, when he had been an uninvited presence, second- guessing every decision. Much as the others coached her, though-much as Sunny promised not to ask his permission when she wanted, say, to buy a new coat-she always fell back to the default.

But Susan didn't have the strength to argue. 'I just think we should get Phil on our side.'

'You're worried about your job,' Sunny hissed, 'but what about mine? What about Dan's? Fine for you to act in your own best interest, but what about ours? Your daughter may be making waves, but mine is barely seven weeks pregnant. I don't need to go public yet. It'll be another three months before anyone even guesses.'

'I thought the same thing about Lily, and look what happened,' Susan pointed out. Yes, she was acting in her own best interest, but the line between what was best for her and what was best for her friends was fluid. She squeezed Sunny's hand to soften the words. 'Who's to say Abby won't blab about Mary Kate and Jessica, too?'

'You need to be talking to her, not to me.'

Not a bad idea, Susan realized. But the basic problem remained. 'This month, next month, the month after-it doesn't matter, Sunny. You can put it off all you want, but sooner or later the story will break.'

'Later is better. At least the holidays will be over. Next week is Thanksgiving, for God's sake. If this comes out now, with us going to Albany to see Dan's family, it'll ruin everything.'

If it wasn't Thanksgiving, it would be Christmas. There would never be a good time for this, Susan knew. But she could wait a week.

News of Lily's pregnancy spread. Back in her office, Susan received a call from the middle school principal, who was ostensibly more curious than disapproving, though Susan imagined the latter was there. When she stopped at PC Beans for coffee on her way to a varsity football game, she felt other customers staring. And when she went to the supermarket on her way home, she knew the checkout clerk was darting her questioning looks.

The following day, she and Kate were the only ones at the barn. Sunny was baking pies to take to her in-laws, and Pam was preparing for the Thanksgiving open house the Perrys hosted each year.

They didn't dye yarn, didn't even play with colors. Neither of them had the heart for it. So they knitted. Susan's work in progress was a T-shirt for Lily, Kate's a set of cotton place mats. They admired each other's work and talked about the menu for their own Thanksgiving at Kate's, the rise in postal rates, the weather. Neither of them mentioned that Lily's T-shirt wouldn't fit her for long, or that the place mats might not hold up well spattered with baby food.

On Sunday, Susan worked on her budget, with papers spread over the kitchen table beside her laptop and a calculator nearby. She wrote up several teacher evaluations that she had neglected earlier that week. She composed her Monday bulletin, giving a plug for the concert at school Tuesday night, a reminder of the food bank drive that would start after Thanksgiving, and a get-well wish for the school librarian's husband.

Lily's singing group, the Zaganotes, usually practiced Sunday afternoons. With the Thanksgiving concert imminent, the practice today started earlier and ended later. Normally, Susan would have hated the silence of the house and would have either met a friend for coffee or asked someone over.

This week she stayed home. The house was dead quiet and too lonesome for comfort, but she didn't have the strength to go out. She told herself she was tired and, once she had finished her work, burrowed into the den sofa with the Sunday paper. But she couldn't focus on news. The silence of the house was too loud. So she picked up her knitting-not the T-shirt for Lily, but a pair of socks for herself. When she had a split-second thought that she ought to be knitting baby booties, she ignored it.

The problem was, her life seemed to be made up of split seconds now-a split second imagining Lily having sex, a split second hearing the gossips in town spreading the word, a split second wondering what her parents would think-all horrendous thoughts, none of which she could bear to dwell on. Put all those split seconds together, though, and she wasn't thinking about much else.

Except Lily. Always Lily. She missed their closeness, missed the way they could finish each other's sentences, the way they could watch a movie they both loved, the way they could knit together in silence and feel totally at peace.

Lily had ruined all that, which made Susan angry. A good mother loved her daughter no matter what.

She did love Lily. She just didn't like her very much right then, and that upset her even more.

By Monday, she was receiving calls from random friends, from a parent of one of her students who had graduated the year before, even from a woman who had worked at PC KidsCare when Lily was first enrolled. As she had done Friday afternoon, Susan imagined each caller hanging up and instantly calling five friends.

Rather than go to the gym after work, Susan went straight home. She had a quiet dinner with Lily. It lasted all of ten minutes. Afterward, she knitted. She had botched shaping her sock's heel gusset the day before, so she ripped out what she'd done and tried again. She had to do it three times before she was finally pleased, but she welcomed the forced concentration.

Still, she heard the shower go on and off, heard Lily come down for a drink, heard the phone ring. Normally, she would have stopped by Lily's room two or three times before going to bed, but she didn't this night. Nor did Lily come in to see her.

Not that Susan could blame her. Lily clearly felt Susan's disapproval. Having been in her shoes, Susan knew how that was. When she had been pregnant, she had consciously avoided confrontations with her parents.

History was repeating itself.

On Tuesday, Lily made the final cut for the varsity volleyball team. Ebullient, she ran to Susan's office with the news. She saw this as a personal vindication, a See, I can do this! moment.

Susan tried to be happy for her, but all the while, part of her was thinking that the coach had no business taking on a pregnant player, that it was sending the wrong message to other students, that Lily had no right to have her cake and eat it, too.

Later that afternoon, when Lily dashed into the house barely twenty minutes before being picked up for the concert, and declined to eat any of the dinner Susan had made, Susan reminded her that her baby needed to eat even if she did not. Moments later, feeling guilty for the sharpness of her tone, she went scrambling to find the black sweater Lily wanted to wear and was in a tizzy trying to find.

After Lily raced out the door, Susan felt abandoned. She sat down to have some of the chicken pot pie that she and Lily both liked, but eating it alone killed her appetite.

Leaving the table, she opened her laptop on the kitchen counter. E-mail was backing up, including a new one