Not My Daughter

'No.'

'But you know Jacob fathered Mary Kate's baby?'

'Everyone knows that.'

'What else does everyone know that maybe I don't?'

Abby stared at her. 'Why does it matter? Why can't you just let it go?'

'Because I'm on the school board, which will be discussing this, so the more I know, the better. I'm also the only board member with children in the schools right now, and since you are best friends- were best friends with the girls involved, I can try and help work things out.'

'Whatever I tell you, you'll tell the board.'

'No. I won't. It'll just help me decide what to say.'

Abby turned back to the court, grumbling, 'I don't know anything more.'

Pam studied her face. Not a happy one. She put an arm around her shoulders. 'Well, I'm proud of you.'

That seemed to upset the girl more. She whipped around a final time. 'For what?'

'For separating from those girls. For knowing better.'

Abby looked like she might cry-and Pam understood that, too. There was a trade-off to being on the fringe of a group. Not that Abby would want to hear that. She was only seventeen.

Chapter 12

Susan was up late Thursday night crafting an e-mail to the faculty. After a final tweaking, she sent it out at dawn. She wanted her teachers to start the day with the facts-the nature of the pact, the names of the girls, the involvement of the school psychologist and the nurse. The e-mail to parents was harder. It wasn't that the content was different, though she mentioned no names in this one. But with parents concerned on a more personal level than teachers, the stakes were higher. She wrote and rewrote in search of exactly the right tone. Then that e-mail was sent, too.

Following a difficult day filled with questions from all sides, she got home shortly after six. She wasn't surprised to find Lily; volleyball practice was over and Friday night plans not begun. Nor was she surprised that Lily had made dinner. She often did that when Susan ran late. She liked cooking.

What surprised Susan was her daughter's contrition, evident in the fresh flowers on the table, the crab and corn bisque, which was Susan's favorite but not Lily's, and the fact that Lily was waiting in the kitchen, not in her room phoning or texting.

Susan's cell rang. Ignoring it, she hung her jacket on a hook by the door, dropped her bag on the bench beneath it, and sat. 'You've been busy.'

Lily hovered near the table. 'I just made a few stops after practice. Jess drove.' The phone rang again. 'Aren't you going to answer?'

'No. It's been ringing off the hook all day. Our land line will be starting soon.'

The words were barely out when it did. Lily checked the caller ID panel. 'Legere. Sara's mom?'

'Probably,' Susan said with resignation. 'I haven't heard from her yet.' The woman was a royal pain. Everyone knew it. She decided not to answer.

'You sent out the e-mails,' Lily deduced. 'Was it bad?'

'Oh, the sending was fine. It's the replies that were bad.'

'How bad is bad?'

Not rational or understanding, thought Susan-but then, since she hadn't mentioned the girls' names, some of the parents wouldn't have realized that Susan's own daughter was pregnant. 'Do you really want to know?'

'Yes.'

It suddenly struck Susan then that if Lily was old enough to be a mother, she was old enough for this. 'There was disbelief. There was curiosity-lots of questions for which I do not have answers. And there was criticism. One mother called it a pathetic stunt. Another used the word disgusting. A father who obviously knew you were one of the girls said it was shameless that I couldn't control my own child.'

Lily gave a half blink, clearly struggling to be strong. 'They knew it was me?'

'Some did.'

'Who called me shameless?'

Susan smiled sadly. 'I was the one being called shameless, and I doubt it'll be the last time. This does reflect on me.'

'It wasn't supposed to.'

'How could it not? I'm your mother.'

The silence that followed was broken only by the soup bubbling on the stove. Lily turned off the gas. 'I guess I didn't think through what you'd have to face.'

'Oh, Lily. It isn't just me. You heard what Jacob did when he saw Mary Kate. This may kill their relationship, and what happens then to the father that Mary Kate assumed her baby would have? What do you think Jacob's weekend's going to be like? Or Adam's-at least I assume Adam was the one who fathered Jess's baby? And who fathered yours?'

Robbie, Lily mouthed.

Susan hadn't expected an answer. Startled, she sat straighter. 'Robbie Boone? Are you sure?'

'Mom. I've been with one guy in my life. I think I know who the father is.'

'But Robbie? He's-he's the boy next door.'

'Not next door. Across the street.'

The phone rang. They continued to ignore it.

Susan was having trouble picturing her daughter and Robbie together. 'You've known him since you were six. He was your first trick-or-treat buddy. He taught you to ride a bike.'

'Does that disqualify him?'

'No. I just didn't see the two of you that way.' She grew guarded. 'Does he know?'

'He suspects. But no one else does-and please, please, Mom, don't tell Kate or Sunny or-or least of all Dr. Correlli. How's he taking this?'

Susan might have asked more about Robbie if she knew where to begin, but she just said, 'The superintendent is upset. He has a right to be.'

'I'm sorry.'

Susan couldn't stop thinking of Robbie. He was the youngest of three, which made his parents significantly older than Susan, but they had always been unfailingly kind. When she had bought the house twelve years before and, mortgaged to the hilt, had struggled with things like a burst water heater and hurricane damage to the roof, Robbie's father had directed her to men who helped for a nominal fee. To this day, after every snowstorm, Bill Boone was outside with his shovel, digging out what the town plow had piled at the end of her driveway.

Susan was thinking that Robbie had never been publicly paired with a girl and seemed as innocent as Lily, and that if Lily had truly seduced him, Susan might be on her own after the next storm, when there was another call, this one on her cell. 'I'm not answering,' she murmured, wondering how Robbie's parents might feel about their son fathering a child at seventeen. Livid, she feared. Both parents were affiliated with Percy State, his dad in the treasurer's office, his mom in the art history department. Talk about responsibility? They lived and breathed it.

When the cell rang a third time, Lily fished it from Susan's bag and glanced at the caller ID. Eyeing Susan apprehensively, she opened it and, mouthing My dad, handed it over.

Had it been anyone else, Susan would have passed it right back. But Rick was her consort. 'Hey,' she said softly.

'How's it going?'

She sighed, releasing a little tension. 'You don't want to know.'

'I do. I talked with Lily earlier. She said word is out about the pact.'