I came home and sat down in front of computer. I checked my e-mail; there were many notes from my fans that had accumulated over the past few difficult weeks. I hadn’t had the concentration necessary to answer them and I wasn’t sure when that would change. I sat staring at them, thinking that I should open Chapter Four and try again, but I knew I wouldn’t. Writing a story about Granny Fran, a woman who didn’t exist outside my imagination and whose silly life was filled with silly mysteries solved in three hundred silly pages, seemed completely pointless.
I was still staring at the e-mail when I heard the front door open.
“Mom?” Shannon called, and I felt a rush of much-needed joy. I missed having her around so much.
“In here,” I called.
She walked into my office and sat down on the love seat. “Sorry to interrupt your work,” she said.
“Oh, honey,” I said. “You’re never an interruption.” We both knew that wasn’t the truth. I’d had a rule that I was not to be disturbed while I was writing unless it was a dire emergency. Was that one of the many areas where I’d screwed up?
“Well, I have something I need to talk to you about,” she said. She was watching me, making good eye contact with those longlashed dark eyes, but there was no hint of a smile on her face.
“You sound serious,” I said. I suddenly understood how my own mother had felt a few hours earlier when I’d said I needed to talk to her.
“I am,” she said, and then she looked away from me, down at her hands. She was pressing them together in her lap, hard enough to turn the knuckles white. “I’m really, really sorry about what I’m going to tell you, because I know how much it’s going to disappoint you…and everything.”
“What is it, Shannon?” I tried to imagine what she was going to say. Did she want to stay with Glen when she came home on holidays? Had she changed her mind about Oberlin and now wanted to go somewhere else? I was unprepared for her next words because they were so far from anything I might have guessed.
“I’m pregnant,” she said.
I was dumbfounded. Absolutely dumbfounded. “You…you haven’t even been seeing anyone,” I said.
“Yes, I have,” she said. “I met someone during spring break, although I’d actually known him for months over the Internet.”
Oh, no, I thought.
“He’s from Colorado and he was here visiting friends and he and I have stayed in touch by phone and e-mail and I’m in love with him.” She smiled then and gave a happy little shrug of her shoulders.
I don’t know what she made of my silence. I was measuring my response, afraid of driving her away with anything I might say. I moved next to her on the love seat and took her hands in mine. Hers were ice-cold.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “This must be very difficult for you.” It was the best I could do. I would make myself support her, no matter what option she chose. I can understand a woman having an abortion early in her pregnancy—in some circumstances. So, I would let this be Shannon’s decision, let her be the grownup. She looked surprised by my reaction.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Did you just find out?” I asked. “Do you know how far along you are?”
“Eighteen—almost nineteen—weeks.”
“Oh my God,” I said, realizing that an early, first-trimester abortion was not even an option. “You’re…are you trying to decide…” I was stammering, and she stepped in.
“I’m going to have the baby,” she said.
“But what will you do?” I asked. “What about school? What about…you’re only seventeen!” I was losing it. I felt the control of my head and my heart and my tongue slipping away from me.
She shook her head and her voice was much calmer than mine. “I’m not going to go to school this fall,” she said. “Someday I will, but not right now.” She offered me an apologetic smile. “Mom, I’m so in love with him. His name is Tanner. He’s an awesome person. He goes to the University of Colorado in Boulder. And…Mom, don’t be mad,” she pleaded, “but I’ve decided to move there and start a life with him and our baby.”
I let go of her hands and stood up, simply unable to sit there another second. I ran my fingers through my hair. “All of this has taken me by surprise, Shannon,” I said. “And I’m going to need some time to absorb it, but the one 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 hesitat
ed, 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.”
“I suppose he and I should talk.”
“Good idea,” Lucy said, then added, “I’m going to call Mom now. Will you be okay?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll talk to you later.”
When I got off the phone with Lucy, I started to dial Glen’s number, then hung up. I didn’t feel like hearing his voice or listening to his controlled and inevitably dispassionate reaction to the fact of Shannon’s pregnancy. I also didn’t want to tell him the news through my filter. Let him get it from Shannon, the same way I did.
I lifted the receiver again and dialed Ethan’s number. His was the one voice I did want to hear.
“Shannon is pregnant,” I announced when he answered the phone.
“Oh, no,” he said.
I told him the whole story, including Tanner’s age and the potentially botched college plans and it felt wonderful to vent to someone who simply listened. He didn’t speak again until I’d poured out every ounce of it.
“I know exactly how you feel,” he said then.
“You do?”
“Uh-huh,” he said. “Abby got pregnant when she was sixteen. I don’t think she’d mind me telling you that.”
“Oh, Ethan.” I felt empathy, both for him and from him. “What did she do?” I asked.
“She placed the baby for adoption,” he said.
Adoption. Of course. That made the most sense. That was what Shannon should do.
“Maybe Shannon would consider that,” I said.
“I bet Abby would be willing to talk to her about it, if you like,” he said. “It was an open adoption situation, and I have to say, as terrible as the whole experience was—and it was very hard for all of us—it’s turned out well. She has a relationship with her son, who’s nearly ten now. I even get to see him once in a while. His parents are great people.”
I was thinking about Oberlin. She would still miss the fall starting date if she placed the baby for adoption. I wondered if she could go in the spring or would she have to wait until the following year?
“I’ll talk to her about it,” I said, knowing the conversation would not be easy or welcome.
“I think you need me to come up there and give you a hug,” he said.
He was right. That was exactly what I needed.
“Could you come right now?” I asked, feeling a little brazen. I remembered him holding my hand on his thigh. I wanted him to do that again.
“How about Friday evening?”he asked. “Can you wait that long?”
There was a hint of sexual innuendo in his voice that both surprised and titillated me and, however briefly, made me forget about Shannon’s dilemma.
“I’m not sure,” I said, “but I’ll try.”
I got off the phone and sat smiling for a moment. Amazing, I thought, that I could smile after a day like this one. I leaned my head back against the love seat and looked at my ceiling fan, which was spinning lazily. Could I do it? I wondered. Could I make love to Ethan? I rested my hand on my belly and felt my nipples harden at my own touch. Yes, I thought, I could.
I stood up and left the office, heading for my bedroom, remembering that long-ago priest telling me I must never commit the grievous offense of masturbation. I laughed out loud as I walked into my bedroom. This afternoon, I thought, I am going to sin.
CHAPTER 28
Maria
The day after I received the news about Ned Chapman’s letter to the police, Shannon showed up at Micky D’s while I was working. I hadn’t seen her since her graduation. She waved to me as she walked in the door and got in line. One look at her, and the suspicion that had formed in my mind at her graduation was confirmed: My seventeen-year-old granddaughter was pregnant.
I waited until she had gone through the line and taken a seat at a table before going over to her. I’d needed a few minutes to collect my wits.
“Hi, Nana.” She stood up to kiss my cheek and I sat down across from her, observing the Big Mac and milkshake on her tray.
“You know, Shannon,” I said. “That food is not good for your baby.”
Her eyes flew open wide. “Did Mom tell you?” she asked.
I wondered how long Julie had known and how long she’d planned to keep the news from me. I supposed she’d wanted to drop one bombshell on me at a time.
“I’m old, Shannon, but I’m not stupid,” I said. “I know a pregnant woman—a pregnant girl—when I see one.”
She looked down at her Big Mac, peeking under the bun as though studying the meat for doneness, and I figured she was waiting for me to chew her out. She was afraid, and my heart broke a little for her. I made a quick decision to be a better grandmother than I had been a mother.
“How did your mother take the news?” I asked.
“Like you’d expect,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Like my life is over. Ruined forever. She’s so—” She cut off her own sentence, looking away from me. “All she cares about is my music career. She doesn’t really care about what I want.”
She took a bite of her hamburger, looking around the restaurant instead of at me. The way she talked about her mother sometimes, you would think she hated her. Shannon reminded me so much of Isabel in the early sixties, while Julie reminded me of myself during that same time period. I could see my mistakes being played out all over again.
“When did you tell her?” I asked.
She swallowed her bite of hamburger. “Yesterday,” she said.
“And your father?”
“I told him last night.” She shook her head. “You know Dad,” she said. “He said ‘Oh, Shannon,’ and that was it. At least Mom yelled. Dad just…he can be so totally lame sometimes.”
“I bet it wasn’t easy telling them, huh?” I asked.
Her eyes filled suddenly, and she went from hardened young woman to scared little girl. I handed her a napkin, but she only clutched it in her hand as a tear fell from her eye and rolled down her cheek.
“Who is the boy?” I asked.
A light came into her eyes, the first glint of joy I’d seen since she walked into the restaurant. She told me his name was Tanner, that he lived in Colorado, and that she planned to move out there with him. That nearly stopped my heart. Please, no, I thought. It was bad enough she’d been planning to go away to college. I wanted my granddaughter in my life. I loved when she stopped by McDonald’s just to say hello. How many more years did I have? If she moved across the country, when would I ever get to see her? But I quickly got a grip on myself.
“I tell you what, Shannie,” I said, using the nickname I’d given her when she was a toddler. “If those plans fall through and you end up staying here, I’ll be happy to baby-sit for you.”
Her mouth fell open in surprise. Then she smiled.
“Nana,” she said. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, darling,” I said.
She pushed her Big Mac aside. “I think I’m going to get a salad,” she said, rising to her feet. I told her to stay put, and then I went behind the counter and got her the healthiest salad we made.
As I drove home later that afternoon, I felt good about how I’d handled things with Shannon. I thought I’d given her what she needed—some loving kindness, free of judgment. That’s what Isabel had needed, too, but that was not what she’d received from me.
My good mood ended the moment I got in my door. The phone was ringing, and when I picked it up, there was Ross Chapman once again.
“Maria,” he said. Even speaking that one small word seemed to be a great effort for him. The three syllables came out slowly, sadly. “Has your daughter told you what’s going on?” he asked.
I closed my eyes. I was angry beyond measure at him. I believed he’d lied for his son, and now he was badgering me for forgiveness he was never going to get.
“You mean, did she tell me about Ned’s admission of guilt?” I responded, and then I hung up. I had let that man toy with my mind before. It was not going to happen again.
1942-1944
On the first day of my senior year at the New Jersey College for Women, I arrived in New Brunswick still able to taste Ross’s kisses in my mouth and feel his hands on my breasts. We had grown ever bolder during that summer, each of us seeing several other people in order to avoid leading one person on, as I was afraid I may have done with Fred. Many of the young men—Fred included—were fighting in the war at that time, so Ross had quite a few more dating options than I did, but I did my best. Ross had been drafted, but at his physical exam they discovered a minor heart problem and he was classified 4-F. Although I was patriotic when it came to the war and felt everyone should do his or her part, I was relieved he did not have to go.
My parents had made friends with another couple in Bay Head Shores and they often went to their house to play bridge, leaving our bungalow empty. When I knew they would be gone, Ross and I canceled whatever dates we had for that night and we would have the house to ourselves, free to satisfy the hunger we felt for each other. The summer had been filled with cunning, deception, and a fierce physical passion. I could barely tear myself away from him that last night at the shore.
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