Sunlight on My Shadow

by Judy Liautaud

  Nevertheless, this is the story the way I remember it.

  When March hit and the snow began to melt, we had a premature springy day of rain instead of snow. I had that nostalgic feeling about approaching spring. I felt the weight of my dark secret and remembered how carefree I was a year ago when my belly was flat and I was giddy and star struck, having just met Mick. I stood in front of the mirror and gazed at my shape with timid eyes. Without the girdle or clothes for a cover-up, my stomach relaxed into a small-sized basketball. My skin was dry and red from stretching to accommodate the growth inside. My breasts, which had been small and insignificant, now loomed large with the bottom surface resting on the skin below. Although I had longed for this fullness when I was fourteen, now it was freaky, unnatural. I was mortified at the extent of my disfiguration. I knew my reckoning day was coming soon. If I waited much longer, someone was bound to notice and call me on it. The secret was like a giant floating soap bubble, delicate and present, but tense with imminent destruction.

  Annie, Jane, Carol, and I were at a sleepover. It felt like we were at a hotel. Could we have stayed at a Holiday Inn together for some reason or other? I don’t know where we were, but the surroundings were not familiar, like my house or my friends’ houses. I remember that I wasn’t worried about someone overhearing us. It was just us. I was shaking in anticipation of spilling the news. I felt trapped and forced to tell. I couldn’t hold the secret any longer. I was bursting at the seams.

  They just couldn’t believe it. After all, I hadn’t even told them that Mick and I had sex. We never ventured into this topic. It was way too embarrassing and sensitive for me, and I was pretty sure none of them had done it. My friends were “good” girls. I wasn’t going to offer the fact that I was no longer a virgin, because it was something I wasn’t supposed to be doing. But now, I had to tell. I just had to tell someone.

  I mustered up the courage and said the words I had been rehearsing for months. “I’m pregnant.” I didn’t give any details or lead up to it but just blurted it out, like diving into an icy pond so as not to prolong the misery by going in gradually.

  A few summers before, we had read and passed around the Teen magazine issue with the cover story, “Pregnant and Still a Virgin.” The girl seemed to have had a heavy make-out session, and the boy must have dripped enough so it could travel and get inside. This was great fiction, but how did we know? These magazines were like today’s reality shows and we thought they were based on true stories. We took it as a warning to stay away from heavy petting.

  Since all of us had read this magazine story, I was quizzed as to whether I actually “did” it. There were questions like, “How do you know for sure?” I told them we really did do it; I was no virgin.

  When there were still questions, I told them I could feel the baby kick. I thought that would convince them. But then someone said maybe it was just gas.

  “No, no,” I said, and finally lifted my shirt. “See?”

  Then, I think it was Carol who said, “You’re just sticking it out.” Carol had an amazing talent and could pooch her belly out on demand so she looked like a little monkey. It was the funniest thing. So perhaps they thought I had learned Carol’s trick. I told them if they put their hand on my belly, they could feel it kick.

  “That’s creepy,” someone said. Then they saw my belly roll and change shape, and they knew it was no joke.

  Annie, who has always been good at offering solutions, said I should tell our local priest. This advice horrified me. Of all people, I couldn’t bear the thought of going in front of a priest and confessing what I had done. I hadn’t gone to confession in a long time, either.

  Jane seemed sick with worry. “What are you going to do, Jude?”

  They were all stunned, then concerned as they tried to help me come up with a plan.

  By the end of the night, it was decided that my sister, Jackie, would be the best one to tell next. I felt very close to my friends and was confident that they would keep the secret, because I made each of them say, “Swear to God. Stick a needle in your eye. No peein’ in the pot. No pickin’ your snot. Swear to God.” We used these words when it was really important that the secret be kept. Each repeated it, like a rite of passage. I was a member of a sacred group and reassured that my secret was safe.

  Now I felt light and free, filled with a warm sense of release from the damned-up secret. With the confession, I was free from the lead anchor that was pulling me down. As horrible as I had felt for five long months, I now felt a glimmer of hope, like this would get worked out somehow. Now I would tell Jackie. I would get some help and this secret would be dealt with however it may.

  ANNIE, JANE, AND JUDY 2011

  CHAPTER 19

  HYSTERICAL PREGNANCY

  The next night I slept right through without lying awake with worry. In the morning I was ready for the next step. Even though I dreaded telling Jackie, I had cracked the shell of secrecy. It wasn’t as bad as I thought. No one said, “How could you do it?” or “You’re a slut.” I loved my friends more than ever. I believed they would uphold our pact of silence.

  If I had to tell someone, my sister, Jackie, was the least threatening in my circle of authority figures. She didn’t reprimand me like she did her kids, but treated me like a sister. I always felt welcome at her house.

  Since there were nineteen years between Jackie and me, she ended up being like a second mom. I stayed at her house whenever Mom and Dad went on trips. At first it was a culture shock, going from our silent, spotless house to the gaggle of spirited children bumping into each other and tripping over toys strewn on the floor. I didn’t eat that much at home, but at Jackie’s a strange impulse came over me. When a mass of fork-laden hands attacked the plate of pork chops, I found myself stabbing two for my plate. Never before in my life had I eaten two hunks of meat. We were praised for being members of the Clean Plate Club, so I managed to choke down the last bites.

  Her kids tell stories of Jackie being so exhausted after birthing her tenth child in a span of thirteen years that she would lie on the couch and ping the rug rats with a fishing pole to keep them in line. Jackie was a baby-having expert. I remembered her words after coming from the hospital with one of her babies. “You aren’t a real woman until you experience childbirth.” I took that to mean it hurt a lot.

  Sis gained a few pounds with each pregnancy, so by the time I was a teen, she was well padded. She was never stingy with her hugs and I craved them. Her welcoming arms swallowed you up like a mass of warm silly putty.

  So the next day, after telling my friends, I picked up the phone and asked Jackie if I could come over to visit that afternoon. I told her I wanted to get her advice on something. It was set. I was committed. I was nervous now; I had five hours to wait until I could go over there. I went up to my bedroom and pulled out Catcher in the Rye. I got a glass of water, sat down, and started reading. After a few pages, I realized I hadn’t absorbed any of it. My mind was arranging the words for my disclosure to Jackie and thinking about food.

  Food was now high on my radar, strange for me, because during my childhood and teen life, I forced myself to eat. I hated being called skinny – it was another sign of my immaturity. Nobody was telling me that now, but my legs and arms were still quite thin.

  I went downstairs and fixed a bowl of oatmeal, then another. There was some fruitcake with brandy sauce in the fridge. Mom baked it every Christmas and I wouldn’t eat it unadorned, but the creamy, sugary brandy sauce made it delicious. That year, Mom had shown Hugren how to bake it, and we had some thawed out from the freezer. After the oatmeal, I had two pieces of fruitcake smeared with the thick sauce. My belly was packed until the skin was stretched tight. The jammed-in food made it hard to keep my breath.

  With a full belly my mind went limp and there was only one option – take a nap. I woke just in time to get in the car and head over to Jackie’s. She lived in Northbrook, a twenty-five-minute drive from our hous
e in Glenview. There stood the familiar white-painted frame house with the enclosed front porch. As I pulled into her driveway, my heart started to clickety-clack, ka-boom ka-boom, like an out-of-balance Whirlpool washer. I knocked on the door, walked in, and called out, “Hi, Sis, I’m here.”

  Jackie responded from upstairs, “Hi, Jude, I’ll be there in a minute.”

  I sat on the couch. “She has no idea what’s coming,” I thought. My palms were damp and I could feel drips of sweat falling down the sides of my chest. I wanted to flee but I stayed put, staring into space. Soon I heard her footsteps coming down the stairs. My nervousness elevated. She looked like she had just washed her hair: tight, dishwater-blonde ringlets covered her head.

  “Hi, Pood,” she said. “Let’s go in the kitchen.” Pood had been my nickname since I was a baby. Maybe it was because I pooed. Or maybe it was because some other baby couldn’t say the “J” in “Jude.”

  We walked into the kitchen. “Sis, I have a bad problem and just don’t know what to do or who to talk to,” I said.

  “Oh?” she questioned, the corners of her mouth turning down. Jackie closed the swinging door to the kitchen. “Let’s sit down.”

  We sat across from each other at the oak table, big enough for the horde of kids.

  “What’s going on, Jude?”

  I put my hand up to my chin and said it. “I think I’m pregnant.”

  I couldn’t believe I blurted it out so quickly. Hearing the words out loud still shocked me, but it was a load-off to get it out.

  “Oh. My. Why do you think so?”

  “I haven’t had a period in five months.”

  “Five months?”

  “Yep.”

  “Judy, do you want a glass of water or something to drink?”

  “No, thanks.” Jackie got up and ran the faucet, filled a glass and sat back down.

  “Oh, dear,” she said. There was a long pause, as she tried to form a response. “Well, Judy, just because you missed your period doesn’t mean you’re pregnant.”

  Maybe Jackie knew something I didn’t: after all, she birthed ten kids and should know about this pregnancy stuff. I wanted to believe. Oh, how I wanted to believe there could be a chance she was right.

  Jackie’s frown relaxed when a thought came to her. “Well, you know,” she said, “there’s something called a hysterical pregnancy. You can have all the symptoms but it’s not really so.”

  My mind tried to grab on to her words. I wanted to be hysterical with relief.

  “Really?” I said. “I never heard of that.”

  “Yes, it’s the strangest thing. But it’s a real thing. It’s just like you’re pregnant—you miss your period, get nauseated, and gain weight. The mind is a powerful thing.”

  I wondered if Jackie thought I was crazy enough to have a hysterical pregnancy. For an instant I wanted to jump in with both feet, believing this swollen belly was a figment of my imagination. But if it was true, that might be worse than the real thing, for what kind of crazy would I have to be to create all this just by the power of my mind? But yet, I so wanted to take the leap and grab on to the hope.

  The lifeline snapped as truth set back in.

  “Sis, I don’t think so. I can feel it moving inside of me,” I said.

  “Really? Sometimes that can be gas.”

  “But I had morning sickness, too.”

  “Yes, that can be a part of the hysterical pregnancy too,” she said.

  “Really, it’s a medical condition that exists. What we need to do is have you tested. You never know for sure.”

  “Hmmm,” I said. “It could be, but I’m so scared.” I started to cry.

  “Well, we’ll see, Jude. Don’t get all worked up about it yet.”

  She put her arms around me.

  “What we need to do is talk to Mom and Dad about this.”

  “We do? I was hoping we could keep them out of it.”

  “They need to know. You’re their daughter.”

  “But, Sis,” I said. “I just can’t bear to tell Mom. She just got out of the hospital, and Dad will kill me. I’m too scared.”

  She took a sip of water and said, “Well, I can talk to Mom about it.”

  “That’d be good. I’m just so scared of what they’re going to do. When will you tell her?”

  “I’ll arrange it. Maybe this evening, or I could go over there tomorrow morning. We can make a doctor’s appointment so you can get tested.”

  “Thank you, Sis. I’m so glad I talked to you. I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but I have been keeping this secret for too long.”

  “You poor thing. We’ll get it worked out.”

  I stood up and pushed in the chair. Jackie stood up, too.

  “Come over here.” She hugged me. “It’s okay, Jude. It’ll all be okay. We’ll take care of this. Don’t worry; we’ll get to the bottom of this. The next step is to talk to Mom and Dad. I love you, Pood. Really, it’s gonna be okay.”

  She gave me one of those enveloping hugs, slipping me into comfort like a warm tub of water. As she drew me close, for the first time since that fateful party, I felt like I could take a free breath. I started to cry. I was relieved there was no lecture or questions like, “How could you do it?” My sister was cool.

  CHAPTER 20

  COMING CLEAN TO MOM AND DAD

  My mother pushed the joystick on her motorized wheelchair to get closer to the phone. Her finger joints were stiff and immobile, knotted with arthritis. She fumbled as she picked up the receiver and then used her index finger to punch the numbers. If we still had rotary dials, she wouldn’t have been able to call because she had very little strength in her fingers. She was dialing Fendall, my dad’s manufacturing plant.

  Jackie and I sat on the blue satin couch. She got up to reach the crystal candy dish. The unwrapping cellophane sounded like cracking thunder. I was so nervous.

  “John Liautaud, please.”

  “His wife.”

  “It’s urgent.”

  “John, I have some bad news but I’d like you to come home from work so I can talk to you about it.”

  “No, John, no one has died, but I don’t think you’ll be happy with the news. Please come home now.”

  “OK, bye.”

  Mom used her free arm to grab under her elbow for support. She leaned her body over to get closer to the tabletop and jerkily put the phone back in the cradle. Her aim was off-center, but she finally rocked it into place. Her eyes winced with the pain of movement.

  “Is Dad coming?” I asked.

  “Yes, he’ll be here in half an hour.”

  “Oh, Judy, of all the things you could have done, this is the worst. Why didn’t you come and talk to me sooner?” Mom asked.

  Mom went on without waiting for me to come up with an answer.

  “Your father is going to be very upset.”

  Mom’s eyes narrowed and her smooth, swollen face crinkled with her thoughts of angst.

  “This is all my fault. I wasn’t here for you during the most important years of your life,” she sighed.

  I wanted to protect her from the pain of what I had done, but there was no remedy for that. I felt sick at the hurt I had caused her.

  Even though Mom was away from home, I didn’t see how she could feel responsible for my condition. If she had been home, she wouldn’t have been going out with me on dates.

  “Oh, Mom, it isn’t your fault,” I said. “It wouldn’t have made any difference if you were here; this still would’ve happened.”

  Of all people, I thought, Mom was the least to be blamed. Sometimes she had an overactive maternal instinct. Even though there was still Dad to deal with, I was relieved I was coming clean. Like a soldier to battle, I had my shield ready to fend off any punishment, including the angry words or freaked-out behaviour that might emit from Dad.

  “At least I would have noticed that you were gaining weight,” Mom said. �
��Maybe I would have heard you getting sick in the morning. I could have done something for you.”

  “I doubt if you’d have noticed, Mom. No one knew, not even my best friends.”

  “But, Judy, you should have come to us right away and told us about this.”

  “Yeah, I got it,” I thought. I not only got in trouble, but I didn’t handle it very well, either. I acted like a zombie, stuffing the problem and ignoring its presence.

  I didn’t know how to explain myself, or if I even could. After a minute, I said, “Mom, I was too scared to tell anyone. Up until a few days ago, the only person who knew about it was Mick. I kept hoping for a miscarriage.”

  My defense sounded weak. My throat clenched and a sob creaked between the tightened strings of my vocal cords.

  “I’ve really messed up. I know. I’m so sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

  “How long has it been since you had a period?” Mom asked.

  “Five months.”

  “Oh my God, you couldn’t possibly be five months along. Why didn’t you tell us sooner?”

  She didn’t believe it, but I knew I got pregnant the day the rubber broke at the party. But why would she think I knew anything when I had lost her trust?

  “How did you manage to conceal it for that long?”

  “I sucked my stomach in. I wore a girdle. My uniform blazer pretty much covered it up.”

  “Oh, Jesus, help us.”

  Now that I had told my mom and my sister and a few friends, I didn’t want them to think I was a slut, which would be the obvious assumption considering my condition. I was surprised no one was asking me about any details. And I didn’t know how to make myself look any better. Even if I said I only did it twice, it didn’t seem to lessen my marred purity. I didn’t know if I should offer the truth about the rubber breaking. I thought perhaps that would sound too “premeditated.” I guess it was obvious. I did it at least once. That was bad enough. I sat in silence.