Raising Rain

by Debbie Fuller Thomas

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?” Jude asked.

  Toni glanced at Mare, who frowned at her and then met Bebe’s look of hesitation. Toni raised both hands as if she were backing away from the situation.

  “Out with it,” Jude commanded.

  “I never had an abortion, Jude,” Bebe said. “I miscarried before my appointment with that ‘doctor’ you set me up with.”

  Rain looked at her with an odd mixture of anger and disbelief on her face.

  “Miscarried?” Jude said. “Now, wasn’t that convenient.”

  “It’s not as though I planned it. I guess I partied too much because I was having trouble forcing myself to go through with it. That whole weekend was lost to me.”

  Jude smirked. “It was obvious at the time that you were conflicted about it. I mistakenly believed that you’d broken free from that antiquated belief system you brought to school with you.”

  “Well, I was young. That’s why I didn’t tell you. In some twisted way, I knew it elevated me in your eyes.”

  “Twisted? That wasn’t your attitude when you came crying to me about being pregnant and not wanting your family to know and wanting to stay in school.”

  “I didn’t fully understand the consequences at the time.”

  “Well, it didn’t take much to convince you,” Jude shot back.

  “I was only eighteen, Jude. And I was compliant in those days.”

  Jude spread her arms dramatically. “Exactly! That’s exactly my point. I was trying to help you shake off your compliant upbringing.”

  “By forcing me to comply with your ideas? How does that make me noncompliant?”

  “I never forced you into anything you didn’t agree to. I simply helped you see new possibilities and to escape that narrow mind-set you came with.” She shifted and put her feet up on the ottoman. “Take that brother of yours, for instance.”

  Bebe felt suddenly defensive of him. “What about Bobby?”

  “He brought you to the house, posturing like some knight in shining armor, checking the situation over. He tried to get you to leave with him—I heard you talking. He said mommy and daddy wouldn’t like it if you stayed, and you begged him not to tell.”

  Bebe fumed. “The campus was very different from the time we first checked it out.”

  “My point is that you didn’t stand up to him. You didn’t tell him that you were doing things your way. I thought I was going to have to drag you inside by your hair.” Jude’s face twisted into a sneer. “You talked him down off the ledge, instead of pushing him off with both hands.”

  Bebe shook her head. “What are you talking about?”

  “You begged him not to tell. You manipulated him like some pathetic housewife begging her husband for a little more grocery money. You couldn’t even stand up for yourself. Has he always been your savior?”

  “Mom,” Rain interrupted, “that’s enough.”

  A memory flashed in Bebe’s mind. She was in the vineyard and Bobby was running toward her and frantically shouting her name. She wondered what he might have saved her from, if she’d allowed him to take her back home with him, and she felt an unwarranted anger that maybe he hadn’t tried hard enough.

  “You sugarcoated everything you said to him,” Jude continued, “like you needed permission to blossom into the woman you were becoming.” She looked at Mare and Toni. “Each of you needed me.”

  Mare’s and Toni’s jaws dropped.

  Finally, Toni found her voice. “I was doing fine on my own, thank you very much.”

  “Oh, really,” Jude said, turning her attention to Toni. “You were so caught up in putting on a glamorous face, catering to a man’s idea of beautiful, that you were never honest. You didn’t think I knew that you put your makeup on in the bathroom at school like a thirteen-yearold.”

  Toni looked irritated. “I started wearing makeup at twelve.” She added under her breath, “If I’d wanted to live with my father, I would have stayed home.”

  Jude ignored her comment. “Just as you found your natural, true self, you would leave on break and return as some wannabe fashion model. I had to straighten you out all over again.”

  Toni folded her arms. “Including ruining my relationships.”

  Jude wore a self-satisfied look.

  “Do you know what she did?” Toni said, glancing at Bebe and Mare. “She knew I was still seeing my boyfriend back in Philadelphia. So one time he calls when I’m gone, and she tells him that I’m going on a date with Jerome after his Black Panther meeting.”

  “Interracial dating was very enlightened.”

  “Not in my hometown in 1969. Besides, Jerome wasn’t a Black Panther and we weren’t even dating. We were working on a class project.”

  “My misunderstanding,” Jude said, by way of apology. “But you wasted no time finding another to take his place.”

  Toni looked as close to crying as Bebe had ever seen her.

  “If you’d really wanted him, you’d have gotten yourself pregnant the next time you went home, and trapped him into marrying you, like Mare did with that art teacher.”

  Mare’s mouth dropped. “I did not trap Arnie into marrying me. That was our plan all along.”

  Jude raised her eyebrows. “Your plan, or his, I wonder?”

  Bebe looked at Rain, wondering what she thought of this revealing look at her mother in her college years.

  Then out of the blue Rain asked, “Do any of you know who my father is?”

  Blank looks and silence hung in the air. A small smile curled on Toni’s lips.

  Bebe would have enjoyed seeing Jude on the hot seat for a change, except that it involved Rain.

  Jude picked at a piece of lint on her slacks, and Bebe silently willed her to say the right thing.

  “We’ve had this discussion before, Rain,” Jude said, patronizingly. “I don’t know who it was. You didn’t need a controlling father, any more than I needed a domineering husband.”

  Bebe couldn’t stand the look of resignation and disappointment on Rain’s face. It was a time for honesty, and Jude let it pass by.

  “You’re right, Jude,” Bebe said, rising from her seat to leave. “Who needed a controlling father or a domineering husband, when we all had you?”

  Bebe went into her room and shut the door to gather her composure. After all these years, Jude could still push her buttons, and she was angry at herself for allowing it to happen again.

  Underlying all the anger she felt toward Jude were the raw feelings their confrontations had exposed within her. And it galled her to realize that Jude had seen through to the truth that, for all her spiritual understanding, Bebe hadn’t allowed healing to take place.

  She heard the others talking in the kitchen. She considered staying in her room and calling it a night, but she feared what would be planned in her absence. They weren’t finished yet, no matter how much Bebe wished it to be over.

  She sat in the quiet of her bedroom until she smelled coffee brewing. Then she gathered her resolve and joined the others in the kitchen.

  Jude had retired to her room, but it was too much to hope that she would go to bed and forget about it. Bebe figured Rain must be helping her.

  “I guess that’s the end of Round One,” Toni said quietly as Bebe pulled out a stool and sat down with a fresh cup.

  Bebe considered her. “Why didn’t you tell me about your books? Are they smutty?”

  Toni looked offended. “No, they’re not smutty! Believe it or not, I write for the Sweet and Light imprint, and they’re stories of monogamous heterosexuals. They allow petting, but the characters have to wait until marriage to take the plunge.”

  Bebe blew on her coffee. “I would have thought that would bore you to tears.”

  “Yeah, you seem like more of a bodice-ripper type,” Mare added.

  Toni grinned mysteriously. “Sometimes it’s like restraining a racehorse.”

  Bebe snickered and Mare gave Toni a playful shove. “You’re bad,�
� she said.

  Rain came into the kitchen with her fists shoved deeply into her sweater pockets. Mare poured her a cup of coffee and drew her to a stool at the counter with them, asking, “So . . . how’s your mom doing?”

  She shrugged without meeting their eyes. “About the same.”

  “Were we too hard on her?” Toni asked. “I guess it bordered on a bloodletting, considering her condition.”

  “Sounds like she got what she deserved.” She lifted her eyes briefly to each one of them. “I’ve always wondered why you all stayed friends with her after you left. It would have been so easy to just lose contact.”

  Bebe leaned across the counter and squeezed Rain’s arm. “It was all because of you, honey.”

  Toni added, “We knew you’d need help. Or intensive psychotherapy.”

  Bebe felt worried. “You know, that whole thing with the ROTC building . . . I wasn’t as bad as that.”

  “I know.” A tiny smile tugged at the corners of Rain’s mouth, and dissolved again. “At least you were worried about me. I guess I took second place in Mom’s life from the very start.”

  She traced the pattern on the mug with her thumbnail and the three of them glanced at each other.

  “That’s not true, Rain,” Mare said. “She was fiercely possessive of you. You were so cute in your little onesies, and we hardly got to hold you at all.”

  “Unless you had a poopy diaper, and then you were up for grabs,” Toni teased, refilling her cup. “Mare, do we have any more cream?”

  Mare looked at her in disbelief. “You’re standing right beside the fridge. Open it and look.”

  Toni opened the refrigerator and squinted. “Not that soy stuff—”

  “There’s regular cream on the second shelf. You’re worse than Arnie.”

  Toni poured cream into her cup and swirled it with her spoon. “As I was saying, Jude had an aversion to dirty diapers, so she handed you off to us when your diapers were positively bulging.”

  “What’s this ‘us’? You never changed her diapers,” Bebe said.

  “Well, I did at least once. I remember I was making chocolate chip cookies and I stopped to change her. I had on those Lee press-on nails, and after I washed my hands, I thought I still had cookie dough under my fingernails, but . . . it . . . wasn’t.”

  “Ugh,” Mare said. “You licked your finger?”

  Toni looked rueful. “Only that once.”

  Rain laughed, and it was a beautiful sound.

  “Bebe used to make you little shirts and sundresses out of any material she could find,” Mare said. “Especially purple.”

  “College couture.” Looking at Bebe, Toni said, “Remember when you found those old curtains in the trash next door and scrounged them for a dress?” She turned to Rain. “You should have seen the looks we got from the neighbors when they realized you were wearing their old curtains.”

  “But you had new things, too,” Bebe assured her. “Once in a while. We were just poor college students, you know.”

  Rain smiled to herself. “I remember going to a zoo or a playland with a dragon. Was it Sleepy Hollow?”

  Mare said, “Happy Hollow in San Jose. You’re thinking of a kiddie ride—Danny the Dragon. We took Autumn and Crystal, too. They had a zoo with rides and a picnic area.”

  “The dragon used to scare me. I dreamed about it.”

  “Well, you were little then. I think they’re in the midst of a remodel now.”

  “I remember going down a huge slide on Neil’s lap. It seemed like it was high. How old was I?”

  “I think you were two and a half the first time. You were six the last time we went, just before your mom moved out with you.” Bebe remembered those trips fondly because Jude was so wrapped up in finishing her law degree that she was happy to let them entertain her. Even though Bebe and Neil were in veterinary school, they managed to carve out time for Rain. She completed their little family. Tears suddenly welled in Bebe’s eyes. “It was hard to let you go.”

  Rain leaned over and hugged Bebe’s neck. “I missed you all so much when we moved.” She looked at Mare and Toni. “My childhood memories are kind of dull after that.”

  She sobered. “One thing I don’t understand is why she had me in the first place? If she was so intent that you should have an abortion, why didn’t she have one? Life would have been easier for her if she had.”

  “We all asked her that at the time,” Toni said. “She wanted to raise you to be a ‘new woman.’ You said yourself one time that you felt like a social experiment.” Toni lifted her eyebrows knowingly. “But if you ask me, I think she was in love with your father.”

  Mare made a face at Toni. “You would be a romantic about it.”

  Bebe said, “I think she was just plain lonely. Her own moth—”

  “Shouldn’t I be in on this conversation?” They looked up to see Jude standing in the doorway. For a moment, none of them spoke.

  Bebe felt chagrined that she had once again caught them discussing her.

  “After all, if you’re going to pass judgment on me, I should get to have my say.”

  Rain jumped up, but Jude waved her away and headed for the bank of windows overlooking blackness. They guiltily exchanged looks, and finally joined her in the sunroom.

  When she was settled in a chaise lounge, she began. “What I think Bebe was about to say, was that my mother was a pathetic, selfabsorbed toad of a woman who didn’t know how to love another human being properly. She fell in love with my father, who turned out to be a philandering gambler. Mare, you should identify with that.”

  “Arnie’s not that bad,” Mare said, indignantly.

  “My mother also defended my father’s pursuits up until the time he left us for good when I was thirteen. At that point, I became particularly adept at ridding the house of some of the losers she hung out with by using the term ‘jail bait’.” She shifted in her chair as though in pain. “I’ll spare you the sordid details of my junior high and high school years. Needless to say, I wasn’t invited to many pajama parties. So you’ll forgive me if I tried to distance myself from the suburban housewife stereotype and empower myself and a few friends along the way.”

  Bebe finally found her voice. “Your experience growing up wasn’t everyone’s, Jude.”

  “Thank you, Bebe, for stating the obvious. But if your experience wasn’t so bad, why were you so determined not to repeat it? From what I gather, you had an intact nuclear family with economic security and a home-cooked meal every night. There must be some reason why you agreed to have an abortion.”

  “I never completely agreed to it. I might not have kept that appointment.”

  “You made that decision when you decided to party. And you influenced another, along the way, I might add.”

  Bebe looked at her. “What do you mean?”

  Jude looked at Rain. “Did you know that Rain had the unfortunate experience of getting pregnant when she was in high school? You were one of the reasons she agreed to have an abortion.”

  Bebe looked in horror at Rain, who finally met her eyes. “But . . . I didn’t . . .”

  “Yes, well,” Jude said, “I was under the impression that you had. And since you seemed to be Rain’s hero, it wasn’t hard to convince her that she wasn’t ready to be a mother at sixteen if you weren’t ready at eighteen.”

  The full impact of her deception caught Bebe like a blow. Now Rain was trying to have a child, and she’d terminated one, just because she thought she was following Bebe’s example.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, it’s not a big deal. It’s every woman’s prerogative to terminate a pregnancy,” Jude stated.

  “Having a legal right to an abortion doesn’t make it morally right,” Mare said.

  Toni added, “I think it’s interesting that the two people who have had experience with it have reservations, and Jude, who never had one, is pushing it and doesn’t see a problem. I, personally, think they are the ones who have earned the right to hav
e an opinion on the subject, and not you.”

  Jude turned cold eyes on Toni.

  “I . . . I didn’t know,” Bebe stammered to Rain.

  Rain hesitated. “I didn’t say anything because you’d been trying to have a baby for a long time, and then you had a miscarriage. I didn’t want you to know that I’d . . . that I’d gotten rid of what you wanted so badly.” Her chin trembled. “And then you started going to church and you seemed to be changing, and I was afraid to tell you. I didn’t want you to hate me. I thought it was something I could just forget about and pretend never happened, but I can’t.” Her voice caught, and Bebe wanted to go to her, but she continued, “So now that I want a child, I can’t have one.”

  She turned to her mother, suddenly angry. “You’re no better than Shirley.”

  “Rain, no,” Bebe said. Jude looked momentarily stricken, but Rain continued.

  “You didn’t have me because you loved me, you had me for selfish reasons, to prove something to yourself. To make a point. Do you have any idea how ridiculous ‘Rainbow Star’ looks on a résumé? You told me to put my career first, like you did. But you were always going off to some political fund-raiser or a demonstration, and I was left to fend for myself.”

  “I always provided for you.”

  “Not in the ways I needed.”

  “We were fighting for your rights. Making sacrifices. If it hadn’t been for socially minded women, you’d be making coffee for your boss and picking up his dry cleaning and putting up with his advances just to keep your job. And you wouldn’t be enjoying the limitless opportunities that Title VII opened up for you. For that matter, Bebe might not have gotten into veterinary school without the passage of Title IX.”

  Bebe nodded. “Yes, that’s true. I certainly didn’t get any support from my family.” She thought for a moment and looked at them, puzzled. “Wouldn’t you think that just once in thirty years my father would have asked for medical advice on something? He never has. Sometimes I wonder whether I went to veterinary school to prove something to him or to impress him.”

  “Look, I appreciate the sacrifices,” Rain said. “But I don’t want to be told what to think. You fought for me to be able to make my own choices, and then you took it away and dictated what was best for me. You told me that I was all I needed in life. You told me it was best for me to have an abortion at sixteen. You said I didn’t need a man or a child. You said I had all the time in the world to have both. Well, guess what? I don’t. While I was putting my career first, and proving to Hayden that I didn’t need him, my time was running out. If I really want a baby now, I’ll probably have to use some stranger’s eggs, and a stranger’s sperm, and deal with choices I don’t want to make alone.”