Because of the Rain

by Deborah Raney

  At seven-thirty, she woke again with a start. She would barely have time to take a quick shower, throw on jeans and a sweater, and make a piece of toast to eat on the way to her eight-thirty class.

  Despite the upheaval in their lives, the world seemed to keep right on revolving. Clients waited impatiently in Paul’s office. Classes resumed at the university.

  Anna had considered not going back to school after spring break since she had already missed almost a month of classes. But Paul convinced her that she needed the distraction now more than ever. And she was grateful to have the daytime hours filled with classes and lectures, and the evenings busy with catching up on homework. Today began the fifth week of classes since spring break.

  Her stomach churned as the smell of toasting bread filled the kitchen. Whether it was the beginnings of morning sickness or just her nerves, she wasn’t sure. She still didn’t feel pregnant and she struggled with hoping maybe it was all just a big mistake. Grabbing her books and her purse, Anna wrapped the toast in a paper napkin, locked up the house, and hurried to the car.

  She eased into the rush-hour traffic, glad that she had only a few miles to go. She found a place to park close to the building and hurried up the steps, the low heels of her leather flats echoing on the tile floor of the wide hallway. Approaching the first set of double doors to the lecture hall, she could hear that the instructor had already begun speaking. She ducked in and found an empty seat near the back of the auditorium, grateful that her first class was large—more than three hundred students—and she could slip in unnoticed.

  She took out her notebook and dug in her purse for a pen. The light was dim above the seats, but in the semi-darkness Anna’s eyes were drawn to a young woman sitting in the row directly in front of her. Her long dark hair fell in a silky curtain and hid her face as she furiously scribbled notes.

  But what held Anna’s attention was the bundle resting on her lap, strapped snugly to her chest by a sling-like harness across one shoulder. She didn’t even know the right terms for current baby paraphernalia.

  Anna could just see the tiny bald head peeking out of the opening at the top of the carrier. The infant was apparently sound asleep, oblivious to his surroundings. His mother looked so young! A mere girl. Anna watched them both with fascination, the professor’s voice now a meaningless drone in the background.

  This could be her in a few short months! The thought was surreal. Nor did it fit with the image of herself that she’d grown comfortable with—that of a reasonably attractive but definitely middle-aged woman. She had loved being a mother when the girls were small, but she had put that young maternal image aside long ago. Now she was the wife of a successful executive, a diligent student, and yes, still a mother…but to grown daughters—daughters whom she saw now more as friends than as children who needed her constant attentiveness.

  She had no difficulty picturing herself with her own successful career in counseling. Though that was in the future, it seemed achievable, fitting, already a part of who she was. But with a tiny infant strapped across her bosom? She couldn’t imagine returning again to that time in her life.

  She remembered when she was pregnant with her daughters that the whole world had seemed pregnant. Never before had there been so many strollers in the mall, so many billowing maternity dresses walking down Chicago’s windswept streets. Now that phenomenon seemed to have reared its head again. Only instead of the serene joy she’d once felt at sharing this experience with perfect strangers, she now felt alone and desolate. Where before she’d assumed that every pregnancy was as happy and wanted as hers, now she wondered at her naiveté, and supposed that each one had as mournful a story as hers behind it.

  The squeaking of the folding seats and the low voices of students leaving the auditorium shook Anna from her reverie. Feeling muddled, she picked up her books and walked across campus to her next class.

  Abnormal Psychology was one of Anna’s favorite courses, not because of the subject matter, but because of the professor. Emma Green fascinated Anna. The woman had a lively, unassuming manner that belied her keen intelligence and wisdom. She was also one of the most beautiful women Anna had ever known. Her skin was the color of strong coffee with cream, smooth and free of wrinkles despite the fact that she was the mother of three grown children. Her ready smile revealed teeth white as milk, and her close-cropped hair sprang from her head in wayward black ringlets that formed a seemly frame for her full features.

  Emma and Anna had become cautious friends over the course of two semesters. Cautious because of the precarious teacher-student boundaries that society set. But more than either wanted to admit, cautious too, because of the lines that race and economics and marital status drew for them: Anna, married with children most of her adult life. Emma, a single mother of three for even longer. Anna’s comfortable financial status. Emma’s struggle to make a better life for her children than she had known herself, having grown up in the squalor of the Chicago Housing Authority’s tenements. Even their physical appearances were a study in contrasts: Emma’s dark African American complexion and sturdy five-foot-eleven build, contrasted with Anna’s fair, blue-eyed fragility.

  Anna sat through the class, concentrating with some effort on the day’s lecture. The class ended, and the students began to file out the door, some of them stopping to turn in papers or ask questions of Professor Green. Emma was engaged in a discussion with a young man when Anna started out the door. But as she passed by, Emma reached out and, without missing a beat in her conversation, touched Anna on the shoulder and gave her a look that said, “wait here for just a minute, please.”

  Anna hung back and sat down at a desk in the front row. Surreptitiously she watched her friend and teacher. Emma used her hands broadly, slender manicured fingers painting the air as she articulated her point to the student. He backed out of the room, laughing at Emma’s parting joke, undisguisedly admiring his teacher.

  Emma turned, still smiling, to face Anna. “Anna …” The affectionately spoken name lingered in the space between them. Anna felt oddly like a child sent to the principal’s office for a reprimand. There was questioning in Emma’s eyes now. Anna smiled weakly in response, but did not speak. She didn’t know what to say. She felt naked, exposed.

  Abruptly, Emma sat down in the desk beside Anna. Then with uncharacteristic intimacy, she covered Anna’s pale hand with her own. “I don’t mean to pry, but, girl, somethin’ is not right with you.”

  Rarely did Anna detect even a trace of the tenements in Emma’s voice, but it was there now. And somehow it seemed endearing and familiar to her. She sighed leadenly and opened her mouth to answer, but what escaped her lips was more a sob than it was words. “Oh, Emma …” They’d been on a first-name basis since the time Anna had remained after class for help with a paper, and they’d discovered the warm rapport between them. Now it was a comfort to utter Emma’s name, and somehow the barriers that had loomed invisible between them fell away. This was a dear friend she was confiding in. “Emma, I don’t know where to start. I’m…I’m pregnant!”

  “Ohhh …” The information sank in slowly and registered with a raised eyebrow and a slow, deliberate nod. “I guess that kind of puts a crimp in your career plans, huh?”

  “That’s not all.” It seemed too terrible to put into words. “It’s not just that. It…it’s not Paul’s baby.”

  The expression on Emma’s face said she was assuming something very different. Anna quickly explained. “Oh no. It’s not like that. I…I was raped, Emma. And now I’m pregnant.”

  “Oh, dear God.” There was genuine compassion in the outcry. “Oh, girl… I’m so sorry.” She tightened her clasp on Anna’s hands. The gesture spoke a thousand healing words.

  Anna crumbled. “Paul isn’t taking it very well. I’ve decided to carry the pregnancy to term and he’s struggling with my decision. But I just can’t. And now I… I don’t know what’s going to happen to us.”

  Sitting in the cold, sterile cl
assroom, Anna poured out the story, and there was a purging of her soul in entrusting the sordid details with someone caring and sympathetic. Anna’s story unfolded, with Emma interjecting sympathetic little groans and clicks of her tongue. And when Anna finished, the black woman spoke in a quiet, faraway voice.

  “Anna, I know that everything you are studying about being a counselor will tell you that the worst thing you can say to someone at a time like this is ‘I know how you feel,’ but…” Shaking her head, Emma looked Anna in the eye and, with a sigh, breathed the phrase. “I know how you feel.”

  Anna shot her a questioning look.

  “I was raped, too, when I was fourteen. I didn’t get pregnant… at least not then, but I felt so… so dirty, so sinful, that I kind of went crazy.” Emma paused, as though collecting her thoughts. But when she continued, there was quiet resolve in her voice. “ You see, it was…my boyfriend who raped me. I felt so guilty that I had let him take my virginity from me. Unlike you, I was partly at fault. I was young and naive, and I didn’t realize I was leading him on. I know now that doesn’t excuse what he did, but still, the guilt was overwhelming. He was older—almost twenty. After that, I figured I was already ruined—damaged goods and all that—so I became promiscuous. And within a year I was pregnant with Tanya.”

  “Oh, Emma. I’m so sorry.” Anna squeezed her hand tighter. It felt good to be the comforter instead of the comforted.

  Emma shook her head slowly. “I’m not even sure who my daughter’s father is. I’ve had to live with that. I’ve had to answer my sweet girl’s questions about her father.”

  Emma’s voice faltered, but she swallowed hard and went on. “I know our circumstances were very different, Anna, and I’m truly not trying to one-up you with my story. It’s just that I do know some of the questions you’re facing now—questions about the mixed feelings you have for the child you’re carrying and the hard choices you’re facing about your future and this child’s. Abortion wasn’t really an option for me. It wasn’t legal then, of course, and I didn’t have a dime. And besides, I didn’t know which man to go to for help. I’m so grateful now that it wasn’t a choice. I’m afraid I might have taken the easy way out, and oh, what I would have missed! Anna, you must make Paul see what a mistake that would be. You must!”

  She looked at Anna intently, and her voice became fierce. “You know my life hasn’t been easy, but my daughter is the joy of my life. All my children are blessings, of course, but Tanya…she’s somethin’ special. The boys have been through some bitter times. Being deserted by their father at such a tender age did a number on them. But the good Lord has brought us through it all. There were times I thought we wouldn’t make it, times I doubted I’d ever find happiness, but it’s all been redeemed, Anna.”

  “I know,” Anna admitted. “I knew how you felt about your kids from the first time I met you.”

  Emma nodded. “To see all three of my kids in happy marriages, raising my grandbabies for the Lord… I guess what I’m trying to say, Anna, is that as terrible as this seems—no, as terrible as it is for you and as difficult as it must be for Paul—there is hope. If I have anything to offer you, it’s hope.” She squeezed Anna’s hand hard before letting go. “I know you well enough to know that you live your life for the Lord. Let Him carry you through this, child. Let Him be glorified. I know He can bring something beautiful out of even a devastating situation like this.”

  Anna put her head on the cool flat surface of the desk and sobbed. Her tears were not for the sorrow she was being asked to endure. Nor were they tears of self-pity. They were tears of gratitude—thanksgiving for the hope she knew had always been there, that was hers for the taking, but that God had chosen to reveal through the words of this beautiful friend who sat beside her.

  She lifted her tear-stained face to Emma and threw her arms around her friend. And over Emma’s shoulder, she turned her face heavenward and offered thanks there as well.

  Chapter 11

  As the days wore on, Paul treated Anna with kindness and a gentle sweetness. Yet, he was somehow distant from her, too, preoccupied with the weight of coming to terms with their situation. He took long walks alone in the evening and came home in a self-absorbed silence that Anna could not seem to break through.

  Sometimes he retreated to his office. When she tiptoed by the open doorway, it tore at her heart to see him bowed over his open Bible on the desk, anguish in his posture. Often he came to bed long after she’d fallen asleep. And though his politeness rarely faltered, they spoke of little of consequence.

  One evening she was cleaning up the kitchen after supper when Paul called out from his office. “Can you come here, Anna? I want to show you something.”

  Curious, she dried her hands and went to stand in the doorway of his office. He was sitting on the low sofa, his Bible spread open on his lap. He patted the place beside him, and she came and sat, nestling in the crook of his arm. The reading lamp on the end table beside them cast a warm glow over Paul’s face, and Anna thought she saw a new light in his eyes.

  “Listen to this, babe.” There was an almost childish excitement in his manner as his fingers scanned the column of words. Then, in a whisper wrought of emotion, he read from the Psalms.

  “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

  He closed the book and looked up at her. Tears glistened in his eyes, but they veiled eyes full of peace, not pain. “When I read this tonight, Anna, I saw the baby we lost— just like you told me that night—so perfectly knit together, so ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’—and I realized that this baby you are carrying is no less wonderfully made. The circumstances are difficult, yes, but still, God made him, Anna. I understand that now. And God has already written his days—or her days”—a smile flickered across his face—“in His book. If that’s true––and I believe it is––how could we possibly destroy this life?”

  Anna sat silent beside him as he marveled aloud. “In these past few days, God has searched my heart in ways that have nearly done me in. I don’t know when I’ve ever been in such turmoil. And yet, in a strange way, it’s been wonderful to be chastened by the God of the universe.” He said it with awe in his voice.

  “Oh, Paul…” Her throat was too full to speak.

  “I’m not sure I can explain it to you when I don’t understand it myself, but finally, tonight, I feel at peace. It overwhelms me that I can feel this calm when our lives are in such upheaval, and yet I am at peace, Anna. It’s as real to me as you are beside me now.”

  Her heart sang hearing these words from his lips. She knew at that moment that they would have this baby. And may God help them all.

  Anna went through the next weeks with a quiet assurance in her soul. She treasured a deep feeling of trust that she would somehow be carried through the weeks and months to come. Since the night Paul had come to terms with their plight, Anna felt constantly surrounded by love, buoyed up with hope. She could not have endured it in her own strength, but with Paul’s gentle caring, Emma’s knowledge and empathy, and God’s sweet comfort, Anna knew the hope she felt was real.

  Still, at times the unknown lurked like a shadow behind every thought of peace. Anna willed the specter away, but it manifested itself without warning, sometimes gripping her with fear in the middle of the night, or while she was driving alone on the freeway. At those times, she could only cry out to God, her prayer sometimes no more than an utterance of His name.

  Jeremiah 29:11 became her watchword. “For I know the plans I have for you… Plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Anna knew the words were for her. She had lived as a Christian long enoug
h to know that God had a wonderful way of redeeming even the most horrible circumstances. But she had also lived as a flesh-and-blood woman long enough to know that the patience required for waiting to find just how He would perform the miracle was not always easy to summon.

  Kara and Kassandra came home for Memorial Day weekend, and though she dreaded it, Anna knew there was no avoiding telling the girls the news of her pregnancy and revealing the painful decisions she and Paul faced.

  Kassi immediately burst into tears and as soon as she could, she retreated to the bedroom that still held her childhood belongings. Anna went to check on her and worried about her silence. “Don’t worry about me, honey,” Anna told her. “We’ll get through this.” She wished she felt as confident as she sounded.

  Kara had her own very strong opinions about the dilemma, and a million questions for her parents. There were no easy answers to those questions. Still, Kara quickly drew her own conclusions and made it clear that she thought Anna should have an abortion. “I’m not saying I think it should be an easy choice, but Mom, if ever there was a good reason for abortion, this is it.”

  Still strong with the conviction that had overwhelmed her as she remembered her miscarriage, Anna shared the story with her daughters—including the remembrance of the tiny perfectly formed fetus, so unmistakably human, so unmistakably life.

  “That would have been your sister, Kara,” she said firmly.

  “This is not the same, Mom. You were young. Dad was the father of that baby and––”

  “That’s not my point. This is an innocent baby, a precious life, just like that one. Why should this baby be punished for something it had no part in.” Instinctively, she put a protective hand over her belly.

  “But why should you be punished, Mom? You’re just as innocent…” She shook her head and shrugged, clearly frustrated trying to make her point.