“No,” Anna whispered. “You don’t destroy a child for the sin of its father.”
“But you’ll destroy this child far more by bringing it into the world, than if you just end it.” Kara’s voice rose with conviction as she went on. “What kind of a life do you think this child would have, Mom? How could it possibly come to terms with this situation? It seems to me that sparing the child from the kind of life it would face would be the most compassionate thing you could do. Besides, I know you believe that it would go to heaven anyway. How could any life on this earth ever compare with that?”
“I do believe the baby would go to heaven if… if I aborted him. But I can’t play God, Kara. I just can’t believe that God has put the decision of life or death in human hands. Certainly not in my hands.” She shuddered to think she’d once wanted to make that decision.
Kara just shook her head. They let the subject drop, but again and again throughout the weekend, Kara dredged it up, hounding her parents with questions and arguments. Anna knew her older daughter well enough to know that they had a continuing battle on their hands, but in a way, Kara’s constant questions served to solidify their decision, to fully answer in their own minds the hard questions she posed. As they sought those answers, Anna, and Paul as well, became all the more confident that they were doing the right thing.
On Sunday afternoon, while Paul napped, she and her daughters sat in the sunny dining room sharing mugs of tea. Sitting across the table from her daughters, Anna marveled, as she had many times, that two sisters could be so different. Physically the girls looked so much alike that they were often mistaken for twins. But the similarities stopped at the pale blond hair and brilliant green-blue eyes, so much like their father’s. Now their conversation demonstrated their very different personalities.
Cautious, inane talk about the weather and their college classes ended when Kara blurted, “Mom, what will you tell people when you start to show?” She pointed in the direction of Anna’s still flat stomach. “You know you’ll have to have an explanation. I mean, it’s not like you two would plan to have a baby at your age. Are you going to tell people the truth about this—that you were raped?”
Anna stirred her tea self-consciously, caught off guard by her daughter’s candor. “We just don’t know yet. I guess a lot will depend on whether we decide to… to keep the baby.” Just speaking the words made it seem such a senseless possibility. And yet, she and Paul had talked about the option. In fact, it was the only option they had seriously discussed since the day they had realized that abortion was out of the question. Now, voicing the idea to her daughters, it sounded absurd. They were talking about a child here. They were contemplating a commitment that would span the next two decades. What are we thinking?
“You can’t seriously be thinking about keeping it, Mom!” The incredulity in Kara’s tone reflected Anna’s thoughts. “You guys would be…”––she did some quick math––“in your sixties when this kid is in high school! It’d be like Grandma Marquette trying to raise a teenager!”
Kassi piped up, quietly defensive of Anna. “Women have babies in their forties all the time, Kara. It’s not that big of a deal. Besides, Mom is a young forty-five.”
“She might be a young forty-ve now, but sixty-something might as well be seventy.” Anna detected a hint of disgust in her voice.
Kara was exaggerating, yet, somehow, despite the gravity of her daughter’s anger, it tickled Anna to hear Kara talk like this. She could well remember when she herself had thought forty was ancient. Strange how time changed your perspective on age.
Momentarily, she forgot the seriousness of the discussion. “You know,” she said, “Aunt Liz was almost forty when Matt was born.” She looked at her daughters and fired the question at them. “You don’t think she’s ancient, do you?”
Her sister, Liz, was five years older than Anna, but she was the youngest-at-heart woman Anna knew. In truth, Matthew, now a charming ten-year-old, had helped keep Liz young. Liz’s other children were grown and married, and she was expecting her first grandchild any day now. Still, thanks to Matt, she was up on the current slang, could challenge any kid on the block at the latest video game, and knew how to dress young without looking ridiculous. Anna knew her girls had immense admiration for Liz and didn’t see her as “fifty-something” at all.
Kassi picked up the defense for Anna. “That’s true, Kara. Just look at Aunt Liz. You’d never know she was as old as she is.”
Anna laughed at the well-intended compliment, and her heart clung to the grain of hope she’d been offered. It was true. It didn’t seem strange at all to imagine Liz and Dave with a young child. Why couldn’t it be the same for her and Paul?
But Kara wasn’t backing down. “That’s different, and you know it. Besides, Aunt Liz wasn’t even forty when Matt was born. Mom is already pushing fifty, for crying out loud!”
Anger flashed through her. Kara acted as though this pregnancy had happened because of Anna’s foolishness or carelessness. Like she was an irresponsible, pregnant-and-unwed teenager.
Pushing her chair back from the table, Anna spoke, her voice pitched high with anger and emotion. “For your information, I am barely forty-five years old—hardly pushing fifty. And I didn’t choose this pregnancy, Kara. You act like I did this on purpose!”
Though she was upset and near tears, Anna heard her words the way they must have sounded to her daughters—accusing and defensive. But she didn’t care. She needed Kara’s support. Why couldn’t this daughter—just once—love her and uphold her and try to understand what she was going through. She was enduring the struggle of her life, and Kara sat here practically making fun of her!
Unable to hold the tears back any longer, Anna stumbled over her chair and ran down the hall to the sanctuary of her bedroom.
She heard the girls murmured voices and went to the door to eavesdrop. Kassi must have started to follow her because Kara said, “Wait, Kassi. Let her alone for a while.” She hesitated and finally mumbled, “I’ll apologize later.”
“Oh, Kara! This is like a bad dream!” Kassi sounded near tears. “Poor Mom! And we’re making it worse for her. What is wrong with us?”
“You don’t mean us, Kass. You mean me. Why don’t you just say it?” Kassi sighed, and her tone became contrite.
“I know. I know I’m probably being selfish. I don’t mean to sound cruel, but this is embarrassing. What am I supposed to tell my friends. I mean, here we are, supposedly living in the age of enlightenment. There are solutions to these kind of things. How do I explain to my friends that my mother is pregnant?”
“Kara, until we know what Mom and Dad are going to decide—what they’re going to tell people—we can’t say anything anyway. So it’s not even an issue right now. But when they do decide, I guess…well, if they aren’t ashamed to tell the truth about this, we shouldn’t be either. Actually, the truth would probably be the easiest thing to tell. At least then people will sympathize with us…with them …” Her voice trailed off.
“Yeah, instead of thinking they’ve lost their marbles,” Kara said sarcastically.
“Kara, if they tell the truth—about the rape, I mean—and then decide to keep the baby, how is he going to feel when he grows up? I mean, things like that get out no matter how hard you try to keep the secret.”
“They can’t keep this baby! It would be crazy!”
Anna could just picture Kara looking at her sister as though she were crazy for even entertaining the idea.
“Can you picture Mom and Dad with a baby? I mean, think about it, Kass! No, they can’t keep this baby.”
When the girls left on Monday night there was a cold but polite silence between Kara and her mother. Kara hugged Anna before the two sisters got into the car and drove off, but her embrace did little to assuage the great sadness Anna felt for the breech between them.
Anna knew Kassi felt caught in the middle—understanding Kara’s opinions, yet feeling sympathy for Anna’s predicament
and having a fierce devotion to her mother.
For most of the weekend, Paul had avoided his daughters and withdrawn into silence, even with Anna. She longed to know his thoughts, to know the demons he was wrestling. She so desperately needed to confide in him, to vent her emotions with him. Especially after the difficult conversations with Kara.
And yet, she realized that her tragedy had placed him in the middle of an intense personal struggle. If only he would talk to me. He was probably wracked with guilt over his feelings toward the child she was carrying, over his seeming inability to comfort her. She knew he felt some responsibility for the rape itself. And now Kara’s strong opinions had forced him to choose sides between his wife and his daughter. In some ways, Anna thought his pain might be greater than her own. But she knew her husband well enough to know that only in his own time would he open up to her.
And so she waited, forced to be content with their now shared conviction that this baby would be born, and forced to be content with Paul’s politeness and his vague replies to her hesitant questions.
On the last night of May, Anna sat at the dining room table, textbooks and papers spread out around her, a cup of coffee growing cold in her hands. The semester was drawing to a close, and she was grateful for the busyness and even the stress she felt studying for finals. It was a relief to bury herself in her books and, for however brief a time, to push out all the questions that hounded her. She adjusted her reading glasses on the bridge of her nose and struggled to concentrate on the page in front of her.
Paul came in from the den where he had been watching an old war movie on television.
“Are you ready for a break?” he asked.
She looked at him questioningly, but pushed her chair away from the table and set her coffee cup on its saucer. “Sure.”
“Let’s go for a walk. We’re wasting a gorgeous evening cooped up in this house.”
She stood, stretched her arms over her head, then kneaded the muscles in her neck. “Mmm… it feels good just to stand up. I could use a break.” She looked at her watch. “Is your movie over already?”
“No. But I couldn’t concentrate. I…need to talk to you.” He motioned toward her books. “Are you sure you have time? I know I’m interrupting your studying…”
She waved away his apology, sensing his openness after so many days of being distant from her. “I don’t care. I’d much rather talk to you. Let’s go.” She reached out to him, and he took her hand and led her out the back door.
The warm brisk wind of the afternoon had died to a gentle breeze, and a full moon illuminated the street beyond the bounds of the street lamps. They walked hand in hand, in silence, Anna waiting anxiously for him to speak.
Finally he took a deep breath. “Anna, I know I’ve kind of checked out on you these last couple of weeks. It hasn’t been fair to you and… I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I realize how selfish it’s been for me to clam up like this when you need me most.”
She shrugged, not wanting to stop the flow of words.
He put an arm around her and squeezed her shoulder. “I’m having a hard time with all this. I know that sounds selfish. You’re the one who’s been through the horror of it. You’re the one who’s suffering, but…well, I have to be honest with you.”
He looked at the sidewalk and shook his head, and Anna feared she would lose him to the silence again.
But when he looked up at her again, the dam broke. “Anna, ever since that night we got the call from Dr. Blakeman, I’ve been trying to make this pregnancy real in my mind. But it just seems impossible.” His words picked up steam. “I can’t picture you pregnant. I can’t imagine what we’ll tell people…what we will tell the child someday.”
She didn’t miss the implications of that “we will.”
“I don’t know if I can love this child, Anna. We’ll both be in our sixties before he’s grown. I’ll be almost seventy when he graduates from high school. I don’t mind telling you that terrifies me. Terrifies me.” His voice was a gruff whisper now.
Sensing he still wasn’t finished and not wanting to stop this flood of honest feelings, she kept silent.
They walked on, and after a while he spoke again. “If we do keep this baby, I think we need to decide very carefully exactly what our story will be. I know how much you hate dishonesty, but if we are truly thinking about raising this child ourselves, I don’t see how we can make your…rape”––he choked on the word––“public knowledge. But we’ll need to have a story––for the child’s sake.”
“Do you want the child to believe you’re his father?” she asked quietly.
He shook his head, looking confused. “I don’t know, Anna. I’m not sure I can love this child in a way that would be fair to him—knowing that he is fully yours…and not at all mine. And I don’t know that it would be right to deceive a child—a child who will someday be a man or woman entitled to the truth about their family history. I’m not sure I could have forgiven my mother if she hadn’t told me from the beginning that Dad wasn’t my real father. I think…it would have devastated me to have suddenly found it out when I was older.”
She nodded, agreeing with him. “No. It doesn’t seem right to withhold that information from a child.”
“And yet, how in the world do you make a little boy or girl understand these things in a way that doesn’t reflect on them. I don’t know, babe. I’ve thought of nothing else in the past weeks, and the only thing I know with certainty is that we can’t abort the baby. Everything else is a big question. I don’t seem to have any answers.…”
“Oh, Paul…” She leaned against him as they walked farther from their house. “There are so many hard questions. I’ve been thinking a lot about what you just said—that the baby is fully mine. That has made it easier for me. It’s the only way I’ve been able to bear the thought of going through with this. That, and the knowledge that the baby is innocent. But I realize that very fact makes it even harder for you…” Her voice trailed off, and she was quiet, collecting her thoughts. Finally, she said, “I’ve tried to put myself in your shoes, Paul, as much as it’s possible to speculate on such a thing. How would I feel about a baby that was fully yours and some other woman’s? Not at all my own? If you were to ask me to raise such a child, I don’t know what my response would be. But I know it would be more difficult than what I’m being asked to do now.”
“Well, you’re right. You can’t speculate on the reverse, Anna. Not without implying guilt on my part. That’s just the nature of things. And that’s what makes it a bit easier for me. The baby’s not the only innocent one in this scenario. You are innocent, honey. That’s not difficult for me to grasp.”
His voice grew strong, conviction building as he spoke. He patted her belly lovingly—her stomach still firm and flat, belying the secret it cradled. “Anna, this little life is part of you. How can I not love it? If my dad could love me the way I know he did”—Paul meant Albert, the only father he’d ever known—“then I… I guess I can find it in myself to learn to love this child.”
Tears sprang quickly to her eyes. She was profoundly touched by the words her husband had just spoken. They came from his heart. And Paul had a good heart. How different she’d have felt had they been conjured up because they were the right words to say or because she’d forced him to say them. But she knew intimately the sincerity in his tone, and she was filled with love for this man, whose integrity of character spilled out even in his anguish. Maybe especially in his anguish.
She stopped walking. The street was deserted, the houses along the avenue mostly darkened at this late hour. Unselfconsciously she put her arms around him and pulled him close. They stood swaying together on the sidewalk. She relished the comfort of his arms, the security of their love for each other.
“Paul?” She murmured into his shoulder. “Can we just wait? Can we not say anything to anyone, not decide anything for a while except what we’ve already decided—that this baby will be born…and loved? Ma
ybe a month, or a few weeks at least, will give us time to get our bearings…time to pray about it… to think it all out.”
He held her at arm’s length and looked at her, shaking his head. The teasing inflection that was so Paul was in his voice now. “I’ve gotta say, babe, it’s not like you to be willing to wait on anything.” He smiled, and then suddenly turning serious again, he said, “I think that’s the wisest thing we could do. You amaze me, Anna.” He hugged her close and stroked her hair. “We’ll wait then. We’ll give it to God, and we’ll wait on Him for an answer.”
Chapter 12
Anna breezed through her finals with confidence and with straight A’s. She’d always been a good student, but it surprised her now to feel an almost childish pride in the grade report that came in the mail. Paul laughed at her boasting, but she knew he was proud of her, too.
School came to a close, and the warm afternoons and cool evenings of early June gave way to summer’s sweltering heat. Anna was happy to be home, happy to be through with the daily trip to the campus and the constant pressure of studying.
Late in June, they quietly celebrated their 24th wedding anniversary at their favorite restaurant. Over the years, it had become their anniversary tradition to take a “How Do I Love Thee?” and “How Would I Change Thee?” inventory of sorts. They always spent the evening together in gentle marriage work—each giving voice to dreams for the future, playfully delivering their pet peeves, and then numbering the qualities they loved so about each other.
Tonight, though, the future was too frightening to speculate on, and the pet peeves seemed trivial in the shadow of the ordeal that loomed before them. Paul did try to enumerate the many ways he loved her. But Anna sensed he felt deep sadness in speaking the words, as though he were saying goodbye to some elusive part of their love.
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