“That’s gonna be the stupidest looking turkey anybody ever saw,” Brittany declared.
But Tory’s idea seemed to please Spencer as he got the scissors and began cutting. “I like stupid turkeys. I want mine to be stupid. I’m gonna make a whole herd of ‘em.”
Tory wiped her hands on a dish towel, got a bar stool, and pulled it around the counter. She sat down, facing her children. “I’ve got to talk to you guys.”
Spencer couldn’t look up from his cutting. “Wait a minute. I have to do my helmet.”
“No, I can’t wait.” She touched Spencer’s hand, stopping him. “Just look up at me for a minute and listen. I need to tell you something. Both of you.” They both stopped what they were doing and looked up at her. Brittany had Elmer’s glue on her chin, and Spencer had it drying on his hands.
“Have you noticed that Mommy’s getting a little tummy?” she asked them both.
Spencer grinned and started cutting again. “Yeah, you’re as big as a cow.”
She would have been hurt if she didn’t know that Spencer’s teacher muttered that every time she looked into the mirror.
“You’re not fat, Mommy,” Brittany said. “My teacher thinks you have a eating-us-order. I heard her tell Sarah’s mom that.”
Heat rushed to Tory’s face. Had her child’s teacher been gossiping that she had an eating disorder? She would have to have a talk with her tomorrow.
“I am getting a little bit of a tummy,” she said, standing up so the children could see. She pressed her shirt against her stomach to show her belly. “But there’s a reason for that. There’s something in my tummy. Do you know what it is?”
Spencer’s hand flew up. “Bucket chicken from the park!” he cried, without being called on.
Tory grinned. “No, Spence. Something a lot more exciting.”
Brittany’s eyes got big. “Kevin Holiday’s mom has a baby in her tummy.” She caught her breath and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Do you have a baby?” she asked in a reverent voice.
Tory smiled. “Yep, a little baby.”
The children’s eyebrows shot up, and Spencer dropped the scissors.
“What do you think about that?” she asked, her eyes twinkling with moisture.
“Can we get it out now?” Spencer asked.
Tory laughed. “No, honey, it’s going to be a few more months. It’s not ready yet. Mommy’s going to need a lot of help from you. You’re going to be the big sister, okay, Britty? And, Spence, you’re going to be the big brother. This is why I’ve been sick so much.”
“Does Daddy know?” Brittany asked.
Tory hesitated. “Yeah, he knows.”
She heard the garage door opening, and realized she couldn’t have timed this worse if she’d tried. Barry was home, and the children were full of the news of the pregnancy. They would attack him with it before he even got in the door. He would be livid.
She was almost sorry for what she had done.
“Daddy’s home!” Spencer said, jumping down from his stool. Spencer turned a bad cartwheel and came to his feet with his arms in the air. “Daddy’s home and we’re gonna have a baby,” he sang.
“Not right now, dummy,” Brittany said. Spencer turned another lopsided cartwheel. “Soon, though, huh, Mommy?”
“In a few months,” she said again. “Spencer, don’t do cartwheels in the house.”
The door opened and Barry stepped inside. “Daddy! Daddy!” Brittany cried. “Mommy told us!”
“We’re gonna have a baby!” Spencer cried. “Not now, but in a few months.”
Tory turned back to the sink. She didn’t want to see Barry’s face. She heard the silence, and that was enough. He dropped his briefcase loudly on a chair.
She made herself look up at him. He was gaping at her, furious, while the children pulled on him and danced around him. “Daddy, see Mommy’s tummy? It’s a baby!”
He ignored the children and glowered at Tory. “You didn’t.”
“They had a right to know.”
“I had a right to be consulted,” he flung back.
“I would have consulted you,” she returned, “but you’re never here. And it’s starting to get obvious.”
He jerked his jacket off and stormed back to the bedroom.
The children were suddenly silent. “Is Daddy mad?” Brittany whispered.
“No, honey.”
“He acts mad,” Spencer said, climbing back up on his stool. “Maybe he doesn’t like babies.”
“He loves babies,” she said. “He loved you when you were a baby.”
They both got very quiet and looked in the direction their dad had gone, then brought their big, pensive eyes back to her stomach. Tory fought the urge to cry. For the first time since she’d considered telling them, she realized that she may have hurt them more than she’d helped them. Now they were aware that their father was angry about the baby. There were no explanations she could give them, nothing that would make sense to them. She had made matters worse.
In moments, Barry came back out of the bedroom wearing jeans and sneakers and an untucked golf shirt. He moved swiftly toward the door.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“Out.”
“Out? When will you be home?”
“When you’re in bed,” he said.
“Barry, we need to talk!”
“I have nothing to say to you,” he said through his teeth. “You defied me in front of my children. You’ve gotten them involved and it’s only going to hurt them, Tory. I have nothing more to say to you tonight.” Grabbing his keys, he slammed out of the house.
Tory only looked down at the stunned children, wishing with all her heart that she could protect them from this madness.
CHAPTER Forty-Two
Barry pulled up to the window at the fast-food restaurant and paid for the burrito he’d ordered. As he drove, he choked it down, then wished he hadn’t. He thought of heading back to the office, but he’d finished all of his work for the day and was sick of the place. He needed someone to talk to, he thought, but he hadn’t disclosed his problem to anyone except Linda Holland. Even now he wasn’t sure why he had shared such a personal thing with her. He supposed it was nothing more than her being in the right place at the right time.
The secret had bonded them in a way he hadn’t expected. She had started bringing him cups of coffee that he hadn’t asked for. She consulted him on more than she needed to, as if it was an excuse to check on him and boost his spirits. Almost daily, she asked him if he’d like to have lunch with her and talk. He always gave her some excuse not to. Occasionally she asked him if Tory had come to her senses yet. It vindicated him, to some extent, to have someone understand his position.
He didn’t know where else to go, so he drove to the Point at the top of Bright Mountain. It had been dark for more than an hour, but was still too early for the teenagers to gather just yet. He pulled into a space and looked out over the lights of Breezewood below. He rolled the windows down, and the cool autumn breeze whispered through the car.
Maybe he needed counseling, he thought. Just someone who would listen objectively and not judge him for doing what was best for his family. But if he suggested it, Tory would want to counsel with their pastor. Barry didn’t know him well, since they’d only started attending his church a couple of months ago. He didn’t relish the idea of telling him what he had in mind. No one could understand this unless they had lived through it themselves.
He stared down at the cellular phone, and wondered how hard it would be to find Linda’s number. Feeling bold, he called information and asked for Linda Holland, and in seconds, he had her number. Would it be misconstrued, he asked himself, if he called her just to talk? Would she think it meant more than it did? Or would she understand that he just needed a friend?
Before he had made the decision entirely, he was dialing the number.
“Hello.” Her voice was clear and upbeat over the line, and it took him a mom
ent to respond.
“Linda?”
“Yes?”
“It’s Barry. Barry Sullivan.”
There was a pause, then, “Hi, Barry! Where are you?”
“In my car,” he said. Guilt surged through him, for he knew she really wanted to know where Tory was. “Look, uh, I just needed to talk. I hope I’m not bothering you.”
“Not at all!” she said, too enthusiastically. “Things were pretty quiet around here tonight and I was kind of glad to hear that phone ring.”
He had never thought of her as a lonely woman. She always seemed to be too busy, too distracted to have mundane feelings.
“Is everything okay with Tory?” she asked.
He shook his head as if she could see him through the phone. “Actually, no.”
Linda was quiet for a moment. “Do you want to meet somewhere? Talk face-to-face?”
“No,” he said quickly. “That’s not necessary. The telephone is fine.”
“But that cell phone bill could get pretty high, and Tory might wonder about it.”
He hadn’t thought of that, and wasn’t sure if he cared.
She sighed. “You sure you don’t need a shoulder to cry on?”
He stared down at the steering wheel with dull eyes. “It’s just that when I came home tonight the kids came running out to me tell me we were having a baby.”
“She didn’t,” Linda said.
“Oh, yeah, she did. Told them everything. Told them and got them all excited. They were bouncing up and down, turning flips.”
“Did she tell them about the Down’s Syndrome?”
“Not as far as I could tell, but I have to admit I didn’t stick around very long to find out.”
“Oh, Barry, I’m so sorry. You poor thing.”
He closed his eyes. It was good to be understood.
“This is so awful,” she said. “I wish I could do something. Do you want me to call Tory and tell her what a stupid move that was?”
He laughed sarcastically. “Yeah, I’m sure that would improve things a lot.”
“Just an observation from an impartial bystander,” she said. A moment of silence followed. “Come on, why don’t you meet me out for a cup of coffee? It’ll cheer you up.”
“No, I’d better not.”
“Just a stinking cup of coffee. We can meet in a perfectly public well-lit place. I have absolutely nothing else to do tonight, Barry, and you don’t either, so we might as well at least have a piece of pie and a cup of coffee and a little friendly conversation. You know the alternative is that you’re going to go back to the office and work yourself into oblivion.”
He knew it was true. She really did understand. “All right,” he said, finally. “Meet me at Shoney’s on Torrence Boulevard.”
“Will do,” she said. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
He breathed a deep sigh as he hung up. They were just two friends having coffee, he told himself. Tory wouldn’t like it if she knew, but Tory didn’t like much of anything he did lately. He started his car and headed back down the mountain. Something in the back of his mind told him he was treading on thin ice, and once he fell through, there may be no way to get back to the surface again.
But when Linda arrived, he was waiting for her in the parking lot. She brought laughter into the restaurant with them, and made him feel better before he’d even touched his coffee.
CHAPTER Forty-Three
Tory was waiting up when Barry finally got home. Since putting the kids to bed, she had cleaned all of her baseboards and ridden her stationary bike five miles. She was drenched with perspiration and her face glowed with anger.
But Barry’s expression mirrored hers as he came in and dropped his keys loudly on the table. “Tory, I don’t want to get into this with you right now.”
She snatched the keys up and hung them on their hook. “I don’t want to get into it with you either, Barry,” she said. “That’s not why I waited up. I didn’t do anything wrong, and I don’t intend to apologize.”
“Didn’t do anything wrong?” he asked. “The fact that you told the children when I hadn’t given you permission—”
“I don’t need your permission to tell my children they have a baby sister on the way!”
“Fine.” He threw open the basement door and started down the stairs.
“Your mother called tonight,” Tory said. Barry stopped and looked up at her. “She wants to know if we’re spending Thanksgiving with her.”
“Tell her no.”
“No?” Tory repeated through her teeth. “Why not? We spend every Thanksgiving with her. She looks forward to it.”
“Well, I’m not looking forward to it,” he said. “Did you tell her, too?”
“No, of course not!”
“Well, don’t sound so surprised at me for asking,” he said. “I didn’t think you’d tell the kids, but you did!” He came back up the steps and stood in the doorway. “I don’t want my mother to know you’re pregnant. I don’t want her to have to deal with this. And I don’t think the kids can keep from telling her now if we go.”
“No one would have to tell her!” she said. “She would look at me and know.”
“One more reason not to go!” he said, going to the cabinet and getting a glass. He swung back to her. “I can’t believe you told the children.”
“And I can’t believe what you’ve been demanding of me.”
“I haven’t demanded it,” he said. “If I’d demanded it, it would have happened.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” she bit out. “Not as long as I have breath in my body.”
He slammed the glass down. “You just told them to spite me,” he said. “It had nothing to do with the baby or the kids.”
“I’m showing, Barry! Open your eyes. I can’t hide this much longer.”
“I’m not asking you to hide it,” he said. “I’m asking you to do something merciful about it before time runs out.”
“Abortion is not merciful no matter how you look at it,” she cried. She burst into tears and shook her head frantically. “I can’t even believe this is you! The man I married never would have condoned this. You sit in church and worship just like you believe…”
He crossed the room and leaned over her, his body trembling with restrained fury. “You could never in a million years understand. A year from now, you’ll be devastated and asking, ‘Why me?’ You’ll wonder what could have made you put this life sentence on a child who never asked to be born.”
“You’re wrong. Those children I saw at the school were not enduring a hard life. They were happy and content.”
“Well, were their parents content?”
“Your mother is!”
“She has no choice!”
“If your mother knew what you wanted for our baby, she would be just as disappointed in you as I am.”
“Maybe so,” he said. “That’s why we’re not going for Thanksgiving. I have enough trouble knowing that my wife despises me. I’m doing the best I can. I can’t do more than that, Tory.”
She had heard Cathy utter those words today, and they flitted through her mind like autumn leaves blowing across the yard. That phrase usually came from someone who was doing all the wrong things.
“So what are you doing, Barry?” she asked. “I’m the one carrying this baby. I’m the one getting to know it. I’m the one who’s been throwing up and feeling my body change and hiding my stomach. What exactly have you been doing other than coming home late and sleeping in the basement?”
“I’ve been thinking and praying about it a lot.”
“Well, isn’t that wonderful?” she snapped. “Seems that your thoughts are outweighing your prayers, because God would never tell you to do what you’re suggesting.”
“You don’t have a clue what God would tell me!”
“Well, since I’m the parent who’s carrying the child, he’s going to have to tell me,” she cried, “and I don’t think he has.”
“You
wouldn’t hear it if you did hear it.”
She wanted to break something. “God does not condone murder. He’s a big enough God to change things himself if he wants them changed.”
“All of a sudden, you’re the theologian,” he said. “You’re the one who spent the first few years of your children’s lives wishing you didn’t have them around so you could write a stupid novel.”
“Oh, that’s constructive.” Her face twisted. “I’ve done better in the last few months, Barry, and you know it. That was a low blow.”
He turned away and rubbed the back of his neck.
She felt as if the top of her head would blow right off, or her heartbeats would blend into one long, fatal grip. She got up to leave the room, but stopped at the door. “So if we don’t go to your mother’s, what are we going to do for Thanksgiving?”
“We can stay here,” he said.
“Oh, great.” She threw up her hands. “I’m supposed to hustle around and cook an entire Thanksgiving dinner for only four people, one of whom is not speaking to me?”
“I don’t care whether we have Thanksgiving dinner or not,” he said. “I don’t feel real thankful right now.”
“No kidding!” She said the words with disgust. But as she padded back to the bedroom, she had to admit that she didn’t see much to be thankful about, either.
CHAPTER Forty-Four
Thanksgiving morning, Cathy woke her children up at seven o’clock, intent on training them in proper table manners before they got to Steve’s house just before lunch. She figured the four hours she would have to go over things with them would just about do it.
They came to the table too sleepy-eyed to be combative, and she fed them a big breakfast, then sat down with them as they all began to wake up. “Now, kids,” she said, “I don’t know how to emphasize to you enough how important today is for me. When we get to Steve’s, I don’t intend to be embarrassed or humiliated.”
“Even if I do embarrass you, there’s not really anything you can do to me,” Mark said as he picked at a strip of bacon. “You’ve already taken away the computer and the television, and ruined my social and educational life. I can act any way I want to and you can’t do anything about it.”
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