by Darrel Bird
mouth dropped open, her mother fainted dead out on the floor, and her two siblings stared at her with fear and awe. “I will be obedient to you, Daddy, she said, “but if you touch me, I will have you arrested.”
“I will talk with Dr. McGowan and he will get you an abortion,” Dad stuttered as he found his voice.
“No you won’t, Dad. I will have this baby and there is nothing you can do about it. I will not have an abortion, which would be murder.”
Lori’s mother, forgotten on the rug, began to come to. She rose to a sitting position, and then fainted again as she saw the looks on her husband’s and daughter’s faces. “You will do as I say. You are my daughter, and you will do as I say! And turn that thing off!”
Lori stood in the middle of the room and defiantly wiped the tears. “Daddy, I found Jesus today.”
“Are you crazy?” he yelled, his face turning red. “You have gotten pregnant out of wedlock, broken the Sabbath many times over, and you expect me to believe you found Jesus? He wouldn’t have anything to do with a tramp like you! Go to your room until I get back!”
Lori fled to her room and lay down across her bed. She heard the car door slam, and she knew that her father was heading for the McGowan’s house.
During the next week, her family would not speak to her, and she felt lonely and dejected. She would catch her siblings making sidelong glances at her. No one in the school knew what was going on, and she wanted to keep it that way, so she did her best to keep up a normal appearance. However, she rejoiced in her new found faith, and she read the book of Galatians over and over. Lori literally devoured the New Testament that week, seeing things she had never seen before in the Bible. She knew the Holy Spirit was opening her eyes to the scripture in a new way.
The Real Truth
Frank Binghamton thought furiously as he drove to the McGowan’s house in a gated community on Rosebud Lane. He appraised the forbidding mansions along the street after he was let through the gate. Deep down, he hated the man, but he was also afraid of him. Dr. James McGowan was a powerful force in the church, and it terrified him to think of what the man could do to him.
He knew also if the police were called, and if they discovered the welts he had put on his daughters behind, he would be arrested and taken to jail. Heat rose in his face as he thought of his daughter; he had seen her naked and desired her, and because of that, he hated her. He knew he whipped her too hard, shouldn’t have whipped her at all; but he couldn’t seem to control himself, and when he got started, he couldn’t stop. Why couldn’t Gwen have given me another son like Ryan? He’s such a good boy.
As he pulled along the curb in front of the large immaculate house on Rosebud Lane, he was terrified of the future, including the hereafter. He knocked on the door, and waited until Dr. McGowan came to answer the door in his sock feet.
“Why Frank, what a pleasant surprise.” But James’ frown told Frank that the surprise visit was not pleasant to him at all. McGowan turned to walk back into his den, leaving Frank to follow behind him, as if he had let in a dog. Frank blushed at the act as he followed him in. “Sit, Frank; what’s on your mind today?”
Frank stared at the floor a full minute as McGowan waited, drumming his finger on the arm of the chair impatiently. “I will just get right to it; we have a problem James, one that we both need to make go away. Jimmy has gotten my daughter, Lori, pregnant.”
“Now wait right there, Frank. My Jimmy has hinted you might be making false accusations against him because he dumped your daughter, so I don’t believe you, and you will not put the whoredoms of your daughter off on my son!” James’ eyes were cold as a grave as he glared back at Frank.
“Now look, McGowan; my daughter is just sixteen. If the police have to be called in on this, it will be good for neither one of us, but you can bet your bottom dollar a blood test will clear it up quick, as to who has done what!”
“No, now, no need for that kind of talk here is there, Frank? Can’t we talk like adults?”
“Yeah, we can, and that’s what I came to do, but if you try to pull any more rough house on me, I swear I will call in the police and get a lawyer so fast it will make your damned head swim.” Frank was crazy mad now, yet he didn’t look up.
“What do you want to do?”
“I want you to perform an abortion on her, and I don’t want this all over the church!”
McGowan sat and thought for a minute, he got up and walked into the kitchen, took down a bottle, poured two glasses half full of the brown liquid and brought one to Frank, then sat down again.
Frank sniffed the glass and exclaimed, “This is whiskey!”
McGowan quaffed half the glass down and stated simply, “Yeah, it is, Frank.”
Frank sipped on the whiskey, which made him grimace as the hot liquid wormed its way to the bottom of his stomach, then laid there like molten lead. He saw James McGowan for what he was: a cold, hard hypocrite who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted; the power, the money, the whole bit. He knew also that he himself was just the same way.
“We may have legal problems here, Frank. What has your daughter said about all this?”
“She says she is not going to have an abortion. That’s what she says, but I think I can force her.”
“No, Frank. I think that is a mistake that will backfire on us. She might call in the police, so we have to wait and see how this plays out. See what happens, and in the meantime, keep a lid on it. If it gets out, we will deny it and announce the intended marriage. I’ll take care of my Jimmy, and you take care of your Lori.
“If the kid decides to have the baby, just don’t offer any assistance; let her work that out on her own. If she disappears, you can claim she went to another school or some such. Once she has the baby that will be the end of it.”
By this time, the whiskey was giving Frank Binghamton a boost of courage. McGowan brought the bottle and refilled his glass. Frank knocked it back like an expert. “For goodness sake, McGowan, she is only sixteen years old; I can’t have her on the streets!”
“Do you remember the Slauson case, Frank?” Frank did remember. The church had drummed them out when the two families began fighting over child support. After the word got around the church, both families had snuck out of town with their tails between their legs and ended up in the backwoods of Podunk Kentucky. “Ok James, I will try to talk sense into her, otherwise, we will just have to see how it goes.”
“You do that Frank. If she agrees to an abortion, I’ll be glad to do the job for free.”
“You bet your sweet ass you will do it for free, McGowan.” Frank got up to go, and McGowan got up this time to see him to the door. They shook hands at the door like old friends; they both knew they understood each other.