by Fauna Hodel
“That’s what someone told me to do,” she answered, her eyes downcast.
“A aspirin ain’t gonna do shit.” He said, and then added, “how’d you get yourself pregnant anyway? I thought you were safe.” Pat didn’t answer.
“I guess I’m the father, right?” Bobby asked half-jokingly. Pat’s eyes bore through him. “Just kiddin’, that’s all. I know I’m the one.”
“You’re the only one,” she said, as her eyes began to swell. “What are we gonna do? Momma’s gonna kill me.”
“Momma, huh. Don’t you worry about you’re momma. We’ll just get married and have the baby.”
“Where we gonna live? My Aunt Rosie ain’t gonna let me stay when she finds out,” said Pat.
“Well, for now, we don’t tell your Aunt Rosie, till we get everything figured out.” Bobby said to her confidently.
“What about money? I guess I’ll quit school and get a job. Or maybe stay in school and get a part-time job.” She said, thinking out loud.
“I’ll get a second job,” Bobby said, “but we got to get married, real quick. Cause, I could get drafted anytime, and sent to that Viet Nam. People are getting killed over there, and then you’d have to do this all yourself.”
“I got to do this by myself, anyway.” She paused, and then added, “They don’t draft you when you’re married?” Pat asked.
“No, you get exempted, especially when you got a kid,” he said with confidence.
The idea of living together enlivened Pat’s interest, but she knew that a quick marriage was not possible, having explored that path with Rudy. But each day she waited the more anxious she became.
A week went by, and Pat noticed that Bobby seemed to act much older than his twenty-one years, and more concerned about her than before.
“When are you gonna tell your aunt about this?” Bobby asked. “You can’t just surprise her and one day just go out and bring home a baby!”
“Why not?” she said, “Momma did it with me.”
Bobby gave her a cynical look. “You know that ain’t the same thing. Your momma wasn’t pregnant for nine months. You will be, and there’s no way of hiding that. Besides, you need to be with someone who knows about babies, and your aunt is gonna be a whole lot easier to deal with than your momma.”
But Pat instinctively knew that Aunt Rosie would not be the one to have the last say in this matter. Jimmie was her main concern. “I just want this whole thing to disappear. I pray everyday, ten times a day, just to make it go away.” She said fearfully. “I’m fifteen years old, I’m too young for this. This isn’t want I wanted now. My whole life is changing and I don’t know where it’s going.”
Bobby put his arm around her and held her close. “Divine intervention is not gonna happen. Nobody’s gonna make this go away. We got to deal with it.”
She looked up at him with glassy eyes and said mournfully, “I don’t know how to be responsible for another human being. I’m unmarried, I’m in the tenth grade for God’s sake.”
“Think of it this way,” Bobby said, “if you’re a mother, and you’re responsible for a baby, then you don’t have to listen to what Jimmie says at all. You’ll be your own boss. We’ll have a place of our own, with our baby and we can do what we want, whenever we want to do it.”
Pat sniffled and gently dabbed the tears from her cheek. She thought for a moment then said, “Perhaps you’re right. We would be independent, like a separate country almost. Ok, then, let’s go tell my Aunt Rosie.”
“Aaaah, now wait a minute.” Bobby paused and looked down his nose at her. “You need to tell Aunt Rosie. It’s women’s stuff and all. I don’t want to interfere with that, so I don’t need to go.”
“You’re afraid of Aunt Rosie, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Afraid! Shit no, I ain’t afraid of nothing. I’m a stranger to her,” he said. “How’s it gonna look if I walk in and say. ‘Aunt Rosie, I’m your new nephew.’”
“Fine, I’ll do it myself. I know she’s gonna be angry, and I know she’ll be disappointed in me. But at least she will be able to help me. She’ll know what to do.”
That night, Pat asked Rosie to sit down with her; she had something important to talk to about.
“What do you mean, you think you’re pregnant? That’s impossible! We can’t have that. No, no, no—not in my house. “Who’s the one you been messin’ around with, huh? It was that Ward boy, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, but I don’t understand how it happened.” Pat realized—and Aunt Rosie’s expression confirmed—that it was a foolish thing to say, but it was too late to act intelligent at this point.
“Who knows about it?” demanded Rosie. “Does your boyfriend know?”
“Yeah,” Pat murmured.
“Well we can’t let anyone else know. No one. You hear?”
“How am I gonna hide it?”
“That’s your problem, not mine. You got yourself into this damn mess, and you’re gonna get yourself out. I can’t have anyone know that you got knocked up while living here—under my roof! What will everyone think of me? I’ll tell you what they’ll think. They’ll say I’m running a shittin’ cathouse! That’s what they’ll say.” She looked away from Pat, paused for a moment, placed her finger up to her mouth, turned back and said coldly. “Well, there’s only one thing for you to do. You can’t stay here no more.”
“Where am I gonna go?”
“That’s not my problem. You better get your old man to take care of you now that you got one. He’s part of this, too, you know. I want your butt outta here as soon as possible.”
Pat didn’t expect this from her aunt. Rosie had always urged Pat to come to her with her troubles. And now that she was in a spot, she was throwing her out. It took a couple of days to get over the initial shock before she cleared her head and told Bobby that she was homeless.
“I wasn’t expecting this so soon,” Bobby said to her. “I figured we got five or six months before we get to move in together. My part-time work at the laundry ain’t gonna get us nowhere. And there’s no room at my house, that’s for sure.”
“I know that, I just don’t know what to do. Rosie just told me to go to my old man and . . .” she paused and thought for a moment while Bobby just ignored her.
She decided to give Homer a call at the Esquire that afternoon. Pat heard the joy resonating in Homer’s voice as he recognized her. It was more than six months since they last talked. “Pat, it’s so good to hear from you! How you gettin’ along these days with Rosie?”
“Oh, fine, Homer,” she lied. “Just fine.” She didn’t have the courage to tell him what was happening. She was his little girl. His heart would have broken. “How’s things with you?”
“Pretty good,” he said in his slow drawl. “Business could be better at the shop, but I manage.” There was a long pause. Finally Homer said, “Jimmie’s been on the wagon, you know.”
“How is she?”
“She misses you, Pat, very much. She talks about you all the time as if you were in school or something, waitin’ for you to come home—like you used to do when you was little. Remember that?”
“You say she ain’t been drinking?”
“Nah. She’s dry as a pretzel. It’s been over two months since she’s had a drop. Looks better, too.” There was another long pause; Pat wondered whether or not to tell Homer about her condition. Finally Homer said, “Why don’t you give her a call. She’ll be real glad to hear from you.”
“Maybe I will, Homer. Maybe I will. You take care of yourself. I’ll be seeing you.”
The next day, Pat took Homer’s advice, but instead of calling Jimmie on the phone, Pat decided a personal visit would be better. She arrived at the new housing project late in the afternoon. She found the apartment where Jimmie and Homer were living, and stood at the entrance, trying to find the courage to ring the buzzer.
Without her knocking, the door opened. Pat was startled; Homer was standing there. “Hello, Pat. Come in, come in.�
�� he said.
“Homer.” She said nervously. “Got the day off?”
“Nah. I ain’t been feelin’ too good. Let me look at you.” Homer held her by the shoulders and looked straight at her with gentle brown eyes. “You look fine, just fine,” he said softly; her fears subsided.
“Your Momma’s in the kitchen.” With a conspiratorial smile, he motioned for her to go into the other room. Pat took a few steps and then turned back toward him. He crinkled his nose and gestured toward the kitchen with his hand. It was just the encouragement she needed. She filled her lungs then exhaled slowly.
Jimmie was sitting on a chair at a small table near the window. She stared at Pat for a moment.
“Hello, Momma. How are you?”
Jimmie didn’t get up or respond, just looked her over, eying her daughter bundled up in a heavy winter coat. She turned away and said, “You’re pregnant, ain’t you?
“Surprised?” Jimmie said.
Pat felt her knees weaken. She thought to herself. But how could she possibly know? Aunt Rosie was much too embarrassed to let out the secret, and I said nothing to Homer to alert him.
“I know your whole life—from when y’all first came home from the hospital. I watched you put off things you didn’t want to do. I know your every mood. I know when you’re lying and I know when you tellin’ the truth. You can’t put nothin’ passed me—’specially no baby!
“Now take that silly coat off and set yourself down. There’s lots we got to talk about.”
Pat was paralyzed for a moment. Her skin tingled. Finally, she had the courage to ask, “You’re not angry?”
“Angry, no. I tried to keep you straight. Did everything I knew how to, but you was just too strong-headed to listen to anybody. You was always different, not jus’ because you was half-white, either. Nah, it was the things that you’d always do when you was by yourself. Like when you was always gathering stuff, pieces of paper, and lists of things, and you was always writing down things and saving them. I could almost read your mind. I thought you’d be something special, somebody who is somebody, not someone like me, not a cleaning woman.”
Pat watched the expression in Jimmie’s face change from disappointment to compassion. She knew she did the right thing by coming over.
“I wanted to be somebody, too,” Jimmie continued. “I knew what I was gonna be from the time I was a baby back in Mississippi. Then you come along. At first, I was really pissed. But you started to grow on me and I decided that you had a better chance at being somebody more than me, cause you looked so white. And then when I saw you was smarter than the rest, I just knew I had to keep you safe. I tried to keep you away from that Bobby Ward and anyone like him. So, I ain’t angry with you Patta, not today anyway.”
Homer was right. Jimmie was sweet as can be when she was sober for any length of time. Pat found it difficult to hold back tears as Jimmie lectured her on being a mother, while treating her as an adult without chastising. For three hours Pat quizzed Jimmie about pregnancy and babies, occasionally questioning Jimmie’s reliability and depth of knowledge. Pat listened patiently; grateful she was no longer alone.
The next day, Pat moved in with Momma and Homer. Pat knew that Jimmie was back in charge. The convenience of allowing Jimmie to make some decisions early on was worth any abuse, at least until Pat learned what to do. Pat was relieved when Jimmie’s first order of business was to remove her from Traner Junior High. The peer pressure and humiliation Pat was starting to feel was nerveracking at best, and Jimmie insisted on enrolling her in a maternity school in Reno.
The class was small, only eight girls—all white. Pat learned some of the basics about having a baby, quickly realizing that most of the stories Jimmie told her were slightly off the mark, a mixture of the facts of life with the fiction of Jimmie’s imagination. Pat realized then that if she were going to raise a child, it would be far different from the way Jimmie had raised her.
The small group of expectant teens became close to one another, each sharing their experiences. Pat never let on that her boyfriend was black. She somehow felt there was no need for them to know, at least not yet.
Pat was not upset that Bobby never came to the school to pick her up. She knew he was working hard to save as much money as possible for them to get married. When they were together, he’d ask Pat, and beg Jimmie Lee, to let them get married. The answer was always the same. Each time Pat saw Bobby in Jimmie’s presence she would see the contempt spewing from her momma’s eyes. Jimmie told her at every opportunity that Bobby was completely unworthy, and couldn’t understand what she saw in him in the first place.
Pat usually took the bus home, but when one of the girls offered her a ride home from school, she accepted without reservation.
“It’s really nice of you to give me a lift home,” Pat said to her young driver.
“I know.” The girl answered. “It feels great to be old enough to drive. I mean really, I’m gonna have a baby, the very least they can do is let me drive a car.”
“Oh, you’re so right,” Pat giggled in agreement.
“It will be so much more convenient to not have to depend on everyone for a ride here and a ride there; taking the baby to the doctors.” The girl continued, “I bet you can’t wait to get yours?”
“Yeah,” Pat answered, “but it’ll be awhile before I can get a license. There’s just too many other things I got to do before then.
“Turn left on the next street,” Pat said as she motioned with her hand.
Pat noticed the startled expression on the girl’s face as she directed her toward the projects.
When they were close to Pat’s house, the girl asked, “you live in the nigger section?”
Pat was infuriated by the ignorant remark. “Yeah, and that’s my mother!” Pat pointed to Jimmie, who sat alone on the front stoop.
“Oh my God. I’m sorry. I didn’t know. You look so white.”
Pat got out of the car and slammed the door. The following day she met the girl at school.
“I’m so sorry I said that yesterday,” she said to Pat, “I really didn’t know you were black, you look so white.”
“That’s OK, don’t worry about it. I’m used to it.” Pat smiled graciously.
Each day, as the life inside her grew, Pat became more aware of herself —not only the physical changes in her body, but the emotional changes as well. Each morning she wondered what the day would bring, how her baby would turn out—if it indeed would be black, or perhaps lighter skinned like her. With every breath, she was closer to being a mother and her obsession to find her real mother grew even stronger. She again studied her birth certificate, searching for clues that may have been overlooked, but still she knew nothing.
The Welfare Department became involved again when they discovered that Pat had moved back to Jimmie’s and changed schools. Their meddling was just another interference that irked Jimmie more than Pat. Jimmie was determined to finish them off once and for all.
By the spring of that year, Bobby got another part-time job. Along with his job at the laundry, he managed to save enough money to afford a small apartment of his own. He was outside Pat’s house whenever he wasn’t working. It was a weekday and Jimmie was sitting at her favorite spot on the stoop. Pat and Bobby moped about. Jimmie kept one eye out for the Welfare people and one eye on her daughter. She noticed Pat was nervous.
Bobby leaned over to Jimmie and said, “I know I can take care of her and the baby when it comes. I know I’d be a good father, too. I know it.” He paused a moment then continued, “We can’t do nothing without your permission. They’d put her back in a foster home if we tried to get married without you. I just want to get married. Hey, everybody does it. Why can’t we?”
Jimmie never looked at him. She pretended to be uninterested by yawning then exhaling with gusto, and finally brushing her hair away as if she was too bored to even gesture.
But Bobby was persistent. Over and over again he pestered Jimmie to allow P
at to marry him. He was determined to take care of his soon-to-be-born child. Jimmie finally acknowledged his presence.
“How you gonna take care of my daughter?” Jimmie asked. “You think it’s easy? You have any idea what you need to take care of Pat? She’s a handful, you can bet your ass on that one, Bobby Boy!”
Jimmie’s eyes darted to Pat who was about to interject, “What? You think you’re not a handful?” Jimmie said confronting Pat. “I got news for you, Miss Patta. Did you think that keeping you fed and healthy and out of trouble was easy? Well, see for yourself what happened as soon as you’re out of my care—you get yourself pregnant! Just walking around town, or taking your white ass to the store was a chore. If you was black like the rest of us, no one would mind, but you’re not. It was dangerous just to keep you in the house in the first place. Now you wanna be out in the public with a black husband and black baby—who you two think you’re kidding? Ain’t nobody gonna make it easy for you.”
“It’s too late for that now,” Bobby said, “the baby is gonna be here no matter what. We can’t send it back.”
“And I’ll never give it up like my real momma did to me,” Pat added defiantly.
“So, that’s it, ha!” Jimmie stated with full contempt. “You think she could’ve done a better job than me. Your high and mighty princess gave you away. And she gave you away to me. And after all I done for you, the first chance you get, you’d leave me flat. This is how you show appreciation?”
“No, you misunderstood,” Pat pleaded. “I would never leave you, no matter what. But I want to raise my own baby.”
“Is that right?” Jimmie asked Bobby sarcastically.
“Oh, yeah,” Bobby was taken by surprise. “More than anything else. And I’ll take good care of her, too! I got my own apartment, and I’m working two jobs. I got enough money for us to live on. Don’t worry about that.”
Jimmie turned to her daughter next. “Do you want to get married?”
Pat really didn’t care what happened to her anymore, just as long as all the bickering and tension stopped. Pat answered unemotionally. “Of course, why not?”