Farthest House (16 page)

19

“Willow?” The old school nurse leaned close to the door of the bathroom stall. “Is that you in there? You’ve been sick every morning this week.”

Kneeling on the floor, Willow puked again, more of the same green crap. She spit four, five times, trying to suck traces of bile from her teeth and tongue and rid the bitter taste from her mouth.

“I must ask,” the nurse’s voice lowered to a whisper, though they were alone in the bathroom, “could you be pregnant?”

Hearts and initials scratched into the paint, covered the metal panels of the stall, and Willow sank back against the words, “True Love.” The nurse didn’t know, but Willow had been sick through the last two weeks of October, through Halloween and All Saints Day.

She could see only the nurse’s white hose and shoes. The heels were worn down, but the leather, with layers of chalky polish, was titanium white. She could have reached and untied the laces. She dropped her head onto her drawn-up knees. “I can’t believe this is happening to me.”

The nurse sighed. “Honey, you can refuse to believe whatever you want, but it’s not the mind that gets pregnant.”

Willow rode the bus to the free clinic alone. Receiving a confirmation, she knew she had to tell Derrick. He didn’t avoid her at school—not exactly. Walking into geometry class, he always said, “Hi,” but with alphabetical seating assignments, Crat sat up front, Starmore in the back. They shared no other classes and sat tables apart at lunch. He was always beside Mary Wolfe, though he wasn’t shy about smiling at Willow when passed in the halls. Something Mary noticed.

Willow spent that weekend at the library, telling Julian she had a massive research project. There she walked the aisles or cried in the bathroom. She made a phone call.

Derrick came for her again on Monday. She waited until after he’d lain on her. A few blocks from her house, she asked him to pull over. She didn’t want Papa accidentally coming to the window and seeing them fighting.

Her stricken face made Derrick comply. “What’s up?” he asked. When she hesitated, trying to find the words to begin, he glanced at his watch, “It’s getting late.”

“I’m pregnant.”

He stammered. Was she sure? What free clinic? The questions went on until he slammed the steering wheel with the heels of his hands. “Fuck, no!”

Moths fluttered around the streetlight. The black dart of a bat flashed and vanished.

“Nothing?” Derrick shouted at her. “You weren’t using a goddamned thing?”

“You weren’t either.”

“I asked about a rubber.” His hands gripped the steering wheel. “I thought you were on the pill. Everyone takes the fucking pill. Or uses one of those…UD…I…things. What the fuck’s wrong with you?”

She glanced at him. His face was the color of the ghostly moths. She looked away.

“You weren’t using anything? How fucking stupid are you?”

There was nothing more to say. He knew now, and they weren’t going to have a little chat about baby names. He wasn’t going to smile and say, “Wow, I’m going to be a father,” and she
was
fucking stupid. She stepped out of the car and away, meeting his cold stare, and then turning and starting down the walk. She’d gone only a few feet when his car tires squealed off. The noise pleased her, that cry ripping through the unfeeling night and taking him away.

He’d thought she was using something, taking care of herself. The ugly truth rocked her, felt like a soggy rag in the pit of her stomach. Why hadn’t she been taking care of herself? How could she ace school and be so stupid when it came to sex? How could she spout all her liberated ideas about Eve and Pandora and not champion herself? Had she secretly wanted to ruin her life? To follow Papa’s lead? Would that bring them closer in some sick way?

Her stomach rolled, the rag was coming up, gagging her. She rushed off the sidewalk and onto a browning, leaf-strewn lawn and ran for the deeper darkness between two houses. She puked and finished and half rolled, half collapsed away from the mess. Lying on her side, she hugged herself. She had no reason to go home. No one waited up for her. By this time, Papa had passed out with no awareness that she was even gone.

The low moon was an orange globe. Voices trailed from the house to her left, people leading regular lives. Sometime later, a cat sniffed at her, then streaked away when she reached out to pet it. Since having her pregnancy confirmed, she’d been promising herself everything was Derrick’s fault. Blaming him fashioned a tiny room where she curled and kept herself out of the worst wind. Those walls were blowing in.

She’d stood in a phone booth, its glass so dirty she could hardly see out, and tried to make her voice sound casual. “Tory, hello. It’s Willow.” Would she need to say,
your niece?

“What a surprise,” Tory said. “How are you? How is Julian? I worry so about both of you.”

For a brief moment, Willow wondered why Tory worried about them, but why wouldn’t she? “We’re fine,” she started, but the lie opened the door on her emotions. She was weeping, the sobs coming from her stomach, deep as had all her puking. “I’m pregnant.”

She imagined the two words traveling through the wire, flying over the city, over the fields and pastures, down into Farthest House, Tory standing in the kitchen, and the words hitting her. In the silence, she imagined Tory’s words coming back, crossing the miles. “That’s all right,” Tory said. “It’s already done then?” Her comments clipped, a bit floundering as she tried to factor in this new situation and decide how best to handle it. “So there’s no use fretting about what’s done. I know it seems impossible now, but these things happen. Girls get through them.”

Willow was nodding, sniffling. She’d not meant to break apart.

“Are you going to keep the child?”

“Yes. And I want to give my baby a family. More than anything.”

“Do you need to come here?”

That option had never crossed Willow’s mind. Tory wasn’t Mémé, but still she represented Willow’s best years, when Papa was healthy and she’d spent her weeks with him and her weekends at Farthest House. “Could I?”

“Of course.”

“Papa would kill me.”

“Has he been giving you the cards and letters I’ve sent over the years?”

“Uh…” she caught herself, only just managing not to cry out,
No
.

Then Tory was talking again. “You know I have room for you. You can stay during your pregnancy. After, we’ll figure out what’s best.”

Willow’s minutes were running out, and she had no more change to feed the meter. She also found it hard to say more. At that point, she hadn’t told Derrick or Papa, and she didn’t want to imply Papa was certain to throw her out. Nor did she want to hint she might actually accept Tory’s offer. “I have to go,” she said, “but how’s Jonah?”

“Older, more foolish than ever,” Tory answered. “Promise to think about my offer.”

In the grass between two houses of strangers, Willow stood and looked up and down the street for Derrick. Was he coming back for her? She walked toward home. The night was chilly, but still she didn’t hurry. However dishonest Papa had been in hiding Tory’s attempts to keep in contact, and however mad he’d be when he heard she was pregnant, she wouldn’t leave him and run to Tory. The fact that she
could,
however, that Farthest House was an option, eased a bit of her fears. She wouldn’t be returning to Mémé, but she’d be returning to the house she loved with its big rooms and big gardens where Jonah trimmed roses.

She’d just hold on. Mémé had said, “Care only to work,” and now especially, she needed to sink down into her art, feel her way into it. Let art carry her through again. Life was easy there, not fighting any battles, where she could wink and nod and have her powers manifest on the canvas. When she did that, somehow, even if only briefly, some of what she found there followed her out like paint on her shoes.

She wiped her nose on the sleeve of her jacket. Things would be all right. Derrick was just pissed, and who could blame him? She’d known she was pregnant before the nurse called her out. She’d had days of crying and pacing. Derrick just needed more time.

The following Friday, as Willow walked home from school, Derrick’s car pulled up alongside her. In the daylight, a hundred eyes were able to see them. At McDonald’s, he ordered cheeseburgers, fries, and Cokes. They sat in a booth, the food untouched on the tray between them.

“I told my folks,” he said.

She waited. At least he wasn’t screaming, and he didn’t intend to start, or he wouldn’t have brought her to a public place.

“Mom went through the roof. Six hours later, she was still screaming how I was killing her. ‘You love Mary Wolfe!’” he mimicked her higher voice. “Dad called me a ‘jack-off,’ said I’d always thought with my little head.”

Willow stared at the straw jutting from the center of her flimsy lid.

“Mom bawled all night. First thing in the morning, before early Mass, she went to see Father Steinhouse. She came home telling me I was from a ‘good Catholic family.’ She wants us to marry.”

“Marry?” Willow reached for the drink. Her mind scrambled over the word.
Marry?
Should she scream for joy, or should she run? “What’d your dad say?”

“He’s so pissed, he won’t speak to me again. I figure I’ll get a good decade of silence out of this.” He picked up a straw, tapped it end over end on the table. “He takes his rants out on Mom, and she spreads the joy onto me. He doesn’t want Omaha, his cronies I should say, talking about how his son ran out on some pregnant girl. He says I’ve fucked up and need to face the consequences. Actually, I think he’s glad. He thinks this is the lesson I need.” He bit the paper tip off the straw, spit it to the side. “Like he’s such a good family man, coming home at dawn smelling of gin and ass. Mom’s already dragged me to Father Steinhouse.”

Willow flopped back against the seat. The conversation was moving too fast, had gotten way ahead of her. “Father Steinhouse! I don’t want him to know.”

“Well, he does. How the hell else are we going to get married?”

Her throat felt jammed shut. She swallowed. “Who says we’re getting married?”

“That’s what people do. Catholics at least.” He looked down at the tray of untouched food. “What else can I do?”

Willow’s mind spun around lyrics of a Paul Simon song:
You just slip out the back, Jack.
“You don’t have
to do it.”

“I do if I want to ever see my parents again, if I want them to pay for college, if I want to stay in the church. I’m not giving up my inheritance.”