No Matter What

So, of course, his conversational foray had been to accuse her kid of breaking his kid’s heart. He flinched at the memory. Really slick.

He’d been surprised Trevor wanted to go to the dance at all, far less was willing to accept a ride from him. Not that he’d done so gracefully; when Richard offered, Trev had given a typically sullen, one-shouldered shrug that said, louder than words, whatever. One of his favorite words in the English language. So favored, he’d learned to convey it wordlessly. Still, he had accepted. Of course, he hadn’t talked during the short drive, but he had actually muttered a “thanks” before he jumped out. A word Richard would have sworn Trevor had deleted from his vocabulary.

Home again, Richard found the house felt empty and too quiet, a ridiculous thing to think when he’d lived here alone since his divorce but for the kids’ visits and his own two, year-long tours in Iraq. Then, living in barracks with other National Guardsmen, he’d have given anything to be home in his quiet, empty house. He had nothing to complain about.

He turned on the TV but found nothing interested him and turned it off. He’d never been one for noise for its own sake. The sound of canned voices did not make him feel any less lonely.

Richard set down the remote and looked around his living room. Funny that he hadn’t realized he was lonely. The kids were on his mind a lot, sure, but that wasn’t the same thing. By logical extension, he thought, I could call Bree, but reminded himself it was Friday evening and she was sure to be out. Hell, Lexa probably would be, too. He’d be stunned if she didn’t already have another guy on her string. Maybe two or three. He knew from pictures of her with the kids that she’d stayed beautiful. Maybe Davis hadn’t been paying enough attention to her. Could be he’d gotten too wrapped up in work. Alexa needed to have a man completely besotted with her or she’d look for another one who would be. Eventually Richard had come to feel sorry for her, so insufficient unto herself. She had to see a dazzling reflection of herself in someone’s eyes to feel as if she was worth anything.

Took him long enough to figure that out. But then, good God, he’d been only months older than Trev was now when he made his seventeen-year-old girlfriend pregnant. Mind-boggling thought.

Grimacing, he reached to turn on his computer. At least if he worked, he could accomplish something concrete. Bree’s dad might be an electrician, but he was a pretty damn well-to-do one. He planned to have his bid for the electrical work on a small strip mall in Monday morning. No time like the present to finish it up.

* * *

IT WASN’T FULL DARK WHEN the doorbell rang Sunday night, but Molly knew who she’d find on her doorstep. The little ghosts and robots and princesses came out early.

She usually enjoyed Halloween and had been determined to try to enjoy this one, too. West Fork was the kind of town where it was still safe for children to knock on doors begging for candy. Too bad Cait had already ruined Molly’s favorite part of the holiday—carving the jack-o’-lanterns. They’d done it together since Cait was big enough to draw a face on the pumpkins with her marker and help spoon out seeds and slime. This year, when Molly announced that she’d bought two pumpkins, Cait had said flatly, “Wow.”

“You don’t have dance tonight. I thought this would be a good evening to carve them.”

Her daughter only shrugged. “I don’t feel like it.”

Without another word, Molly had marched downstairs, spread newspaper on the table to contain the mess and done it herself. She didn’t have a grain of Cait’s artistic ability, though, so hers were simple—triangular eyes, noses, wide mouths with missing teeth. But, by God, they had jack-o’-lanterns, one on the porch steps and the other on the railing.

Not half an hour ago, she’d lit candles inside them. Wrapped candy was heaped in a huge ceramic bowl on a side table by the front door, ready to hand out. She’d gotten dinner on the table early—although not as early as she’d planned—so they’d be ready. Cait had even come down when she called.

She then sat pretending to eat, head bent so her hair shielded her face, responding in monosyllables if at all to Molly’s one-sided chatter. The few glimpses Molly had gotten of Cait’s face had scared her. She’d been starkly pale and utterly withdrawn. Something was wrong. Even more wrong.

In irritation, Molly thought, Sure, there is. Something earth-shattering like Trevor acquiring a new girlfriend. She was getting exasperated enough at Cait’s histrionics to keep her from panicking. The sound of the doorbell was a relief.

She opened the door to a cry of “Trick or treat!” and found two small faces grinning up at her. The little girl wore a remarkably clever horse costume—she was a palomino with a shining golden mane and tail—while the boy was a pirate.

“Happy Halloween,” she told them, dropping candy into their proffered orange buckets and waving at the dad who hovered on the front walk. Another group was already turning up toward her porch.

She hadn’t quite finished dinner, but that was okay. Maybe Cait would condescend to take a turn. At least that didn’t involve interaction with her mother, the enemy. And she hadn’t said anything about going out.

To Molly’s surprise she appeared from the kitchen and grinned at the latest group. “Wow, you’re so cute. And you’re scary!” she said, handing out the candy. She mimicked fear at a Frankenstein. Giggling, the two carefully climbed down the porch steps to rejoin a shadowy adult figure—Mom this time?

Studying Cait carefully, Molly thought there was still something odd going on. Did she seem…frenetic?

Wow, I’m getting paranoid.

“You should have seen the horse,” Molly said, closing the door and smiling at her daughter. “The costume was pretty amazing. Almost better than yours.”

Cait rolled her eyes. “Which you designed and sewed by the sweat of your brow. And yeah, I remember you had bandages on every finger by the time you were done creating the tail. How could I forget? You’ve only bragged about my purple horse costume nine million times.”

“I hadn’t even thought of it in years,” Molly said, as evenly as she could manage. “I apologize for mentioning it. Will you get the next trick-or-treaters?”

Cait yanked open the closet and grabbed a parka. “I have to go somewhere.”

Molly had started toward the kitchen, but now she turned back. “Have to?” When there was no answer, she asked, “Where and with whom?”

“‘With whom.’ God, Mom.”

She crossed her arms. “You didn’t mention a party.”

“I’m not going to a party, okay?” Cait exclaimed with that new ugliness. “It’s like six o’clock. It’s not even dark! What’s your problem?”

“I asked where you’re going. Is that so unreasonable?”

“Yes! You don’t trust me at all.” She flung open the door, startling a solitary Mutant Ninja Turtle who had been reaching for the doorbell. He scuttled back a few steps.

“Trick or treat?” he whispered.

“Here!” Cait grabbed a whole handful of candy bars and dumped them in his bag so hard it rattled. “I’m going,” she told her mother, and took off down the steps, yelling over her shoulder, “Deal with it.” The parent waiting on the sidewalk took a step onto the grass to let her tear by. The flashlight the woman held wobbled.

“Thank you,” the little one mumbled, and Molly pulled herself together enough to say, “Happy Halloween.”

Then she shut the door, all her pleasure in the evening gone. Boy, did Cait have a real talent for puncturing every happy moment these days, as if she sensed and resented her mother’s mood. Depressed? Has a headache? Good enough, I’ll give her a break. Cheerful, optimistic? Hell, no. I’ll flatten her.

She’s being a teenager, that’s all. You’re taking it ridiculously hard, Molly told herself. Cait had spoiled her up until now, that’s all. Good heavens, she wasn’t using drugs—at least that Molly could tell—she hadn’t reeled home drunk yet, she wasn’t being dropped off at all hours by boys who screeched up to the curb outside the house. Also, as far as Molly knew, Cait was even keeping her grades up. So she’d become snotty, sulky, secretive and all too frequently angry. Not that unusual.

Deal with it, Molly thought with near humor.

The doorbell rang again, and she found a smile for the next round of children.

By eight-thirty, she was tempted to blow out the candles and turn off the porch light. Any trick-or-treaters now would be teenagers, and she didn’t feel all that obligated to offer them candy. On the other hand—her gaze strayed to the bowl—she was bound to be tempted by the leftovers, and she struggled with her weight enough without ripping open Butterfinger or Snickers bars uncontrollably only because they were there.

She cleared the table in the long lull and began loading the dishwasher. Most of their dinner had to be scraped in the garbage. Molly had scraped quite a lot of food in the garbage lately. Cait seemed to enjoy throwing her scenes at mealtimes. Hey, Molly thought, maybe she should weigh herself. Could there be a silver lining to all this? It had seemed as if the waistband of her navy blue skirt was rather loose this morning.

Unlike her heels, which she still wore in her hurry to get dinner on the table. On the thought, she kicked them off. One flew halfway across the kitchen, the other only a few feet. She wiggled her toes, decided she’d ditch the panty hose as soon as she’d finished cleaning up the kitchen and reached for a dirty pan.

The doorbell rang. She jumped, remembered why it was ringing and turned, stepping automatically around the open dishwasher door. At which point, she planted a foot on the pump lying on its side and stumbled back into the kitchen trash container, which she’d pulled out from the cupboard to make cleanup easier. Even as she swore, it toppled over, spewing the uneaten food, crumpled wrappings, cans that should have gone in recycling, and…what was that?

She stared, disbelieving, at a little white stick with a bright blue dot at one end. Buried at the bottom of the garbage amidst carrot peels.

Suddenly frantic, she crouched and dumped out the rest on the kitchen floor. The doorbell rang again, more insistent. She ignored it, scrabbling through the trash. A brown paper bag held something, half-squashed. With shaking hands, she pulled it out. A home pregnancy test kit. Open. A second stick slid out and plopped onto a glob of leftover casserole. Molly turned it over and saw that it, too, had a blue dot. It only took her a minute to find the instructions. If no color appears, you are not pregnant, she was informed. If color appears, you are. Simple.

Dizzy, she dropped to her knees. All she could think was, My fifteen-year-old daughter is pregnant. Oh, dear God.

CHAPTER FOUR

MOLLY KNEW THAT she would never, so long as she lived, forget the expression on Caitlyn’s face when she finally arrived home at nine-thirty, dashed straight to her bedroom and found her mother sitting in her chair, the two sticks from the pregnancy test kit lying on the desktop in front of her. Her gaze flew to her mother, then the damning evidence and back to Molly.

“You searched the garbage?” she whispered.

“I knocked it over by accident.” Molly had become very nearly numb by now. “You should have disposed of them in the can.”

“I was going to, but there wasn’t anything in it. I thought you’d notice…” Cait swallowed. She still stood a foot or two inside the room, frozen in place.

“You didn’t think I’d notice your belly swelling?” How polite I sound.

“I…I…” Tears spurted and Cait’s face contorted. With a sob she threw herself across the room and facedown onto her bed. Her whole body shook with the force of her tears.

Molly’s eyes stung. On a rush of pity, she moved to sit on the bed and gently rub her daughter’s back. “Oh, sweetie. I know you were scared. I do know.”

She kept murmuring; Cait kept crying. It was a storm of misery and grief and fear. Molly would have given a lot to have joined her. But maybe strangely, she felt steadier now than she had at any time in the past six weeks.

“I love you,” she said, bending down to kiss Cait’s head. “I love you so much. We’ll figure out what we have to do. We will.”

“How can you love me?” her child wailed.

Through her own tears, Molly laughed. “I will always love you. Haven’t I told you that a million times? That no matter what happens, no matter what you do, I will love you because I’m your mother?”

Cait managed to roll over and look up through swollen eyes. Her skin was blotchy; tears dripped from her chin and snot from her upper lip. Molly reached for a dirty T-shirt on the top of the hamper and handed it over. “Wipe and blow.”

She did, and almost looked worse afterward. Molly sat back down and embraced Cait, who laid her head on Molly’s shoulder and clutched her, too. They sat like that for a long time—a couple of minutes, at least. Silent, breathing in and out. Molly soaked in the closeness and tried to shut her mind for this brief, peaceful interval to all the decisions to be made. To the fact that everything had changed for Cait, irrevocably.

At last a long breath shuddered out of her and she straightened. “Would you like a cup of tea? Or cocoa?”

“Cocoa, please.”

They went downstairs. Molly put water on to boil and Cait sat in the dining nook waiting. They had instant, thank goodness; Molly hadn’t been sure, since they didn’t drink it often. She set a spoon in each mug, poured in the boiling water and carried them to the table, where she sat across from Cait.

“Have you told Trevor yet?”

Head bowed, concentrating on stirring, Cait shook her head. “That’s where I went tonight. I tried.”

Molly had guessed as much. “Did you find him?”

“Finally. At a party. But he was with some girl.” She clenched her jaw. “He wouldn’t go off where I could talk to him. And I didn’t want to yell out to the whole room, ‘Hey, guess what, I’m pregnant.’”

“No, I don’t blame you.”

“What can he do anyway?” she asked fiercely.

It was hard, so hard, to hide how angry Molly was. “Depending on what you decide to do, there are ways he can take responsibility, too. He is responsible. At least as much as you are. He’s two years older, Cait.”

“We didn’t use a condom the first time,” Cait said dully. “He did after that, but I could tell he didn’t like how it felt.”

That son of a bitch, was all Molly could think. “At seventeen, he surely understood the consequences,” she said after a moment, trying to hide her rage.

“I’ve been so scared.” The swollen eyes were pathetic. Her nose was starting to run again and Molly handed her a napkin. “I kept thinking my period would start any day, that this couldn’t be happening.”

“How pregnant are you?”

That made Cait drop her eyes. A new tide of red rose from her neck to swallow the blotches on her face. “The first time was, um, six weeks ago,” she mumbled. “So I guess…”

That meant if they were going to seriously consider abortion—and how could they not, given Cait’s age?—it had to be soon. “Oh, sweetie,” Molly murmured. She waited, but Cait didn’t say anything. “Didn’t you know you could talk to me?”

The wet eyes met hers again. “I was so scared,” she repeated. She buried her face in the napkin, finally wiped and blew again. “And I’ve been such a butt.”

“Yes, you have. But remember—”

“No matter what I do, you will always love me because you’re my mother,” she recited, sounding watery.

“Right.”

“Mommy. What do I do?”

“That’s something we’ll have to talk about and think about carefully. But I suspect you know the options. Really, there are only three.”

“I could get an abortion,” Cait said tentatively.

Molly nodded. “That’s one. Two, you can have this baby and give it up for adoption.” It was hard to go on, seeing the stricken look on her daughter’s face. “Or three, you have it and keep it.”

“But…how can I?”

“With great difficulty. There was a time both Trevor’s parents and I would have said the two of you had to get married. He could finish the school year and then get a job.”

“But…he broke up with me.”

“There were consequences to his choosing not to use a condom,” Molly reminded her. “Seniors in high school are planning for the future. They’re thinking about grades, how to pay for college, how to get training for a trade that interests them. A few are even planning to get married once they graduate. Trevor made a choice about the future when he was either in too big a hurry to bother with a condom, or decided he didn’t like how sex feels without one.” She paused, feeling cruel, but knowing this had to be said. “So did you, agreeing to have sex without setting limits.”

A sob hitched in Cait’s throat, but she didn’t leap up and race from the room as Molly had half expected.

“So you think we should get married?” she asked after a minute.

“No. I said there was a time that would have been expected. Nowadays… Well, I suspect most girls in your situation have an abortion. No matter what, you’re too young to marry anyone, and whether you want to admit it or not, Trevor is not a good candidate. He’s an angry young man who has been lashing out at everyone around him. I don’t believe he’s capable right now of being any kind of husband or father.”

“He was…he was really sweet to me.”

“Until he ditched you?”

“It wasn’t like that.” Cait looked wretched. “I think…I think it was my fault.” Molly snorted, and Cait shook her head. “He said I was acting like a little girl, and he’d made a mistake hooking up with someone my age. And…I guess I was, I don’t know, kind of not sure how to act and…” She stumbled to a stop, seeming to run out of words.

“Over your head.”

Another sniffle. “I guess. He’s older and he knew what he was doing and I didn’t and… But I liked him so much, and when he liked me, too…” The last came out as a wail.

Molly felt a burn beneath her breastbone. She understood. How could she not? She’d been a teenager, hopelessly aware of a boy who would never in a million years notice her. And then a freshman in college when a boy like that did notice her—and she, too, had ended up pregnant long before she’d planned for any such eventuality. Yes, she’d been older than Cait, but any wiser? Not so much.

“Right now,” she said, “I think we both need to go to bed.”

“I can’t go to school tomorrow!”

“Yes, you can, and you have to.” She held up a hand when Cait would have interrupted. “You’re not going to be any less scared or upset on Tuesday or Wednesday. Or even next Monday. And if you should decide to carry this baby to term…” Her throat wanted to close up as she envisioned her increasingly pregnant daughter walking the halls of the high school. Or transferring to the alternative school? “Chances are good you won’t make it all the way through the school year. So you’ll miss days then. You can’t afford to miss any now.”

Cait gulped.

“Do you want me to confront Trevor with you? I could call you both to my office....”

“No!” Her daughter leaped to her feet, her face a study in alarm. “You wouldn’t!”

“You have to tell him.”

“I know I do.” She swiped at her eyes. “I will. But I need to do it my own way, okay?”

“Fair enough,” Molly said, although she didn’t agree. “Just…pick your time carefully, okay? Maybe after school?”

Cait nodded. She was crying again. Molly’s heart was wrung by pity, but also some anger, and it wasn’t all aimed at Trevor. She would have sworn Cait was so mature for her age. Molly had nearly treated her as an adult. They’d talked openly about everything, including sex and birth control. And then brooding Trevor Ward had walked into West Fork High School and Cait’s brains had scrambled.

Hormones do that.

I thought I’d Kevlar-vest-armored her against making the same mistakes I did. So what happened?

Trevor happened.

And the truth was—she felt hollow, thinking this for the ten thousandth time and finally understanding it was true—you can’t protect your children. Not 24/7, without fail. Not the way you want to.

I didn’t believe it, Molly admitted, and now she felt grief.

* * *

“CAITLYN CALLAHAN CALLED,” Richard told his son. They didn’t get that many calls on the home phone. The ring had startled him.

Trevor grunted, one foot on the bottom step.

“The third time this week.”

“Yeah, like she can’t talk to me at school.” After that momentary pause, Trevor took the stairs two at a time.

Richard stared after him. What was going on? He’d only caught a glimpse or two of her, but enough to see that Caitlyn was an exceptionally pretty girl. Really pretty. There was a reason Trev had cut her from the herd within days of starting school here. Richard still didn’t know who’d dumped whom, but unless this girl was completely lacking in pride, he had trouble seeing why she’d make a nuisance of herself pursuing his son once he’d lost interest. There had to be plenty of other boys who’d be glad to fill the vacuum.

Frowning after Trevor, Richard gave some serious thought to calling Molly and asking what she knew. But hell, he knew that was overstepping. He had no real grounds for this uneasy feeling. Maybe girls had gotten pushier than they were in his day. Even then, there’d been a few who didn’t hesitate to call a boy, and call again. Let Caitlyn back Trevor into a corner at school if she was determined enough.

He tried to shrug it off, tried not to regret the lack of any good excuse to call Molly, maybe even see her. In the week since the high school dance, he’d come to his senses about asking her out. It was a bad idea all around. She would have said no and he’d have been humiliated. As long as Trevor stood between them, that wasn’t happening, even assuming she’d have been otherwise interested. Maybe next year, once Trev had graduated—if he did. Maybe then, if Richard could determine whether she was really single.

He went to the kitchen to find something to throw together for dinner. He wasn’t much of a cook, which embarrassed him some. But why would he be? Lexa had done the cooking when they were married, and later there wasn’t much motivation, not when the only person he was feeding was himself. Summers when he had the kids, he’d tried harder; made sure he served a vegetable with dinner, grilled steaks, made salads. Even followed a few recipes. The last summer they were here, Trev and Bree had taken turns putting dinner on the table most days, and both of them were pretty decent cooks. Lexa’s influence, Richard guessed. Went without saying that Trev hadn’t so much as turned on the coffeemaker for his father this year.

Trev slouched downstairs for the hamburgers, baked beans and corn Richard served for dinner. For the first weeks, Richard had tried talking during dinner about his day, maybe mentioning some things he’d read in the morning paper, offered an anecdote from when Trev was little. Talking, he’d discovered, was worse than the silence, so sometime in the ten weeks Trevor had now been with him, Richard had given up. They ate in complete silence tonight, although he wanted to ask, Why are you dodging that girl? Why can’t you make it clear you’re not interested? Or is she intent on saying something you don’t want to hear?

He felt a little chill at that last thought. What could she possibly want to say that would have his big bad son ducking and weaving? Was there any chance Trevor actually still had a conscience, and was avoiding the admission that he’d treated her poorly?

But—how had he treated her poorly?

“Please clean the kitchen,” he said, and pushed away from the table. “The Steelers are on, playing Kansas City.”

“Yeah, I don’t care about either team.”

Neither did Richard, but he still enjoyed watching an occasional game. He wasn’t a fanatic; he didn’t give up every Sunday to stay glued to the television. But tonight he thought it would be a good way to unwind.