One Second After

“How?” was all he could say, and he instantly realized the absurdity of it. At sixteen Elizabeth already so looked like her mother, and he remembered when they met she was twenty, he was twenty-one. Of course he knew how.

But this was his baby girl, who used to smother him with “smoochies” and say she would love him forever.

He walked towards them and to his horror he saw fear in Elizabeth’s eyes. Ben then stood up.

“Sir. If there’s blame, it’s mine.” His voice was trembling and broke into an adolescent squeak. “It’s my fault, not hers.”

“No, Ben. Both of us.”

She stood up and put her arm around him.

“Daddy, we love each other.”

He slowly sat down, shaking his head.

“My God,” he sighed. “You’re kids in high school. College ahead.”

“Not anymore,” Elizabeth said, and now there was some strength to her voice. “Daddy, that’s all over now. All over.”

He looked up at her.

She had always been slender, like her mom, but was even more so now.

Though he didn’t want to say it, he did.

“Maybe the lack of food. Maybe that’s why you’re late.”

“No, John,” and for the first time Makala spoke. “I found a test kit. It’s positive. She’s going to have a baby.”

As she said the word “baby,” Elizabeth and Ben, like so many across the ages, looked at each other and smiled.

John looked at them, again how slender she was, losing weight. Though he was a Catholic, even a non-practicing one, the thought of abortion flickered, even though it was anathema to him. Having this baby might kill her.

“I need to think,” John said, and stood up, heading to his office.

He stopped at the doorway and then looked back.

“We have to evacuate in one hour. So start packing….” He couldn’t say any more and left the room.

He sat down at his desk. The bottle behind it, gone, damn it. He fumbled in his breast pocket and pulled out the smokes. He took one out and lit it.

Numbed, he looked out the window, at the backyard where Jennifer was throwing a stick to Ginger, who though moving slowly still was trying to play.

“John?”

He looked up. It was Makala. “Am I intruding?”

“Yes and no.”

“Can I join you?”

He nodded and she took the chair by his desk. “What are you thinking?” she asked. He sighed.

“The whole world has gone to hell. You know I killed two men this morning?”

“I saw the bodies. And they deserved it.”

“And Zach?”

“I’m sorry, John, about him. He died well, though.”

John lowered his head. Was it only hours ago? he thought.

“There’s a barbarian horde coming this way and by tomorrow they might overrun us. If they do, all this will be moot. Jennifer out there will be dead, if lucky you and Elizabeth dead, all of us dead. The country… dead.”

“That’s why you have to accept what happened with Elizabeth.”

“What? She’s a kid, Makala. She was going to be a junior in high school, that son of…” He hesitated. “Ben a senior. My God, Makala. Accept it?”

“Kids younger than them have been getting pregnant for thousands of years. Especially in wartime.”

“Not my baby.”

“Yes, your baby,” and she reached out and touched his knee.

“Listen, John. You know and I know there isn’t much chance. And they know it, too. They think they’re in love. For God’s sake I hope they are in love. They want that taste of life as much as you did, as I did, as any of us do.”

He looked at her and found he couldn’t respond.

“Give them your blessings. I know it will be hard. But do it. I know the risk she faces as much, maybe more than you do. Give her that blessing for her to carry with her and give her strength.”

He saw tears in Makala’s eyes.

“She’s a good kid, John. You and Mary raised her well. Don’t turn this into a moral question now. They were two scared kids, the world going to hell around them; it was all but inevitable it would happen. If not for this damn war, it’d of been different. But it’s not. And you have to accept that.”

He nodded. “Tell Ben to come in here.”

A moment later Ben was at the door, standing straight, eyes wide. John motioned for him to come into his office.

“Sir. You can do what you want to me, sir. Just don’t blame your daughter.”

And at that moment John softened. He could see the kid half-expected to see a shotgun or face a damn good thrashing. He had the guts to take it. “You love my daughter?”

“More than anything in the world, sir.”

“Well, so do I. Her and Jennifer.”

“I know that, sir.”

John nodded. He didn’t want to think too much further about how Ben loved her; no father really would. But John could see that, though seventeen, Ben was trying to be a man at this moment and would have to be a man in the days to come.

John stood up, hesitated, then extended his hand.

“Thank you, sir,” and Ben’s voice cracked a bit.

John nodded.

“Just don’t call me Dad yet,” he finally said. “I’m not ready for that.”

“Yes, sir.”

He knew Elizabeth, in the next room, had heard the exchange, and she came through the doorway and flung herself into his arms. “Thank you, Daddy.”