The Gift

“I don't understand,” his mother interrupted. “She moved here in June, and she's six and a half months pregnant …that means she got pregnant in March, or somewhere around then. You got her pregnant somewhere else, and she moved here? Where were you?” He hadn't gone anywhere that they knew of. But they also didn't know that he frequently went out to dinner, nor that he had a pregnant girlfriend. Six and a half months made the baby imminent. Liz trembled as she thought of it. What were they thinking of, and why hadn't he told them? But as she thought about it, she began to understand. They had all been so distant and so lost since Annie died, particularly she and John, no wonder Tommy had gotten himself into trouble. No one had been paying attention.

But Tommy had finally understood the nature of their questions. “I didn't get her pregnant, Mom. She got pregnant back home, in Onawa, and her father made her leave until after the baby. She went to live in a convent and she couldn't stand it, so she came here in June. And that's when I met her.”

“And you've been going out with her all this time? Why didn't you tell us?”

“I don't know,” he sighed, “I wanted to, because I really thought you'd like her, but I was afraid you wouldn't approve. She's wonderful, and she's all alone. She doesn't have anyone to help her.”

“Except you' His mother looked pained, but his father was relieved. “Which reminds me,” Liz asked as she began to unravel the story, “have you been taking her to Dr. MacLean?”

Tommy looked startled by her question. “Why? Did he say anything?” He shouldn't have, he had promised he wouldn't, but his mother shook her head as she watched him.

“He didn't really say anything. He just said what a nice boy you were, and I couldn't figure out how he remembered. It's been six years …and then one of the teachers saw you with her last week, and said she looked extremely pregnant.” She looked up at her sixteen-year-old son then, wondering if he intended to marry the girl, out of real emotion for her, or even just to be gallant. “What's she going to do with the baby?”

“She's not sure. She doesn't think she can take care of it. She wants to put it up for adoption. She thinks it's kinder to do that, for the baby's sake. She has this theory,” he wanted to explain it all to her at once, to make them love her as much as he did, “that some people pass through other people's lives just for a short time, like Annie, to bring a blessing or a gift of some kind …she feels that way about this baby, as though she's here to bring it into the world, but not to be in its life forever. She feels very strongly about it.”

“That's a very big decision for a young girl to make,” Liz said quietly, sorry for her, but worried about Tommy's obvious infatuation. “Where's her family?”

“They won't speak to her or let her come home until after she gives up the baby. Her father sounds like a real jerk, and her mother is scared of him. She's really on her own.”

“Except for you,” Liz said sadly. It was a terrible burden for him to bear, but John wasn't nearly as worried now that he knew it wasn't his baby.

“I'd like you to meet her, Mom.” She hesitated for a long time, not sure if she wanted to dignify the relationship by meeting her, or simply forbid him to see her. But that didn't seem fair to him, and she glanced silently at her husband. John shrugged, showing that he had no objection.

“Maybe we should.” In a funny way, she felt that they owed it to Tommy. If he thought so much of this girl, maybe she was worth meeting.

“She's desperate to go to school. I've been working with her every night, lending her my books, and giving her copies of everything we've done. She's way ahead of me by now, and she does a lot more papers and independent reading.”

“Why isn't she in school?” his mother asked, looking disapproving.

“She has to work. She can't go back to school till she goes home, after the baby.”

“And then what?” His mother was pressing him, and even Tommy didn't have all the answers. “What about you? Is this serious?”

He hesitated, not wanting to tell her everything, but he knew he had to. “Yeah, Mom …it's serious. I love her.”

His father looked suddenly panicked at his answer. “You're not going to marry her, are you? Or keep the kid? Tommy, at sixteen, you don't know what you're doing. It would be bad enough if the baby was yours, but it isn't. You don't have to do that”

“I know I don't,” he said, looking like a man as he answered his father. “I love her. I would marry her if she would, and keep the baby, but she doesn't want to do either one. She wants to go back to school, and college if she can. She thinks she can still live at home, but I'm not sure she can. I don't think her father will ever let her get an education, from the sound of it. But she doesn't want to marry anyone until she's gotten an education. She's not trying to pressure me, Dad. If I married her, I'd have to force her to do it.”