The Gift

“I never thought of it, and I'm not sure she did either,” Tommy said, looking pleased. “I'll talk to her about it, but I think right now, she's mostly worried about the baby. She's kind of scared. I don't think she knows what to expect. Maybe,” he looked hesitantly at Liz, glad that the two women had met. “Maybe you could talk to her, Mom. She really doesn't have anyone else except me to talk to, and the other waitresses at Jimmy D's. And most of the time, I think they just scare her.” From the little Tommy knew about what she'd be going through, it scared him too. The entire process sounded really awful.

“Ill talk to her,” Liz said gently, and a little while later they all went to bed. And as Liz lay next to John, she found herself thinking about her. “She's a sweet girl, isn't she? I can't imagine going through all that alone … it would be so sad …and giving the baby up …” Just thinking about it brought tears to her eyes, as she remembered holding Annie for the first time, and Tommy …they had been so adorable and so warm and dear. The thought of giving them up at birth would have killed her. But she had waited for them for such a long time, and she was so much older. Maybe at sixteen it was all just too much, and Maribeth was wise to realize that it was more than she could cope with. “Do you suppose Avery will find a family for the child?” She was suddenly concerned about her. Like Tommy, she couldn't resist the fact that Maribeth had no one else to turn to.

“I'm sure he does it more often than we suspect. It's not uncommon, you know. It's just that usually girls in her situation are hidden away somewhere. I'm sure he'll find someone very suitable for her baby.”

Liz nodded, as she lay in the dark, thinking about both of them, Maribeth and her son. They were so young and so much in love, and filled with hope. They still believed that life would be kind, and trusted in what their destinies would bring them. Liz no longer had that kind of faith, she had suffered too much pain when Annie died. She knew she would never trust the fates again. They were too cruel, and too quixotic.

They talked about her for a while, and then John finally drifted off to sleep. In some ways, they were no closer than they had been, but these days the distance between them seemed less forbidding, and every now and then, there was some gesture or kind word that warmed her. She was making a little more effort for him, and dinner that night had really shown her that she needed to get back to cooking dinner. They needed to be together at night, needed to touch each other again, and listen and talk and bring each other hope again. They had all been lost for too long, and slowly Liz could feel them coming out of the mists where they had hidden. She could almost see John, reaching out to her, or wanting to, and Tommy was there, where he had always been, only now Maribeth was standing beside him.

She felt peaceful for the first time in months when she drifted off to sleep that night, and the next morning, at the school library, she began pulling books for Maribeth and writing down assignments. She was completely prepared for her when she came to visit that Saturday afternoon, and she was surprised by the quality of the work Maribeth handed her. She was doing higher quality work than most of the seniors.

Liz frowned as she read some of it, and shook her head. And Maribeth panicked as she watched her. “Is it bad, Mrs. Whittaker? I really didn't have much time to do it at night. I can do more work on it, and I want to do another book report on Madame Bovary. I don't think that one really does the book justice.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” Liz chided her, glancing up with an unexpected smile. “This is extraordinary. I'm very impressed.” She made even Tommy's work seem weak by comparison, and he was a straight-A student. She had written a paper on Russian literature, and another on the humor of Shakespeare. She had done an editorial piece on the Korean war, as a writing assignment for English comp, and all of her math work was meticulous and perfect. It was all the highest quality work Liz had seen in years, and she looked up at the immensely pregnant girl and squeezed her hand gently. “You did a wonderful job, Maribeth. You should get a whole year's credit for this, or more. You've actually done senior-caliber work here.”

“Do you really think so? Do you think I could submit it to my old school?”

“I have a better idea,” Liz said, putting the folders in a neat pile. “I want to show these to our principal, maybe I can get you credit here. They might even let you take equivalency exams, and when you go home, you could go right in as a senior.”