Into the Woods

  you're all right. Grace. As long as you get well." I bit my lower lip.

  How could I tell her now what I had been

  hiding? She would surely blame herself for this, too.

  and I feared she would blame me for something

  unspeakable. I was too ashamed and felt far too guilty.

  Dr. Anderson had been struggling to get me to open

  that final secret door, but I had resisted even though I

  blew he had some deep suspicions and would not stop

  until he had succeeded.

  I hadn't just had sex with Kirby, my mother's

  husband.

  Although I wasn't showing yet. I knew I was

  pregnant..

  I couldn't be more positive about it and more

  terrified of revealing anything, especially to Mommy. .

  How many times over the next two months did

  I try to convince myself it wasn't my fault? How many

  times was it on the tip of my tongue to tell her

  everything? Every time I thought I could do it I heard

  myself questioning myself. Was it your fault? Were

  you flirting- with him as he had once said? Did you

  have to spend all that time doing- things with him?

  Did you have a crush on him? Why didn't you scream

  more, fight more when he kissed you like a lover

  kisses a -woman that first time? And if you were

  raped, why did you wait so long to reveal it? Why

  did you let your mother sleep with the man who had

  done this to you? Why didn't you have the decency,

  the loyalty, to protect her? How do you look at

  yourself in the mirror every day?

  Fortunately Kirby was really gone from our

  lives, mostly. Mommy thought, out of fear of being

  chased down by some of the more unsavory characters he was indebted to. He put up no resistance to the legal proceedings to separate him from Mommy. Our financial advisors and lawyers did the best they could creating- barriers to his raiding what was left of our fortune. Once she had loved him passionately, with a young woman's excitement, and now there was no one she hated more.. And I was to tell her this person had done one more terrible thing to

  us?

  My throat closed every time I thought I could

  do it. and I was too frightened and knew no one to go

  to who could help me find a secret way out of my

  dilemma. I was still barely showing. But I knew it was

  going to be very hard to keep my secret much longer. While all this was going on our financial

  advisor had located a couple who were very interested

  in renting Joya del Mar. the Eatons. They had no

  problem about our living in the beach house and were

  even willing to keep on all our servants. Preparations

  were begun for our taking over the rear apartment in

  the beach house, the biggest one at least. and Mommy

  began to sell off whatever she could from the house to

  build up our bank accounts again and at least give us a

  sense of some security.

  Mommy behaved as if someone had died the day we moved out of the main house. She would break out in quiet sobbing on and off and then suck in her breath to give the servants another order. The maids packed all our clothing and brought it to the apartment, which had no closet space in comparison. One of the bedrooms in the apartment had to be utilized for storage. and Mommy wailed about all her wonderful dresses and gowns, her pants suits and

  shoes that would be ruined.

  Another fact of life would be the use of the

  servants themselves. After this day they no longer

  worked for us. They worked for these new people. the

  Eatons.

  "It's been so long since I've cooked anything,"

  Mommy complained. "We'll starve."

  Her sighs were so deep and came so often I

  thought she would eventually crack in two. Out of the

  garage came our two automobiles, now to be parked

  on a section of the driveway.

  "We'll have to sell one of the cars anyway," she

  concluded. I didn't really care. I had no interest in

  driving, going anywhere.

  Just like someone who had lost her lover or her

  dearest friend. Mommy sat on the small loggia at the

  rear of the beach house. She didn't want to watch the movers bringing the Eatons' belongings. She had met the couple at our attorney's office only a few weeks ago to finalize the lease agreement, and she told me they were silly people made even more

  inconsequential by their apparent wealth,

  "The woman giggles a lot. She insists she be

  called Bunny, and her husband. Asher, looks like he's

  never had to do anything more than lift a toilet seat his

  whole life."

  She shook herself as if to shake off a bad chill.

  "Winston must be spinning in his grave. I've let him

  down as well as ourselves. I don't care if I never set

  foot off this property. I shudder to think of myself

  running into the Carriage sisters or any of the people I

  know. I swear. Grace. I'll just burst into tears the

  moment they say hello because I'll know just what's

  behind those artificial smiles. They think I deserve

  this. They'll all be so smug."

  I didn't say anything. I listened just the way Dr.

  Anderson listened to me when I spoke to him in his

  office. my face empty of any expression that could be

  interpreted as some sort of judgment, while inside

  myself I was screaming. "It's time to tell her! It's time

  to tell her!"

  I tried to choose the best possible moment. One night, nearly a week after we had been moved into the beach house. Mommy seemed to have come to a point where she was accepting our new status. She had successfully made one of the veal dishes Daddy used to love, and that put her in a good mood. Most of our dinner conversation was about him, or rather. I should say, most of her conversation was about him. I just sat there listening. One of her remembrances gave me the

  opening I needed.

  She was telling me how she had revealed to

  him she was pregnant, "We had been trying, of

  course, and shortly before. I had gone for an

  examination and test he had been shipped off for a

  training exercise that kept him away nearly a month. I

  could have written to him. but I said to myself. 'Jackie

  Lee, this is not the sort of thing you reveal in a letter.

  It's too important, and the emotion of the moment is

  something you want to share and remember for the

  rest of both your lives.'

  "So I kept it a secret. The day of his arrival I

  went to the airport at the Navy base. They would let

  me, as well as other wives, go there to greet our

  husbands. One day a week earlier I had found this

  adorable baby-size Navy uniform. There was even a

  small cap to go with it. I bought it and put it in a gift box. There I was standing with the other women when he came down the gangway. He rushed to me and kissed me, and then I said I had brought him a present and handed him the box. I had bought him a few flamboyant shirts when we were on holiday less than a year before, and he was always teasing me about

  that.

  "Not another shirt made out of someone's

  underwear. I hope,' he said.

  "'I don't think so.' I told him, and full of

  curiosity, he tore off the gift wrapping and opened the

  box. When he lifted out the tiny uniform his face went

  from surprise and confusion to utterjoy."
r />   "We've got it!' he cried as if we had won a

  prize.

  "'Yes,' I said. 'I'm pregnant.' and do you know

  what he did. Grace, what that big, strapping.

  handsome U.S. naval officer did right then and there'" I shook my head,

  "He cried." she said. "He just let his tears come,

  and then he wrapped his arms around me and held me

  as tightly as he could until he thought he was doing

  something that would hurt me and you and let go. "'I'm pregnant.' I told your father. 'but I'm not

  made of breakable thin china.'

  "What a wonderful night that was." she said,

  remembering, her eyes drifting around the resurrected

  images.

  I bit down on my lower lip and finally let my

  tears come unflinchingly, too. For a few moments she

  didn't notice, and then she blinked and looked at me. "Oh, honey." she said. "I'm sorry I know how

  much it hurts when I bring up your daddy."

  I shook my head. "No," I said. "That's not it." She held her gaze and then sat back slowly,

  suspicion darkening her eyes and narrowing them as

  well as she perused my face with a mother's intuitive

  observation.

  "What is it, Grace? Why are you crying?" I tried to speak, but for a moment my throat

  was so tight I couldn't utter a sound.

  "What is it, Grace?" she asked, more

  demanding. "I'm... I'm pregnant. Mommy," I said. It was as if a clap of thunder had just occurred

  right above us. That was how my bones vibrated. She

  didn't move a muscle; she didn't even blink fast. Her

  lips trembled finally until she drew the strength to

  speak.

  "Pregnant? How can you be pregnant. Grace?

  You never went anywhere, dated anyone all year." I could feel the tears streaming down my

  cheeks and dripping from my chin, but I didn't wipe

  them off or try to stop them from coming. He came to

  me one night when I was in a daze. Mommy, groggy

  from the sleeping pills."

  Her eyes widened with the shock of her

  realization of just what I was telling her.

  "I barely remember it, but I know he did it more

  than once." I said.

  She was shaking her head as if to throw the

  words out of her ears before they could reach her

  brain. "No," she said. "no."

  "I'm sorry. Mommy. I'm sorry."

  She pushed herself up and looked down at me,

  her mouth twisting with the pain and the agony

  moving like a corkscrew through her brain and into

  her heart.

  "No. Grace, you must have imagined it. You

  can't be pregnant. He's been gone for nearly five

  months now."

  "I'm starting to show, Mommy. That's why I'm

  wearing these loose dresses all the time."

  She stared, the reality settling in with the

  weight and the chill of fresh cement.

  'You've known and kept it secret all this time?" "I'm sorry, Mommy."

  "Stand up," she ordered. and I did so. She came

  to me and ran her hands over my hips and my stomach

  to make the dress tighter. My bulge was clearly

  evident. "Oh. my God." she said, stepping back as if I

  was contagious. "You are pregnant, aren't you? He did

  this. He did this!".

  She pressed her hands to her temples and

  grimaced with the pain, pushing so hard her face was

  red, her eyes bulged. Then she tore at her own hair for

  a moment, tugging it before releasing herself and

  reaching for a dish on the table. She heaved it across

  the small kitchen, and it smashed and splattered

  against the wall.

  "Are you telling me that you're more than seven

  months pregnant?"

  I barely had the strength to nod. but I did. "Why didn't you tell me months and months

  ago? How could you keep this a secret. Grace? Don't

  you realize what you have done? Can you imagine the

  gossip, the disgrace? We'll be the laughingstock of the

  whole strip. They'll never stop talking about us now." "I'm sorry, Mommy."

  "Why didn't you tell me?" she screamed. "I was afraid. I was afraid you would blame

  me," I wailed.

  "Blame you? But..." She looked at me in a

  different way. "Those times, those many, many times

  you were alone with him, out on the sailboat, out

  there, or those trips you two would take, all of that,

  did he do anything then? Did you let him. Grace?" she

  asked.

  I shook my head. "I don't think so. Mommy." "You don't think so? You don't think you let

  him? What does that mean?"

  "He said I always flirted with him, but I didn't. I

  didn't mean to." I moaned.

  She pulled her head back and looked at me

  again, her eyes revealing a mixture of doubt and

  belief,

  "He would say that" she concluded. "He will

  say that. Of course. He'll tell everyone you seduced

  him and not vice versa, if we let this be known." She sank into her chair. thinking. "We can't get

  anyone to give you an abortion this late without

  chancing an even bigger scandal. What can we do?

  What can we do?"

  I sat across from her again, and she looked at

  me for the longest time without speaking. I wiped

  away my tears and waited,

  "Who else knows about this, Grace? Have you

  told Dr. Anderson, for example? Not that it should

  matter. He isn't supposed to reveal what his clients tell

  him."

  "No, Mommy, I don't think I have."

  "You don't think you have? What kind of talk is

  this? Don't you know if you have or haven't?" He gets me to say things, and sometimes I think

  I say things I don't mean to say."

  "Who else?" she asked, sitting back. "No one.

  Who else is there?"

  "That's true. None of the servants, right, none of

  those maids who like you and whom you like to speak

  with. right?"

  "No."

  "Good. Okay. We can't let him do anything else

  to us," she decided. She smiled suddenly, a cold,

  almost evil smile. "We can, however, make him look

  even worse."

  She pressed her palms down on the table and

  leaned toward me, her eyes fixed hard on mine.

  "You're not pregnant, Grace. Do you hear me? Do you

  understand?"

  "No. Mommy. I am pregnant."

  "No, you're not, you see. I'm the one who is pregnant. I'm the one he has left in the lurch here. Seven months is fine. I didn't show with you until the seventh month. I will start showing, and I will give out the news. In fact," she added with a wider smile. "I'll call Thelma Carriage and let it slip. That will take

  care of it."

  "But what about me?"

  "You'll stay as you do. You won't be going to

  your therapy for the next two months or so. I'll fix

  myself so I begin to show, and in a month, parading

  about here with a swollen stomach. I'll convince

  people I'm the one.

  "Fortunately I haven't been out and about much,

  so people will accept it. I know I can depend on Dr.

  Cook to go along with this. When your time comes

  he'll deliver the baby here. We'll just say there was no

  time to get to the hospital. Women usually give birth

  easi
er the second time than they do the first, so people

  will believe it all.

  "That's it, Grace. That will be our solution. Do

  you understand? When you start to really show, I

  don't want you to be visible. You'll confine yourself to

  indoors until I give you an all-clear, and then you can

  take short walks behind the beach house but never

  toward the main house. All we have to do is permit those silly Eaton people to realize what's what, and

  they'll make it the evening's headlines.

  "Everyone will accept your behavior because

  you're practically a hermit as it is."

  She paused and twisted her lips as she looked at

  me. "I suppose in an ironic way I should be happy

  about that." she said. It makes all this subterfuge

  possible. Besides. I'm sure you're not the first young

  woman to give birth secretly in this town."

  She stood up again. "Clear off the table, clean

  up the broken dish, and load the dishwasher," she

  ordered. "I'm going to look over my wardrobe and

  decide what I have that will work over the next two

  months." She smiled coldly. "What I'll do is go out

  and buy maternity outfits as well. That will lock up

  the gossip Thelma Carriage will undertake." "I'm sorry that I've made all this trouble for

  you. Mommy," I said.

  "I am. too, Grace. It seems that fate will not let

  go of us. For some reason we're a prime target for it,

  but we'll stand up to it as we always do." she vowed.

  "We really have no choice. It's either this or leaving

  with our tails between our legs."

  She headed for her bedroom and the spare

  bedroom to sift through her wardrobe.

  Finally the reality I had kept so well hidden

  began to rise to the surface of my thoughts.

  And, actually for the first time. I thought about

  the baby inside me.

  With both of us regretting my pregnancy and

  hating the man who had done this to me, what kind of

  a child would he or she be, and into what sort of a

  world would he or she be brought?

  19

  One Last Salute

  .

  When my mother was determined to do

  something, she devoted every last ounce of her energy toward accomplishing it. Establishing her surrogate pregnancy was no exception. She took great care in creating her physical appearance and did something I knew was abhorrent to her: She deliberately set out to gain weight, and as quickly as possible. Some days she gorged herself so much on fattening foods, especially ice cream, cakes. and cookies. that she ended up in the bathroom regurgitating for nearly half an hour. She would emerge pale and sickly, but like a stubborn and defiant prisoner of her own making she would return to the kitchen and make a milkshake. She would conquer her body, and that was that.