CHAPTER 29
Julie
I’d like you to see my obstetrician.
Would you like to go to my OB/GYN?
My obstetrician is the best in the area.
I’d practiced every way of saying it, trying to find the words that would offer the path of least resistance when I presented the idea to Shannon. I should have known it wouldn’t matter. My daughter had her own plans.
I called her Friday morning, timing the call so that I’d reach her before she had to be to work but late enough that I knew she’d be up.
“Hi, Mom,” she said, apparently seeing my number on the caller ID of her cell phone. I took it as a good sign that she’d answered despite knowing it was me.
“Hi, honey,” I said. I was sitting on my bed, cross-legged, leaning back against the sham. I’d changed the sheets after getting up that morning, just in case: Ethan was coming to Westfield tonight. “How are you feeling?”
“You mean because I’m pregnant?”
No matter what I said to her, she seemed to take it as an attack. “I mean, in general,” I said.
“Fine.”
“I thought I’d call to see if you’d like me to make an appointment for you with my OB/GYN. I know you’d like her. She’s—”
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” Shannon interrupted me. “I already have a doctor.”
“You have?” I asked. My daughter was living a completely secret life. “Where are you…are you going to a clinic?”
“Not a clinic. It’s Dr. Myers-Blake in Morristown. She’s good. A friend told me about her.”
“Myersblick?” I repeated. I’d never heard of her.
“Myers-Blake,” she said slowly. “It’s hyphenated.”
The name was still unfamiliar to me. “But how did you pay?” I asked. “Our insurance—”
“Tanner sent me money,” she said, “but she does take our insurance. I picked a doctor who did, so that once you knew, I could start having our insurance pay for her.”
I was quiet, amazed that she had thought the issue through so carefully and thoroughly when her other recent decisions seemed to have been impulsively made. Through my bedroom window, I could see the massive oak tree Shannon used to climb as a kid. I missed that girl. I missed her so much. But I looked away from the window. The future was here and now.
“I’m proud of you for getting prenatal care on your own,” I said. “But please consider going to my doctor.”
“No,” she said. “I’m in charge of my life from now on.”
“Well, listen, honey.” It was time for a new tack. “Abby Chapman, Ethan Chapman’s daughter who is about twenty-six, is willing to talk to you about how she handled getting pregnant when she was about your age. She—”
“I’m handling it just fine, Mom.” Her voice was filled with irritation; I was losing her.
“I know you are,” I said. “But, see…what she did…and maybe you haven’t considered this option…is that she placed her baby with adoptive parents, and she—”
“Mother, would you please respect my decision?” Shannon asked. “How many times do I have to tell you I’m keeping this baby? I didn’t mean to get pregnant. I didn’t set out to mess up my college plans. But it happened and now I’ll deal with it. And there’s something else I need to tell you.”
Oh, God. “What?”
“Tanner is coming here next week,” she said. “He’s staying with his friends in Morristown for two weeks, and then he has to go back to Colorado and I’m going to go with him. So, I’ll be going to a doctor there, ultimately, anyway.”
“You mean, you’d be going there now? To stay?”
“In about three weeks,” she said. “And I don’t know if we’ll stay there forever, but we’ll be there at least until he finishes his Ph.D. program. Then, who knows where we’ll end up.”
I felt panicky. “Let’s talk this over, Shannon,” I said, standing up from my seat on the bed. “Talking something over doesn’t make you any less a grown-up. I talk to Lucy about important decisions I have to make, and this decision is certainly important.”
She sighed. “I have to get to work, Mom, so maybe we can talk later, okay?”
“All right,” I said. What else could I say. “But please, Shannon. Please let’s talk later.”
I called Glen at work the moment I got off the phone with Shannon. I spoke quickly, telling him about her going to a doctor we didn’t know and her planned move to Colorado. He listened quietly. He was always quiet. I’d once appreciated his gentle, compliant nature. Now I hated it. “Can you exert any influence over her since she’s living with you?” I pleaded.
“I think we need to let her do it her way,” he said finally.
“You’re afraid to make waves with her,” I said. “You’re always afraid to make waves. I would probably still not know you were having an affair if what’s-her-face hadn’t called to tell me.”
Glen said nothing. He knew it was the truth.
“Do you want her to move away?” I asked, looking for some response. I would take any response at that point.
“I think if she’s old enough to get pregnant,” he said, “she’s old enough to deal with the consequences.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said. “Eleven-year-olds can get pregnant, Glen.You think an eleven-year-old should deal with the consequences?”
“She’s not eleven.”
“Don’t you care that she’s leaving?”
“She would have left for college anyway,” he said, most likely with one of his c’est la vie shrugs.
I hung up. I couldn’t remember ever hanging up on anyone before in my entire life, but I could no longer tolerate his inability to confront difficult situations head-on. That’s what had cost us our marriage. I wasn’t going to let it cost me my daughter.
I got online to e-mail Lucy regarding Shannon’s latest plans and discovered a message from Ethan.
The police found Bruno Walker’s sister. She said he’s on a solo sailing trip around the world. The cop I spoke with said they’ll find him and “cut his trip short.”
And they questioned Dad.
See you tonight.