When Ezra had arrived, most of Kayla’s regret evaporated. Unlike his brother, who’d had colic and had barely slept for the first weeks of his life, Ezra had been a calm, sweet-natured baby, who slept through the night at eight weeks and was happy in his car seat, happy in his stroller, happy just about anywhere. As the years went on, Kayla had seen for herself what had happened when her nieces and her friends’ daughters became teenagers, when the moms were dealing with cutting and depression and disordered eating, friend drama and boy drama, birth control discussions and pregnancy scares.
With every year that had passed, she’d gotten happier about being a boy mom, and proud of the relationships she had with Andy and Ezra. Thank God I have sons and not daughters, she’d think, smugly—arrogantly—when she’d hear one of her friends’ horror stories. She’d taken care to establish open lines of communication with her sons early on, mindful of her own parents’ failings. When she’d asked her mother where babies came from, her mom had said, “From mommies’ tummies” and then hurried out of the room. The next day, Kayla had found a book on her bed, one that had explained the basics in clinical language that had, somehow, left her with more questions than answers. When she’d gotten her period, her mother had told her that there were supplies in the bathroom, underneath the sink, without a word on how to use them, or any questions about how she was feeling. Kayla had been left to glean the rest of her sex education from friends and her biology classes.
Kayla didn’t want her sons growing up ignorant or ashamed. She’d used the correct terms for their body parts, even when they were hard for her to say, and she’d bought them better books when they were ready. As her boys got older, Kayla talked to them, not just about pregnancy and disease but also about consent and pleasure. Andy and Ezra knew, Kayla hoped, how to treat women with respect, to be mindful of their boundaries and, eventually, solicitous of their enjoyment. Best of all, her boys knew they could come to her with anything. She had promised them that she’d listen and not judge, no matter what, and she’d never had cause to regret that promise… until that morning, when Andy knocked on her door.
It was just before seven o’clock in the morning, in the bed-and-breakfast they’d arrived at the night before, and she could hear rain drumming on the roof. Dale was still sleeping, lying on his back on the left side of the bed, the same side he occupied at home. When she opened the bedroom door she saw Andy in his pajama bottoms and a hoodie. His feet were bare, his hair was rumpled, and he looked very young.
“Mom?” he said. She still hadn’t gotten used to how deep his voice was these days; how he no longer sounded like a kid. “Can I talk to you?”
“Of course.” Kayla reached up with her thumb to smooth his eyebrow. Andy had grown six inches in the last eighteen months. His face had gotten more angular, his jaw more defined as he’d lost that little-boy softness, but Kayla could still catch glimpses of the toddler whose thighs had once been as soft and squishy as loaves of Wonder Bread, the little boy who’d worn yellow rain boots and a Batman cape to preschool for three weeks in October, in advance of Halloween. The sweet, good-hearted boy who’d once asked her to put extra cookies in his lunch because his friend’s mom never packed dessert and who, in elementary school, had invited his whole class to his birthday parties so that no one would feel left out.
Kayla pulled on her own sweatshirt and a pair of socks and led Andy downstairs. The house where they’d stayed was a redbrick Georgian house in a quiet, residential neighborhood, with a wraparound porch and eight bedrooms, half of them with fireplaces. She could hear someone—Jasper, she assumed—in the kitchen. There were already carafes of coffee on the dining room table, with a platter of mugs beside them. Kayla poured herself coffee and sat down at the table. Andy took a seat opposite her and asked, quietly, “Can this be just between us?”
“Sure,” said Kayla. She wondered if that girl Morgan had already broken his heart. When the first girl Andy had gotten a crush on, two years ago, when he’d been in ninth grade, had told him she just wanted to be friends, Kayla had been sad, but not surprised. When she’d been a teenager, she wouldn’t have given a boy like Andy a second look. Just wait, she’d told him. You’re going to find someone who thinks you’re the best thing since sliced bread. He’d looked at her, red-eyed and miserable, asking, Is sliced bread really that great?
Kayla sipped her coffee, waiting until Andy got his long arms and legs settled. “What’s going on?”
Andy knit his fingers together and looked down at them as he spoke. “If I knew a secret… if someone told me something, and made me promise not to tell, but I thought the person maybe wasn’t going to be safe…” His voice trailed off. He unlaced his fingers and started drumming gently at the table.
“Okay.” Kayla’s pulse sped up. “The person with the secret. Is it someone I know?”
“Yes. But I can’t tell you who.”
Kayla thought. “How about this? Tell me what’s going on but don’t use any names. We’ll just say it’s theoretical.”
Andy nodded. “Okay.” More drumming. “What if, theoretically, I knew that someone was pregnant and didn’t want to be? And she can’t, um, do anything about it where she lives, so she made an appointment at the Planned Parenthood in Syracuse, and, theoretically, she wanted me to come to the appointment with her, and she made me promise not to tell her mom?”
Kayla swallowed hard. “This wouldn’t be a pregnancy you had anything to do with? Theoretically?”
Andy looked shocked. Then he shook his head. “Theoretically, no.”
“So this girl wants an abortion, and she doesn’t think her mother would let her get one?”
“I said I’d help her. Theoretically.” Andy sounded wretched. “I want to help. She needs someone to go with her, and make sure she’s safe. Only…” His shoulders slumped. “I don’t want her to get in trouble, and I don’t want to get in trouble myself.” In a low voice, he said, “I wish she could tell her mom. But she says she can’t.”
“Is there another adult she could talk to? Is her dad a possibility?”
Andy shook his head. “Her dad’s, like, a pastor. And I’m worried that, if her mom finds out she did this, she’s going to be mad at me. Like, she’ll think that I encouraged her or helped her set it up or something.”
Kayla could certainly imagine things unfolding in just that fashion. Her throat was tight, her belly felt knotted. “When is this theoretically happening?”
“This morning. Her appointment’s at ten o’clock. She wanted me to ride with her, to the place. Only…” Andy gestured toward the windows. “I don’t even know if we’re riding today.”
“Okay.” Kayla took another sip of coffee. “It’s good that you told me.”
Andy’s eyes were wide. “Please don’t say anything to Morgan or her mom. Please. I promised her I wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t.” But even as she was promising, Kayla felt troubled. How would she feel if she learned that Andy or Ezra had gotten a medical procedure without her knowledge, and that some other adult had known? Even if it was something as insignificant as a piercing or a tattoo, she wouldn’t like it. She could only imagine how someone with the beliefs she assumed Lily held might feel about learning that another parent had aided and abetted in her daughter’s abortion.
Thank God, she thought, feeling relief, then guilt and shame, as she thought of her sister, her friends, and their daughters. Thank God I don’t have girls.
“I just—I want to help her. I want to make sure she’s safe. And I don’t know what the right thing is,” Andy said. Kayla felt her eyes sting as she thought, I have raised a good and decent child.
She sat, running through the possibilities in her mind. “How about this? Tell Morgan that, if she wants, she can talk to me—”
“No!” Andy said. “She doesn’t want anyone else to know! She made me promise I wouldn’t tell anyone.” Andy looked, if it were possible, even more miserable.
Kayla held up her hand. “Tell her,” she continued, “that you promise your mother won’t freak out or get mad or tell anyone else. Tell her that your mother will go to the appointment with her, if she wants an adult to be there with her.”