Lily had left the office, almost dizzy with relief that there was a pill she could swallow that could solve her problem, that she wouldn’t need a surgical procedure, or the money to pay for it; that, best of all, her parents wouldn’t ever need to know. She’d driven the forty-five minutes to Harrisburg. There, she bought the medication and swallowed the pills. The bleeding had been heavy, the cramps worse than any she’d previously experienced. She’d swallowed Tylenol and stayed in her bedroom with the shades pulled down, getting up every hour to change her pad.
And then it had been over. She’d gone off to college, with her birth control pills in their plastic clamshell zipped into the front pocket of her backpack. Four years later, she’d graduated with her teaching certificate. She’d gotten a job teaching third grade at a school in Pittsburgh and had rented a studio apartment in Squirrel Hill. Most of the other teachers were nice, but they were middle-aged or older, already married and settled. Lily had joined a hiking club and signed up for a wine-tasting class. She attended different churches every Sunday in the same spirit. She liked hiking, she liked wine, and church gave her similar structure and community. It was true that the beliefs she’d grown up with were important to her, but, if she was being honest, she was looking for friends more than Jesus at that point.
Donald Mackenzie had been the youth pastor at the third church she’d tried. He’d had a round, open face that made him look younger than twenty-nine, and wore his red hair in a brush cut. He’d started to talk to her at the Newcomers’ Cake and Coffee, asking her where she was from, where she’d gone to college, and how she liked Squirrel Hill. His voice had been confident, the same full, booming tones he used to preach, but Lily had seen the flush creeping up his neck as he’d said, “Maybe, if you’re free on Saturday night, we could go somewhere?” They’d played a round of mini-golf, and had dinner at Ruby Tuesday, where Don had ordered iced tea and the second least-expensive entrée. When the food arrived, he had bowed his head in prayer, murmuring a blessing over his grilled chicken before taking a bite. “I know it’s not fancy,” Don had apologized, and Lily had told him it was fine, that she didn’t need fancy and that she was having a very nice time. She hadn’t been lying: Don was kind and respectful, a good listener, kind to his parents and close to his brother and sisters. He was ambitious, too, outlining for her his plan to eventually have his own pulpit. “I’ll never be rich, but I should be able to support a family,” he’d said. Nine months after they’d met, Don had proposed, with what he called the world’s smallest diamond. Lily had cried when she’d said, “Yes.”
She’d cried again when she’d told him that she wasn’t a virgin, whispering, “I wish I’d waited for you.” Tenderly, Don had wiped her cheeks and said, “It’s all in the past. Whatever’s done is done.” On their wedding night, he’d been gentle with her, undressing her with shaking hands, joking about how she’d have to show him what went where. He’d been so endearing, clumsy at first, trying so hard not to rush her, not to go too fast, even though she could feel him trembling with desire, struggling to restrain himself, to hold back so it would be good for both of them.
She’d told him she wasn’t a virgin, but she’d never told him about the abortion… even though she was almost certain that Don would have forgiven her. Except he would have asked if she’d repented of her sin. He would have wanted to know if she was truly sorry for what she’d done. And Lily would have had to lie to him. She hadn’t repented, and she wasn’t sorry.
So she’d kept quiet. When she’d gotten pregnant with Morgan and her gynecologist had asked, with Don in the room, whether Lily had had any previous pregnancies, she’d answered, “No,” almost without thinking. The truth was that she barely remembered those terrible five days between the positive pregnancy test and her trip to Harrisburg with Dr. Rosen’s prescription in her purse.
And then they’d had Morgan, their perfect, lovely girl. Morgan, who could paint and draw so beautifully from the time she’d gotten her first watercolor kit, who’d earned extra money doing calligraphy for wedding invitations and menus; Morgan, who was modest and sweet and radiantly pretty. By Morgan’s tenth birthday, Don was the head pastor. If the teachings about chastity and piety and living a godly life were more stringent than what Lily had grown up believing, if the purity balls and the promise rings felt a little cult-y and creepy, Lily had deferred to her husband, and had kept her secrets.
* * *
In the hotel room, Lily finished her story and folded her hands in her lap. Morgan was looking at her with fascination; like her mother’s face had been a mask, and Lily had pulled it off to reveal a different face beneath it.
“Did you feel guilty?” Morgan asked.
Lily knew she had to be honest. “I didn’t feel guilty then. Now? The truth is that I hardly think about it at all.” But that wasn’t completely honest. Lily swallowed. “I told the baby I was sorry I wasn’t ready for it yet. And I asked it to wait for me. I told myself that its soul would go back to heaven and wait until I was ready. I believe that’s what happened. And that the baby—my baby—was you.” She smiled at Morgan and wiped at her eyes. Morgan looked at her solemnly, then handed over the box of tissues, watching as Lily dried her eyes.
“Will you ever tell Daddy?”
Lily considered. “I don’t know.” In all her years of marriage, she’d never once seriously considered the idea of telling Don what she’d done when she’d been eighteen, only a few years older than her daughter was now. Maybe it would be better if she had. Maybe it wouldn’t change anything about the way he thought, what he believed and what he preached. But maybe it would.
“Will you tell him about me?” Morgan whispered… and that answer, at least, Lily knew.
“It’s up to you, whether you tell him or not. It’s your story to tell.”
Morgan nodded, biting her lip. Lily hugged her again and stroked her hair.
“I want you to have everything. I want you to go anywhere you want to go. I want you to be whoever you want to be. I want…” She’d gestured with her hands, which were exactly like Morgan’s, long, fine-boned fingers, oval nails, slender wrists. “I want you to have everything. Everything you want.” Lily steadied her voice, making it clear and certain. “Everything in the world.”
Abby
At eleven o’clock in the morning, after Morgan and Andy had been reunited with their families, a group of the Breakaway cyclists had gathered in the parking lot so that Abby could lead them on a ride through the green and brown patchwork quilt of farmland, toward the distant sparkle of Cayuga Lake. The sky was still the blue of a Tiffany box, the air felt clear and sharp as cut crystal. The route took them along a two-lane highway, a ribbon of pavement that passed through unspoiled pastures, old forests, and new construction. They stayed on the shoulder (except for Ted, who had a tendency to drift toward the center of the road), and the cars and trucks that passed them gave them plenty of room. Sebastian had started off at the front of the pack with Lincoln. Abby had ended up riding with Eileen. She coasted down a hill, watching her mother’s face as they passed a gas-station-cum-weed shop.
“It’s legal,” Abby said, when she saw Eileen’s lips purse. “Have you ever tried it?”
“Marijuana?” Eileen rolled her eyes. “Sure, in college. Everyone at least tried it back then.”
Abby had a hard time imagining her mother as a college girl, sitting on a dorm-room floor, holding a joint to her lips. Her mind wanted to put present-day Eileen into the scene, imagining her mom in a cashmere twinset and a fresh blowout, frowning censoriously at the assembled pot smokers while they stuffed their faces and telling them how long they’d need to spend on the treadmill to burn off all of that candy and all of those chips.