Not My Daughter Page 2

  Susan didn't want to argue. There was one way to find out for sure. "Whatever it is, we'll deal. I'll call Dr. Brant first thing tomorrow. She'll squeeze you in."

  Never a good sleeper, Susan spent the night running through all of the reasons why her daughter couldn't be pregnant. Most had to do with being responsible, because if Susan had taught Lily one thing, it was that.

  Lily was responsible when it came to school. She studied hard and got good grades. She was responsible when it came to her friends, loyal to a fault. Hadn't she gone out on a limb to campaign for Abby, who had set her heart on being senior class president? When the girl lost the election, Lily had slept at her house for three straight nights.

  Lily was responsible when it came to the car, rarely missing a curfew, leaving the gas tank empty, or being late when she had to pick up Susan.

  Hardworking. Loyal. Dependable. Responsible. And ... pregnant? Susan might have bought into it if Lily had a steady boyfriend. Accidents happened.

  But there was no boyfriend, and no reason at all to believe that Lily would sleep with someone she barely knew. Was sweet Lily Tate--who wore little makeup, slept in flannel pajamas, and layered camis over camis to keep her tiny cleavage from view--even capable of seduction?

  Susan thought not. It had to be something else, but the possibilities were frightening. By two in the morning, her imagination was so out of control that she gave up trying to sleep and, crossing the hall, quietly opened Lily's door. In the faint glow of a butterfly night-light, Lily was a blip under the quilt, only the top of her head showing, dark hair splayed on the pillow. Her jeans and sweaters were on the cushioned chair, her Sherpa boots--one standing, one not--on the floor nearby. Her dresser was strewn with hairbrushes and clips, beaded bracelets, a sock she was knitting. Her cell phone lay on the nightstand, along with several books and a half-full bottle of water.

  In the faintest whisper, Susan called her name, but there was no response, no movement in this still life. Girl with Butterfly Nightlight she might have named it. Girl. So young. So vulnerable.

  Heart catching, she carefully backed out, crept down the hall to the attic door, and quietly climbed the stairs. There, at an oak table in the small arc of a craft lamp, she turned to a fresh page of her notebook, opened a tin of pastels, and made her first bold stroke. A fuchsia heart? Definitely. If anything could distract her, it was this. She made another stroke, smudged the ends, added yellow to soften a green, then navy to deepen a red.

  Typically, she produced her best work when she was stressed--pure sublimation--and this night was no exception. By the time she was done, she had five pages, each with a unique swath of anywhere from two to five hues, undulating from shade to shade. These would be the spring colorways for PC yarns. She even named them: March Madness, Vernal Tide, Spring Eclipse, Robin At Dawn, and, naturally, Creation.

  The last was particularly vibrant. Violent? No, she decided. Well, maybe. But wasn't creation an explosive thing? Didn't creation have profound consequences? And what if Lily wasn't growing a child but something darker?

  Susan returned to bed, but each time she dozed, she woke up to new fears. By five in the morning, when she finally despaired of sleep and got up, she was convinced that her daughter had a uterine cyst that had been overlooked long enough to jeopardize her chances of ever having a baby. Either that or it was a tumor. Uterine cancer, warranting a hysterectomy, perhaps chemotherapy. Terrifying. No child, ever? Tragic.

  Keeping her fears to herself, she got Lily up as usual, dropped her at Mary Kate's, and went on to school. The girls would follow later, but this morning, Susan had two early parent meetings, both difficult, before she appeared on the front steps to greet students. It wasn't until eight-thirty that she finally reached the doctor's office.

  The only appointment she could get for Lily was in the late afternoon, which gave Susan the rest of the day to worry. That meant she answered e-mail with half a heart, was distracted during a teacher observation, and what little work she put into next year's budget, which was due to the superintendent by Thanksgiving, was a waste.

  She could only think of one thing, and any way she looked at it, it wasn't good.

  Chapter 2

  The doctor confirmed it. Lily was definitely pregnant. Learning that her daughter didn't have a fatal disease, Susan was actually relieved--but only briefly. The reality of being pregnant at seventeen was something she knew all too well.

  Susan had become pregnant in high school herself. Richard McKay was the son of her parents' best friends. That summer, when he was fresh out of college with a journalism degree and a job offer for fall that he couldn't refuse, something sparked between them. Pure lust, her father decided. And the chemistry was certainly right. But Susan and Rick had spent too many hours that summer only talking for it to be just sex. They saw eye to eye on so many things, not the least being their desire to leave Oklahoma, that when Rick dutifully offered to marry Susan, she flat-out refused.

  She never regretted her decision. To this day, she recalled the look of palpable relief on his face when she had firmly shaken her head. He had dreams; she admired them. Had there been times when she missed having him there? Sure. But she couldn't compete with the excitement of his career, and refused to tie him down.

  His success reinforced her conviction. Starting out, he had been the assistant to the assistant producer of a national news show. Currently, he was the star, following stories to the ends of the earth as one of the show's leading commentators. He had never married, had never had other children. Only after he became the face in front of the camera rather than the one behind was he able to send money for Lily's support, but his check arrived every month now without fail. He never missed a birthday, and had been known to surprise Lily by showing up for a field hockey tournament. He kept in close touch with her by phone, a good, if physically absent, father.

  Rick had always trusted Susan. Rather than micromanage from afar, he left the day-to-day parenting to her. Now, under her watchful gaze, Lily was pregnant.

  Stunned, Susan listened quietly while Lily answered the doctor's questions. Yes, she wanted the baby, and yes, she understood what that meant. No, she hadn't discussed it with her mother, because she would do this on her own if she had to. No, she did not want the father involved. No, she did not drink. Yes, she knew not to eat swordfish.

  She had questions of her own--like whether she would be able to finish out the field hockey season (yes), whether winter volleyball was possible (maybe), and whether she could take Tylenol for a headache (only as directed)--and she sounded so like the mature, responsible, intelligent child Susan had raised that, if Susan hadn't been numb, she might have laughed.

  Silent still when they left the doctor's office, she handed Lily the keys to the car. "I need to walk home." Lily protested, but she insisted, "You go on. I need the air."

  It was true, though she did little productive thinking as she walked through the November chill. No longer numb, she was boiling mad. She knew it was wrong--definitely not the way a mother should feel and everything she had resented in her own mother--but how to get a grip?

  The cold air helped. She was a little calmer as she neared the house. Then she saw Lily. The girl was sitting on the front steps, a knitted scarf wound around her neck, her quilted jacket--very Perry & Cass--pulled tight round her. When Susan approached, she sat straighter and said in a timid voice, "Don't be angry."

  But Susan was. Furious, she stuck her hands in her pockets.

  "Please, Mom?"

  Susan took a deep breath. She looked off, past neighborhood houses, all the way on down the street until the cordon of old maples seemed to merge. "This isn't what I wanted for you," she finally managed to say.

  "But I love children. I was born to have children."

  Looking back, Susan pressed her aching heart. "I couldn't agree with you more. My problem's with the timing. You're seventeen. You're a senior in high school--and expecting a baby at the end of May, right before exam
s? Do you have any idea what being nine months pregnant is like? How are you going to study?"

  "I'll already have been accepted into college."

  "Well, that's another thing. How can you go to college? Dorm rooms don't have room for cribs."

  "I'm going to Percy State."

  "Oh, honey, you can do better."

  "You went there, and look where you are."

  "I had to go there. But times have changed. Getting a job is hard enough now, even with a degree from a top school."

  "Exactly. So it won't matter. Anything is doable, Mom. Haven't you taught me that?"

  "Sure. I just never thought it would apply to a baby."

  Lily's eyes lit up. "But there is a baby," she cried, sounding so like a buoyant child that Susan could have wept. Lily didn't have a clue what being a mother entailed. Spending the summer as a mother's helper was a picnic compared to the day-in, day-out demands of motherhood.

  "Oh, sweetheart," she said and, suddenly exhausted, sank down on the steps. "Forget doable. What about sensible? What about responsible? We've talked about birth control. You could have used it."

  "You're missing the point, Mom," Lily said, moving close to hug Susan's arm. "I want this baby. I know I can be a good mother--even better than the moms we worked for this summer, and I have the best role model in you. You always said being a mother was wonderful. You said you loved me from the start. You said I was the best thing that ever happened to you."

  Susan wasn't mollified. "I also said that being a single mom was hard and that I never wanted you to have to struggle the way I did. So--So think beyond college. You say you want to be a biologist, but that means grad school. If you want a good research position--"

  "I want a baby."

  "A baby isn't only for the summer, and it doesn't stay a baby for long. He or she walks and talks and becomes a real person. And what about the father then?"

  "I told you. He doesn't know."

  "He has a right to."

  "Why? He had no say in this."

  "And that's fair, Lily?" Susan asked. "What if the baby looks exactly like him? Don't you think people will talk?"

  A hint of stubbornness crossed Lily's face. "I don't care if people talk."

  "Maybe the father will. What if he comes up to you and asks why this child who was born nine months after the time you had sex has his hair and eyes? And what happens when your child wants to know about his father? You were asking by the time you were two. Some kids do still have daddies, y'know. So now it's your turn to be the mommy. What'll you say?"

  Lily frowned. "I'll go there when I have to. Mom, you're making this harder than it needs to be. Right now, the baby's father does not have to know."

  "But it's his baby, too," Susan argued. Desperate for someone to blame, she sorted through the possibilities. "Is it Evan?"

  "I'm not telling who it is."

  Susan wondered if Lily was stonewalling for a reason. "Was he the one who wanted the baby?"

  Lily pulled her arm free. "Mom," she cried, hazel eyes flashing, "listen to me! He doesn't know. We never talked about a baby. He thought I was on the pill. I did this. Me."

  Which, of course, was one of the things Susan found so hard to swallow. It was like a slap in the face, a repudiation of everything she had tried to teach her daughter.

  Desperate to understand, she said, "Are you sure it wasn't an accident? I mean, it's okay if it was. Accidents happen." Lily shook her head. "You just decided you wanted a baby."

  "I've always wanted a baby."

  "A sibling," Susan said, because when she was little, Lily had begged for one.

  "Now I'm old enough to have my own, and I know you might not have chosen to be pregnant seventeen years ago, but I did. It's my body, my life."

  Susan had raised Lily to be independent and strong, but cavalier? No. Especially not when there were realities to face. "Who'll pay the medical bills?"

  "We have insurance."

  "With premiums to which I contribute every month," Susan pointed out, "so the answer is me. I'll pay the medical bills. What about diapers? And formula?"

  "I'll breast-feed."

  "Which is wonderful if it works, but sometimes it doesn't, in which case you'll need formula. And what about solid food and clothes. And equipment. They won't let you leave the hospital without an approved car seat, and do you know what a good stroller costs? No, I don't still have your old one, because I sold it years ago to buy you a bike. And what about day care while you're finishing school? I'd love to stay home with the baby myself, but one of us has to work."

  "Dad will help," Lily said in a small voice.

  Yes. Rick would. But was Susan looking forward to asking? Absolutely not.

  Lily's eyes filled with tears. "I really want this baby."

  "You can have a baby, but there's a better time!" Susan cried.

  "I am not having an abortion."

  "No one's suggesting one."

  "I already heard my baby's heartbeat. You should have listened to it, Mom. It was amazing."

  Susan was having trouble accepting that her daughter was pregnant, much less that there was an actual baby alive inside.

  "It has legs and elbows. It has ears, and this week it's developing vocal cords. I know all this, Mom. I'm doing my homework."

  "Then I take it," Susan said in a voice she couldn't control, "that you read how pregnant teens are at greater risk for complications." It was partly her mother's voice. The rest was that of the failed educator whose crusade had been keeping young girls from doing what she had done. The educator had failed on her own doorstep.

  "I stopped on the way home for the vitamins," Lily said meekly. "Do you think the baby's okay?"

  As annoyed as she was--as disappointed as she was--a frightened Lily could always reach her. "Yes, it's okay," she said. "I was just making a point."

  That easily reassured, Lily smiled. "Think I'll have a girl like you did?" She didn't seem to need an answer, which was good, since Susan didn't have one. "If it's a girl, she's already forming ovaries. And she's this big." She spread her thumb and forefinger several inches apart. "My baby can think. Its brain can give signals to its limbs to move. If I could put my finger exactly where it is, it would react to my touch. It's a real human being. There is no way I could have an abortion."

  "Please, Lily. Have I asked you to get one?"

  "No, but maybe when you start thinking about it, you will."

  "Did I abort you?"

  "No, but you're angry."

  Susan shot a pleading glance at the near-naked tops of the trees. "Oh, Lily, I'm so many things besides angry that I can't begin to explain. We're at a good place now, but it hasn't come easy. I've had to work twice as hard as most mothers. You, of all people, should know that."

  "Because I'm a good daughter? Does my being pregnant make me a bad one?"

  "No, sweetheart. No." It had nothing to do with good and bad. Susan had argued this with her own mother.

  "But you're disappointed."

  Try heartbroken. "Lily, you're seventeen."

  "But this is a baby," Lily pleaded.

  "You are a baby," Susan cried.

  Lily drew herself up and said quietly, "No, Mom. I'm not."

  Susan was actually thinking the same thing. No, Lily wasn't a baby. She would never be a baby again.

  The thought brought a sense of loss--loss of childhood? Of innocence? Had her own mother felt that? Susan had no way of knowing. Even in the best of times, they hadn't talked, certainly not the way Susan and Lily did.

  "Don't be like Grandma," Lily begged, sensing her thoughts.

  "I have never been like Grandma."

  "I would die if you disowned me."

  "I would never do that."

  Turning to face her, Lily grabbed her hand and held it to her throat. "I need you with me, Mom," she said fiercely, then softened. "This is our family, and we're making it bigger. You wanted that, too, I know you did. If things had been different, you'd have had
five kids like Kate."

  "Not five. Three."

  "Three, then. But see?" she coaxed. "A baby isn't a bad thing."

  No. Not a bad thing, Susan knew. A baby was never bad. Just life changing.

  "This is your grandchild," Lily tried.

  "Um-hm," Susan hummed. "I'll be a grandmother at thirty-six. That is embarrassing."

  "I think it's great."

  "That's because you're seventeen and starry-eyed--which is good, sweetheart, because if you aren't smiling now, you'll be in trouble down the road. You'll be alone, Lily. In the past, we've had two other pregnant seniors and one pregnant junior. None of them wanted to go to college. Your friends will go to college. They want careers. They won't be able to relate to being pregnant."

  Lily's eyes widened with excitement. "But see, Mom, that's not true. That's the beauty of this."

  Susan made a face. "What does that mean?"

  Chapter 3

  "I'm pregnant."

  "Cute," Kate Mello told her youngest and proceeded to pour dry macaroni into a pot of boiling water. "Lissie?" she yelled upstairs to her second youngest, "when are you going? I need that milk." She stirred the macaroni and said more to herself than to Mary Kate, who stood beside her at the stove, "Why is it that I'm always out of milk lately?"

  "I'm serious, Mom. I'm pregnant."

  Holding the lid in one hand and a wooden spoon in the other, Kate simply touched her forehead to Mary Kate's and smiled. "We agreed that you had the flu."

  "It's not going away."

  "Then it's lactose intolerance," Kate said, setting the lid on the pot. "You're the one who's drinking me out of milk. Lissie? Soon, please?"

  "I'm drinking milk," said Mary Kate, "because that's what pregnant women do."

  "You are not a pregnant woman," Kate informed her daughter and reached for her wallet when Lissie appeared. There wasn't much in it; money disappeared even faster than milk. She found a twenty among the singles and handed it over. "A gallon of milk, a dozen eggs, and two loaves of multigrain bread, please."