Chapter 13

It was a beginning, more than it was a continuance of anything. Everything seemed new to them all.

Initially, it was decided to keep living in their present homes, while something else was searched for. There was some debate about doing that until Sam and Randy went to college, at which time either house would be fine, in terms of just the three of them who were left. A year after that, Mal would go to college, too, leaving Bob and Lucy living alone.

That changed when Lucy took Mallory to the doctor to get her a prescription for the pill and the doctor informed her he couldn’t write one.

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because I think she’s already pregnant,” said the doctor. He’d seen this before, and delivered the news with something less than compassion.

“What?”

“I always run tests in cases like this,” he said. “There’s always the chance that a girl has been sexually active before this kind of appointment is made. That test was positive. It’s a weak positive, meaning her hCG levels are barely above normal. But anything above normal for a girl this age is considered positive. The low levels suggest this is a fairly recent development, but we won’t know how far along she is until I ask her some questions. I need your permission to do that. Barring that, I can wait a while and test her again in a few weeks.”

Lucy frowned.

“I think I know when this happened,” she said. “It was recently.”

The doctor refrained from quipping, “She go on a hot date?” and simply said, “Maybe we should ask her.”

Mallory actually took it pretty well, so well, in fact, that it surprised the doctor.

“About two weeks ago,” she said, putting on a tragic mope. “We only did it that one time.”

“Contrary to popular belief, once is all it takes,” said the doctor, dryly.

Lucy had to do some acting as well, though it was easier for her. She blew up and ranted until the doctor interrupted her and said she could have that conversation later, outside his office.

“Right now, you need to decide how to proceed,” he said.

Lucy’s decision on that came at lightning speed.

“She decided to act like an adult. That is going to continue.” She looked daggers at her daughter. “You will have this baby, and you will do everything the doctor says to make sure it’s a healthy one!”

“I’ll set her up for a schedule of visits,” said the doctor, and left the room.

Lucy didn’t have to act on the way home. She was unhappy, and she didn’t hide it.

Among other things, she said, “I’m much too young to become a grandmother, young lady!”

Another was her complete lack of empathy when Mallory said, “I’ve never had a physical like that before. I feel like he practically crawled inside me!”

“Get used to it,” snorted her mother.

This news proved uproarious at home too, in no small part because it was impossible to determine, at that point, who had “blessed” Mallory in this way.

Lucy expressed concern about birth defects, should Randy have been the donor of the sperm that won the race. There was more concern about asking the doctor about that, lest he be required to report such information to law enforcement. A search of the internet revealed conflicting data on mandatory reporting requirements.

Tears were cried, but in one sense, Mallory’s earlier weeping confession had ensured that this new knowledge hadn’t hit the family in a completely unexpected way, and Lucy had had time to work through some of the issues that, otherwise, might have destroyed any chance of an outcome that could be even vaguely characterized as positive.

In the end, Lucy was faced with having to tiptoe through a potential minefield with the doctor, or just “hope” that the baby would be healthy. The decision was up to her. Everybody knew that, including Mallory. But everyone got to voice their opinion about what to do.

An outsider might have found it astonishing that, at last, there was consensus that the doctor had to be involved, if possible, in planning on what to do.

Lucy decided that at her next appointment, which the doctor had scheduled for two weeks after her first visit instead of the usual four, Mallory would face this music as well.

There were two issues. First and foremost was the health of the baby. Secondary to that was what the doctor would have to do once he found out that the baby might be the product of incest.

Those issues were handled in reverse order.

Lucy asked to speak with the doctor first.

“I need to ask you a question,” she said, nervously. “I want you to know that the health of my daughter and the baby have first priority, but I also need to know how private her information as your patient is if I were to suggest - and I’m not suggesting it yet - that this might be an incest baby?”

She held her breath.

The previous semi-callousness of the physician vanished.

“Was she raped?”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“May I talk to her?”

“Of course.”

“And your husband?”

“He’s not in the picture,” said Lucy. “He left when she was six.”

“How do you feel about this?” he asked.

“She entered into the relationship voluntarily,” said Lucy. “I’m not happy about that, of course, but I would be even more unhappy if what’s left of our family was torn apart.”

“You have my sympathies,” said the doctor.

“Understanding that she’s not a child, and that she wasn’t abused in the classical sense of the word ... what would you have to do ... assuming this information becomes official?”

The doctor steepled his fingers, resting his elbows on the desk.

“First I’d have to interview her. Extensively. That’s to determine if I think she’s at risk for any danger or injury. That’s not negotiable. You could always remove her from my care, but even then, if I thought she was in danger, I’d have to report it.”

“And if you don’t think she’s in danger?”

“If she’s not in danger, or mentally ill, or disabled in some way that would prevent her from truly giving her consent, then I have a little more latitude,” he said. “That’s kind of up in the air right now, but nothing is set in stone. Not in this state.”

“Oh,” said Lucy, feeling a little better.

“There are other problems, though,” he went on.

She waited.

“With the advent of more and more of the medical record being digitized, it is becoming more and more difficult for physicians to guard a patient’s private, medical information.”

“You mean hackers?” Lucy imagined some hacker splaying her daughter’s situation on Facebook.

“Not so much hackers,” said the doctor. “Insurance companies send inspectors out, occasionally, who want to look at records to determine if a patient is fully eligible for the care they’re getting. They’re very good at searching through digital records, sometimes for information that has nothing to do with what they came to inspect.”

“You’re kidding,” said Lucy.

“I’m not,” he said. “I have several patients who have needed specialized care, and one of them was audited just last week. Officially, of course, the insurance inspector is sworn to secrecy, but they write reports and those reports aren’t private within the company. What I’m saying is that, even if I feel a report isn’t mandatory, that doesn’t mean that the information is secure. And if I don’t report it, and that information gets out somehow, it could cause me real grief.”

“What can I do, then?” moaned Lucy.

“Since your demeanor agrees with your verbal assertion that ... if this was incest ... it was voluntary and consensual, then I presume your primary concerns are about the genetic health of the baby.”

“Yes,” she said.

“In that case I think the normal course of pre-natal care is still in order. Problems like you’re imagining are a lot less common than the public believes. The normal ratio for problems like that is about two percent of the population. It rises only to about four percent in cases of first relation incest. By first relation incest, since the father isn’t in the picture, I mean a brother. Cousins aren’t considered first relations. Not medically. If there are problems, I can probably detect them while there’s still time to take measures.”

“Measures,” said Lucy.

“Termination,” he said, tersely.

“We don’t want to do that,” said Lucy.

“Then let’s hope that isn’t indicated,” he replied.

“I feel much better,” she said.

“It’s important for you to understand that I’ll only do this if I have unfettered access to her. And you also need to understand that I’m going to make my decisions based on what I think is best for her health. If that means I think I should report this, then I will. I want to be very clear about that.”

“I understand,” said Lucy. “She’s here today for her first visit.”

“I’m glad,” said the doctor. “Your trust and cooperation are duly noted.”

The doctor spent a full thirty minutes with Mallory, something rare in this day and age. When he was finished, he took another minute with Lucy.

“I feel confident that she’s in no danger,” he said. “We talked confidentially, and she agreed that I can tell you there is one other possible male who could be the father. As best I can determine, when she says there are only two, that’s true. She told me she’s going to talk to you about that and I told her I was going to tell you about it too. She’s done a lot of growing up in the last month.”

Lucy had been fretting in the waiting room, nervously waiting to see what happened. This emotion masked the fact that she already knew about the “other possible donor.”

“Thank you,” she said, feeling relief that left her a little weak. That too was misinterpreted by the physician.

“When I say we talked confidentially, I mean that the normal protocol for this kind of visit can be pursued.” He smiled a tight smile. “Normally we don’t ask a lot of questions about the father, so it won’t look odd for that information to be missing from the record.”

“Thank you so much,” said Lucy.

“That doesn’t mean I approve,” he warned. “Only that my examination of her contraindicated that she’s in any imminent danger.”

“I understand,” said Lucy.

“Good. Have a good day.”

The immediate danger to their near term happiness removed, or at least mitigated, the vast quantity of minutiae related to marriage and the melding of two families into one proceeded.

Mallory’s status as an expectant mother, however, caused other changes in the complicated multi-person relationship.

One was that Samantha was a little jealous of the fact that Mallory was going to have a baby and she wasn’t. She knew this by virtue of the fact that she had a period within days of Mallory finding out she wasn’t going to have any more for quite some time.

Bob took her to a different doctor and got her on the pill, which involved some grumbling on her part. That melted away when he said she could stay off the pill as long as she didn’t have sex with anybody, particularly him or Randy.

Another factor in this issue was that Lucy no longer expected Mallory to plan on college, at least not at a four year institution away from home.

“If you think I’m going to raise my granddaughter while you’re off having fun in college, you’re sadly mistaken,” she said. “This is one of the consequences of making decisions without talking to me about it first.”

Mallory knew how good she had it, and didn’t argue. She had no idea what was actually going to happen to her in the next few years, but she knew instinctively that being able to lean on her mother while it all happened was a lot better than the alternative. She was actually on the same level of education as Randy and Sam, it having been easier to teach them all the same things than to try to tailor something to Mallory on a lower level. That she was smart as a whip helped. It wasn’t lost on either Lucy or Randy that Mallory sometimes had to help him with his homework.

She did grouse a little bit at the idea that Randy still had the option to go to college, leaving her to raise their child - assuming it was his child - alone for most of four years. But when he offered to stay home too, and just get a job, she yelled at him, saying he was an idiot for even thinking about that instead of getting an education that could get him a better job for later.

“You have Sam to think about too,” she carped. “And I don’t want her having to support you!”

Those decisions were still most of a year away, though, and all of them had to pass their final exams, which were administered by the state, and not the people who had been doing the home teaching. They needed to be serious about their studies so those tests weren’t a problem. After that, they could plan more of the future.

They also needed to take the S.A.T.s, because without official transcripts, that was about all prospective colleges would have to judge on, concerning admittance for any of them. And, even if Mallory didn’t go to a four year institution, she might want to enroll in classes somewhere on a part time basis, or have something to apply with later.

And so the next four months passed hectically, with close attention centered on lessons and S.A.T. preparation. That paid off when they all got high scores on the standardized test.

A lot happened during that time, and it would be tedious to present it all in chronological order, so things may seem to jump around for a bit as this tale continues.

For example, two months into that process Lucy and Bob got married in a small ceremony, to which only a few friends and family were invited. Both of Lucy’s brothers came, and made it obvious they were examining Bob, whose brother had already broken their baby sister’s heart. She was ruthless with them when they got too blatant about passing judgment on him. Nobody seemed to notice that Mallory had gained a little weight.

It was decided that it made the most sense, economically, to all move into one house so they could sell the other. That would give them the down payment on the new house, whenever they found one. Bob and Sam lived in a three bedroom house, one bedroom of which had been made into his office. But that could be undone, giving the girls a room to share and Randy his own room. It wasn’t discussed, but the logic in that was obvious. Either girl could go sleep with Randy that way. Whenever Sam slept with her father, Mallory slept with Randy, leaving the girls’ room for Lucy to have some peace and quiet in.

That Lucy’s house sold almost as soon as it was on the market forced the move a little bit sooner than anticipated, but they only lived next door, so it wasn’t such a burden. A combined yard sale got rid of most of what they either didn’t want, or wouldn’t fit. The rest went to The Salvation Army.

Mallory’s belly grew larger, but she seemed to be made for carrying a child, and had none of the pains or problems the doctor said she might experience. Tests the doctor ran, a few of which Bob simply paid for in cash so that no bill would be submitted to the insurance company, indicated no problems with the fetus.

Lucy, despite getting her own prescription for the pill, missed two periods and, somewhat sheepishly, went to the same doctor who was caring for Mallory, and asked for a pregnancy test.

“Do I need to ask you any of the questions I asked your daughter?” he asked, a gleam in his eye.

“I have a new husband,” she said, smiling.

“That is a relief,” joked the doctor.

The test revealed she was, in fact, pregnant.

There were jokes at the table that night that Bob was probably the father of Mal’s baby too, seeing as how he was apparently potent enough to foil pharmaceuticals.

Sam had already been scheduled to sleep with Bob that night. She offered to defer to Lucy, so they could celebrate.

“I’m not all that sure I want to celebrate,” sighed Lucy. “I hadn’t really planned on whelping again. I thought two was enough.”

“I want to celebrate,” said Bob, grinning.

“You can celebrate with Sam,” said Lucy, putting on a mock frown.

“Need I remind you that Sam is taking the same brand of pill you were?”

“You better hope you’re not that virile,” said Lucy, dryly. “You were spoiled, having only Sam. Trust me when I tell you, you wouldn’t enjoy being in a house with three babies.”

“I know how to change a diaper,” said Bob, smirking.

“Do you know how to feed one at two in the morning, too? ‘Cause I plan on using a breast pump so you can do just that!”

“How about I transfer it from your breast to the baby with my mouth?” quipped Bob. “You know, like some birds do.”

“Ewwwww,” groaned both Mallory and Randy, in tandem.

“You have no idea what you’re ewwing about, Randy,” said Bob.

“I know if I was a baby I wouldn’t want to get milk from anything except a nice, soft, warm breast,” he said.

“Is this really appropriate material for conversation at dinner?” complained Lucy.

“No, it’s not,” said Sam, firmly.

That night, as she wiggled her nude body up against her father’s hairy nakedness, reaching for what she knew would be his already stiff penis, she nuzzled his neck and kissed his cheek.

“I’m jealous. I want your baby too,” she whispered.

“I don’t think so, Pumpkin,” he said, squeezing her with the arm that was under her.

“Mallory looks like she swallowed a pumpkin,” said Sam. “I want to look like I swallowed a pumpkin too. Your pumpkin.”

“Damn, girl,” he groaned.

When he was on top of her, after she’d had an orgasm, she pushed at his chest until he raised up enough that she could see his face. In that position he went in deep and rotated, knowing that would please her.

“Can I stop taking the pill, Daddy?” she asked.

“You know you can’t,” he panted.

“The thought of you spurting in me, and making a baby is driving me crazy,” she moaned. “Mal is so lucky.”

“It might not be my baby,” he huffed.

“I know it is. You got in her first, and filled her up with all that daddy sperm. And Randy doesn’t shoot as much as you do either. And you know you got Aunt Lucy pregnant.”

“She’s not Aunt Lucy anymore,” he said, still grinding.

“Ohhhh, I love it when you do that,” moaned Sam, who then proceeded to have an orgasm. “Fuck me, Daddy,” she gasped. “Knock me up. Pulverize my pill. I wanna have a baby too!”