Chapter 18

She was still crying and trying to pull away from him as he dragged her up the walk and into his parents’ house. Her entreaties of, “Please, Bobby, No,” bounced off of him like rain off a duck.

His father was sitting on the couch reading the paper. He looked up as Bobby dragged a crying woman into the living room.

“Where’s Mom?” asked his son.

“I’m right here,” said his mother, coming from the kitchen. She was wearing an apron and had flour dust on her hands. “What’s going on?” She got a look at Mindy’s distraught face. “Robert Eugene Pendleton, what have you done?! Why is she crying?” She rushed to Mindy and reached for her arm. “Miss Middlesex ... Mindy! Did Bobby harm you in some way? Tell me. If he did, I’ll thrash him to within an inch of his life!” She glared at Bobby. “Manhandling a pregnant woman! I did not raise a son to behave like this!”

“Mom,” said Bobby, his voice pleading gently.

“You can explain yourself later,” she snapped. “Come with me Mindy. Let’s go get you settled down. You can tell me all about it.”

Ten seconds later Bobby and his father were alone in the living room.

“You want to tell me what’s going on?” asked Bruce.

Bobby looked from the hallway, where the women had disappeared, to his father.

“We fell in love just before I graduated. The baby is mine. She didn’t tell me about it because she was afraid I’d abandon my college plans. I just found out about ten minutes ago when I ran into her at the store.”

Bruce let the paper crush onto his lap.

“I see,” he said.

There was a long awkward pause.

“You mad at me?” asked Bobby, finally.

“Mad? No. I wouldn’t say I was mad,” said Bruce.

“What are you, then?” asked Bobby.

“Worried.”

“Worried?”

“Yes. I have no idea how to be a grandfather, and your mother is going to just have kittens when she finds out you made her a grandma at the tender age of forty-one.”

“What do I do?” asked Bobby. Perhaps two minutes had gone by. Neither man had spoken.

“You should probably go after them,” said Bruce.

“Mom will be mad,” said Bobby.

“Oh, trust me, no matter what you do she’s going to be mad, son. But she’ll get over it. Don’t make that poor girl tell her.”

“Right,” said Bobby. He didn’t move. Another thirty seconds ticked by.

“You should probably hurry,” said Bruce.

“I don’t know what to say,” said Bobby.

“Just tell her what you told me. That will do the trick. Just rip that Band-Aid right off.”

Jane had taken Mindy to the only bedroom she knew was neat and presentable. That was Bobby’s old one. It was the guest bedroom now, not that they ever had any guests. Bobby hadn’t brought much home with him from school and all of it was out of sight. Her own bedroom was a disaster, from her point of view. She hadn’t made the bed, properly, and the dirty clothes hamper was out in the open.

Thus far, Jane had simply been holding the crying woman. Mindy had clung to her, and the only thing she’d said was, “I’m sorry,” over and over.

“Shush, now. It’s no imposition. You just get a breath and calm down. We can talk about it then, if you want to. Or you don’t have to. I won’t pry.”

All that had done was make the woman cry harder. It was troublesome. Jane’s maternal instincts were in high gear and she hated to see someone so sad and hopeless.

“It’s going to be fine,” she cooed. “Most problems are rarely as bad as they seem.”

It was the same thing Mrs. Battle had said to her, more or less, and Mindy wanted to believe that. But as comforting as it was to be succored by Jane Pendleton, she knew that support would be withdrawn as rapidly as it had been offered, once Jane found out just what “the problem” was.

“I just love him so much,” moaned Mindy.

Jane had heard the gossip. Her son was gone off to college, but her circle of friends at church still included mothers of children who went to Indian Springs High. Indian Springs was small enough that anybody associated with, or recently associated with the high school knew about Mindy Middlesex’s folly. It was big enough, though, that the number of people who really cared about her situation wouldn’t make a large piece of a pie chart.

Jane had cared. She was fond of the woman her son had practically been accused of trying to murder. She couldn’t call herself a close friend, though. So she didn’t reach out to Mindy. But she cared.

Naturally, Jane thought Mindy’s confession of love referred to the father of the baby, some anonymous man who lived in Cheyenne. Jane’s mouth twisted, and her hand stroked Mindy’s hair. “You’re better off without him,” she said. “No decent man would avoid his responsibility. Such a man would probably make a very poor father.”

And the waterworks fired up again as Mindy slumped dejectedly into the arms of the woman who would soon hate her.

The door opened and Bobby came in.

“We’re using this room,” said his mother, frostily. “Give the poor woman some privacy.”

Bobby closed the door firmly, as if to prevent anyone else in the house from coming in. He went to stand in front of his mother and Mindy.

“Mom,” he said, his voice louder than usual, but not quite ‘raised.’ “Mindy is my girlfriend. We fell in love two months before I graduated. The baby is mine. She didn’t tell me because she was afraid it would ruin my future. But she is my future, Mom. And so is the baby. And it can’t be a secret anymore, because it’s hurting us. It’s hurting our future. So please, Mom, I need you to keep loving me, and I need you to try to love Mindy, too. Okay?”

“Awwwwww!” sobbed Mindy, holding on even tighter to Jane. “I’m so s-s-sorreeee, “ she wailed.

Jane looked stunned. She was frozen with shock. But the abject misery in Mindy’s voice pushed through all that like a nail, hit by a hammer. Her maternal instincts were like a mother whose child is trapped under something. The only thing that mattered, in those seconds, was making sure the child was safe. Almost instantly, the relationship between her and this woman changed. The baby inside this woman was her grandchild! Like it or not, that was a fact. It had to be a fact, because her son would never have said what he had just said if it wasn’t the rock, solid truth. How she felt about that was something she could deal with later. What mattered now was that Mindy and the baby needed to be protected.

“Thank you for that update, Bobby,” said Jane, in a forced, calm voice. “That clears some things up. Now, let Mindy catch her breath. Maybe you and Dad can get Lunch ready.”

“We already had lunch, Mom,” said Bobby.

“Then start supper!” barked Jane. “We girls need to talk, and we don’t need some lumbering oaf prancing around us while we do it!”

In the past, Bobby would have pointed out that he wasn’t prancing, but now he was older and more mature. He’d grown up a lot since he left for college, and a hell of a lot in the last forty-five minutes. He also didn’t point out that neither he nor his father knew how to cook anything more complicated than a grilled cheese sandwich.

“Okay,” he said. “Mindy, I love you,” he added. “This will all work out. We’ll make it work out.”

He opened the door, left, and closed it. Neither Bobby nor the women knew that Bruce had followed his son and eavesdropped in the hallway. Bobby almost ran into him as he left.

“What the hell, Dad!” whispered Bobby.

“I think that went pretty well,” whispered his father in reply.

Bruce didn’t know how to cook, but he did know how to call for takeout. They chose Pizza Hut because they could get more than just pizza there. He ordered four servings of pasta; two of ziti and two lasagna. He ordered two pizzas; one meatlover’s and the other vegetarian. He threw in four salads. They already had something to drink.

“That’s a lot of food, Dad,” said a very nervous Bobby.

“All of it will make great leftovers,” said Bruce. “I wonder what’s going on in there.”