Chapter 19

She didn’t want to leave the bedroom, but he pulled her up off the bed and began tugging her towards the door. She objected, saying, “What will your father think?”

“He already knows. He was eavesdropping when I came in and told Mom.”

“Ohhh no,” she moaned.

“Please don’t start crying again,” groaned Bobby. “He said you can’t help who you fall in love with. He was worried that you already gave the baby up for adoption.” He blinked. “You didn’t do that ... did you?”

“No!” she said, shortly. “I’d never give our baby away!”

“Okay. Good. This is progress. We’re making decisions here.”

“Even if you’d told me to give up the baby, I never would have!” she said, her voice rising.

“I wouldn’t have told you to do something stupid like that.” He froze and darted a look over at the door, which was now closed. His mother didn’t barge in castigating him. “Sorry,” he said, hugging her. “I don’t think you’re stupid.”

“I am stupid,” she said stiffening in his arms. “I fell in love with a high school senior! That was stupid! I let him make love with me. That was stupid! I can’t fall out of love with him, and that’s stupid, too!”

He felt like things were going off the rails. He didn’t know what to do.

So he kissed her.

She struggled against him, at first, but then she melted into his arms. The months of separation, of worry, of missing him terribly all flowed out of her in that kiss. She returned it and they became frantic, wanting somehow to kiss more deeply, or more meaningfully, but already maxed out in their emotions.

It devolved into him whispering, “I’m sorry,” as they paused for air, and her kissing him again, until he finally said, “I wish we weren’t in my parents’ house.”

She finally pushed him away.

“I can’t believe you thought that,” she said, a half-smile on her lips.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’ve really missed you.”

“I can’t believe I thought it, too.”

Now he grinned. “Well, that’s a lot more fun to think about than what we had been doing.” They just stared at each other for a few seconds, drinking each other in. “I really do think things are looking up,” said Bobby.

“I don’t see why,” she said, getting somber again.

“You have to know my mother,” he said. “You couldn’t ruffle my dad with an atomic bomb. But my mom loves to yell at me. The fact that she sat in here for so long -” He stopped. “Did she spend all that time yelling at you?”

Mindy shook her head.

“No. She was so nice to me. I don’t remember it all, but she just talked. I remember she said things would be okay, and asked me if I was getting good prenatal care and things like that.”

“And it didn’t occur to you that this is strange behavior for a woman whose teenage son has just confessed that he got his teacher pregnant?”

“I thought she was trying to get me to stop crying,” said Mindy.

“She didn’t throw you out or call the police,” said Bobby.

“If she called the police it would get you in trouble, too.”

“What I’m saying is that she’s not acting like my mother,” said Bobby. He thought of what his father had said. “I think she’s kind of acting like a ... grandma.”

Mindy blinked.

“I thought she was just trying to retain the ... well, it wasn’t a friendship, exactly, but she came to see me in the hospital and we got along well.”

“Why would she even care about all that, if she was mad that you perverted her only son?”

“I don’t know,” said Mindy.

“I think she’s trying to adapt to all this,” said Bobby. “By the way, are you Catholic?”

Mindy blinked.

“My dad wanted to know,” he explained.

“Your father found out it was your baby and wanted to know if I was Catholic?”

“He said you couldn’t get rid of it if you were,” said Bobby.

“I didn’t want to get rid of it!” she yelped.

“I said that wrong,” said Bobby. “What he said was that you kept the baby instead of getting rid of it, and that that was important. I think he was trying to tell me that was a good thing.”

Mindy’s stomach growled.

“Come on,” said Bobby, reaching for her hand again. “Dad ordered lots of food. You’re eating for two now, right? That’s what I’ve heard.”

This time, she let him lead her back to his parents.

“Strained” is a relative term. There are lots of different kinds of circumstances and situations that can be called “strained.” For example, when some guy comes into the bank waving a gun and yelling that he’s robbing the place, things get ... strained. When you’re in a dark movie theater and what amounts to the theme from Jaws starts playing, you feel strain. When you jump out of an airplane and haven’t pulled the ripcord to the parachute, yet, that can be a strained kind of situation.

You wouldn’t think that sitting around a dining room table, eating pizza would be strained. Not seriously strained. I mean when it gets tense at Thanksgiving dinner because Uncle Frank is talking politics (again!) or Aunt Mary starts trying to get you to commit to a major course of study in college in botany (because she’s a botanist) that isn’t all that bad, really. I mean you know that in half an hour dinner will be over and you might get to watch some football. And even when semester grades are out and your parents aren’t happy about them, dinner might be strained, but it won’t last more than a day or two.

But sitting there with your pregnant girlfriend, who used to be your teacher, and who is almost a decade older than you, and all this being sprung on your parents with no warning whatsoever ... well, that kind of strained fills the room to overflowing.

Even when the parents involved like the ex-teacher involved.

They like their son too, of course, but they have to like him, or at least that’s how they feel.

Bobby kept waiting for the “How could you have let this happen?!” speech, but it never came. People just ate and the tension just got stronger. He had no idea what his mother had said to Mindy while they were alone. Mindy had told him a little, but they’d been in there a lot longer than it takes to say, “Things will work out,” and “Are you taking your vitamins?”

Jane had always been the mover and shaker at such times. She set the agenda and ran the meeting if there was some grave matter to discuss at dinner. Now, though, she was just forking ziti into her mouth sparingly, and chewing slowly.

“Where’s Melissa?” asked Bruce.

Bobby blinked. He hadn’t thought of his sister at all. What had been going on pretty much filled his brain, leaving no room for peripheral issues.