The Gift

Chapter Five

On Sunday, he took her to see From Here to Eternity with Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr after work, and they both loved it. He sat very close to her, with an arm around her, and they ate popcorn and candy bars, and she cried at all the sad parts, and they both agreed afterwards that it was a great movie.

He drove her home, and they made plans for the following Wednesday afternoon, and she asked him casually how dinner with his parents had been, although she'd seen him in the meantime, she had forgotten to ask him.

“Not so great actually,” he said, looking pensive, “actually pretty rotten. My dad forgot to come home. I guess he went out with some guys from work. Anyway, the roast beef got overcooked, my mom got really mad, and my dad came home drunk. Not exactly your perfect evening.” He grinned, it was so bad you had to be philosophical about it. “They're pretty mad at each other most of the time. I guess they're just mad at the things they can't change, but they don't seem to be able to help each other.”

Maribeth nodded, looking sympathetic, and they sat on her front steps for a while. The old lady who rented the room to her liked to see Maribeth enjoy herself, she really liked her. She told Maribeth all the time that she was too thin, which Maribeth knew would not be the case for long, and in truth wasn't even for the moment. She had already started gaining weight, but she still managed to conceal it, although the apron she wore at work was starting to bulge more than it had in the beginning.

“So what'll we do Wednesday?” Tommy asked happily. “Go back to the lake?”

“Sure. Why don't you let me get the lunch this time? I can even make some stuff here.”

“Okay.”

“What would you like?”

“Anything you make'll be fine.” He just wanted to be with her. And as they sat side by side on the steps, he could feel her body tantalizingly close to his, but still he somehow couldn't manage to lean over and kiss her. Everything about her appealed to him, and just being near her caused him physical pain, but actually taking her in his arms and kissing her was more than he could handle. She could sense his tension as he sat next to her, but she misinterpreted it, and thought it had something to do with his parents.

“Maybe it's just a question of time' she reassured him. “It's only been seven months. Give them a chance. Maybe when your mom goes back to work that'll make things better.”

“Or worse,” he said, looking worried. “Then she'll never be home. While Annie was alive, she only worked part time. But I guess she figures she doesn't need to be home for me all the time, and she's right. I don't even get home till six o'clock once school starts.”

“Do you think they'd ever have another baby?” she asked, looking intrigued, not sure how old they were. But he shook his head. He had wondered the same thing, but he didn't think they would now.

“I think my mom's kind of old for that. She's forty-seven, and she had a lot of trouble having her. I don't even know if they'd want another baby. They never said so.”

“Parents don't talk about stuff like that around kids,” she grinned, and he looked faintly embarrassed.

“Yeah. I guess not.” They made their plans for the following Wednesday afternoon, and he promised to come to dinner at the restaurant either Monday or Tuesday. Julie had figured out that Maribeth was going out with him by then, and they teased her whenever he came in, but it was all in good fun, and they were happy she had someone as nice as Tommy to be friends with.

He said good night to her, standing on one foot, and then the other, feeling awkward with her, which was rare, but he didn't want to move too fast, or too slow, or seem too bold to her, or as though he didn't like her. It was an agonizing moment. And after she gently closed the door, she looked thoughtful as she went upstairs to her bedroom, wondering how, eventually, was she going to tell him the truth about her.

As it turned out, he came to see her at the restaurant the next afternoon, and then came back after work to drive her home for the next two days, and before he picked her up on Wednesday, he went out to the cemetery early that morning, to visit Annie.

He went there from time to time to clean up her grave, and sweep the dead leaves away. There were little flowers that he had planted there, and he always tidied things up. It was something he did just for her, and for his mother, because he knew she worried about it, but couldn't bear to go there.

He talked to her sometimes while he worked, and this time, he told her all about Maribeth, and how much she'd like her. It was as though she were sitting up in a tree somewhere, looking down on him, and he was telling her all about his latest doings.

“She's a great girl … no pimples …long legs …she can't swim, but she's a terrific runner. I think you'd like her.” And then he grinned, thinking of both Maribeth and his little sister. In some ways, Maribeth reminded him of the kind of girl Annie might have been if she'd grown up to be sixteen. They had the same kind of straightforward honesty and directness. And the same sense of mischief and good humor.

He finished his work at the gravesite then, thinking about the things Maribeth had said, about some people just passing through one's lives in order to bring a gift, or a special blessing. “Not everyone is meant to stay forever,” she had said, and it was the first time that anything had made any sense to him about Annie. Maybe she was just passing through …but if only she could have stayed a little longer.

Her little spot in the shade looked all neat and clean again when he left, and it pulled at his heart as it always did, to leave her there and to read her name, Anne Elizabeth Whittaker, on the small tombstone. There was a carving of a little lamb, and it always brought tears to his eyes just to see it.

“Bye kiddo,” he whispered just before he left. “I'll be back soon … I love you …” He still missed her desperately, especially when he came here, and he was quiet when he picked up Maribeth at her house, and she was quick to notice.

“Something wrong?” She glanced at him, she could see that he was upset, and she was instantly worried. “Did something happen?”

“No.” He was touched that she had noticed, and he took a minute to answer. “I went out to clean up …you know …Annie's place at the cemetery today … I go there once in a while …Mom kind of likes me to, and I like going anyway …and I know Mom hates to do it' And then he smiled and glanced over at his friend. She was wearing the big baggy shirt again, but this time with shorts and sandals. “I told her about you. I guess she knows anyway,” he said, feeling comfortable with her again. He liked sharing his secrets with her. There was no hesitation, no shame. She was just there, like an extension of him, or someone he had grown up with.

“I had a dream about her the other night,” Maribeth said, and he looked startled.

“So did I. I dreamt about the two of you walking at the lake. I just felt so peaceful,” he said, and Maribeth nodded.

“I dreamt she was telling me to take care of you, and I promised her I would …kind of like a chain of people …she left and I came, and she asked me to keep an eye on you …and maybe after me someone else …and then …it's like an eternal progression of people coming through our lives. I think that's what I was trying to say the other day. Nothing is forever, but there's a continuing stream of people who go through our lives and continue with us …nothing just stops and stays …but it flows on …like a river. Does that sound crazy?” She turned to him, wondering if her philosophical meanderings sounded foolish, but they didn't. They were both wise beyond their years, with good reason.

“No, it doesn't. I just don't like the part about the progression of people, coming and going in our lives. I'd like it better if people stayed. I wish Annie were still here, and I don't want 'someone else' after you, Maribeth. What's wrong with staying?”

“We can't always do that,” she said, “sometimes we have to move on. Like Annie. We're not always given a choice.” But she had a choice, she and her baby were bound to each other for the moment, but eventually Maribeth would move on, and the baby would go on to its own life, in its own world, with other parents. It seemed as though now, in all their lives, nothing was forever.

“I don't like that, Maribeth. At some point, people have to stay.”

“Some do. Some don't. Some can't. We just have to love them while we can, and learn whatever we're meant to from them.”

“What about us?” he asked, strangely serious for a sixteen-year-old boy. But she was a serious young woman. “Do you suppose we're meant to learn something from each other?”

“Maybe. Maybe we need each other right now,” she said wisely.

“You've already taught me a lot about Annie, about letting go, about loving her wherever she is now, and taking her with me.”

“You've helped me too,” Maribeth said warmly, but not explaining how, and he wondered. And as they drove toward the lake, she felt the baby move again. It had fluttered a number of times since the first time she'd felt it and it was getting to be a familiar and friendly feeling. It was like nothing she'd ever felt before and she liked it.

When they reached the lake, Tommy spread out a blanket he had brought, and Maribeth carried the picnic. She had made egg salad sandwiches, which he said he loved, and chocolate cake, and brought a bagful of fruit, a bottle of milk, which she seemed to drink a lot of these days, and some sodas. They were both hungry and decided to eat right away, and then they lay on the blanket and talked again for a long time, about school this time, and some of his friends, their parents, and their plans. Tommy said he had been to California once, with his dad, to look at produce there, and Florida for the same reason. She had never been anywhere, and said she'd love to see New York and Chicago. And both of them said they would love to see Europe, but Maribeth thought it unlikely she ever would. She had no way to get anywhere in her life, except here, and even this had been a great adventure for her.

They talked about the Korean war too, and the people they knew who had died. It seemed crazy to both of them that they were engaged in another war so soon after the last one. They both remembered when Pearl Harbor had been hit, they had been four. Tommy's father had been too old to enlist, but Maribeth's father had been at Iwo Jima. Her mother had worried the whole time he was gone, but eventually he had come home safely.

“What would you do if you were drafted to go to war?” she asked, and he looked confused by the question.

“Now, you mean? Or when I'm eighteen?” It was a possibility, and only two years away for him, if the police action in Korea wasn't settled.

“Whenever. Would you go?”

Of course. I'd have to.”

“I wouldn't, if I were a man. I don't believe in war,” she said firmly, while he smiled. Sometimes she was funny. She had such definite ideas, and some of them were pretty crazy.

“That's because you're a girl. Men don't have a choice.”

“Maybe they should. Or maybe they will one day. Quakers don't go to war. I think they're smarter than everyone.”

“Maybe they're just scared,” he said, accepting all the traditions he'd ever known, but Maribeth was not willing to accept them. She didn't accept many things, unless she truly believed them.

“I don't think they're scared. I think they're true to themselves and what they believe. I'd refuse to go to war if I were a man,” Maribeth said stubbornly. “War is stupid.”

“No, you wouldn't,” Tommy grinned. “You'd fight, like everyone else. You'd have to.”

“Maybe one day men won't just do what they 'have to.' Maybe they'll question it, and not just do what they're told to.”

“I doubt that. And if they did, it would be chaos. Why should some men go and not others? What would they do? Run away? Hide somewhere? It's impossible, Maribeth. Leave wars to guys. They know what they're doing.”

“That's the trouble. I don't think they do. They just get us into new wars every time they get bored. Look at this one. We just got out of the last one, and we're back in the soup again,” she said disapprovingly, and he laughed.

“Maybe you should run for president,” he teased, but he respected her ideas, and her willingness to be adventuresome in her thinking. There was something very courageous about her.

They decided to go for a walk around the lake then, and on the way back, he asked her if she wanted to go swimming. But she declined again, and he was curious why she never wanted to join him. There was a raft far out in the lake, and he wanted her to swim to it with him, but she just didn't want to do it.

“Come on, tell the truth,” he said finally, “are you afraid of the water? It's no shame if you are. Just say it.”

“I'm not. I just don't want to swim.” She was a good swimmer, but there was no way she was going to take her father's shirt off.

“Then come on in.” It was blazing hot, and she would have liked a cool dip with him, but she knew she couldn't. She was fully four and a half months pregnant. “Just walk into the water with me. It feels great.” She agreed to do that, but go no farther. And the lake was shallow for a long time, so they were fairly far out when it began to drop off sharply. She stopped on a sandy ledge, and he swam out past her toward the raft and then back again, with long, smooth strokes. He had long, powerful arms and legs, and he was a great swimmer. He was back in minutes, and stood up beside her, where she waited.

“You're a great swimmer,” she said admiringly.

“I was on the team at school last year, but the captain was a jerk. I'm not going to swim with the team this year.” He was eyeing her with mischievous interest as they started to walk back toward shore and he splashed her. “You're a real chicken, you know. You probably swim as well as I do.”

“No, I don't,” she said, trying to duck his splashes. But he was playful with her, and she couldn't resist splashing him, and a moment later, they were like two children, throwing armfuls of water at each other. She was soaking wet, and she lost her footing as she ducked him, and sat down hard in the water. She looked surprised at first, and then she realized she was soaking wet, and there would be no way of getting out of the water without his seeing her protruding stomach. It was too late to salvage the situation, and so she tripped him, and he wound up in the water next to her, and then she swam away from him speedily, but he caught up to her with ease, and they were both spluttering and laughing.

She didn't swim out to the raft with him, but they swam together for a while, as she tried to figure out how to get out of the water gracefully, without having him see her stomach, but she just couldn't figure out how to do it. And then, finally, she told him she was cold, which she wasn't, and asked if he'd go and get her towel. He looked a little surprised, in the warm water and the heat of the afternoon sun, but he went to get it, and held it out to her. But she still had to get out of the water and walk toward him. She wanted to tell him to turn around, but she didn't dare, she just lay in the water looking worried.

“Is something wrong?” She didn't know what to say to him, and finally, reluctantly, she nodded. She hadn't wanted to tell him yet, and didn't know what she would say to him when she did. But she was trapped now. “Can I help?” He looked baffled.

“Not really.”

“Look, just come out, Maribeth. Whatever it is, we'll work it out. Come on, I'll help you.” He held a hand out to her, and the gesture brought tears to her eyes, and then he walked through the water toward her, and gently lifted her up, until she stood in front of him. She let him pull her clear of the water, and she didn't resist him as tears filled her eyes, and he had no idea why she was crying. He put the towel gently around her, and then as he looked down, he saw it, it was an undeniable bulge, still small, but very firm and very round, and very obviously a baby. He still remembered how his own mother had looked when she was expecting Annie, and Maribeth was too thin for it to be anything else, and he looked back at her again in amazement.

“I didn't want you to know' she said miserably. “I didn't want to tell you.” They were standing up to their knees in the lake, and neither of them moved toward shore as they stood there. He looked as though he had been struck by lightning, and she looked as though someone had died.

“Come on,” he said quietly, pulling her closer to him and putting an arm around her shoulders, “let's go sit down.” They walked silently back to the beach and the place where they had spread out their blanket. She took off the towel and then unbuttoned her father's shirt. She had a bathing suit and shorts under it, there was no point wearing it all now. Her secret was out in the open. “How did that happen?” he said finally, trying not to stare at the very obvious bulge as she sat there, but still amazed by it, and she smiled ruefully at his question.

“The usual way, I guess, not that I know much about it.”

“You had a boyfriend? You have a boyfriend?” he corrected, as he felt his heart squeeze, but she shook her head and looked away and then back at him again.

“Neither one. I did something really stupid.” She decided to make a clean breast of it with him. She wanted no secrets from him. “I did it once. With someone I hardly knew. I wasn't even out on a date with him. He took me home from a dance where my date got drunk, and he was kind of the senior hero. I guess I was flattered he'd even talk to me, and he was a lot smoother than I bargained for. He made a big fuss over me, and took me out for a hamburger with his friends, and I thought it was great, and then he stopped somewhere to park on the way home. I didn't want to go, but I didn't want to make a big deal about it either, and he gave me a sip of gin, and then …” she looked down at her protruding belly “…you can figure out the rest. He said he didn't think I could get pregnant. He'd broken up with his girlfriend that weekend, or so he said, and on Monday he went back to her, and I had made a total fool of myself. Better than that, I'd destroyed my life for a guy I didn't even know, and who would never care about me. It took me a while to figure out what had happened, and by the time I did, he was engaged. They got married right after graduation.”

“Did you tell him?”

“Yeah, I did. He said he wanted to marry her, and she'd be really pissed if she knew … I didn't want to ruin his life … or my own. I wouldn't tell my parents who he was, because I didn't want my father forcing him to marry me. I don't want to be married to someone who doesn't love me. I'm sixteen. My life would be over. But on the other hand,” she sighed as she sat, looking despondent, “my life may be over anyway. This hasn't exactly been a brilliant move on my part.”

“What did your parents say?” He was overwhelmed by what she was telling him, the insensitivity of the guy, and her courage at not doing what she didn't want to, in the face of disaster.

“My father said I had to move out. He took me to the Sisters of Charity, and I was supposed to live with them until I had it. But I just couldn't do it. I stayed for a few weeks, and it was so depressing, I figured I'd rather starve, so I left and got on a bus, and came here. I bought a ticket to Chicago, and figured I'd try to get a job there, but we stopped here for dinner and I saw the sign in Jimmy's window. They gave me the job, and I got off the bus, and here I am.” She looked vulnerable and incredibly young, and very beautiful as he watched her, overcome with tenderness and admiration. “My dad says I can come home after Christmas, after I have the baby. I'll go back to school then,” she said weakly, trying to make it sound okay, but even to her own ears, it sounded dismal.

“What are you going to do with the baby?” he asked, still amazed at what had happened to her.

“Give it away …put it up for adoption. I want to find good people to take it. I can't take care of it. I'm sixteen. I can't take care of a baby … I have nothing to give it … I don't know what to do for it. I want to go back to school … I want to go to college … if I keep the baby, I'll be stuck forever …and more than that, I'd have nothing to give it. I want to find a family that really wants it. The nuns said they'd help me, but that was back home … I haven't done anything about it here.” She looked nervous as she talked to him about it, and he was stunned by all that she was saying.

“Are you sure you don't want to keep it?” He couldn't imagine giving a baby away. Even to him, it sounded awful.

“I don't know.” She could feel the baby moving as she said it, as though it were fighting for some small voice in the decision. “I just don't see how I could take care of it. My parents wouldn't help me. I can't make enough money to support it … it wouldn't be fair to the baby. And I don't want a baby now. Is that really awful?” Her eyes filled with tears and she looked at him in despair. It was terrible admitting she didn't want this baby, but she didn't. She didn't love Paul, and she didn't want to have a child, or be responsible for someone else's life. She could hardly manage her own, let alone someone else's. She was only sixteen.

“Wow, Maribeth. You've got your hands full.” He moved closer to her, and put an arm around her again, and pulled her close to him. “Why didn't you say anything? You could have told me.”

“Oh yeah, sure … hi, my name is Maribeth, I'm knocked up by a guy who married someone else, and my parents threw me out …how about taking me to dinner?” He laughed at what she said, and she smiled through her tears, and then suddenly she was in his arms and crying with terror and shame, and relief that she had told him. The sobs that racked her drained her of all energy, and he held her until she stopped. He felt desperately sorry for her, and the baby.

“When's it due?” he asked when she had calmed down again.

“Not till the end of December.” But that was only four months away, and they both knew it would come very quickly.

“Have you seen a doctor here?”

“I don't know anyone.” She shook her head. “I didn't want to tell the girls at the restaurant, because I was afraid Jimmy would fire me. I told them I was married to a guy who was killed in Korea, so they wouldn't be too surprised when they finally saw I was pregnant.”

“That was pretty good thinking,” he said with a look of amusement, and then he looked at her questioningly again. “Were you in love with him, Maribeth? The father, I mean.”

It meant a lot to Tommy to know if she had loved him. But he was relieved when she shook her head. “I was flattered he wanted to go out with me. That's all. I was just incredibly stupid. To tell you the truth, he's a jerk. He just wanted me to get lost and not tell Debbie. He told me I could get rid of it. I'm not even sure what they do, but I think they cut the baby out. Nobody would really tell me, and everyone says it's really dangerous and expensive.”

Tommy looked at her soberly as she explained it to him. He had heard of abortions too, but he was no clearer than she was on the exact nature of the procedure. “I'm glad you didn't do it.”

“Why?” His comment surprised her. What difference did it make to him? Things would have been so much simpler for them if she weren't pregnant.

“Because I don't think you should. Maybe this is one of those things, like Annie …maybe it happened for a reason.”

“I don't know. I've thought about it a lot. I've tried to understand why this happened. But I don't. It just seems like such rotten luck. One time. I guess that's all it takes.” He nodded tentatively. His knowledge of sex was as sketchy as hers was, possibly more so. And unlike Maribeth, he had never done it.

He looked at her very oddly then, and she could see he was dying to ask her another question.

“What? Go on …whatever it is …ask me …” They were friends to the death now, bound in a friendship that they both knew would last forever. He was part of her secret pact. He was part of it now. And he would always be part of it from this moment.

“What was it like?” lie asked, looking red-faced and mortally embarrassed, but the question didn't horrify her. Nothing did now. He was like a brother, or a best friend, or something more than that. “Was it terrific?”

“No. Not for me. Maybe for him. But I think it could be … it was kind of exciting, and dizzy making. It makes you stop thinking of anything else, or making sense, or wanting to do the right thing. It's kind of like an express train once it gets under way, or maybe that was the gin …but I think with the right person, it might be pretty great. I don't know. I don't really want to try again. Not for a long time, and not till I find the right person. I don't want to do that again, and be really stupid.” He nodded, intrigued by what she said. It was kind of what he had expected, and he admired her resolve. But he was sorry she had had the experience, and he hadn't. “The sad thing was that it didn't mean anything, and it should. And now I have this baby, whom nobody wants, not the father, not me, no one.”

“Maybe you'll change your mind when you see it' he said thoughtfully. His heart had melted from the first moment he'd seen Annie.

“I'm not sure I will. The two girls who had babies at the convent before I left never saw their babies. The nuns just took them away when they were born, and that was it. It seems so strange to carry it with you all this time, and then give it away …but it seems just as strange to keep it. It's not like it's for one day. It's forever. Could I do that? Could I be a mother for all that time? I don't think so. And then I think that there's something wrong with me. Why don't I want this baby with me forever? And if I do when I see it, then what am I going to do? How will I support it, or keep it? Tommy, I don't know what to do….” Her eyes filled with tears again and he pulled her close to him again, and this time, without hesitating, he leaned down and kissed her. It was a kiss filled with admiration and tenderness and compassion, and all the love he had come to feel for her.

It was the kiss of a man for a woman, the first either had known in just that way, the first either had felt of that magnitude in their entire lifetime. It was a kiss that could easily lead to more, except that now, and here, neither of them would let it.

“I love you,” he whispered into her hair afterwards, wishing that it was his baby she was carrying, and not that of a boy she had never cared for. “I love you so much … I won't go away …I'll be there to help you.” They were brave promises for a sixteen-year-old boy. But in the past year he had grown into manhood.

“I love you too,” she said cautiously, wiping away her tears with his towel, and not wanting to give him all her problems.

“You've got to go to a doctor,” he said, sounding remarkably paternal.

“Why?” Sometimes she still seemed very young, in spite of what she was going through.

“You've got to make sure the baby's healthy. My mom went all the time when she was pregnant with Annie.”

“Yeah, but she was older.”

“I think you're supposed to go anyway.” And then he had a thought. “I'll get the name of my mom's doctor, and maybe we can figure out a way for him to see you.” He looked pleased with the idea, and she giggled.

“You're crazy. They'll think it's yours, and they'll tell your mom. I can't go to a doctor, Tommy.”

“We'll figure something out,” he tried to reassure her. “And maybe my mom's doctor could help you find someone to adopt it. I think they do that too. They must know people who want babies and can't have them. I think my mom and dad thought about adopting for a while, before they had Annie, and then they didn't have to. I'll get his name, and we can make an appointment.” He had stepped right into it, and shouldered the burden with her, unlike anyone else in her life. He kissed her again long and hard, and then ever so gently, he put a hand on the baby. It was moving a lot then, and she asked him if he could feel it. He concentrated for a little while, and then with a grin, he nodded. It was just the tiniest of flutterings, as if her belly had a life of its own, which it did at the moment.

They went swimming again late that afternoon, and this time she swam to the raft with him, and she was tired when she got back. They lay on their blanket then for a long time, and talked quietly about her future. It seemed a little less ominous now, with Tommy to share it, although the enormity of it still scared her. If she kept it, she would have the child for the rest of her life. If not, she might always regret it. It was hard to know which was the right thing to do, except that she kept feeling that it would be a greater gift to the child, and even herself, to let it go to other parents. There would be other children one day, and she would always regret this one, but it was the wrong time and the wrong place, and circumstances she just couldn't manage.

He held her in his arms, and they kissed and snuggled but it went no further. They were both strangely peaceful when they went back to her room so she could change her clothes, to go out for dinner and a movie. Things had changed between them that afternoon. It was as though they belonged to each other now. She had shared her secret with him, and he had been there for her. She knew he wouldn't let her down. They needed each other, and she needed him especially. It was as though a silent bond had formed between them, a bond that would never be severed.

“See you tomorrow,” he said when he dropped her off at her place at eleven o'clock. He knew he couldn't stay away from her now. He needed to know that she was all right. He was going to drive her home from work the next day, although he had promised his mother he'd be home for dinner. “Take care of yourself, Maribeth,” he smiled, and she smiled back at him with a wave, as she closed the door softly behind her. And as she got into bed, she thought about how lucky she had been to ever meet him. He was the kind of friend she had never had, the brother Ryan had never been, the lover Paul never could have been. For the moment, he was everything. And that night, once again, she dreamt of Annie.