Lauren grew up on the shores of Connecticut with a close group of friends. The kind of friends that last forever. In this coming of age story, Lauren goes to college, only to become pregnant by winter break. She decides to carry the baby to term. She is sent to Toronto and told not to share this secret with anyone…

Excerpt:

Niantic 1971

“T

his is my sister, Ginny,” Maureen, my sister Geri’s friend, said. A shy seven year old peered out from behind her older sister’s legs. She wore a bubble on her back and a bathing suit.

“I’m Lauren,” I offered, friendly but not too friendly for fear that she would run away if I spoke too loudly.

She smiled and I agreed to go swimming with them, or her, because big sisters did not play with kids. I was only eight and my sister was thirteen - a teenager.

The water was rough, dark and the surf was up. A hurricane was happening, and we were thrilled. We ran in the waves and swam and tumbled and became best friends.

When we got cold we showered and bundled up. We ran up and down the bluff in the high winds, shouting, but the sound only wrapped around our heads and into our own ears. Waves were the way we communicated. “Come here! I found a neat thing! Look at this!” Barefoot and in foul weather gear we ran and looked, ran and looked. Boats were torn from their anchors and crashing on the shore. Neighbors came to help. Blissful chaos and excitement propelled us up, down and around the beach.

The next day was clear and calm. Salvaged boats and seaweed lay high up on the beach. The sea had cleaned itself, calmed down, and life was tranquil again.

We lived only a few houses from each other. Mine was on the top of the bluff that overlooked Niantic Bay, which was part of Long Island sound. Ginny lived a few doors down the street. I lived in a Victorian cottage that my great-great-grandmother had bought long ago, when there were only a few houses in the area. There it stood, painted red on the first floor and green on the second and third floors, in the middle of a row of cottages that lined the bluff. Within the house lived my family and my mother’s brother’s family. I had four younger cousins. We crammed ourselves into the rooms of the house, each one with a view of the ocean, and took care of each other. I listened to the sound of the waves lapping the shore at night, and these sounds and smells comforted me along with the inevitable bit of gritty sand that found its way into my bed.

Every day that summer Ginny and I played together on the beach, laughed, and complained about older siblings. She had two and I had three. We were not allowed in their club. We made our own fun all day at the beach.

The best game, I thought, was playing with the waves. We would run up to them as they curled back, and then hopped backward as they licked the sand. The challenge was to stay as close as we could to the water without touching it. We had to guess how fast and how far the wave was coming up on the shore and keep our toes from touching the water. We would measure the distance by the footprints left behind and the mark the water left on the sand.

We also entertained ourselves with drip sand castles and crushing rocks. We raced along boulders between beaches, making split decisions as to which rock to jump to next. I did this with instinct rather than thinking. Thinking was too slow.

Sometimes we stayed at Ginny’s house. We played in her room. We pretended to drown and rescue each other. I tired of this game quickly because she always wanted to be the boy and I the girl; that made me feel a jumpy alarm inside so I made excuses to leave. Once, we were just hanging around and she said her father had come home really mad the night before. I had seen her mother’s black eye that morning even though she had sunglasses on, but knew not to say anything. I asked her what happened. She said she hid under the bed and heard him hitting her mother. She was really afraid. She was really angry and said she wanted to grow up to protect her mother. I felt bad for her. I imagined her under her bed. I told her she could sleep over my house anytime. She said she had to keep watch. I thought about her father. I didn’t see him much, but when I did he seemed scary. He brooded at the kitchen table, and we quietly bypassed that room and walked silently up to Ginny’s bedroom. But mostly I never saw him at all. He was a friend of my father’s when they were growing up at the beach. I wondered what he was like then and wondered if they were still friends. I wondered if he had friends. I didn’t want to be near him. Ginny’s mother was really nice. She pretty much let us do whatever we wanted. She mostly lay in the sun in the backyard and got a great tan. I thought, “Maybe she’s Indian, she’s so brown.” My Mom came to visit her often and they talked in the kitchen. She never went to the beach with my mother, though. Just the back yard.

Ginny was a tomboy for sure. She even made up a name for people to call her and would not answer to her own name. It was George. If you called her Ginny by mistake she would reply, “Never heard of it!” She wanted me to pick a boy’s name too, so I chose Larry. I didn’t care what people called me, so I went along with her calling me Larry. We took swimming lessons together at the beach. We got matching American flag Speedo suits and football jerseys – Miami Dolphins – and our teacher, Mr. Pernicus, called us by the players’ names. “Hey Csonka and Griese, get in the water!”

Ginny was humorous and always wanted to have some fun. Sometimes the fun was too risky for me. She would say, “C’mon, don’t you want good stories to tell your grandkids?” And that would convince me to do some silly thing, like climb the roof – which was forbidden – or streak a little bit in front of the house. The streaking thing I really did not want to do, but she convinced me. When I did it I felt very uncomfortable. Like the time she convinced me to pee in the toilet standing up; like a boy. I tried and felt that weird feeling of doing something out of my realm, or forbidden, or something I couldn’t describe. I came up with some excuse to divert her attention to something else.

Most of the time with Ginny was comical. One day I laughed so hard I almost wet my pants. Ginny could do that; she was entertainment to all who would listen. She had some crutches her mother lent her and was trying to walk with them. Only they were set for her mother’s height and so she had to put them way in front of her on the ground and leap in the air to a space way in front of them. It looked very comical, and I was laughing. She got the hang of it pretty well and was leaping all across the lawn. That is until she reached the wall. Our lawn has about an eight foot wall that was even with the lawn, but it dipped down to our neighbor’s yard eight feet lower. Well, one crutch landed on the wall, and the other went down only to miss the wall – giving Ginny a good cartwheel off the wall! I ran over to see if she was alright. I saw her crutches sprawled on the neighbor’s lawn and Ginny’s body contorted and shaking with laughter. “That was fun!” she exclaimed as she got up. Then she proceeded to reenact it a few more times for everyone’s entertainment.

Sometimes we would ride our bikes to my grandparents’ house just to say hello and get some soda. We did not have soda at home, because our parents saved it for parties and special occasions. We did not have TV at the beach either. So we rode about 15 minutes to Black Point and said hello to Nana and Papa. Nana would play up to it, and say, “Oh my goodness, you two have ridden a long way. You must be thirsty.” We would smile, nod, and she would get the ice cold root beer saved for grandkids. We would sit on the stools at the kitchen and drink the soda. Papa would talk a bit as he watched a game on TV, and Nana would sit beside us ready to hear anything we might have to say. Eventually we would have to be on our way. We would ride back home, stopping at the penny candy store and fill up with sugar.

We played with trolls; Ginny did not like Barbie, just like she didn’t like to wear a ribbon in her hair for parties. That was always a battle with her mother. I showed up and saw Ginny sitting on her porch with her long hair being tied in a ribbon and tears streaming down her face. I don’t know why her mother insisted. I didn’t like to see Ginny cry. We went to garage sales with our allowance. We bought a huge troll together at one. We shared him – she had him one winter and then I had him the next. Ginny lived at the beach year round, but I only came in the summer. We always talked about getting together over the winter, but we never did. When Memorial Day came around we started where we had left off. Going to the beach and playing with the waves.

I remember a trip to Misquamicut where the family went each summer to swim in the surf. We’d pack up the car and drive to Rhode Island for the day. The first time I went I was unsure of the adventure ahead. When we arrived and unpacked, we ran up the parking lot hill to take a look at the water. The beach was enormous, as were the waves and the crowd. I walked along with the group to find a spot on the beach. The granules were large and hurt my feet a little bit. After we settled in, my father, brothers, and sister went to body surf the waves. I watched for a while with my mother. I was afraid of the waves. I was unsure, so I just watched as time after time my father and siblings survived the waves. They laughed and waved me in. With a reassuring glance from my mother I went to my father. He had come in a bit to greet me. He showed me how to hold my body like a board and when to push off to catch the wave. I tried it with him by my side a few times and it was fun. I decided to move deeper into the water and catch a bigger wave. Excitement streamed through me as I waited for that wave to float me into shore. But it did not. Somehow I got tumbled, and tossed and turned. I was under and didn’t know which end was up. I panicked and thrust desperately to reach the surface, only to be pounded into the sand. A hand pulled me up and I gasped for air. I cried, as I easily did, but Dad reassured me that everything was fine. When I calmed down, he gave me the good advice I had counted on him to give.

“Lauren, it’s okay. Listen to me. When that happens, when you get pulled under, just relax and you will float to the top. Fighting the wave only makes it worse and then you panic and can’t breathe and get scared. Just relax and know that you will come up,” he said in his soothing voice.

I trusted his advice and after a few good runs I got pulled under again. “Relax, you will come up,” I said to myself. “You will float to the top, you will.” And I did. Triumphant, I hopped over to Dad and hugged him. “You are right! It works!” I played in the surf all day knowing that when the scariest thing happened, I knew what to do to make it alright. Don’t fight it, just relax and you will surface.

Simsbury, December 1981

I

feel sick. I may be coming down with something. Every time I go to the bathroom - which I do every minute or so – I check to see if I have started my period. It hasn’t arrived. Kelly, my college friend, used to call periods “surprise” because it always surprised you. She’d say, “Oh I got surprise, I feel crampy,” things like that. I am expectant and hoping for relief in a surprise. I think about the date of the first time Joe and I had sex, or maybe it was making love, the first time anyway. It was the second weekend of November. What is it now? December 22 and that makes me one week and 5 days late. I am sometimes late, but I’ve never been this late. I review the signs of pregnancy in my mind, while eating disgusting tuna fish on an English muffin, watching TV. Morning sickness. I am sick, no I’d say not throwing up, but definitely turned off by the smell and taste of food all the time, not just the morning. So maybe I am just getting the flu. Tiredness. Oh yes I am very tired, but I’ve been through a lot in the last few months, like a new school that I hate, dating and feeling revolted by someone, having sex for the first time in my life. Yes, these are things that might make one tired. Or pregnancy. I’m not sure about it. Going to the bathroom a lot. I do that on purpose, to check for the surprise, not because I feel the urge to go. I’m clear on that one. Dad enters the room and asks how I am.

“I feel a little sick,” please ask me to elaborate. Make a diagnosis. Don’t ask me anything, I’ve changed my mind.

“That’s too bad,” he says absentmindedly. He will not ask me why. As he leaves I feel relieved, desperate, and praying for my mother’s return from Toronto.

There was a time when I wouldn’t want my mother. I would want my father. But this is an issue for mother to hear about. It is something she might relate to, perhaps even understand.

This is the old house is what we refer to as “37” rather than “the old house” because when we moved, we moved just down the street. So the new house became “42” and the old is “37.” At 37 I lived until the fourth grade. I remember it being the fourth grade, because I was full of expectance, not only about the new, spacious “42” but because I was about to go to a new school. My father agreed to drive me there in his ‘65 Camaro, a car that was a deep, dark green with a black convertible hood. One that he let me shift when he drove. One that I felt free in when he took me for rides at night. I’d look up at the stars and let the cool wind swirl around my head until I fell asleep; a peaceful transition rather than one fraught with fears.

Usually I went through steps to get ready for bed. While my mother was in my siblings’ rooms, one for the eldest, my sister Geri, one for the boys, Sean and John the middle-aged ones, spending time and wishing them good night, I, the youngest, went through the ritual. I had a double bed that took up most of my own room. Next to it stood a dresser, where the sign hung; the sign for the days of the week that my mother made for me. Each morning I would flip over a rectangular piece of construction paper that revealed the name of the new day. I would say it out loud and then fasten it to the cardboard behind. The dresser held a mirror, where I stared at myself every morning as my sister brushed and styled my hair. She did not like this job, but she was forced to do it. She used this time to tell me how ugly or stupid I was. That I was adopted and cross-eyed.

“There you go, ugly,” she would sneer when she finished. I watched her go and then would study my eyes in the mirror, wondering if she was right about them being crossed.

Before bed I would put all of my many stuffed animals on the bed. Then I would check under the bed for lingering siblings ready to scare me or the possible monster that may be lurking, just waiting for me to fall asleep and then pounce on me and gobble me up. Once that was survived, I crawled under the covers and lay on my back. Then I would strategically place stuffed animals, one by one, around my body so tight I could not even roll over. These were my guards. In the night a monster would not know the difference between a stuffed animal and a real one. I hoped that. It felt reassuring to feel them so tight against me touching every inch of the border of my body. Then the decision that I could never figure out. Should I tuck my long blonde hair under the covers or let it be outside of them? I don’t know if monsters like hairy children or if seeing hair would turn them off and repel them, keeping me safe. I compromised. I thought I’d tuck in the hair and maybe a monster that likes hair will pass me up for a hairier child. And if the monster did not like hairy children, and therefore approached me as a possible snack, it would lift the covers only to find hair! Yuck! That would disgust the monster and he would go away. That decided, I would be in bed waiting for Mom to come rub my feet and say goodnight. Ready, prepared for sleep.

One night I was all set, waiting, when I remembered the closet.

“Oh no, I didn’t check the closet. There might be something really horrible and scary in there.”

I thought and though, and as I did the possibility became more and more real, more and more frightening. So frightening that I was terrified to approach the door. My mother entered the room and I was momentarily relieved.

“Mom, could you check the closet? I forgot to check the closet.”

“What do you want me to check the closet for?” she asked gently.

“Monsters, of course” I grew irritated with her lack of understanding.

She sat on the bed and waited. My heart raced, check it already!

“Lauren, why don’t you check? What’s the worst that can happen?”

“It will eat me up! It will kill me!” once again irritated with her lack of knowledge about monsters.

“Well, what if you just go to sleep and not check it, what will happen then if there is a monster in your closet?”

“It will wait until I’m asleep and THEN eat me up”

“Well, that’s the same thing. Might as well get it over with right now,” she motioned her hand towards the closet door with the same gentle voice.

I was furious.

“No!” I screamed, trying not to move my soldiers or let my hair show beneath the covers.

She sighed and said good night, giving me a warm kiss on the forehead. I waited for what I know will eventually come. That was the sound of my father’s car in the driveway. I waited and waited, thankful that at least she understood enough to leave the light on. I always slept with the light on. Finally, I heard the welcome rumble of Dad’s car. Moments later he was at my side.

“Hi Babe.” He smiled at me as he found his usual seat on my bed.

“Hi Dad.” I beamed back at him. “Can you do me a favor? Can you please check my closet? I forgot to before I got into bed.”

“Sure.” He calmly got up and walked over to the closet door. He opened it, fully inspected it and returned to my side. “Nope. Nothing hiding in there.”

I felt by breath ease as I let my eyes slit and feel the tiredness that I had been fighting. His cologne, my favorite scent, the one I was sure to help my mother find in the store, drifted through my nostrils and relaxed my overworked mind.

“Can you tell me a story Dad?”

“Sure. Where did we leave off? Oh yeah, Fluffy and Blackjack were in the forest looking for some dinner during their adventure……”

Dad made up stories with an attention to detail and with expression on his face. We were in the fantasy together and as he spoke my eyelids would get heavier and heavier and I would spend some time just listening to the tone, the sound of his voice. The voice I tried to remember when I was alone, when he is away at work. The voice that assured me that everything was safe, that I could survive childhood and that I would not die in the process of growing up.

Mom usually interrupted us with a gentle knock on the door and, “It’s late, Sean. She needs her rest, remember.”

He’d whisper “Sure, Eileen, I’m coming.”

Then there would be silence for a while, sometimes he moved some of my soldiers gently away from my sides and I didn’t mind. He would lean over, kiss my forehead, and make the sign of the cross on it with his warm, soothing, thumb. He’d whisper, “Good night, Babe, I love you very much,” in a way that made me long for more time. I would sleepily say, “I love you too Dad,” and let my hair fall out of its hiding place as I rolled over onto my side and let the soldiers fall where they may.

Now, I feel the need for soldiers. Women soldiers. The ones like what my mother has become over the years. Brave.

Waiting for Mom

I

climb the back stairs to my 42 room. It’s really a wing rather than just a room. I shut the door at the top of the stairs and walk past linen closets, the bathroom, the dressing room, and the laundry room, to the end of the corridor, my room. The one I lived in from fourth grade until my junior year of high school. It was my junior year when the last of my siblings went to college. I faced the prospect of being the only child in the house. Alone with my parents. I wanted to flee, so when my father asked if I wanted to go to boarding school I readily agreed. He wanted me to be prepared for college, challenge my mind, see how smart I was; I just wanted to be out of their way.

I sit on my bed. It is chilly. It is the coldest room in the house, being above the sun porch. I like the cold because I like to bundle up in a cocoon and feel the warmth amidst the cold. I liked the calmness of being alone. I gaze at the ribbons hung all along the tops of the walls and remember all of the competitions I entered and the classes I won and lost. I started horseback riding lessons soon after we moved here and lit a passion within that never even flickered. My father encouraged me to pursue it, to keep at it until I became very good. Quite good. My mother drove me to all of my lessons and waited as I trained. Then when my father bought me a horse on my sixteenth birthday, she drove me to the barn until I got my license and could drive myself. It was my individual sport. I was no good at team sports, and this individual sport was one that was new to my family. Nobody knew anything about horses, and I liked that fact.

I sit on my bed, waiting. The chill is deeper now and I wrap myself in the comforter. Charlotte gave me this comforter. Charlotte is my aunt, my mother’s younger sister. Younger by about 15 years. She lives in Toronto now and sent me this comforter and curtains to match my yellow bedroom. It is patchwork with ties of light yellow yarn. One repeated square is yellow and white checkers. The curtains, with ruffles on the edges, are the same yellow and white pattern. I love Charlotte’s sense of style. She always chose such unusual yet stylish presents for me.

I miss her right now. She is spending Christmas with her fiancé, Mike, in Toronto. I miss her, but somehow not with the ache that I used to have.

Charlotte lived with us at 37 during her high school years. She did not get along with her step-mother, the only Nana I knew, since my real grandmother died before I was born. My earliest memories of Charlotte are not when she was in high school, but when she was away in Toronto attending college. That’s when I moved from sharing my sister’s room to having my own – the one Charlotte left behind. She stayed with us during her school vacations, bringing wonderful clothes and presents with every visit. She was alive, lively, spirited. She spent most of her time with us, and during that time I was completely at ease. None of my siblings ever tried to hurt me, tease me, ridicule me, or invade me. She would not allow it. She was alert. She was in charge.

I wanted to grow up to be exactly like Charlotte. I longed for her beauty, strength, and presence. Her presence. Her presence in my life then was like freckles, here and there, that I wanted to gather and kept hoping they would somehow form something solid. When we picked her up at the airport I was full of anticipation and when we drove her back to the airport I fought the desire to hold her back.

“C’mon Lauren you can do it this time,” John would whisper to me during our drive to the airport to drop off Charlotte. “Just a hug and good-bye, that’s it, okay?”

“Okay,” I’d whisper back, planning on controlling myself.

But the time would come for my turn to hug Charlotte goodbye and I would already be crying, fighting the force within me. When she embraced me and whispered goodbye, I clung to her tightly. Then came her release and I could not let go. Despite the coaching, I clung and clung hard. She’d hug me some more and gently say, “I have to go now Lauren, I love you,” and release me. I would still cling, more desperate now, as I began to bawl at a level that seemed to make everyone uncomfortable.

“No!” I’d yell, as my mother tried to take me from Charlotte. “Please!” I would scream as I was peeled off of her not matter how hard I’d try to hang on.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Charlotte would call to me as my mother placed me into the car and shut the door. “I’ll be back soon,” she’d yell and wave as we drove away and I gripped the handle of the door as tight as I could and cried all the way home. Nobody said anything. We just drove home in the family wagon in silence except for my crying and sobbing and clinging.

I wrap Charlotte around me in the form of the comforter and wait. I think about this house, this room, and how things got better since the 37 days. Here, my mother began to actually cook me breakfast in the mornings and slowly became more alive. At 37 I would get up in the morning and walk to my parents’ room, watch my father shave while my mother slept. Then I would go downstairs and get myself cold cereal and milk. My sister would make us all of our lunches and I would silently follow the routine of eating, taking my lunch from her and a dime for milk, and walk up the stairs to my mother’s door. She would be still, a lump in the bed. In the doorway I’d say, “Bye Mom. I’m going to school now.” And she would say a foggy, “Have a good day,” and I would turn and leave for school. When we moved to 42 she started to get up in the mornings to feed us hot oatmeal or Cream of Wheat. When I came home she would fix me snacks like graham crackers and peanut butter, before I changed into play clothes and met my friend, Carol, at her house. Soon she was driving me to riding lessons and talking to me about growing up. She seemed to want to be a part of my life, now that I had my own space, my horses, school, and friends. Sometimes I let her in and sometimes I did not. Slowly, after sharing little things that didn’t really matter, like grades in school, and then more heavy things like getting my period years later, I began to feel surer about her reliability.

So here I sit in this room waiting to share a secret that I hold that is the heaviest yet.

She arrives that night. I kiss her hello and quickly ask her to come to my room, alone. She immediately looks at me more closely and quickly follows me to my room. I sit on my bed and keep the lights off. It is dark, cold, crisp. I have a warm fuzzy sweater on with jeans. The sweater comforts me, and the jeans do not feel tight. Maybe it is not true.

“Mom, I think I’m pregnant,” I whisper, taking a risk that I am almost sure she will not drop onto the ground. She clasps onto me in an embrace that says she will come through this time. She holds me fast, hard, secure, for a long time as I let go of all I’ve been keeping secret. “It was a guy I met at Tall Meadow. I thought it was love. It wasn’t and now I’m alone. It was only a few times. I know nineteen is too young for this. I’m sorry.” I roll one sentence into the next, letting it flow like a broken dam.

“Why do you think that you’re pregnant?” she gently whispers back. She doesn’t think it’s true. Maybe it isn’t.

“My period is late. I feel sick to my stomach all the time. What am I gonna do?” Please make it go away. Sing a song and make me go to sleep. Rock me until it all goes away and I can rest peacefully. It’s been so loud in my head for a month now. I’m tired.

“We’ll just find out. Let’s get a test done before you think about anything else. You are usually late, right? Maybe, just maybe, you skipped a period and are getting worked up over nothing.” She strokes my hair and holds her face next to mine, her cheek against mine. I want to sit on her lap, but I don’t. “Tomorrow we will get a pregnancy test done. Don’t worry. No matter what, I am here for you. I love you and everything is going to be alright.” I am glad it’s dark and I cannot see her worry. That I cannot see her undying love and compassion. That I cannot see that she is so sick. “Should we tell your sister?”

“No. She’ll be mad at me.”

“She will not.”

“Oh yeah? She told me all about birth control. She gave me Our Bodies Ourselves with all that stuff in it. I didn’t listen. She’ll be mad at me, I know it.”

“She’ll help you. She can find the place that does these tests and get you an appointment. We’ll all go together. She would want to be included. She would be hurt if you didn’t include her in this.” Mother’s guilt had to be in there somewhere, and she wins again.

“Okay, but you tell her.”

“Alright, I will. Should I go now? Are you alright?”

“Yes.”

Geri didn’t throw any anger my way. She was a take action advocate. She called Planned Parenthood the next morning and insisted on an appointment. The soonest one. An emergency. She was pretty pushy when she was riled up.

The three of us walked from the car along the snowy streets to the Office of Determining the Rest of Your Life: Planned Parenthood. I certainly did not plan this, and I cannot be a Parent. I only did it a little bit. Most people go months before they fall into this trap. It can’t be true. I will be so relieved when the test is negative. I wait for what seems like a long time in a waiting room that looks like someone’s undecorated living room. There are a few other people waiting so I know it will take a few minutes for my turn. In a few minutes my whole life could change.

Life did change for me once we moved to 42. The house was expansive enough to hide in my own space. I could maybe go through a whole day without being trapped. Besides, I had learned by then how to avoid those events. Those humiliating moments of being laughed at and teased. I simply went away. I found Carol, a neighbor down the street, who became my best friend. She was a few years younger than me, and she was the youngest in her family too. We bonded immediately. Her siblings were much older. They were in high school and practically never home. I spent days on into the evenings at her house, with her kind mother and father. We played on the swing set in her backyard, ate chicken noodle soup that her mother prepared for us, played board games and colored in her room, completely undisturbed. I don’t think we ever even had an argument. We rode bikes around the neighborhood together; sometimes she sat on the back of my banana seat and hung on to the bar behind her. We sailed. I was relaxed and away from that house of monsters.

My parents started taking weekends in Toronto for what I found out years later was couple counseling. My mother’s brother, John, was a psychotherapist in Toronto and knew very good therapists that my parents went to see. They would attend weekend retreats. My mother went back to school in the evenings and eventually earned a master’s degree in Early Childhood Education.

My father drove me to my new school every morning for a week. It was pretty simple to get there, just down to the corner, take a left and walk until you walk right into it. He asked a few times, “Do you know how to get there now Lauren?”

I said coyly, “Not exactly sure, can you drive me another day or two more?”

He knowingly smiled and was ready to drive me the next morning. Finally I admitted that I knew the way and walked on my own.

Each day I returned to my room, my space. My father let me choose the room and then let me decorate it. Any rug I wanted, any color paint. I choose bright yellow walls and a horse brown shag rug. He built a desk for me against one wall. As he built I sat beside him.

“I always said you were smart, Lauren. You are the smartest one. The smartest; I know it. This is your desk where you can be alone, in a quiet place, and study. You can do well, Lauren, you just have to apply yourself. And I know you will.”

I did apply myself. I studied and when I was confused, Dad helped me study. I got into a very competitive college in Virginia. But I was not feeling very smart right now, in the waiting room of Planned Parenthood. Please God, just let me slip by now and I will never take this kind of chance again. Birth control from now on. A sure thing, like the pill. I have it in my purse. Ready for the first day of my next period. This is just a scare, right? Just a scare to straighten me out. To make me more cautious. I’ve learned, now set me free.

“Lauren O’Connor.” The call brings a sinking and alarmed kind of feeling and I stand up. I look at my mother and sister one last time, like it may be all different soon, like I cannot go back after I follow this person. I mutely follow the caller into another waiting room. She pricks my finger to draw blood. She smiles at me in a calm way. She’s done this a lot. How many are positive? What are the odds?

“We are going to do a pelvic exam. Put this on.” She hands me an open in the front gown. I feel cold in this. Is this good or bad? What did the blood work say? Do I have to wait until tomorrow to hear the news? Could someone give me a clue about whether my life is over or not? Desperation wells up as I lie on the icy, metal examining table and get examined, prodded, pushed. I turn my head to the side as though they are making me look at something I don’t want to see. A single tear runs down my temple and I squint. This sadness, this coldness reminds me of how it felt with Joe. In the end. As I lie on the table of the examination room, in a flash the last few months, the beginning of my college life, run through my mind.

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