Jenny was pregnant. God, my little girl. If you’d tried to tell me at that moment that she was, in fact, a grown woman, I’d have grabbed you by the neck and wrung you like a mop. To me she wasn’t much more than a child. And now she had a child of her own on the way. How screwed was that? There went the University of Iowa and that writer’s workshop she was hot to get into. There went her future, everything she’d worked hard for over so many years down the drain, lost in a thoughtless moment, wiped away in a stupid spill of passion.
Though probably it wasn’t a moment. Probably they’d been having sex for a while. They’d gone together since Jenny was a sophomore. That was a long time to remain celibate against an onslaught of hormones. I understood that. But Jo had been so certain of Jenny’s sense of responsibility about sex. Why hadn’t my daughter been responsible enough to be safe?
And Sean. He sure as hell wasn’t innocent in all this. Him I wanted to use as a soccer ball.
With that finger of moonlight pointing at me, I wondered what I’d done or hadn’t done that had helped bring this situation about. What kind of father was I? What kind had I been?
Then there was Meloux. His health had apparently taken a remarkable turn after I told him I would go to Thunder Bay. The old Mide believed he would finally see his son. As nearly as I could tell, that belief alone had been enough to work a miracle.
Now what was I going to tell him? What kind of son was I offering him? I was afraid of what the truth might do to the old man. But if I hedged in any way, Meloux would know.
It was nearly midnight when I pulled onto Gooseberry Lane and turned into my driveway. Jo was waiting up. The kids had gone to bed. She kissed me and settled on the sofa beside me.
“You look tired,” she said.
“And sore.” I told her about Morrissey, the kidney punch and the kick.
“Let me see.”
I lifted my shirt, and she checked my back.
“Oh, Cork, there’s an ugly bruise forming. Do you think you should have it checked?”
“A handful of ibuprofen before I go to bed and I’ll be fine.”
“These men, they sound perfectly awful.”
“How do I tell Henry?”
“Be straight with him. Anything else and he’ll know you’re not being truthful.”
“It might kill him.”
“I don’t think so. I think it was the not knowing that hurt him. But how a good man like Henry could have fathered a son like this Wellington, I don’t know.”
I looked around the living room. “Where’s Walleye?”
“In the backyard, sleeping in the tent with Stevie.”
“Stevie knows Walleye will be going home tomorrow?”
She nodded. “He took it pretty hard, poor little guy.” Everywhere I looked, nothing but disappointment.
“So,” I said. “Jenny.”
“She’s confused, Cork.”
“How long has she known?”
“A few days. Her period is usually regular as clockwork. When it was overdue, she did one of those home pregnancy tests.”
“No chance the test was wrong?”
“She repeated it. Different brand, same result.”
“Does Sean know?”
“Yes.”
“What does Jenny want to do?”
“Go back in time and make different decisions would be my first guess.”
“Don’t we all. Really, what’s she thinking?”
Jo hesitated. I knew I wasn’t going to like what I heard.
“When she and Sean went for that drive to Lake Superior yesterday, it wasn’t a pleasure trip. They went to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Duluth.”
“An abortion?”
“She didn’t do anything, Cork. She just wanted information.”
“Oh, Jesus, Jo. This has got to be so hard for her.”
“I’m glad you understand that.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” I looked at her, didn’t hide that I was hurt. “She poured all this out to you because she’s afraid of me, is that it?”
“She’s not afraid of you, Cork. But she is afraid of what you’ll think of her. You have no idea how much your respect means to her.”
I felt exhausted and empty. I laid my head against Jo’s shoulder. “I have to talk to her.”
“She knows that.”
“And we have to talk to Sean. His folks, too. Do they know?”
“He was going to tell them tonight. We’ll probably be calling them tomorrow about the same time they call us.”
“Guess this is the end of Paris.”
“It doesn’t mean their dreams will end, Cork.”
“No, but it’s one hell of a detour off the yellow brick road. What do we do?”
“What can we do? We tell her how we feel, we listen, we pray, we hope, and whatever she decides, we’re there for her.”
“Couldn’t I just spank her and send her to her room?”
“You never spanked her.”
“Maybe it’s not too late.”
She kissed the top of my head. “Ready for bed?”
“Let me check on Stevie and Walleye, then I’ll be up.”
I wandered out to the tent in the backyard. My son was in his sleeping bag, snoring softly. Walleye lay beside him. The old dog lifted his head when I peeked through the flap, and his tail brushed the tent floor.
A boy and his dog. Only, the dog belonged to someone else and would be going back when the sun came up.
I wasn’t looking forward to morning. To wresting from my son his very good friend. To telling Meloux the truth about his own son. To listening while my daughter and the father of her baby tried to sort out what the hell their future might be.
I stood there in the dark of my backyard thinking that sometimes life sucks and that’s all there is to it.
FOURTEEN
I was up early. Stevie walked into the kitchen from the backyard while I was making coffee. He rubbed his sleepy eyes.
“Hungry, guy?” I asked.
He nodded. “But I should feed Walleye first.”
From the pantry, he took the bag of dried dog food we’d bought and went back outside. Through the kitchen window, I watched him fill the bowl-he’d insisted we buy a special dish for Walleye-then he sat in the grass and petted the dog while it ate. I saw his lips move, talking to his friend. When Walleye was finished, Stevie returned to the kitchen and put the dog food back in the pantry.
“After breakfast, you want to go with me when I take him to Henry?” I asked.
He looked dismal. “Okay.”
We had raisin bran and orange juice I’d made in a pitcher from a can of frozen Minute Maid. I drank coffee. We were rinsing our dishes in the sink when Jo came in, wearing her white robe.
“We’re off to see Meloux,” I told her.
“We have to take Walleye back,” Stevie explained, sounding brave. Jo sat down and motioned Stevie to her. She hugged him. “I’m sure Henry misses him. He’s all alone out there.”
“Yeah.”
You could tell he understood, but it didn’t make him want to do cartwheels.
“How about you get Walleye into the Bronco,” I said to him. “I’ll be right there.”
When he was gone, Jo looked up at me and said, “I didn’t realize this would be so hard on him.”
I poured her a cup of coffee. “He’ll be fine.”
“You know, a turtle’s not much of a pet.”
“Don’t start, Jo.” I handed her the coffee. “I thought I heard Jenny upstairs.”
She took a sip. “She’s throwing up in the bathroom. I think she’ll go back to bed for a while after that. As soon as you get home, we should all talk.”
I leaned down and kissed her cheek. “I’ll come back in a gentle mood, promise.”
Stevie was quiet in the Bronco. He kept his arm around Walleye, who sat between us, tongue hanging out, watching through the windshield. Walleye had always seemed to possess much of the same reasonable sensibility and patience as Meloux, but I’d never had much experience with dogs and didn’t know whether it was common for pets to resemble the personalities of the people who kept them.