The Beach Quilt (5 page)

The stars seemed very high and very bright, like brittle shards of glass, like a sprinkling of crystals. Sarah looked up at them through the window of Justin's car and was amazed that given the dread secret she was keeping she could still respond to the beauty of the night sky.

Justin had picked her up after dinner. He had wanted to go to his apartment, but Sarah suggested they go to the diner in the next town of Taylor's Well. While she wanted privacy for what she had to tell him, she also feared being alone with him. She simply couldn't trust herself. He might talk her into another act of foolishness—sex—and that would only drag her further down into an already terrifying emotional hole.

Justin had obliged (he was easygoing; you could say that about him), and now they were sitting in a small booth at the back of the diner. There was an old farmer at the counter nursing a cup of coffee. A couple about twenty-five years old or so sat at a table near the door eating pancakes. Otherwise the diner was empty.

Only one waitress was on duty, a stout, older woman named Jackie with a ready smile and an air of reassurance about her. She immediately reminded Sarah of the Aunt Bee character on those really old Andy Griffith shows. For one insane moment, Sarah wondered what Jackie would say if she spilled her secret to her, if she begged her for help, for a secret place she could hide until the baby was born and then . . .

“What can I bring you?” Jackie asked brightly.

Sarah ordered a cup of tea, though she doubted she could swallow anything; she had hardly been able to eat her dinner. Justin ordered a soda and a piece of devil's food cake. Sarah waited until Jackie had brought their drinks and Justin's dessert and gone off to check on the other customers. She had to clear her throat twice before the words would come out.

“Justin,” she said. “I have something important to tell you.”

“Wait a minute, babe. I'm getting a text from Buck.”

“Justin,” she said, feeling her heart begin to race. “Please. It's really important.”

Justin sighed, smiled, and put his cell phone on the table.

“Okay. I'm all ears. Whassup?”

Sarah leaned forward over the table. “I'm pregnant.”

She leaned back. Justin's expression remained fixed for a long moment. He still wore that anticipatory smile. He must be in shock, she thought. She wondered if she should say it again, but then, the smile was gone.

“Oh, shit,” he said.

“Justin.”

“Okay. Sorry. I mean, wow.”

“Yeah,” Sarah said with a small, bitter laugh. “Wow.”

Justin shook his head. “But I thought that when nothing happened right after the condom broke . . .”

Sarah bit back an angry reply.
God,
she thought,
how stupid can he be?
What had he thought would happen? That her belly would immediately swell to gigantic proportions? Oh, what had she been thinking?!

“Have you told your parents yet?” he asked now, toying with his fork.

“No. I wanted you to know first.”

“Oh.” Sarah thought he looked confused, as if he truly couldn't understand why he should be so privileged. “So,” he said after a moment, “are you going to keep it?”

“Not ‘it,' ” she corrected, still holding firmly to her patience. It would serve no purpose to fight with Justin, not now. Not now when she needed him. “The baby. And yes, I am going to keep him. Or her.”

Justin put down the fork. “Huh,” he said. “Look, are you sure you shouldn't consider an abortion? I mean, that would solve everything. And I could help with the cost. I have some money saved, not a lot, but how much could it be, right? A couple hundred dollars?”

“I don't know,” Sarah admitted. “I think it's more than that. But—”

“And I could ask my boss for an extra shift or something,” he went on, excitement in his voice. “Maybe pick up another job at night for a while, just until I get enough money to pay for, you know, it. My buddy Jim's uncle runs an overnight delivery service. I think he ships lumber. He sometimes needs guys on a Saturday night to drive trucks down to Vermont.”

Sarah looked at his flushed and expectant face and sighed. “No, Justin,” she said.

“Why not?” Justin smiled. “I like wood.”

“It's not about the lumber, Justin. It's that an abortion is out of the question.”

Justin sat back heavily in his seat. “Oh. Are you, like, one hundred percent sure? Because you wouldn't even have to tell your parents about it. We could keep it a secret, right?”

Sarah felt slightly sick to her stomach. She realized that she had no clear idea of the legalities involved. Was she too young to have an abortion without her parents' permission? Would everybody, even strangers, have to know? But those questions were irrelevant.

“I'm not having an abortion, Justin,” she repeated. “That's final.”

Justin sighed. He rubbed his face. Sarah noticed that his nails were dirty. He had forgotten to clean them again. Still, they were wonderful hands, masculine, and . . . Sarah closed her eyes, remembering his hands cupping her face when they kissed.

“Okay,” Justin said. “Then I'll marry you.”

Sarah opened her eyes. For a moment she wondered if she had heard him correctly. But she knew that she had. She also knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he really didn't want to get married to her or to anyone at this point in his life. He was only nineteen; he had laughingly admitted more than once that he didn't act very mature for his age. His boss had told him that, too. So had his teachers in high school.

More to the point, Sarah thought,
she
didn't want to get married to Justin or to anyone else, either, not at the age of sixteen. The idea was appalling. Marriage, if it happened at all, was for
after
you went to college and traveled to someplace exotic and then came back and got a good job.

Still, a part of her was touched by Justin's offer, as insincere and impulsive as it probably was. After all, it
had
come only after he had urged her to get an abortion.

“Oh, Justin,” she said finally, her eyes tearing just a little. “Thank you, but that won't work.”

“Why not?” he asked, leaning forward again. “I mean it. I'll marry you.”

“I know that you would. But . . .” And for one little second, Sarah hesitated. It might be all right, at least for a time. A solution to the problem of having a baby all alone. But then what? Where would they be five years down the line? Forget about five years. What about five months? “No,” she said firmly. “It wouldn't be right for either of us.”

Justin picked up his fork again and stabbed it into the devil's food cake on his plate. “So what are you saying?” he asked, scowling down at the mess he was making.

“I . . . What do you mean?”

“You don't want me around the kid. That's it, right?”

Sarah shook her head. “No, Justin, that's not what I mean,” she protested. “I just . . . I just don't want to get married.”

“To me.”

Sarah couldn't speak for a moment. Finally, she said, “Yes. To you.”

“The father of the kid.”

“No, Justin—” Sarah reached across to take Justin's hand, but he pulled it away. The fork clattered to the table. Sarah flinched.

“Well,” he said finally, refusing to meet her eye, “I guess I'm supposed to say something like, don't worry. I'll be there for you anyway.”

“Yes. I mean, if you want to say it. I know I'm going to need help, a lot of it, but I don't really know what kind yet.”

“Right.” Justin suddenly looked up and around the diner. Sarah wondered if he was afraid someone had overheard the conversation. Well, what if they had? It wouldn't be long before everyone in Yorktide and even in Taylor's Well knew that Sarah Bauer was pregnant.

“I think I'm probably due some time in August,” she said.

He briefly looked back to her. Then he made a show of checking the time on his cell phone. “Look,” he said. “I gotta run now. I forgot I got a work thing.” In one swift move, he was on his feet.

Sarah swallowed painfully against the lump suddenly lodged in her throat. Justin didn't work in the evenings. He was lying to get away from a supremely uncomfortable conversation. If only
she
could run away from the conversation—from everything—so easily.

There was one more thing she had to ask, though she would have bet all the money she had that she already knew the answer.

“So,” she said, when he was about to turn away. “I guess we're not going out anymore.”

Justin gave a bitter little laugh, and his face flushed with what Sarah was afraid was anger. “Uh, well, yeah. I mean, you don't want to marry me. Why should I hang around to be your boyfriend? Why should I hang around at all?”

“Because . . .” But how could she explain to him what he should already know? “It's okay,” she said. “Anyway, I'll let you know about—things.”

“Sure, whatever. Take care of yourself, Sarah.”

And then he was gone.

Sarah sat alone in the booth, very still, for some minutes, before she became aware that the waitress was hovering over her shoulder.

“You okay, honey?” the woman asked. “Your friend left in kind of a hurry.”

Sarah managed a smile. “He had to go to work,” she lied. She paid their bill, leaving Jackie a generous tip. Justin seemed to have forgotten they owed money for their drinks and cake. He also seemed to have forgotten that he had driven her to the diner in Taylor's Well and that short of calling her parents to come and fetch her, she had no way to get home other than to walk the four miles in the cold and dark.

Or maybe he hadn't forgotten at all. Maybe he was punishing her. Maybe he was really, really angry that she had turned down his offer of marriage. Maybe he was really, really angry that she had ruined his life.

Sarah zipped up her parka and pulled her wool hat down over her head. She walked slowly out into the frosty January night and turned toward the Yorktide road. She had gone only a few yards, just out of the welcoming lights from the diner, when a huge sob escaped her.
Oh, please,
she prayed, to whomever was there to hear.
Please don't leave me all alone!

Adelaide was going through her closet, looking for just the right thing. She and Jack were going out to dinner at one of the few restaurants that stayed open all winter. They didn't go out often, but they both believed in what Jack called the “restorative power” of a good, old-fashioned date. After more than fifteen years together, their sex life was still vibrant. The biggest fight they had ever had had been over tying up the garbage bags. Jack had insisted that knotting the ends of the bag was the way to go. Adelaide had argued that using a twist tie was safer. Afterward they had both laughingly admitted to having been really, really hungry when the argument broke out.

Adelaide wasn't entirely sure why they got along as swimmingly as they did (she loved that expression), but she wasn't about to waste time analyzing the relationship. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, that was her motto, at least when it came to her marriage.

She chose a navy silk blouse to wear with a tan wool skirt. Classic, elegant, and if she left the top buttons of the blouse unbuttoned, a wee bit provocative. A memory of her mother wearing a navy silk wrap dress popped into her head. She remembered feeling in awe of her attractive mother, and a bit shocked at the sexy figure the dress had shown her mother to have. Her parents must have been going out somewhere very special.

Nancy and Tom Morgan had often gone out alone together in the evenings. They had taken vacations alone, too, leaving the teenage Adelaide at home with a neighbor. From the time she had been old enough to be conscious of her role in the family, Adelaide had felt like an afterthought. Not unloved, just—unnecessary. She supposed that she had been a “mistake,” or, if not, that soon after her birth her mother and father had realized that she was a sort of third wheel, a sometimes cumbersome part of what had been a smoothly functioning unit of two. It explained the fact of Adelaide's being an only child.

For Adelaide and Jack, having only one child had come down to a financial decision. They had wanted a certain lifestyle for their family and though all sorts of unexpected things might happen along the way to undermine that level of comfort, by choosing to limit the size of their family they could exercise some small control over the future. One education, one person to feed, clothe, and indulge, one wedding, maybe even one trip to Europe—it would all cost a lot less than providing for two or three people. The principal of a small-town high school and the owner of a small, seasonal shop were never going to bring in the big bucks.

Adelaide finished dressing and went over to the jewelry box on her dresser. She chose the pearl stud earrings Jack had given her for an anniversary, her favorite long gold chain, and a gold link bracelet her parents had given her when she graduated from college. The black pumps would have to stay home; winter boots were the only logical choice. Adelaide smiled when she thought of how Cordelia grumbled so loudly about being forced to live in big ugly boots for four months a year. She wouldn't be surprised if someday her daughter moved to Los Angeles just so she could wear sandals and heels year round.

So unlike Sarah! Since the age of three, Cordelia and Sarah had been inseparable, opposites who seemed to thrive on their differences. Cordelia had been a chubby, cherubic toddler and had never entirely lost that air of cuteness and innocence. Sarah, on the other hand, had always been spare and lean and serious, an old soul in a child's body. At sixteen she carried herself with the air of a much older person. Standing next to Cordelia, she looked years older, rather than only months.

It would be wonderful, Adelaide thought, if the girls always remained friends. Things would change over time and maybe drastically, but that didn't mean they would
have
to abandon the relationship. Of course, that happened so often in life. Adelaide couldn't even remember the name of her best friend from grammar school and they had been joined at the hip for eight years.

Marriage was one of the factors that might come between the girls, and for all sorts of reasons. Sarah, she thought, would probably marry later in life if ever. She wanted to make a real difference in the world, and marriage could still inhibit a woman's freedoms. It was sad, but true.

On the other hand, Adelaide suspected that Cordelia would be married by the time she was out of her twenties. She would probably have two or three children eventually and be super active with the PTA and . . .

Adelaide almost laughed out loud. It was a total waste of time to guess at the future. For all she knew, Cordelia would suddenly undergo a spiritual revolution and run off to Tibet and become a nun, if American women were allowed to become Tibetan nuns. It was doubtful, but you never knew in life. The future would sort itself out in its own way no matter how much input you gave it.

There was a knock on the bedroom door. “Adelaide?”

She opened it to find Jack, dressed in the tweed blazer and dark slacks that she loved and looking very handsome and dapper in that English gentleman sort of way.

“You look lovely,” he said, reaching out to take her hand.

“Thank you,” she said with a smile.