Somewhere around the sixth or seventh tree, Aunt Linda stopped asking, and they eventually made the selection without me. Once it was paid for, I watched as two guys wearing overalls tied the tree to the roof of the car, and we climbed back in.
For whatever reason, the ride back to the ferry reminded me of the ride to the airport on my last morning in Seattle. Both my mom and my dad had seen me off, which was kind of a surprise, since my dad had barely been able to look at me since he’d learned I was pregnant. They walked me to the gate and waited with me until it was time to board. Both of them were really quiet, and I wasn’t saying much, either. But as time inched forward toward the departure, I remember telling my mom that I was afraid. In truth, I was terrified to the point that my hands had begun to shake.
There were a lot of people around us and she must have noticed the trembling, because she took my hands and squeezed them. Then she led me to a less crowded gate, where we could have some privacy.
“I’m afraid, too.”
“Why are you afraid?” I asked.
“Because you’re my daughter. All I do is worry about you. And what happened is…unfortunate.”
Unfortunate. She’d been using that word a lot lately. Next, she’d remind me that leaving was for my own good.
“I don’t want to go,” I said.
“We’ve talked about this,” she said. “You know it’s for your own good.”
Bingo.
“I don’t want to leave my friends.” By that point, it was all I could do to choke out the words. “What if Aunt Linda hates me? What if I get sick and I have to go to the hospital? They don’t even have a hospital there.”
“Your friends will still be here when you get back,” she assured me. “And I know it seems like a long time, but May will come more quickly than you realize. As for Linda, she used to help pregnant girls just like you when she was at the convent. You remember when I told you that? She’ll take care of you. I promise.”
“I don’t even know her.”
“She has a good heart,” my mom said, “or you wouldn’t be going there. As for the hospital, she’ll know what to do. But even in the worst-case scenario, her friend Gwen is a trained midwife. She’s delivered lots of babies.”
I wasn’t sure that made me feel any better.
“What if I hate it there?”
“How bad can it be? It’s right on the beach. And besides, you remember our discussion, right? That it might be easier in the short run if you stay, but in the long run, it will surely make things harder for you.”
She meant gossip, not only about me but about my family as well. It might not be the 1950s, but there was still a stigma attached to unwed teenage pregnancies, and even I had to admit that sixteen was way too young to be a mom. If word got out, I would always be that girl to neighbors, other students at school, the people at church. To them, I’d always be that girl who got knocked up after her freshman year. I would have to endure their judgmental stares and condescension; I’d have to ignore their whispers as I walked past them in the hallways. The rumor mill would churn with questions about who adopted the baby, about whether I ever wanted to see the child again. Though they might not say it to me, they would wonder why I hadn’t bothered to use birth control or insist that he wear a condom; I knew that many parents—including friends of the family—would use me as an example to their own children as that girl, the one who’d made poor decisions. And all this while waddling the school hallways and having to pee every ten minutes.
Oh yeah, my parents had spoken with me about all of it more than a few times. My mom could tell, though, that I didn’t want to revisit it, so she changed the subject. She did that a lot when she didn’t want to argue, especially when we were in public.
“Did you enjoy your birthday?”
“It was okay.”
“Just okay?”
“I barfed all morning. It was kind of hard for me to get excited.”
My mom brought her hands together. “I’m still glad you had a chance to visit with your friends.”
Because it’s the last time you’ll see them for a long, long time, she didn’t have to add. “I can’t believe I’m not going to be home for Christmas.”
“I’m sure Aunt Linda will make it special.”
“It still won’t be the same,” I whined.
“No,” my mom admitted. “It probably won’t be. But we’ll have a nice visit when I see you in January.”