“I was going to suggest that we do some shopping after church on Sunday for just that reason.”
“You could tell?”
“No. But it’s about that time. I brought a lot of young pregnant girls shopping when I was a nun.”
“Is it possible to buy pants that don’t make my situation so obvious? I mean, I know everyone’s going to know, but…”
“It’s fairly easy to hide in winter because sweaters and jackets can cover a lot. I doubt anyone will see your baby bump until March. Maybe even April, and once it does show, you can always keep a lower profile then, if that’s what you want.”
“Do you think other people have figured it out? Like Bryce did? And that they’re talking about me?”
My aunt seemed to choose her words carefully. “I think there’s some curiosity about why you’re here, but no one has asked me directly. If they do, I’ll just tell them that it’s personal. They’ll know not to press.”
I liked the way she was watching out for me. Gazing toward the open door of my room, I thought about what I’d read earlier in the Sylvia Plath book. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Do you ever feel like you’re all alone?”
She lowered her gaze, an odd expression on her face. “All the time,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
*
I’m not going to bore you with the details of that first week, because they were pretty much the same, varying only by subject. I finished rewriting my paper and Bryce had me rewrite it a second time before he was finally satisfied. I slowly but steadily began to catch up on my homework, and on Thursday, we spent most of the day studying for Friday’s geometry test. By then, I knew my brain would be too tired to take it after my aunt got back from work, so she came home from the shop to proctor the exam at eight the next morning, before Bryce arrived.
I was pretty nervous. As much as I’d studied, I was terrified of making stupid mistakes or seeing a problem that might as well have been written in Chinese. Right before my aunt handed me the test, I said a little prayer, even though I didn’t think it would do any good.
Fortunately, I thought I understood what most of the questions were asking and then worked through them step by step the way Bryce had shown me. Even so, when I finally handed it over, I still felt like I swallowed a tennis ball. I’d scored in the fifties or sixties on the previous tests and quizzes and couldn’t bear to watch my aunt as she graded it. I didn’t want to see her using the red pencil to cross things out, so I pointedly stared out the window. When Aunt Linda eventually brought the test back to me, she was smiling, but I couldn’t tell whether it was out of pity or because I’d done well. She put the test on the table in front of me, and after taking a deep breath, I finally had the courage to check.
I hadn’t aced it. Didn’t even get an A.
But the B I got was closer to an A than a C, and when I instinctively squealed with joy and disbelief, Aunt Linda held out her arms and I fell into them, the two of us hugging in the kitchen for a long time, and I realized how much I’d needed that.
*
When Bryce arrived, he reviewed the exam before handing it back to my aunt.
“I’ll do better the next time,” he said, even though I was the one who had taken it.
“I’m thrilled,” I said. “And don’t bother trying to feel bad, because I’m not going to accept it.”
“Fair enough,” he responded, but I could still see it was bothering him.
After Aunt Linda gathered up all my work—she shipped everything to my school on Fridays—and started toward the door, Bryce glanced at me, his expression uneasy.
“I wanted to ask you something,” he said. “I know it’s kind of last-minute and that I have to ask your aunt, too, but I didn’t want to do that until I talked to you first. Because if you don’t want to, then there’s no reason to ask her, right? And, obviously, if she’s not okay with the idea, then no worries.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You know about the New Bern flotilla, right?”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“Oh,” he said. “I should have guessed that. New Bern is a small town inland from Morehead City, and every year, the town hosts a Christmas flotilla. It’s basically a bunch of boats decorated in Christmas lights that float down the river like a parade. Afterwards, my family has dinner and then we visit this amazing decorated property in Vanceboro. Anyway, it’s an annual family tradition and it’s all happening tomorrow.”