“This morning. Her appointment’s at ten o’clock. She wanted me to ride with her, to the place. Only…” Andy gestured toward the windows. “I don’t even know if we’re riding today.”
“Okay.” Kayla took another sip of coffee. “It’s good that you told me.”
Andy’s eyes were wide. “Please don’t say anything to Morgan or her mom. Please. I promised her I wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t.” But even as she was promising, Kayla felt troubled. How would she feel if she learned that Andy or Ezra had gotten a medical procedure without her knowledge, and that some other adult had known? Even if it was something as insignificant as a piercing or a tattoo, she wouldn’t like it. She could only imagine how someone with the beliefs she assumed Lily held might feel about learning that another parent had aided and abetted in her daughter’s abortion.
Thank God, she thought, feeling relief, then guilt and shame, as she thought of her sister, her friends, and their daughters. Thank God I don’t have girls.
“I just—I want to help her. I want to make sure she’s safe. And I don’t know what the right thing is,” Andy said. Kayla felt her eyes sting as she thought, I have raised a good and decent child.
She sat, running through the possibilities in her mind. “How about this? Tell Morgan that, if she wants, she can talk to me—”
“No!” Andy said. “She doesn’t want anyone else to know! She made me promise I wouldn’t tell anyone.” Andy looked, if it were possible, even more miserable.
Kayla held up her hand. “Tell her,” she continued, “that you promise your mother won’t freak out or get mad or tell anyone else. Tell her that your mother will go to the appointment with her, if she wants an adult to be there with her.”
Andy’s eyes were wide. “You’d do that? You’ll help her?”
Kayla nodded, realizing, as she did it, that her mind was made up. What would she have wanted, if she’d been in Morgan’s situation? Or if Ezra had been the girl she’d longed for, and had gotten in trouble? “Yes,” she said. “I will.” She put down her mug and got to her feet. “Go get dressed,” she said. She waited until she heard Andy’s door close, before she pulled out her phone and tapped out a text. It takes a village to raise a child, the saying went. So, now, it would take a village to help one.
* * *
“Okay,” said Abby, pulling her scrunchie out of her hair and wrapping it around her wrist. She’d poured herself a cup of coffee but hadn’t touched it since Kayla had started to talk. “Tell me one more time.”
Kayla kept her voice low. “Andy told me that Morgan has an appointment at the Planned Parenthood in Syracuse at ten o’clock this morning. She asked him to go with her. She told him that her mother doesn’t know, and that her mom can’t find out.” Abby nodded. “I guess her family’s very religious, and she thinks they’d be angry if they found out,” Kayla continued. “I know that Andy just wants to be a good friend to Morgan. But I’m worried that her parents are going to find out and be angry at the people who knew.” She swallowed hard. “And maybe get the authorities involved. I don’t want Andy getting in that kind of trouble.” She swallowed again, dropping her voice. “And, if I’m being completely honest, I don’t want to get in trouble, either.”
“Oof,” Abby said. “Okay. Let me think.” She rocked back and forth in her chair at the dining room table, turning her scrunchie around and around her wrist. Kayla wondered how old Abby was, and if she’d ever been through this kind of situation before. “Morgan’s fifteen, right?”
“Fifteen. And from Ohio. She needs a parent or guardian’s consent to get it done there. The law’s been challenged, but right now…” She shrugged. “I’m worried that her parents could go after Andy. Or me. Or you, now, I guess.” She smiled weakly. “Sorry.”
“Or Breakaway,” Abby said, half to herself.
“I’m—I don’t know what to do,” Kayla said. She lifted her hands, then let them fall. “The last thing I want is to force a fifteen-year-old to have a baby.” She bit her lip. “The only thing I want less than that is for my son to end up in trouble because he tried to help.”
“Okay,” said Abby, squaring her shoulders as she nodded.