bet they were. I can even picture Joseph tucking you into bed at night and you dreaming dreams of being a carpenter like your dad and taking his tools to show and tell.”
“As a matter of fact, I was pretty handy with a hammer.”
“See! Is it too much to ask that your eyes were those of a real boy who saw in Joseph a real father—the everything plus a little more that dads, good dads, are supposed to be to their sons, to their children?”
“You got some serious issues.”
“And you’re thinking to yourself right now, ‘Why didn’t I become a fucking carpenter?’”
“Touché, Hank.”
“Pregnant?” I say. “How’d this happen?”
“How?” Laura says. “Well, Hank, when a man and a woman…”
“That’s not what I meant. We were careful.”
“We weren’t careful every time.”
“Okay once, but that was our first…” Laura arches her eyebrows.
“No way.”
“I’ve done the math.”
“Come on.”
“We got pregnant the first time we ever had sex.”
“Back in May?”
“That would be when we first had sex, yes.”
“A two for one deal I guess.”
“A two for what?”
“Never mind,” I say. Laura is unfocused. Good. As much as I might want to scrutinize the tragic irony of getting my high school sweetheart pregnant at the exact same moment I lost my virginity, this conversation is best left on the cutting room floor.
“So, what do we do now?”
“Just find a way to get through it.”
“What did your parents say?”
“My parents?”
“I assume you told them.”
“Are you high?”
“You’re going to start showing pretty soon. I’m surprised you aren’t showing already. I’m surprised no one has noticed.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll handle it.”
“You’ll handle it? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means what it means.”
My parochial school teachers gather behind me in the shadow of memory, behind them the images that freak me out above all others from my Catholic education. To the teachers’ left is the crucifixion in all its graphic splendor, right down to Jesus’ wounds on his hands and feet—the wounds I could never resist fingering on the oversized crucifix that hung over my bed. “The wounds your sins created and continue to infect,” the nuns used to be so fond of reminding me. To my teachers’ right, a triptych of photos proceeding by trimester—a translucent arm and leg floating on top of a quarter in a pool of amniotic fluid, a pruned corpse placed in a miniature casket for a Pro-Life photo op, and of course the ubiquitous black garbage bag overflowing with the bloodied, grizzled body parts of dead babies.
“No, Laura.”
“I’ve already made up my mind, Hank.”
“But how can you get the procedure without…”
“My parents’ permission?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m eighteen years old. Don’t need their permission. I have an appointment in two weeks at a clinic down in Jeffersonville.”
“Two weeks? Isn’t that moving a little fast?”
“Fast? I’ve been pregnant since before Memorial Day. I should’ve done this last mon—”
“I don’t want you to get an abortion!”
It takes me awhile to find my way to the words, but I say them. If anything, I think my candor strengthens Laura’s resolve.
“It’s not your decision to make,” Laura says. “I think maybe you just should go home now.”
“But I’m heading out for Hoosier Boys State tomorrow morning. We can’t just leave things like this.”
“My appointment is still fifteen days away, and nothing’s going to change in the next week. I’ll be here when you get back.”
“Laura, I can’t leave now. I can’t let you do this.”
She grabs me and kisses me on the lips. She reaches her arms around me and leans into my ear. “I’m not asking you to do anything, so don’t say something you’re going to regret. I’ve dropped a lot on you tonight. It’s taken me a month to deal with this.”
“A month? You’ve known for a month?”
“At least that long. I’ve been taking a pregnancy test about every other day since the beginning of June, hoping it’ll come up negative or that I’ve spontaneously miscarried without knowing about it.”
“A month, Laura?”
“My point being, I’m sure as hell going to give you more than a half hour to…”
“To come around?” I wiggle from her grasp, open the car door. “Is that what you want me to do?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact.”
“And what if I never come around?”
“I don’t want to think about that right now.”
“Well, maybe you should.”
“Come on, Hank.”
“This is a huge deal to me.”
“Are you trying to make this a Catholic thing?”
“It’s a little more than a thing, Laura. It’s my faith.”
“I realize that, and I’m trying to be respectful here.”
“Well, you’re failing miserably.”
“Okay then, what’s your faith say about premarital sex, condoms, or masturbation?”
“That’s different.”
“Really? If they keep track of those things, my guess is you’ve masturbated your way to hell and back by now.”
“I’m going
