focused, Lily asked good questions.
No sooner had their entrées come, though – chicken with cannellini beans for Lily, salmon with artichokes for Susan – when a pair of Susan’s teachers interrupted to say hello. As soon as they left, Susan asked Lily about the AP Chem test she’d had that morning. Though Lily replied volubly, her answers were heavy on irrelevant facts, and her brightness seemed forced. She picked at her food, eating little.
More worried than ever, Susan searched her daughter’s face. It was heart-shaped, as sweet as always, and was framed by long, shiny, sable hair. The hair was a gift from her father, while her eyes – Susan’s eyes – were hazel and clear, her skin creamy and smooth.
She didn’t look sick, Susan decided. Vulnerable, perhaps. Maybe haunted. But not sick.
Even when Lily crinkled her nose and complained about the restaurant’s heavy garlic smell, Susan didn’t guess. She was too busy assuring herself that those clear eyes ruled out drug use and, as for alcohol, she had never seen bottles, empty or otherwise, in Lily’s room. She didn’t actively search, as in checking behind clutter on the highest shelves. But when she returned clean laundry to drawers or hung jeans in the closet, she saw nothing amiss.
Alcohol wouldn’t be a lure. Susan drank wine with friends, but rarely stocked up, so it wasn’t like Lily had a bar to draw from. Same with prescription drugs, though Susan knew how easy it was for kids to get them online. Rarely did a month go by without a student apprehended for this.
‘Mom?’
Susan blinked. ‘Yes, sweetheart?’
‘Look who’s distracted. What are you thinking about?’
‘You. Are you feeling all right?’
There was a flash of annoyance. ‘You keep asking me that.’
‘Because I worry,’ Susan said and, reaching across, laced her fingers through Lily’s. ‘You haven’t been the same since summer. So here I am, loving you to bits, and because you won’t say anything, I’m left to wonder whether it’s just being seventeen and needing your own space. Do I crowd you?’
Lily sputtered. ‘No. You’re the best mom that way.’
‘Is it school? You’re stressed.’
‘Yes,’ the girl said, but her tone implied there was more, and her fingers held Susan’s tightly.
‘College apps?’
‘I’m okay with those.’
‘Then Calculus.’ The Calc teacher was the toughest in the math department, and Susan had worried Lily would be intimidated. But what choice was there? Raymond Dunbar was thirty years Susan’s senior and had vocally opposed her ascension to the principalship. If she asked him to ease up, he would accuse her of favoritism.
But Lily said, ‘Mr Dunbar isn’t so bad.’
Susan jiggled Lily’s fingers. ‘If I were to pinpoint it, I’d say the change came this summer. I’ve been racking my brain, but from everything you told me, you loved your job. I know, I know, you were at the beach, but watching ten kids under the age of eight is hard, and summer families can be the worst.’
Lily scooped back her hair. ‘I love kids. Besides, I was with Mary Kate, Abby, and Jess,’ her three best friends. Daughters of Susan’s best friends, all three girls were responsible. Abby occasionally lacked direction, like her mom Pam, and Jessica had a touch of the rebel, as Sunny did not. But Mary Kate was as steady as her mom Kate, who was like a sister to Susan. With Mary Kate along, Lily couldn’t go wrong.
Not that Lily wasn’t steady herself, but Susan knew about peer pressure. If she had learned one thing as a teacher it was that the key to a child’s success lay in no small part with the friends she kept.
‘And nothing’s up with them?’ she asked.
Lily grew guarded. ‘Has Kate said anything?’
Susan gentled. ‘Nothing negative. She always asks about you, though. You’re her sixth child.’
‘But has she said anything about Mary Kate? Is she worried about her like you’re worried about me?’
Susan thought for a minute, then answered honestly. ‘She’s more sad than worried. Mary Kate is her youngest. Kate feels like she’s growing away from her, too. But Mary Kate isn’t my concern. You are.’ A burst of laughter came from several tables down. Annoyed by the intrusion, Susan shot the group a glance. When she turned back, Lily’s eyes held a frightened look.
Susan had seen that look a lot lately. It terrified her.
Desperate now, she held Lily’s hand even tighter and, in a low, frantic voice, said, ‘What is wrong? I’m supposed to know what girls your age are feeling and thinking, but lately with you, I just don’t. There are so many times when your mind is somewhere else – somewhere you won’t allow me to be. Maybe that’s the way it should be at your age,’ she acknowledged, ‘and it wouldn’t bother me if you were happy, but you don’t seem happy. You seem preoccupied. You seem afraid.’
‘I’m pregnant.’
Susan gasped. Freeing her hand, she sat straighter. She waited for a teasing smile, but there was none. And of course not. Lily woudn’t joke about something like this.
Her thoughts raced. ‘But – but that’s impossible. I mean, it’s not physically impossible, but it wouldn’t happen.’ When Lily said nothing, Susan pressed a hand to her chest and whispered, ‘Would it?’
‘I am,’ Lily whispered back.
‘What makes you think it?’
‘Six home tests, all positive.’
‘You’re late?’
‘Not late. Missed. Three times.’
‘Three? Omigod, why didn’t you tell me?’ Susan cried, thinking of all the other things a missed period could mean. Being pregnant didn’t make sense, not with Lily. But the child didn’t lie. If she said she was pregnant, she believed it herself – not that it was true. ‘Home tests can be totally misleading.’
‘Nausea, tiredness, bloating?’
‘I don’t see bloating,’ Susan said defensively, because if her daughter was three months pregnant, she would have seen it.
‘When was the last time you saw me naked?’
‘In the hot tub at the spa,’ she replied without missing a beat.
‘That was in June, Mom.’
Susan did miss a beat then, but only one. ‘It must be something else. You don’t even have a boyfriend.’ She caught her breath. ‘Do you?’ Had she really missed something? ‘Who is he?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Doesn’t matter? Lily, if you are—’ She couldn’t say the word aloud. The idea that her daughter was sexually active was totally
