Jenny quickly adjusted her clothes and sighed with relief. She thought she’d heard her Great-Aunt Lucy coming upstairs to check on her, but it was only her overactive imagination. A response, perhaps, to the guilt she felt keeping a secret from her aunt.
Tossing her arm across her eyes in exasperation, Jenny took a deep breath and thought about how much longer she could hide the paunch of her belly from her great-aunt. By her calculations, she was about four months along and showing a lot more than any of the movie stars she constantly saw in the tabloids. She tossed the STAR magazine she was reading across the bed and went over the events that led to this “mishap”.
She’d met Eric at a party during her first semester at college. He was a bit on the dorky side, which meant she’d noticed him before. He wore glasses because he needed them, and sat in the back of her sociology class, playing on his iPad instead of taking notes. She spotted him at the party standing up against a wall, bobbing his head to the music.
Feeling brave after a beer or two, she happily approached him.
“Hey, great party isn’t it? I’m Jenny. You’re in my sociology class.”
Eric adjusted his glasses and quickly straightened up to his full height.
“Hey. I’m Eric. You… want to dance?”
Taken aback by his offer, she shrugged and smiled.
Before she could change her mind, Eric placed a hand on her waist and escorted her to the dance floor. He had been a decent dancer and, after two years together, an even better boyfriend.
Jenny’s phone rang, breaking up her reminiscing. She looked at the number, but didn’t recognize it. She answered anyway.
“Hey, you! I called your dorm number, but you didn’t answer. Where are you hiding?”
It was Eric!
“Hi, wow, did you already forget we’re on Christmas break? Does studying abroad kill your sense of time?”
He laughed. “I completely forgot! It’s been crazy here. We’re going on an excavation site in a few.”
Eric was spending his junior year abroad working with his archaeology instructor in Peru. Jenny smiled as she thought about his sense of adventure, something she loved about him.
“I doubt I’ll have reception in Middle of Nowhere Peru,” Eric said, “but I just wanted to hear your voice before I left. You doing okay?”
She looked down at her belly and lied back against her pillow. “Yeah, I’m all right. Just, you know, tired.”
“I wish I weren’t so far away. I didn’t want you to do this on your own. Did you talk to your aunt yet?”
“I really don’t want to talk about it.” Jenny started to tear up.
Strangely enough, Eric had taken the news of her pregnancy surprisingly well. It had been nothing like the traumatic television specials, where the boy flips out and tells the girl he wants nothing to do with her. In fact, Eric had only been supportive.
Jenny reasoned it was because he was an only child. Eric had told her how hard his mom had tried to get pregnant again, only to suffer several miscarriages.
On the other end of the phone, Eric said, “Do you want me to talk to Lucy? Maybe we could do it together?”
Jenny laughed. “Really? Like a conference call? We’ll just put you on Skype and you can tell her that I’m pregnant?”
“That could work! You want to do it now? I have to go soon, but…”
“Eric, you’re crazy.” She smiled even though part of her still felt twisted in knots. “I’ll handle it. She’ll probably hate me and kick me out, but I’ll handle it.”
“She wouldn’t do that. Your aunt loves you, Jen-Jen. You know that.”
Jenny shook her head even though Eric couldn’t see. “She’ll be so disappointed. I’m her last living relative and I’m a screw up. A stupid, stupid screw up.”
“Jenny, don’t. You’re not a screw up…”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one walking around with a tiny human being latched onto your uterus, waiting to change absolutely everything about your life. It’s like, ‘Hey Aunt Lucy, Merry Christmas… from me and my unborn child!’”
“Jenny, stop,” Eric said. His voice was warm still, but she could tell he was getting concerned. “It will change everything, but not necessarily for the worst. I know it’s not easy for you. I just think this baby is special. I wish you saw it that way.”
It was hard to see it any way but poorly. Jenny was twenty-years-old, had no employment outlook, was dead broke, and couldn’t even remember her own mom!
She said, “How will I even be a good mother? I can barely even take care of myself!”
“Babe, I didn’t call to make you upset. I know this is hard. I don’t know what else to say. I don’t know how to help. I don’t know anything.”
Jenny heard the sound of defeat in his voice and immediately softened her tone. “I’m just upset, Eric. I’ll talk to Aunt Lucy today. It’ll be okay. It has to be.”
They decided to change the subject for a bit and talked about their plans for next semester.
“Call me once you talk to her.”
“Eric, you’re going to be in Timbuktu!”
“Timbuktu’s in Africa. Wrong continent.”
“Whatever.”
“Leave me a message at least. Tell me how it went.”
“Okay. I will. I love you.”
“I love you, too, Jen-Jen.”
Jenny hung up once they exchanged good-byes. She was starving and needed to head downstairs.
“Aunt Lucy?” Jenny called walking down the steps. She arrived at the bottom of the stairs and turned to enter the living room. She found her aunt sitting in front of the television, dozing off.
Jenny touched Lucy’s shoulder, gently shaking her awake.
Lucy woke up with a start and adjusted her glasses. “Hi, dear. Were you on the phone?”
“Yeah, just talking to Eric.” Jenny turned away from her aunt and headed towards the kitchen. She started rummaging through the cabinet.
“I cooked spaghetti last night before you arrived,” Aunt Lucy said. She grabbed the bowl from the refrigerator. “Here. There’s some still left if you want. I know how much you like it.”
“Aw, thanks!”
Jenny reached for the bowl of spaghetti. Just as she took it from her aunt’s hands, she caught a whiff of the rich tomato and basil scent. Normally she would devour bowl after bowl of the meal, but today the thought made her instantly sick.
Jenny turned quickly to disguise the wave of nausea. She stuffed the spaghetti back inside the refrigerator, saying, “I think I’ll just eat a banana instead.”
“Really?”
Lucy sat down on the bar stool across from Jenny. She slowly stretched her fingers out, rubbing her knuckles gently.
As she peeled back the skin of a banana, Jenny wondered if maybe her aunt’s arthritis was acting up again. She looked at her aunt’s face, noting the slight wrinkles around her eyes and the deep creases of her smile lines.
Her aunt caught her staring and smiled.
“I know. I’m getting old.”
Lucy then leaned forward, propping her elbows on the table and resting her chin in her hands.
“So,” Lucy said, “how far along are you?”
Little pieces of banana flew out of Jenny’s mouth before she caught herself and swallowed hard. She stood in silence, not knowing what to say.
She closed her eyes and, like a little girl, wished she could disappear.
She was afraid of this moment. She was afraid to hear the disappointment in her aunt’s voice. She started to cry as she slowly looked at her aunt, the only mother she actually had known and the one person she never wanted to disappoint.
Through her tears, Jenny asked, “How did you know?”
“Let’s see… You didn’t want to come home for Thanksgiving, but you didn’t want me to come see you either. You hate the foods you used to love. You’re practically living in baggy sweatshirts and pajama pants. Oh, and you touch your stomach every other minute. In fact, you’re touching it now.”
Jenny glanced down. She quickly removed her hand from her stomach.
“Auntie Lucy, I am so, so, so sorry…”
Lucy abruptly cut her off. “Are you quitting school?”
“No, I–”
“Are you giving your baby up for adoption?”
“No, I–”
Her aunt asked sternly, “Then what are you sorry for?”
“For everything!”
As Jenny began to sob, her aunt stood up from her seat. The older woman wrapped her arms around the crying girl, gently rocking her.
It was more than Jenny could have hoped for, to be allowed to cry out her disappointment, fears and sense of failure.
“Jenny,” her aunt said, stroking her hair, “I would be a liar to say I’m not a little disappointed. But I love you like my own daughter. You didn’t have to hide this from me. A baby’s a blessing. Even when that blessing is delivered to a twenty-year-old who won’t pick up her own socks.”
Jenny pulled back to look at her aunt’s face. She wiped tears from her eyes.
In a cautious whisper, Jenny asked, “Do you think, maybe, the baby will look like Mom?”
Lucy smiled at Jenny, gently rubbed her face. She said, “I certainly hope so.”