Rachel's Hope. Carole Page Gift
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done, Mom. No lie! I did it in my free period. So can Ronnie come over?”
“Oh, Brian, please!”
“Listen, Mom, most of the time ninth graders don’t even want to hang out with guys in eighth grade.” Her son sat up, leaning forward, his neck and arms angular, his shoulders taut, as if somehow he had to impress upon her physically the importance of his request. She chose to ignore it.
“Brian—Brian, not tonight, please. Maybe tomorrow. Ask him for tomorrow night.”
The boy scowled. “Yeah, sure. He probably won’t want to come then.”
“Then he’s not much of a friend.”
“Aw, Mom, come off it.”
“That’s enough, Brian.” Rachel wasn’t winning this one at all. She didn’t want to contend with Brian now when there was so much on her mind, so much to do, to plan. She had already endured a couple of weeks of morning sickness, hiding out in the bathroom until David left for work so he wouldn’t guess the truth. She’d finally had enough of covering up her condition. She was determined to tell David tonight. But should she take Brian into her confidence? It might help to have him as her ally. She looked at him, searching his face, and wondered for a moment just who her son was now.
Last year, when Brian was twelve, he’d seemed small to Rachel; his face was plain and round, unmarked, still sweet, a child’s face. His body was still child-like soft and smooth. Young girls and boys seemed alike, all soft and smooth. They all had untouched faces, open and wide and wondering.
Now Brian was thirteen, and already his face had begun to close, to change, to take on new facets and meanings somewhere behind the eyes. Now his body was suddenly stretching, breaking through the softness, making angles of his arms and legs. In just one year a shrewdness and a new curiosity had registered on his face, around his mouth.
As if to confirm the unseen changes, Brian’s face was no longer smooth. Hints of pimples appeared on his chin and forehead. He was becoming someone Rachel wondered if she knew. It was too soon for this sort of thing, too soon. The changes, coming so fast, left Rachel a little bewildered at times, confused as to how she should handle her son. Should she treat him as a child? As a man? He was Brian, whoever Brian was becoming. But she could not think of Brian now.
She sat down beside him and put the potato chip bag on her lap. She rolled the slick edges of the bag between her fingers, unaware she was doing so. “Brian,” she said, “I didn’t want to go into this until I talked with your father, but I guess there’s no reason you can’t know now.”
“Know what, Mom?” He had slouched back against the cushions, his hazel eyes impassive, watching her.
“Do you remember when I went to the doctor’s for a checkup a couple of weeks ago? Well, I found out…I found out I’m going to have a baby.”
He sat up, suddenly alert The amazement in his voice was genuine. “You’re kidding, Mom.”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
His wide mouth curled at one corner. “A baby? That’s really something. I mean, I never thought of a baby. You aren’t too old or anything?”
Rachel’s irritation was returning. “No, I’m not too old,” she snapped. Then, more softly, “But it was a surprise to me, too.”
“Does Dad know?” he quizzed eagerly.
Rachel shook her head. “No, I haven’t told him yet.”
“Boy, will he be flipped out. When are you going to tell him?”
“I’ll tell him tonight, after dinner. That’s why I’d rather your friend come over another time.”
“Yeah, sure. Okay,” he said, nodding, then added, “But Dad won’t be home for dinner.”
A knot of disappointment tightened in her chest. “Why not?”
“He called a while go. I told him you were out shopping. He said he had to work late. Said he’d grab a bite on the way home.”
“Great.” She sighed. There goes my porterhouse-steaks-and-candlelight plan, she thought She knew she should have called David at the office to see if he’d be home at his usual time, but she’d had no chance.
“We still gotta eat,” Brian reminded her.
Rachel felt deflated. Her energy had vanished. “How about a hamburger?”
“Rad. How about the Hamburger House, where Dad takes us sometimes? They have great shakes.”
She was too tired to argue. “All right, if you get the food to go. I don’t feel like going in.”
Dutifully, her spirits ebbing, Rachel drove Brian to the Hamburger House and waited in the car while he went in for hamburgers, shakes and fries. She sat with the window rolled partly down, her polished fingernails lightly tapping the leather-wrapped steering wheel, her eyes momentarily catching a glimpse of passing strangers. She focused briefly on a gas station being torn down across the street, then turned her gaze to the restaurant’s neatly lettered window signs advertising the special of the week: Fudge Sundae Delight, with whipped cream and nuts.
The sky had remained the same. Dusky gray clouds ready to burst into drenching rain hovered overhead, swollen and heavy like a great woman in waiting, as she herself would be in time. Why didn’t it just rain and get it over with? Why did things have to stand still, horribly, oppressively still?
Rachel’s mind was somewhere else, her thoughts wandering, so she might have missed David and the girl entirely. At first she only vaguely realized it was David coming out the door, David and a young girl who looked familiar and yet was a stranger.
Rachel’s first impulse was to call out to her husband, to say, “Here I am, David. Funny to run into you here.” The impulse was squelched immediately by something else, a dread, a terrible feeling of being trapped in a bad dream. David was walking with some girl—a pretty, stylishly dressed blonde. Who was she? Why were they together? He was supposed to be at the office, working late.
Could Rachel be wrong? Could the man be someone who only looked like David? No. She watched as they strolled to a vehicle and climbed in. It was David’s fiery red sports car with the auto club sticker on the bumper. No doubt about it. The man was David. The way they had walked, the two of them, with a close, companionable air, her cheek nearly brushing his shoulder, and the way his hand touched her waist as he helped her into the car suggested there was something between them. They looked comfortable together, more than friendly; totally focused on each other in an intense way that filled Rachel’s heart with cold dread.
Rachel could feel it like a shock. They were more than acquaintances. Maybe even more than friends. There was something heavy going on, and the knowledge of it shot through Rachel’s body like hot gunfire, leaving her wrists and ankles weak. Without a word, with only an unintended glimpse, her worst suspicions had been confirmed and the plain facts made her numb. Her husband had strayed. Had found someone else. And while Rachel’s world reeled and spun around her, David and the girl simply got into his car and drove away without once seeing Rachel there at all.
“Are you hungry, David?” Rachel asked, watching her husband with cool, careful eyes.
“No,” he said. He was loosening his tie, pulling it off from around his neck. He looked weary but unruffled, his charcoal gray suit impeccable, his handsome features as boyishly appealing as ever. There was nothing to suggest this night wasn’t the same as every other night. “Where’s Brian?”
“In his room, studying.”
“Is there any cold soda in the fridge?”
“I