One line.
Now two.
Shit.
I got up from the toilet and set the test on the back of the toilet, simultaneously pulling up my drawers and pants while tearing out the package insert. "Read the results after 3 minutes." it said.
I looked at my watch. One more minute.
A minute later, still two lines, though now definitely darker. I started to tear up, and the all too familiar nausea that had accompanied my crying since I was 10 began as well. I quashed both the crying and the nausea as I was so versed at doing by now and stuffed the plastic wand into my small black leather purse.
Outside, I got into the blue Grand Marquis's passenger side and sighed. Garth Brooks playing on the radio, the faint smell of upholstery cleaner, old cigarettes, and Will's Drakkar Noir wafted around me inside the car.
"Well?" William asked, his hands gripping the steering wheel for dear life.
"I'm pregnant." I said, pulling out the stick with the offending lines to offer as proof.
"Fuck. Our parents are going to kill us."
"I know." I did start to cry then. Heaving shoulders, sobs of brokenness and anguish. I'd ruined everyone's life. I had no idea how to be anyone's mother. I was a slut. I was bringing disgrace and shame onto my parents.
William softened, and pulled me over to him, "It's ok, baby. We'll figure this out. I love you." He held me tightly and cried with me, and I know he was just as terrified as I was, but he tried to act like he'd take care of everything and it was all going to be just fine. I let him lie to me on this, the lie was better than the glaring truth.
Over the next week Will and I spent a ton of time on the phone when I'd get home from the bank where I worked as a teller. I had just gotten this job a few weeks prior, and it bored me to tears but was better than McDonald's. My parents thought it was a grand opportunity for me, though the pressure to chose a Christian college for was crushing. I'd been offered scholarships at BBC, Pensacola, Clearwater, and Bob Jones Perversity (oh sorry, University). Their preference was BJU, mine was BBC if I absolutely had no choice. What I really wanted to do was follow my best friend Keadren to cosmetology school and give that a try. My parents had begrudgingly agreed to let me work for a while before I chose, but they expected me to enroll and start at a Baptist Christian college in the spring semester at the latest.
The prospect of shipping off to Bob Jones Penitentiary was more than I could bear. I'd been to BJU, walked the halls, the grounds, slept in the dorm rooms, ate the food, met the students and a lot of the faculty. We went to BJU yearly once I joined the choir for competitions held on the campus. Bob Jones still had barbed wire around some of the walls of the compound at the "fortress of faith". Freshman weren't allowed to leave the campus. Demerits were given for so many minor infractions. A strict dress code was in place. Mandatory Bible classes, church attendance, and chapel services were a must. Interracial dating was specifically banned. Rumors of covered up sexual offenses swirled around the institution. There was also this weird courting parlor place for people who were dating to go to to be observed by faculty while they were eating together to be sure no physical contact happened between the sexes.
I very much felt like my parents desperately wanted to send me off to there so they could "fix me" and so that I would find someone to date other than William. I had a streak of rebellion in me and a simmering anger towards them and our church that I couldn't quite place my finger on as to why it had become so palpable in that last year or two.
On Friday, I sat on the asphalt in my parents driveway beside William's car in the only shady spot available, beneath the large carport at the front of the house. My parents weren't home. We needed to plan.
"You know, there is one other option, and I hesitate to bring it up..." William sheepishly started. "If you wanted to do that... I'd support you, and I'd help you pay for it."
"I know. I just..." my voice trailed off.
"I know, I wasn't even sure if I should even say anything about it."
"No, I understand, it is a legal option. And we're both over 18 so our parents wouldn't have to know. I get the appeal, trust me, I do. I just can't. I can't kill it. It's not its fault that we messed up."
"We didn't 'mess up', Jen. All babies are God's blessings!" Will straightened up a bit, offended. "I'm actually kind of excited about this."
"You're an idiot." I took out a cigarette and lit it.
"You shouldn't smoke, it's not good for the baby." he scowled.
I looked around him at the bottle maker's mark on the floor of the beat up '84 Mustang I had recently bought him. He saw what I was looking at and narrowed his eyes. "It's Rainbow's." He insisted.
"Sure."
(Rainbow was actually his friend "Rambo" - also not his real name- who did have a drinking problem but was a good friend of his. Unfortunately, Rainbow shared his booze with Will all the time.)
"Besides, what I do doesn't effect your body or my baby." he stated, shoving the bottle further under the seat.
I took another drag. "Well we can't hide this forever. I'm tired all the time now and I was a little sick this morning. My mom is bound to notice."
"You've been smoking while living here with them for over two years and they haven't noticed that."
"That's different, I'm careful. My smoking isn't going to manifest itself in a 30 lb weight gain and bigger boobs."
He grinned, "Bigger boobs?"
"Shut up, I'm serious."
"So am I." he winked at me.
"Good news is, no Bob Jones for me." I smiled triumphantly at that.
"Thank God, that place is a hellhole."
"So, do we tell our parents?" I asked, exhaling the smoke as I spoke.
"Are you kidding me? No way. They'll make us get married right away or they'll try to get us to break up and make us give up the baby. And no matter what we'll end up "confessing our sins" to your church and mine in public and be treated like second class shit. We've both seen it, we know that's what happens. Your parents and mine will be embarrassed and think that they are crap parents. Your mom's mental and emotional health will get even worse than it has been and she'll use this situation to make herself out to be a martyr. That's why I brought up abortion. And that's the only reason, ok? I don't believe in it and I know you don't either but what choice do we actually have here?"
I knew he was right. We couldn't tell them. So, we came up with a really horrible plan while sitting there. And I mean horrible in the way that it not only wasn't well thought out, but also was selfish and hurtful to others.
I left in the middle of the night the following week. My parents woke up the next morning to find me gone. I'd left a note telling them Will and I were running off to Maryland to elope and that I'd call them in a few days.
My mother was frantic, she called Will's mother in a panic demanding to know if she knew where we were, which she didn't. I'm not sure she even knew Will was gone yet.
We didn't elope though. We had enough sense about us to know that we weren't ready for marriage. We ran off and spent what little money we had on a hotel room and for a few days and nights the whole outside world was gone. It was all very romantic and very impulsive and oh so exciting.
Will called his mom after he found us a room to stay in at the house that his friend Rainbow rented a room at. He had lived in this place before with his family, but they had had the apartment downstairs. We had a room, and that was it. It was all we could possibly afford. He worked for his dad's dental lab and made very little. I made very little. We had no savings. I didn't drive. His mother chewed him out for a bit and then demanded that I call my mother, she was tired of having to field her daily calls asking if she'd heard from me.
I called my mom. Her first question after are you ok was to ask if I was pregnant. I lied. She asked if we had indeed gotten married. I lied again.
We kept lying like this to everyone until mid September. Only my closest friends knew that we weren't married. I lost my job because I had morning sickness so badly that I couldn't get out of bed in the morning. Will's Pastor did some digging and found out that we hadn't been married in Maryland, or anywhere else for that matter.
The confrontation was not fun. First the Pastor had us stay after church one Sunday and he very gleefully laid out how he had been calling various courthouses to confirm that we weren't married. He seemed to expect us to crumble in front of him.
William laughed at him.
"Ok, so we aren't married. So what? We aren't ready to be married yet but we want to be together and if we were simply living together we wouldn't be allowed to come to church here, we'd be thrown out."
"You're about to be thrown out now, if you don't repent!"
"Repent of what?"
"Fornication, lying, and Jen, you're pregnant aren't you?" Pastor Stickman accused.
"Yes. I am. I'm sorry about the lying but we didn't see any other way." I responded.
"I'm going to have to call your parents when we're done here and tell them, unless you want to do it?" He said.
"You don't have to do any such thing." I said. "I'm an adult, you have no right to do this."
"Oh yes I do, you two have been coming to my church and he is a member here." He motioned to William.
We left and Pastor Stickman did indeed call my parents. And Will's parents. Then on Monday he showed up at our boarding house with a deacon to confront him again. I stayed inside for this one, William wouldn't let them talk to me. Rainbow came out and helped William run them off. Baptists are no match for half drunk, pissed off, ex-marines.
When they left I ventured outside to sit at the picnic table with William.
"Well?"
"We have a meeting tomorrow with Stickman, your parents, and my parents. That is, if we want to show up. They're going to be discussing our church discipline."
"Do you want to go?"
"I think we should. Maybe we can get them to listen to us. My Dad and Mom are more laid back then yours. They're pissed that we lied but that's about it. I think I can reason with my Dad."
"And my parents?"
"Your mom's not taking this too well according to Stickman. Your Dad is livid with me."
I sighed. "Understandable."
"It's stupid. They want me to get up in front of the church and confess our sins or else they are kicking me out and they won't ever recommend me to another church. I won't be allowed back on the church property. He's telling my family to cut us off from all support, financial and otherwise. My Dad won't let me work for him anymore apparently if I don't repent. He says that they have to separate themselves from us if we don't comply. Stickman said he spoke to Dick and he agrees. Pastor Dick said he'd help us find a good christian family to adopt our baby if we were willing but that you have to go home. Dick wants you to get up in front of your church and do the same thing about confessing like I do." he took a breath, " And it's not understandable that your Dad is livid with me. It's not like I assaulted you, unlike what happened with Doc, why wasn't he 'livid' about that, huh?!"
He had a point about my Dad. This situation was somehow a bigger deal to my parents and my church then when I had told my folks that Doc had molested me for three years.
Dick was my pastor. Of course he would agree. And his answer to all unwed mothers was to keep them out of public view and then have them give up their babies.
Rainbow took a swig of his beer and handed William a can. "Baptists suck ass."
Will and I laughed. It was sadly true.
"I don't think you should go." Rainbow said. "Fuck 'em"
"I think we should Rainbow. Maybe when we explain that this is just what we feared would happen then they will listen?" I said.
He grunted. "Doubtful. Why you should have heard them out here preaching at Willy, twistin' the Bible and yappin' about how they had to follow what it said and they had no choice and other such bullshit."
"Well according to how they interpret the Bible they do." I said.
"Exactly. Don't go. They don't know how to think about anything without that book open in front of them. Most brain damaged people I've ever met in my life and I was in 'Nam! Where's the humanity? Where's the compassion? And you two aren't little kids! You two need help and support right now, not judgement and coercion!"
We went to the meeting.
It was one of the most humiliating experiences of my life.
We caved.
My mother's crying and my Dad's glaring eyes told me there was no room for any sort of negotiation. I had so wronged them by lying about this that they had no choice but to agree with the Pastors. They were in a spiritual battle for our souls and lives from their point of view. It didn't matter that I was sorry about lying or why we felt compelled to lie. Will's parents were so afraid of what the people in their church would think about them if Will didn't confess that they said they would cut ties with us. Will's Dad and my Mom really didn't seem to like that prospect but I think they were trying to stay a united front. My parents and his said something about how they'd always love us but that until we got right with God they'd have to separate from us.
They all insisted that I come home, that day, and that Will and I get married within the next few weeks. I also had to have a meeting with my Pastor later on that week to get things straight with him and go over my options.
I went back home and for the first time my parents saw the squalid room that I had been living in with William. We stopped by there for me to pick up a few things before heading back to Quakertown. Will and I shared a bathroom with all of the other residents. There was no kitchen. Our room was a 10 by 12 room with a mattress on the floor, a small table shoved against the wall, a small set of shelves with a crockpot and single burner for cooking, and a dresser by the one window that had no screen and didn't open all the way. We had propped a fan in the window for ventilation at least. When my mother gingerly picked up the mattress a mouse ran out from under it. It was living in our mattress. "You would have rather stayed here, with him, then to have been at home with us?" She was appalled.
"Yes."
"Really? Was it worth all of these lies?" she asked as her brow furrowed in disgust and disappointment.
I wanted to say yes and no, that although these last couple of months had been tough, I'd so enjoyed being on my own away from them and only going to church once a week, if that, instead of three times. Yes, Will was controlling, and his drinking bothered me. William's often controlling behaviour seemed to be pretty much the same thing that I'd experienced at home, only a different flavor. I'd exchanged one form of control for another, but I didn't know anything different existed. My reservations about him were part of why I didn't want to marry him yet. I loved him, but it didn't feel right to marry him at that time. Neither of us was mature enough to handle all of this.
Instead, I didn't answer her, I just apologized again for hurting her. I was sorry about that, I didn't like lying to them. I didn't like hiding my pregnancy from her. I was wrong to do that. I should have been honest with her and my Dad. I wish I felt that I could have trusted them with that. But I didn't. We didn't have that type of relationship then.
My meeting with Pastor Dick was awkward, and it was awful. I think at first we started out with my parents in there with me, and then it was just he and I, though that part is a bit fuzzy. It's been 20 years after all. Certain things I remember with clarity, others just with generalities.
I had a meeting with he and William at some point as well. He really tried to push for William and I to give up our baby. He said that if we did that than we wouldn't HAVE to get married. If we kept the baby we had no choice. He said that if we didn't get married, I certainly couldn't be a good single mother because single moms didn't do a good job of raising their children, that statistically children in two parent homes are more secure. He told us that he could find a good christian family to adopt our baby. We told him no thank you. We were keeping our baby. In the meeting with Will and I, he asked to speak with me alone, and Will left to go back to his house. My Mom would drive me back home later, William and I weren't allowed to be alone together during this time, lest we fornicate again.
After Will left, Dick came around to the front of his desk and sat in the chair beside me, "Jeney, I have to ask you a few questions."
By this time, I just wanted all of this to be over, so whatever, bring it on, I can weather this.
"Yes?"
"You know that I know about what happened to you in Ohio, with the deacon over there?" he asked.
"Former Deacon, he was my family doctor, and my parent's best friend. But yes, I know. I'm not happy that you know, but I know." I said, sitting further back into the chair. He was too close to me, I didn't like this.
"Be that as it may...do you think that because of what happened to you, that it made you promiscuous?"
I was floored. How does one answer that? Promiscuous? I was engaged to William when we conceived, I had not had any sort of sex with any other man other than William and my abuser.
"I...I...don't know how to answer that. Will is the only guy I've been with so...?"
He persisted, "Yes but, often when children are sexually abused, it causes them to have risky behaviours sexually so I was wondering if you thought that you being abused caused you to sleep with William?"
Now I was mad. "No, I had sex with him because I love him and I liked it. It had nothing to do with Doc."
"Are you sure? You can tell me, it wouldn't surprise me." he leaned in a bit, and seemed so sure of what he was saying.
"Look, I don't know. I never thought about it."
"Oh, that brings me to another question, one I have thought about for a long time." He sat back.
I don't like this. I don't like this. I don't like this. I really wanted to run out of there, I didn't care if he was the "Lord's anointed" he was being an inappropriate prick. But, I didn't say anything. I'd been conditioned all my life not to say or do anything to men in power within the church or home.
"I have always wondered," he continued,"When you were younger... and I'm asking since I wasn't your Pastor then so I don't know how things were in Ohio... and you look back at that time, do you feel like you in any way may have dressed inappropriately or acted in a manner which may have caused this man to desire you?"
"No. I was like 10, 11, 12." was all I could muster.
"No?"
"No. Can I go now?"
He looked disappointed, "Are you sure? Sometimes we have hidden sins and if you have any now would be a good time to disclose them. We can pray together as you are on your way to this new start in your life."
"No."
"Alright, see you on Wednesday, I'll call you up after the service to say your confession."
Will had his confession on Sunday. It was awful. I don't know how he got through that, standing up there in front of everyone, knowing that if he didn't, he'd lose everything including his job. All the church people forgave us and we went home. I cried all night. I hated having to see him like that, he was so defeated. The church people thought it was beautiful. It wasn't beautiful, it was devastating. They broke him.
Will came to my church for Wednesday. Pastor Dick never called me up after the service. To this day I don't know why. I sat through that prayer meeting barely able to breathe knowing full well what was coming, trying not to cry and knowing or thinking that most of the church already knew and that everyone felt so badly for Pastor F and his family (my family). It was such a shame. I was such a shame. William was pissed about my not having to go up. Pissed because he had to do it and I didn't. I was selfishly relieved. Eventually Will would say that he was glad that I didn't have to go through with that, that neither one of us should have had to endure that.
We got married at my parents house, with my father officiating in October. I wore the purple dress that I had been planning on wearing to my senior banquet the prior year but I hadn't gotten to go. I wasn't allowed to wear white. William had just turned 20 and wore his best suit. My mom put together a nice little informal get together and we had a cake and some presents and it was all as lovely as it could be under the circumstances. My mom always knows how to throw together a beautiful party for any occasion.
Our parents had helped us find an apartment that was under a house that one of our church members lived at. It was a very nice starter home in Coopersburg. Raymond, the absolute joy of my life arrived on Valentines Day.
Will was bipolar. He used alcohol, the church, substances, sex, gambling, me, anything he could to try and stay sane. It didn't work. I didn't know anything about mental illnesses or alcoholism and I didn't know for sure if I was or wasn't being abused most of the time. I didn't know how to help him and our churches didn't equip us in any way to get him or I help. I struggled with sometimes severe depression and ptsd during those five years.
I loved him very much and today he and I are good friends. He has gotten clean and sober and has a good life in Michigan with his wife.
But looking back, he and I never should have been forced into marriage. It harmed us and our children. It was very hard on our extended families. My parents were always kind enough to take me back in when he and I would separate but it was five years of back and forth that wasn't fair to them either. My Pastor had no reason to question me like he did. It was inappropriate and uncalled for.
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