England

Monday, October 31, 1988

9:00 p.m.

The squeak of the barn door rolling down the metal rail cut through the silence of the night air. It wasn’t as heavy as Eva May remembered, but then again her fondest memories of the barn were from a few years ago.

“Quiet or we’re going to get caught,” her cousin Brenda said, as she walked past her and went straight to the light switches, flipped one of them on, then lit her cigarette.

“I think we’re old enough to be in the barn after dark.” Eva pushed the door closed to block the biting cold wind. Still, it slammed against the wall, causing the aging building to moan and creak in protest, mimicking the mood of her heart as she remembered the events of the last few days. She wasn’t really one for adventure. In her eighteen years, she’d lived a very quiet, sheltered life in English small towns.

“But my father doesn’t know I smoke!” Brenda pulled a beer can from the pocket of her coat and tossed it in Eva’s direction. “Think fast!”

Eva caught the can and asked, “Is your father going to ground you for smoking and drinking beer?”

“Not this time.” Brenda laughed and hoisted herself up on the gate separating the barn aisle from the horse stalls, straddling it. “What were we? Sixteen?”

A rush of memories accompanied the sound of Brenda cracking open her beer can. Eva looked at the can label a moment before putting it on the ground beside her. “Yes, it was when my parents visited London and I stayed with you for a couple of weeks.”

“Happy Halloween.” Brenda blew out the smoke and raised the can toward her cousin then took a long sip before asking, “Aren’t you going to drink?”

“Ah, no. I’m on a diet.”

“You’ve gained quite a few pounds very quickly and you were always so thin.” Her cousin drank from her beer and took another deep drag another from her cigarette, blowing the smoke out in circles. “Was it because of your mother’s passing?”

“Yes, comfort food, you know?” She had been using this excuse for a few months now, but sooner or later—probably sooner—she would have to reveal that she was not fat but pregnant.

Brenda let her foot sway back and forth. The heel of her boot occasionally kicked the gate, sounding like a rusty church bell. “I think your father was fine at dinner—still a little sad, but better than last year, don’t you think?”

Eva hoisted her leg over, and joined her cousin on the gate, facing her. “Yeah, he’s doing better now.”

Everyone in the family had mourned Eva’s mother, but Eva’s father had become so absorbed in his grief that he had descended into a depression for a few months, not exactly what Eva would have expected from her stoic and stern father. But she had more on her mind right now than that.

Eva’s gaze dropped to the barn floor. “Do you think Father will bless my choice for a husband?”

Brenda took another long draw from the cigarette before putting it out on the ledge of the wall behind her and made sure no ember got in the hay below. “You know your dad has taken your mom’s death really hard, but you can’t expect him to accept—”

“But he proposed! He wants to wed me before Christmas.”

Brenda was shocked. “Does he expect you to abandon your life here?”

“What life? All I had been doing before meeting him was mopping my father’s and my tears. I am so happy now with him. Seems like perfect timing to move and start a whole new life.”

“Eva…are you sure he is the right guy? After all, marriage is forever and we’re so young.”

“Pretty sure. We’re in love.” Eva sighed. “He’s wonderful, and the sex…amazing.”

“Well, that’s good to hear.” Brenda giggled and set her beer can on the wall behind her. She then stepped up on the bottom rail of the gate, and gripped the top rail, flexing her body and stretching out her back as she used to do when she was younger.

“Do not do this swinging thing,” Eva said.

“What’s wrong with you? We used do this all the time. Are you too old now?”

“No, I am pregnant,” she blurted.

Eva’s words made Brenda gape at her and she hoisted herself back, sitting quietly for a moment, because she had no idea what to say. “Seriously?”

“I’m not fat. I am six months pregnant.” Eva pushed back her loose coat and raised her shirt, showing her belly.

“Oh my God, Eva!” Brenda put her hand over Eva’s round belly which was wrapped in tight bandages. “Your father will flip.”

“I can’t imagine why. I’m marrying the man I love, and I already adore this child.” Then something horrible crossed her mind. “I’m not going to give it up for adoption, like our aunt did. Now she weeps everyday about her lost kid. I’m keeping my baby.”

Brenda looked at her with empathy in her eyes. “Of course you are. But you need to get all the facts straight before you make such a big decision. Stop avoiding the conversation with your father. Sit down and talk to him.”

“I know.” Eva nodded, gripping the rail in front of her. “You’re right.”

“I always try to think that we have a big reset button we can use if we like. It’s time to close the door on all the crap you’ve gone through in the past year and try to face the new one with a bit of hope.”

“I hope you’re right.” Eva paused and looked up toward the hayloft. “We had so much fun growing up here. Didn’t your brother catch you up in that hayloft with that guy? What was his name? Karl?”

It was the first time in days Eva had been able to smile and it felt good to set the weight of the world aside, if only for a few minutes.

“Nah!” Brenda’s giggle sounded child-like to Eva’s ears. “He never caught me with Karl. It was Jason that night.”

Eva smiled recalling the screams and shouts that had awakened the house and the white buttocks of Brenda’s boyfriend as he ran away from the barn with his trousers in his hands and Brenda’s brother chasing after him. “Seems like a hundred years ago.”

“If you could go back in time, would you have have been more careful about getting pregnant?”

She had spent her childhood dreaming of the day she’d become a mother. And then one day, she was no longer just her anymore—the singular person she had always been—there was another human being inside her, growing and eating and kicking, and in some mystically ethereal way, communicating with her.

“No, I told you I already love my baby.” Despite Eva’s fear about her father’s reaction, she was living a dream. Her fiancé had been so sincere the night he had taken her virginity. And when she told him about her pregnancy, he had picked her up in his arms and spun her around, only to quickly put her back down, worried he would made her sick.

“What will you do? Not go to college? Be a stay-at-home mom? Work with him? He can’t provide for you as well as your father does.”

Eva giving herself to her boyfriend had been pure impulse and done solely on emotion—which was never a good way to do things—but she didn’t regret it a single minute. “Don’t say it like that. He’s a good guy.”

Brenda swung her leg back over the gate, jumped down and reached up to help Eva down. “Did I say he wasn’t?”

“No. I’m just saying I’m sure I made the right choice. That’s all.” Eva brushed her hands over her skirt and adjusted her coat in a way that covered her belly well.

Brenda leaned her arm against the wall and peeked into an empty stall. “I’m glad you’re sure. Sometimes I don’t know.”

“But I know, and that’s what is important.” Eva opened the barn door. “He is not as wealthy as we are, but he has savings enough to keep us well-provided.”

Brenda turned off the lights. “It’s hard to imagine you with kids of your own. How far along did you say you are?”

They linked their arms as they used to do when they were kids and walked back to the main house where the adults were gathered. “Six months. Almost seven.”

She heard Brenda’s footfalls, the moan of the old door, and then the moonlight illuminated the place.

Eva shrugged. “I’ve been thinking a lot about the choices my father made for me without even asking if I wanted them, and the ones I want to make for myself.”

“Sounds like you’ve spent too much time examining the past, and not enough planning for the future, if you ask me,” Brenda said. “Things might have turned out differently if he’d let you stay here with us while he was depressed.”

“I guess it’s time to go have that talk with Dad.”

“And if he isn’t understanding?”

“I’ll drive myself mad thinking about all the what ifs.’” Eva mumbled, crossing her arms in front of her chest. It didn’t stop the questions from rolling through her mind.

But Brenda was right about one thing, she couldn’t make any decisions before talking to her father.