Chapter9
Days passed slowly, one after the next, each one seeming to last forever as Catalina forced herself to go on with her life. She made herself get up out of bed every morning. She readied herself for school, and she went to all of the same classes that she had been going to, but Connor was no longer at the front of the class, looking back at her with those jade green eyes, gazing at her longingly.
There were new teachers that taught his classes, and rumors flew around the campus as to where he had gone and why. She wouldn’t listen to the rumors. She wouldn’t talk about him, though a few of the students had asked her if she knew anything about what was going on. She would only shake her head and walk away. She stayed as far away from his office as she could, fairly certain that he was no longer there, but unwilling to take the chance to find out.
She didn’t want to add to the rumors, and she didn’t want to see him and have to turn away from him. She knew she wouldn’t be able to. Walking away from his office the last time they had seen each other was one of the most difficult things that she had ever done in her life.
She had fought so hard inside of her mind and heart not to turn around and go running back to him, not to rush to him and beg him to just run away with her, because she knew that they both had a life that they were going to be expected to live without each other.
Reggie tried to talk with her a few times, but she wouldn’t look at him or speak to him. It was because of his betrayal of their friendship that everything in her life and everything in Connor’s life had been upended and destroyed. There was almost no happiness in her life following her last night with Connor.
Her father tried to cheer her up a few times, but she was not interested in anything that he tried to do to make her happy. There was nothing he could say that would bring a smile to her face, and they grew quiet around one another.
It was two weeks since her last night with Connor when she woke up one morning and crawled out of bed, forcing herself to go to the bathroom to get ready for school. She ran out of deodorant that morning and tossed the old container in the trash bin, and then opened the cabinet door beneath the sink to pull out a fresh container of deodorant and as she closed the cabinet door, everything in her stopped.
She leaned back down and opened the cabinet door again and looked inside, and the thing that had caught her eye sat there in the dim light of the cabinet, staring back at her like a ghost.
It was her box of tampons. She had been so wrapped up in her heartbreak over all the weeks since their trip to Springfield, that she had not realized that the box of tampons she was looking at had never been opened, and it should have been. It stood there in the corner of the cabinet, brand new, untouched, and panic struck her heart as she lost her breath and sank to the floor in utter fear. She had not had a single period since she had been in Springfield with Connor.
Her mind raced backward over the days and weeks behind her, over all of the times that she and Connor had made love, and he had come deep in her every single time, and every single time he had never worn a condom. They had never talked about birth control, and since she hadn’t had any lovers during her time in college, unlike most of her girlfriends, she hadn’t been on the pill in so long that she hadn’t even thought about it.
For her, sex was purely pleasure. She hadn’t even considered that it might be something much bigger than that. She closed her eyes and dropped her face into her palms as she began to cry softly, muffling the sound so that her father wouldn’t hear her.
It couldn’t be, she thought. There was just no way that she could be pregnant, she promised herself, but there was that box, standing there before her like an omen of truth, and she felt more fear in her than she ever had in her life. She found herself suddenly wishing for the umpteenth time that her mother was still alive, and that she could go to her for help and advice. She was alone. There was no way she could go to her father with this, even in her uncertainty.
She wept a while longer, and then when she felt she had enough strength, she pushed herself back up off of the bathroom floor and looked in the mirror. She looked more tired than she ever had, and it disgusted her. Catalina got into the shower and turned it on full and hot, hoping to cover the sound of her weeping, and somehow to wash all of her sorrows and troubles away down the drain.
The troubles and sorrows were more evident than ever when she got out of the shower and looked at her abdomen in the mirror. There was no sign of change. She could see no roundness or indication of what might be a clue to her state as she examined it closely. It felt a little harder than usual, but that was all, and that was no sign that she could reasonably rely on.
She dressed herself and did her hair and makeup, trying to make herself look as normal as possible. She answered her father as he told her good morning when she walked out of her bathroom, saying good morning back to him, and that was all she said to him. She skipped the breakfast that he made for her and left the house early to go to the drugstore on the way to school.
Catalina went out of her way to go to a drugstore that was nowhere near her home or her school, and she bought three pregnancy tests, each one a different brand, just in case one of them might be wrong. Best two out of three, she told herself. Then she went to the school and headed for the handicap enabled bathroom in the library. Hardly anyone ever used that bathroom, and it was a single person bathroom, so there was no chance of anyone walking in on her.
She peed on all three sticks and then set them up along the counter, watching them as the seconds slowly ticked by. She tried to breathe evenly because she was afraid that she might pass out if she hyperventilated or held her breath, and that was all she needed; to be found passed out in the bathroom with three pregnancy tests lined up on the sink. She’d never live it down.
About a century later, two minutes had finally passed and she looked at all three tests. All three of them were positive. There was no getting around it. She was not alone in the bathroom. There was a baby inside of her belly. Connor’s baby was inside of her belly, and she was alone and he was gone.
Tears stung at her eyes and her chest tightened as the fears in her were realized and she lost all control of herself, crumbling to the floor and sobbing so hard that she threw up. She cleaned up her face and hands, threw all evidence of the tests away, and tried to steady herself as she walked out of the bathroom, hoping to keep from making eye contact with anyone.
She walked blindly around the campus for most of the morning, wondering who she could talk to and what she was going to do. She did not go to her classes that morning and by lunchtime she was tired and felt sick to her stomach with worry and grief, and, she guessed, pregnancy, and she went home. Her father was at work so she had the house to herself for the afternoon. She went into her room and closed the door, taking a photograph of her mother off of her shelf and staring at it.
People who knew her mother told her that the older she got, the more she looked like her mom, and it was a compliment she was always glad to get. It made her feel connected to the precious woman she had lost from her life, and as she laid there in bed touching the glass over the old photograph of the woman smiling back at her, she sniffled and cried quietly.
“Mama, I wish you were here. I need you so much. What am I going to tell daddy?” She cried a little more until she fell asleep, and she didn’t wake up until she heard the front door close, and then she opened her eyes and looked around.
The light was faint in the early evening sky and her mother’s picture frame was still in her hands where she had fallen asleep with it. She sighed and got out of bed, setting the photograph back on the shelf carefully, and then she told herself that she had to do it eventually, so she might as well do it right then.
She opened the door of her bedroom and walked out to see her father sitting in his chair by the kitchen table, pulling his boots off of his tired feet. He looked up at her and frowned.
“Where were you just now? I didn’t hear you come in,” he told her, looking around and sighing. “I can’t be that tired.”
She shook her head. “You’re not that tired. I stayed home from school this afternoon.”
He looked up at her and frowned. “Why is that? You feeling okay?” he asked, a look of concern in his eyes.
She took a deep breath and sat in the chair beside him. Catalina looked at her father seriously and told herself to say the words. Just say them, she thought.
“Daddy,” she began hesitantly, and then there was only one thing to do, “I’m pregnant,” she told him in a soft voice.
He froze where he was, his fingers tugging at his boot laces, his body bent over as he was taking his boots off. He stayed that way for a long moment and then the shoelaces fell from his fingers and he slowly rose back up in his seat and turned his head to look at her.
“What did you say?” he asked solemnly, looking at her like he expected her to say it again with different words that had a completely different meaning, because he must certainly have heard her wrong.
She had already said it once, and saying it the second time was no easier, but it was no more difficult either. “I’m pregnant, Daddy. I’m going to have a baby.” She said the words a second time, her eyes on his. His eyes were dark; they were the deep brown of mahogany wood. She had gotten her mother’s eyes when she was born, and her mother had gotten them from some distant European ancestor; blue gray eyes.
Eyes that searched her father’s dark brown ones for some kind of sympathy, for some kind of help or direction or guidance or advice… or something, anything, that could make her feel like she wasn’t completely alone in the world with her life change.
He stared at her in silence for a long while as he processed what she said, and then he leaned back down and took his other boot off, stood up, went to the refrigerator, and pulled out a bottle of beer. He didn’t drink often, but on very long days, he liked to relax with a beer, or on days when his patience had been taxed too much.
Or on days when he found out his only daughter had been sleeping with one of her college professors. Or on days when he found out that the college professor who had been sleeping with his only daughter had gotten her pregnant. On those days, he drank.
He opened the beer bottle and kept his back to her, tossing the lid into the trash can at the end of the counter. He never missed it. The lid made a soft tinkling noise as it bounced off tin and glass in the trash bin. He tipped the bottle back and swallowed half of it before he pulled it from his mouth, and then he leaned over the counter and placed his hand on the edge of it, standing there silently as the old clock on the mantel ticked away in the quiet of the room.
She breathed in and breathed back out again. Her heart banged against her chest. Her blood raced through her veins. Her brain felt like it was going to explode. She breathed in again and let the air out slowly as she tried to calm herself even a little.
He finally turned and looked at her, leaning against the counter and taking another long drink from his beer bottle.
She waited for him to speak, her eyes locked on his. She could do nothing but hold her breath.
“I don’t know what to do, Daddy.” She finally breathed, not sure what he was thinking, but desperately needing his help and advice.
100He walked toward her and set his beer on the table, standing beside his chair. “I’ll tell you exactly what you’re going to do. You’re going to get an abortion and kill that thing immediately. Then you’re going to change schools, because I don’t want you anywhere near that son of a bitch.”
Her heart felt like it broke right in her chest. She hadn’t considered abortion. Every thought that she had that day had centered around keeping the baby or giving it up for adoption, but abortion had never crossed her mind. As her father spoke the word, it felt like a ton of steel had landed right on her heart and smashed it completely.
His words echoed in her head as she stared at him. ‘…you’re going to get an abortion and kill that thing…’ he had told her. She could not unhear his words, and they found no anchor in her mind, so they kept zinging around, banging against the walls and wreaking havoc in her mind and heart.
“Daddy… I don’t think I can get an abortion. I don’t feel like that’s something I could do, and I’m not changing schools. Connor isn’t there anymore, Daddy. He is on suspension right now, so other people are teaching his classes. I don’t see him at all, and I don’t talk to him,” she told him quietly, looking up at him.
His face grew fierce and his eyes were filled with anger. “I don’t give a damn if you feel like you can get an abortion or not, you are going to get an abortion and you are going to go to another school and graduate away from that bastard!
“I did not give up all of my retirement money, all of my savings, all of my health and my life, and every single thing that I have given up since the day that you were born, to enable you to be able to go to college and get a decent education so that you could make something of yourself and your life, just so that you could go screw some teacher at your college and get knocked up by him and blow it all to hell! You are not going to wreck your future! I’m not going to let you do it, damn it!”
She stared at him as everything in her felt like it was careening as far out of control as it possibly could.
She shook her head. “Daddy… please! I don’t think I can get an abortion! I don’t feel like that’s right!”
He leaned down close to her, not bothering to lower the volume of his voice at all. “You are not having a kid! You are going to do what I tell you to do, or you are going to get the hell out of my house and never show your face here again!
“You can’t have a kid, you’re not even responsible enough to not get pregnant and not have an affair with a man you have no business sleeping with!” he shouted at her. “How in the hell do you expect to raise a kid? You haven’t graduated, you have no job, no home except mine, and I’m sure as hell not bringing a baby in here!
“You have nothing! Nothing at all in the whole world except one chance to graduate and make something of yourself! You are not giving that up for some bastard kid! I have not killed myself slowly all of these years so that you could blow everything I’ve done for you in one shot like this!
“No! You get your ass to the women’s doctor and you get an abortion! There is no other
choice for you! You want a kid later on, fine, you get a job, you save some money, you buy a house, you find a guy, you get married and settle down, and then, and only then, do you take on the lifelong commitment of raising a kid! Do you understand me?” he roared at her.
She stared at him, trembling. He was right. She had nothing to give a child. She had no place to take it, no way to raise it, no way to care for it, and no one to help her with it.
“What if I gave it up for adoption?” she almost whispered.
He narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “No! What are you going to do, spend the next six months trying to get through your last year of college pregnant and walk across that stage to get your diploma all fat with a baby?
“What if something goes wrong medically while you’re trying to go to school? What if you wind up having to do bed rest or something goes wrong with the kid while it’s in you, what if anything happens and you aren’t able to graduate because you’re too busy trying to take care of yourself while you’re pregnant, trying to save a kid that you are going to give up the minute it’s born anyway?
“Then what, huh? You sacrifice your final semester and wind up graduating late and not being able to get a job when you want one because you got all tangled up with a kid? No! You go abort that thing right away! As soon as they can get you in, do you hear me?” he demanded angrily.
“I’m not sure what I’m going to do!” she told him nervously. “I am positive that I don’t want to leave the college I’m at, though, I want to graduate where I started school and I am not sure what I’m going to do about the baby!” she stood up and faced him, looking up into his dark eyes.
He spoke low; his voice stern. “You are going to get rid of that pregnancy, and you are going to change schools, or you are going to get the hell out of my house, do you hear me?” he told her for the final time.
She took a breath and looked at him sadly, and then turned and walked away from him, going to her room and closing the door behind her. She truly was just as alone as she felt.
*
The next morning when she woke up, her father was already gone, and there was no breakfast made for her, there was no note, and there was no sign of anything from him to her. That in itself was a huge mark of his anger at her.
She could only think of one person that she could try to go to for help and direction, for comfort and support, and that was Connor. She knew that they had said they wouldn’t see each other again, but there was no getting around it. She dressed herself nicely and went to the school, walking determinedly toward his office, a place she had avoided at all costs until that morning.
Catalina hadn’t been there since the last time they had made love and said goodbye, and now she had to go back to tell him that she was carrying his baby. She had no idea how he would react, or what he would want to do, but she had to take the chance to talk with him and at least let him know.
When she reached the door, she saw that there was a light on inside and she knocked on the door. A woman’s voice called out for her to enter. She frowned slightly and turned the doorknob, pushing the door open and walking in to see one of the other professors from the campus sitting on the wide old leather sofa against the back wall. The last time she saw that sofa, she had spent hours making love with Connor on it. She drew in her breath and looked at the professor, who gazed up at her with dark eyes.
The woman had long silvery white hair that was pulled up at the back of her head, and she was wearing a pants suit with a jacket and a light blue button up shirt that was only buttoned up to the lower part of the woman’s cleavage. Catalina remembered her name.
“Good morning, Miss Hargrove,” she said politely.
Deborah Hargrove looked her over slowly and then stood up, towering in her high heels. “What can I help you with?” she asked coolly.
Catalina felt ill at ease in her presence and stopped where she was, just inside the doorway. She looked around the room and then back at Deborah. “I was hoping to see Connor… I mean Professor James,” she said in a level voice, though she felt nervous inside.
Deborah narrowed her eyes at Catalina. “I just bet you were,” she almost hissed. Then she smiled and took a few steps toward Catalina. “Who are you?” she asked showing herself as polite once more.
“Um, I’m Catalina Marshall,” she answered, and as soon as she spoke her name, she saw the expression on Deborah Hargrove’s face change instantly. It was a strange combination of rage and jealousy and bitterness.
“Oh…. So you’re the little slut that almost cost my husband his job,” she spat out at Catalina.
Catalina froze where she stood. She couldn’t have heard Deborah correctly. “I’m… I’m sorry, what did you say?” she asked, astounded.
Deborah walked a little closer to her, her piercing eyes boring into Catalina’s.
“Which part?” she asked coldly. “The part where I realized that you are the little slut that my husband was screwing, or the part where you almost cost my husband his job?” she repeated.
Catalina stared at her. “What do you mean, your husband?” she asked in utter confusion. “Connor’s not married.”
Deborah looked up and laughed coldly. “Oh… yes, I guess you’re right. We’re still just engaged. He asked me to marry him, and he gave me this stunning ring,” she held her left hand up and showed off a massive diamond rock on it, “and we’ve been as hot for each other as newlyweds, but we haven’t walked down the aisle together, yet.
“That is still two weeks away. I apologize for the confusion; we are already calling each other husband and wife. I guess we’re both just so excited about it that we can’t wait for the official day. Oh well. Hot lovers, I guess, passionate about each other and the prospect of spending our lives together, but what can I say.”
Catalina’s heart shattered where she stood. Connor was getting married. He was marrying the cold hateful woman standing in front of her. Her mind was a blur of questions and confusion as she shook her head and stared at Deborah.
“That… that can’t be…” she said quietly.
Deborah laughed at her. “Oh, honey, I promise you that it most certainly… is.”
The older woman walked right up to her and blocked her off from the rest of the room. “Now, I realize that he had a little fun screwing you, but you were just a little toy for him to amuse himself for a little while. He’s done with you. You can go now, and don’t ever come back. He doesn’t want to see you ever again.
“He told me how miserable he was after he screwed you the first time and you just kept coming back after him, trying to get him to be with you, and my poor lover couldn’t get rid of you, like a bad penny…” her eyes moved up and down Catalina’s body and she shook her head, “and by the looks of it, worth about as much as a bad penny, too.”
Catalina couldn’t breathe and for a moment she was sure that she couldn’t move either, until Deborah took another step toward her and she suddenly had the energy to turn on the spot and bolt from Connor’s office, racing as fast and as far as she could with no destination in mind at all.
She was blinded by the tears that poured from her eyes, and she finally fell to her knees in the yellow winter grass, just beneath a huge old oak tree. She buried her face in her hands, sobbing into them as her whole body shook.
Catalina had never known that she could hurt as much as she was hurting just then, and it was all that she could do to just try and breathe in between the sobs. It felt like everything in her had been destroyed beyond a point of salvation, as if the entire universe had somehow ended and there was nothing that she could do about it.
Connor was getting married. He was not going to care about a baby, he was not going to care about her, and he was not going to ever see her again. He was going to spend the rest of his life with the cold evil woman who was sitting on the sofa in his office.
The sofa where she had made love with him a few times, and where each time she had felt like she was the only woman for him. The sofa where he had probably had sex with the cold evil bitch that had kicked her out of Connor’s life and out of Connor’s heart.
Catalina felt like she was going to throw up, she was crying so hard. Out of nowhere, she felt a large hand on her back and she sucked in her breath and looked up to see Reggie kneeling down beside her.
She closed her eyes and he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close to his chest and hugging her tightly as she cried herself out and finally the tears and sobs subsided. She took a few deep breaths and then looked up at him and he loosened his arms from around her, letting her go.
“What- What are you doing here?” she tried to say as calmly as she could.
He tilted his head and smiled kindly at her. “Well, this is our spot,” he told her and she looked around and discovered that she was on the grass beneath their big old oak tree, and their bench was just a few feet behind her.
She laughed a little in surprise and then wiped the tears from her eyes and face. “I didn’t realize I was here,. she whispered.
“I did,” he told her quietly.
She looked up at him in confusion, her brow furrowed slightly. “What do you mean? How did you know that I was here?” she asked him curiously.
He took a deep breath and sighed. “Well, I went to your dad’s house to talk with you and your dad said that you weren’t there. He told me that you found out that you’re pregnant and I knew you would really need someone to talk to, so I thought that the first place you would probably come would be here.”
She closed her eyes to try to hold in all of the pain she felt, at least for a moment, and then she looked back up at him. “Did he say anything else to you?” she asked, surprised that her father had been home.
Reggie nodded subtly. “Yeah, he did. He said that you are going to change schools and get an abortion or you’re going to get kicked out of his house.”
Catalina’s shoulders fell in defeat. “Yeah. That’s what he said,” she whispered.
Reggie reached for her hands, taking them into his and holding them gently in the cool morning air. “Listen,” he said gently, “I wanted to tell you how sorry I am for everything that went wrong between us. I never meant to hurt you or make you angry. I never meant for any of this to get so crazy and blow up the way that it did, I guess it just happened. I was just trying to look out for you.”
She stared at him and he continued. “Cat, I miss you so much. I love you, even just as a friend, if that’s all you want, and I would rather have that with you than nothing at all. So, I know I really screwed up with you, I know I betrayed our friendship, and I know let you down, but I’m here now, and if you want to be friends again, just friends, with no awkward problems, I promise that I will always be here for you, as just a friend, and I won’t let you down again.” He bit his lip and raised his eyebrows hopefully. “What do you say?” he asked, his voice giving away his nervousness.
Catalina laughed and sniffed and fought back more tears as she looked at him in complete gratitude. “I’d say that you have a friend for life.” She answered him. “I missed you too, so much!” she told him as she reached her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly.
He held her there for a long while until they were both alright again, and then he let her go and helped her to her feet. “So what do you want to do now?” he asked, looking at her for direction.
She shook her head. “I’m so tired and I hurt so much, I just want to go home and not deal with anything else today. I just don’t have the strength for it.” Then she looked up at him as they began to head for her house together. “Reggie, thank you so much for coming to get me. It means a lot to me that you were there for me right when I needed you most.”
He smiled and elbowed her arm lightly. “Aw, no problem. That’s what friends are for, right?”
She smiled at him and nodded.
He looked over at her a little while later and tipped his head to the side. “So what had you so upset this morning? I don’t think it was your dad that had you crying like that at our spot.”
She shook her head sadly. “No, it wasn’t my dad. It was Connor and his fiancée,” she answered quietly.
Reggie stopped on the spot and stared at her. “His… his fiancée? He’s engaged?” he asked, almost stupefied.
She stopped and turned to look up at him. “Yeah, he’s engaged. I met her this morning in his office. He wasn’t there, but she was, and she showed me her ring and told me all about how close they are and how they’re getting married in two weeks. I thought I was going to die right there. It isn’t because I’m jealous or anything, but she seems like such a mean bitch!”
Reggie looked at her almost humorously. “It might be that you’re jealous, and it might not be. Who is she?” he asked curiously.
Catalina hated saying her name. “Deborah Hargrove. She’s one of the other professors on campus, although I’ve never had one of her classes.”
Reggie’s eyebrows shot straight up. “Deborah Hargrove?” He shook his head. “I did have her for one class, one semester, and that was one class too many. It’s not you, she’s a mean bitch.” Then he paused thoughtfully. “Well, she’s a mean bitch to the girls, but she has a real thing for most of the guys. She likes to uh… see them in her office after class for extra credit, if you get my drift,” he said with chagrin.
Catalina stared at him. “You’re kidding!” she gasped in amazement. “She accused me of being a slut for sleeping with Connor! …and she…”
Reggie laughed out loud. “That woman has no business calling anyone else a slut. She screwed most of the guys that I knew in class. It was pretty much a guaranteed passing grade if they gave her an orgasm.”
Catalina stared at him for a moment. “Did you…” she began, and paused, eyeing him carefully.
Reggie laughed at her. “No, Cat, I didn’t. I kept making sure that I was too busy and that I was out of class before she could call on me to stay, and I never checked any emails from her all semester, so I passed her class of my own volition.” He shook his head. “Never taking a class from her again, that’s for sure.”
They started walking again and he looked over at her. “So why were you going to see Connor this morning?” he asked quietly.
She sighed. “I was going to tell him about the baby,” she admitted. “He doesn’t know. I guess it isn’t going to matter now, though, if he’s marrying Miss Hot Pants.”
Reggie frowned. “I don’t know, Cat. It’s different for most guys when they find out they are having a kid. I think you ought to make sure he knows, just so he can have a chance to make up his own mind about what he wants to do and who knows, maybe he will man-up and help you. After all, that kid is half his responsibility.”
She sighed. “I know, I thought about that, too, but my dad wants me to get an abortion. He told me I have to either get an abortion or get out of his house, and I have nowhere to go, Reg.” She sighed again and shook her head. “You know, he made a lot of really good points; I have no way to care for a baby, no job, no money, I’m not graduated yet, I have no job waiting for me when I do graduate, and if something goes wrong during the pregnancy, I won’t be able to graduate, so there’s a lot to think about.”
He walked a short distance before he responded to her. “You really don’t strike me as the kind of girl who would be okay with getting an abortion. Are you? Could you do that? Could you get an abortion?”
She shook her head. “You’re right. I’m not the kind who could get an abortion. I told my father that I was thinking of adoption, but he blew a gasket about that, so as far as he is concerned, I can get an abortion or get out.” She hesitated a moment and then looked up at Reggie while they were walking.
“I’m really scared, Reg. I’m scared and confused and I have no idea what to do or what will happen. I have no idea what the right thing to do would be.” She stared ahead sadly, not seeing what was in front of her, but looking ahead into oblivion, instead.
He reached over and took her hand gently in his. “Well, the good thing is that no matter what, you aren’t alone,” he told her with a smile. “That’s a promise.”
She looked back up at him then and she knew without a doubt that she finally had her friend back, and it brought her a ray of light and happiness into and otherwise dismal heart.
“Thanks Reg. I’m really glad we are friends again.”
“Me too.”