“If you say this is what I wanted, I’m going to kill you,” Delaney interrupted.
“I thought it was what you wanted. You’ve been mooning over the idea of having a baby for the past few years and I…”
Her voice fell off, and Delaney suddenly realized, only because all her other thoughts were frozen with panic, that it had to be the first time she’d ever seen Rebecca at a loss for words.
“I’m going to have a baby,” she said, the pronouncement ringing like a death knell in the small room.
Rebecca’s smile looked forced. “That’s not such a bad thing,” she said. “I hated the idea of leaving you here alone. Now I can get married, knowing you’ll be just as happy as I am.”
“Happy?” Delaney echoed.
“Of course you’ll be happy. You’ll eventually forget about Conner and Boise and concentrate on the baby. And I’ll be her godmother, which means I’ll have to come back here for the birth and all the important occasions. It’ll be perfect. What are you going to name her?”
Name her? Delaney hadn’t thought past Please, God, forgive me for my terrible mistake. She couldn’t even summon the energy to tell Rebecca how ludicrous her question was.
“Since Aunt Millie could never have kids, it might be nice to name the baby after her if it’s a girl,” Rebecca said cajolingly. “I mean, Millie’s a bit dated and sounds almost as bad as Lula Jane or Myrtle, but—”
“Do you think you’re helping?” Delaney asked.
Rebecca sat on the tile countertop and finally abandoned the pretense of “let’s be happy about this.” “Okay,” she said. “So we have a problem. But if you really don’t want the baby, you could always have an abortion.”
Delaney shook her head. “Are you kidding? That’s the last thing I’d ever do.”
“Then, what do you suggest?”
“I need to find Conner. Tell him what I’ve done.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Listen, Laney, it’s too late for that. He’s gone, and he’s better off for it.”
“How do we know he’s better off?”
“He’s living the life he wants to live without any interference from you, for one thing. And think about the baby. What if he sues you for custody someday? Would you be able to give up your child? Once he knows about the pregnancy, you won’t be able to cut him out of your life, yet you have no way of knowing whether or not he’d be a good influence. Contacting him would only open a can of worms. What’s done is done. You need to deal with it and move on.”
Rebecca’s words made sense. Conner wasn’t ready for children. He’d told her that. He was simply a stranger who’d passed in and out of her life. She didn’t know where he lived; she didn’t know his last name. And he didn’t know anything about her, either.
Getting hold of herself, she nodded. “Okay.”
Rebecca squeezed her shoulder. “When do you think you’ll let the secret out?”
“Not for a while,” she said. “I have to come to terms with it myself first.” She closed her eyes. “Aunt Millie and Uncle Ralph are going to die when they hear.”
“What do you mean? They’ve been begging you for grandchildren.”
“They mean the legitimate kind.”
“I know, but they’ll get used to this. Come on out of the bathroom. It’s not the end of the world.” Rebecca tugged on her hand until Delaney finally moved woodenly to the living room, where she sank, still numb and incredulous and sick inside, into her favorite easy chair, a cast-off from Uncle Ralph when Aunt Millie bought him a new recliner for their fiftieth wedding anniversary.
“Maybe you should tell them right away and get it over with, so you don’t have to dread it,” Rebecca volunteered.
“Thanks for the suggestion, but I don’t think so,” Delaney replied. “I won’t start to show for several months. No need to jump the gun and make a big announcement when something could still go wrong. A lot of women miscarry in their first trimester. Don’t you think I should at least wait until I pass that milestone before opening myself up to the scorn of the whole town?”
“Makes sense,” Rebecca admitted. “But if you wait too long, I’ll be gone. I’m getting married in June, remember?”
Delaney folded her arms and leaned back, telling herself to take some deep, calming breaths. “How does your being gone affect when I should tell people about the baby?”
“If I’m here, they’ll blame me and my influence, and you’ll get off more easily. They’ll say, ‘Just look at Laney now, pregnant without a husband. We always knew what hangin’ around that Wells kid would do, but she wouldn’t listen to us.’”
Delaney was too emotionally devastated to laugh at her friend’s twangy imitation. And she sensed something serious, and very possibly painful, running beneath the words. Maybe being typecast a hellion in such a small town was as difficult as being typecast a Goody Two-shoes. No one gave Rebecca credit for her positive traits, and the townspeople, by refusing to adjust their image of her, didn’t allow her room to grow and change. If Delaney and Rebecca took the poor kids from the trailer park to see a movie or picked up trash on the streets to help get ready for rodeo season, Delaney received the credit. If they were together and got pulled over for a traffic violation, no matter who was driving, it was Rebecca who took the blame. Life had been that way for so long, Delaney had grown accustomed to it. But something in Rebecca’s voice made her consider the disparity now.
“Not everyone knows you as well as I do,” she said softly, trying to set aside her own worries for a moment.
Rebecca shrugged. “Oh, yeah? Well, they’ve had more than thirty years to get to know me. Anyway, I don’t care what they think.” This time her words didn’t ring entirely true. “I’m out of here in four months. But you have to stay behind, and I don’t want them treating you like an outcast.”
As they’d always treated Rebecca? Delaney hesitated, wondering how to soothe her friend’s heartache, but knew there wasn’t much she could say at this late date. The damage had already been done, bit by bit over the years. And Rebecca would never admit to being hurt in the first place, so they couldn’t discuss it openly. All Delaney could do was reassure her that she wouldn’t suffer the same fate—even though she had no guarantees and feared exactly that.