Rosewood Lane (Cedar Cove #2)(83)

Sitting across from her sister, Maryellen opened her container of chicken rice soup and stirred it with a plastic spoon. Cantankerous seagulls circled overhead, squawking for a handout, but Maryellen and Kelly ignored them.

“I wanted to ask you a few things about being pregnant,” she told her sister. “If you don’t mind.”

“Fire away.” Kelly licked the back of her spoon, looking childlike and mature at the same time. She removed the plastic wrap from her oyster crackers and gave them one by one to her eager son, who instantly stuffed them in his mouth.

Maryellen didn’t know what to ask first. For years she’d watched her friends marry and raise children. They all seemed so relaxed about it. So natural. She felt none of that. While excited and exhilarated about the prospect of motherhood, she shared none of their confidence. Kelly had waited years for a baby; surely she understood.

“Were you…afraid?” Maryellen asked.

“Terrified,” Kelly admitted. “I read every book I could get my hands on.”

“Me, too.” Her mother had raided the library shelves and given Maryellen a constant supply of the most recent books regarding pregnancy and birth.

“What happened when you brought Tyler home from the hospital?”

Kelly laughed and shook her head. “Go on to the next question.”

“Why?”

“Because Paul and I couldn’t agree on anything.”

Maryellen reached for a small cracker and chewed it. “I won’t have that problem.”

“Exactly. How are you doing for clothes? I have the cutest maternity tops. Would you like to borrow some?”

Maryellen nodded.

“I’ll bring them over this weekend.”

“That would be great.” Maryellen’s heart warmed toward her sister.

“What about day care? You need to start thinking about that, especially with being single and all.”

That was, of course, another pressing concern. She had to think seriously about interviewing prospects and checking out centers.

“Listen,” Kelly said, leaning her elbow on the picnic table. “I could do it for the first couple of years.”

Maryellen was speechless. When she could talk again, she whispered, “You’d do that?”

“I need to check with Paul first, of course, but I don’t see why not. Another baby couldn’t possibly be that much extra work and I’m home, anyway. I’d like to help you, Maryellen. What are sisters for?”

Maryellen’s eyes filled with tears. This offer was completely unexpected. She looked away, not wanting her sister to know that she was fighting back emotion.

“You know what I realized the other day?” Maryellen asked when she was certain she could keep the tears out of her voice. “I was sitting in my kitchen, reading a magazine Mom recommended, and it dawned on me that…I was happy.”

Kelly reached for her hand. “I see it in you, too. I feel it.”

“I want this baby so much.” She pressed her palm against her midriff and closed her eyes. Lowering her head, she whispered, “I wanted my first baby, too.”

Her words were met with stunned silence.

“Your first baby?” Kelly asked, also in a whisper.

“I…I was pregnant when Clint and I got married. Oh, Kelly, I was young and incredibly stupid. It was an accident, but we should have known it would happen because we were so careless. Still—it was a shock.”

“What happened with the pregnancy?”

Maryellen looked out over the choppy blue waters of the Cove. “Clint wanted me to have an abortion. He swore he loved me, but he wasn’t ready to be a father.”

“How could he even suggest such a thing?”

Maryellen’s throat grew thick, making speech almost impossible. “I couldn’t believe he’d want to get rid of our baby, but at that time in our lives, he felt a baby was…a nuisance.”

“You still married him.”

Maryellen nodded, feeling sick with guilt and with regret for what she’d done. “I…I loved Clint, or I thought I did. I told him I couldn’t have an abortion and that it didn’t matter if we got married or not. I was going to have my baby. In retrospect, I think he was terrified of having to pay child support and so he…he suggested we get married.”

“I don’t understand.”

“He’d marry me if I agreed to terminate the pregnancy. That was his way of proving his love, of showing me he was serious about our relationship. He insisted there’d be other pregnancies, other children.” She didn’t add that Clint had forced her to decide between him and the pregnancy. Either she married him right then and had the abortion, or he’d break off the relationship completely. Even now, all these years later, Maryellen couldn’t bring herself to tell anyone how she’d allowed herself to be manipulated.

“So you agreed?”

Maryellen nodded, her long hair falling forward over her shoulder. “I didn’t want to do it, but I loved Clint and I believed he loved me. So we ran off and immediately after a justice of the peace performed the ceremony, we drove to an abortion clinic. The whole time, Clint kept telling me this was for the best and that we were making the right decision.”

“Oh, Maryellen, you must’ve been so torn.”