Waking Up In Charleston

She turned and walked away, leaving him standing there knowing that he’d just lost something that really mattered. He’d lost her trust, something he’d spent months and months trying to earn. He couldn’t help wondering if, once all the truths started coming out, he would ever get it back again.

Mary Louise wished her mom and dad weren’t looking at her like that, as if she were such a terrible disappointment to them. The minute she’d told them about the baby, her mom’s eyes had filled with tears and her dad had looked as if someone had punched him in the stomach.

“Where the hell’s Danny?” her father asked furiously. “Why isn’t he sitting here beside you? What kind of coward leaves his girl to break this kind of news alone?”

“I didn’t want him here,” Mary Louise said, looking to Reverend Webb for support. He gave her an encouraging smile. “Danny and I talked about this and we’ve met twice with Reverend Webb. We know what we’re going to do, or I guess I should say what we’re not going to do.”

Her mother’s hand covered a gasp. “Please don’t say he’s not going to marry you, Mary Louise.”

“Mom, it’s for the best,” she said urgently. “Getting married now would ruin all of Danny’s plans for the future, and sooner or later he’d come to hate me and the baby. That’s the last thing I want.”

Her father rose to his feet, his face red. “You’re going to sit here and tell me that boy is not willing to make an honest woman of you? We’ll see about that. I have a shotgun in the other room that says otherwise.”

“That’s not an answer, Chet,” Reverend Webb said mildly. “Forcing two kids to get married when they recognize all the pitfalls won’t help anyone, least of all your grandchild.”

Her dad scowled at Reverend Webb. “At least my grandchild would have its daddy’s name.”

“And now it will have mine…and yours,” Mary Louise stressed with a touch of defiance. “And that’s okay. I’ve made my peace with raising this baby on my own.” She gave her father a hard, unyielding look. “And I can do it completely on my own, if that’s the way it has to be.”

“Oh, Mary Louise,” her mother whispered, her voice thick with tears. “Are you sure you want to do this? You could…” Her voice faltered.

“What? Have an abortion? Give the baby away?” Mary Louise said. “No way. Neither of those is an option. This is Danny’s baby and I want to keep it.”

Her mother turned to Reverend Webb. “Talk to her. Tell her how difficult this is going to be.”

“I think she knows,” he said gently. “Your daughter is very mature. You should be proud of her. She hasn’t come to this decision lightly. Neither has Danny. I can vouch for that. In the end, they made the decision together. He’ll acknowledge the baby and pay what he can in support.”

“Well, that’s mighty damn big of him,” her father blustered. “Seeing as how he’s the one who got her into this fix.”

“We made this baby together,” Mary Louise corrected him staunchly. “Don’t blame it all on Danny. He’s a good guy. He’s just not ready to be married or to be a father.”

“Well, ready or not, it looks as if he’s about to be a daddy. He ought to be man enough to be a husband, too,” her father insisted. “I don’t care what the rest of you say, I’m going over there to talk some sense into him. I imagine his folks will see my side of it, especially when I ask ’em how they’d feel if it was that little princess of theirs. I imagine if Cindy came to them with this news, they’d want the boy to do the right thing.”

He stomped out of the room. Mary Louise sent a pleading look toward Reverend Webb. “Please, talk him out of this. I don’t want it to get ugly.”

He gave her hand a squeeze. “I’ll do my best,” he promised, heading after her father.

Mary Louise turned to her mother. “Please don’t hate me, Mom.”

“Oh, sweetie, we could never hate you. It just makes me sad to think of all the difficulties you’re bound to face. There will be talk, you know. That’ll be hard on you and on the baby. And being a single mom might be common these days, but it’s not easy.”

Mary Louise crossed her arms protectively over her still-flat stomach. “I don’t care about ‘easy.’ I already love this baby. I can’t wait for him or her to get here. It’s seven more months, but I already wish it were tomorrow.”

Her mother gave her a watery smile. “My first grandbaby,” she said. “You know once your father gets over the shock, he and I will do anything we can to help you.”

“Do you think Daddy will calm down and leave Danny alone?” Mary Louise asked, worriedly glancing toward the door. She could still hear her father’s raised voice and Reverend Webb’s quieter responses outside.

“You’re his little girl. He only wants what’s best for you,” her mother said. “He’ll settle down once he accepts that this is the way you want it.” She studied Mary Louise’s face intently. “It is the way you want it, right? Because your daddy will change Danny’s mind if you still want a wedding.”

Mary Louise regarded her mother sadly. “I do, but not if it means being divorced a year from now. I think this is the only way Danny and I might eventually have a real chance.”

Her mother crossed the room and sat next to her, then drew her into a fierce hug. “Reverend Webb’s right. You’re wise beyond your years, Mary Louise, and I am very proud of you.”

Tears, never far from the surface these days, spilled down Mary Louise’s cheeks and mingled with her mother’s. Being wise pretty much sucked.

“What put you in such a sour mood?” Big Max asked Caleb when he showed up on Sunday evening. “If you’re going to sit there looking as if you just lost your best friend, you might’s well go on home. Things get gloomy enough around here without you adding to the misery.”

“And who’s fault is that?” Caleb retorted heatedly, his patience worn thin by too many people poking into his business the past couple of days. “You could change the way things are around here with one phone call.”

“We were talking about you, not me,” Big Max responded. “Don’t try to twist it into another one of your pitches for me to crawl back to my daughter.”

“It wouldn’t hurt you to grovel, Max. You could use a healthy dose of humility in your life.”

“I’ve got plenty to keep me humble,” the old man said. “And I’m sure you’ll see to it that I’m brought down a peg or two when I need it. Now, what got your knickers in a knot? There’s no point playing poker if your mind’s not going to be on the cards. What happened in church today? Did somebody tell you your sermon stank like day-old fish?”

Caleb bit back a laugh. “My sermon was just fine. Several people said so.”

“Did somebody dump a problem in your lap that you can’t solve?” Big Max pressed. “You’re not the Lord Almighty. You can’t fix everything. To tell you the truth, it seems to me He’s at a loss from time to time, too.”

Caleb thought of how ineffective he’d been yesterday when he’d been trying to help Mary Louise’s parents cope with the news of her pregnancy and guide them toward a workable solution they could all live with. Chet Carter had been all for taking his shotgun over to the Marshalls’ and using it to nudge Danny down the aisle. Eventually, Caleb had been able to make him see that a forced marriage wasn’t a good solution to anything, but Caleb wasn’t convinced Chet wouldn’t go back to his plan before all was said and done. He was still mad as hell that his daughter was facing this pregnancy alone.

“I do have a parishioner in need of some help,” he told Big Max, hoping to throw him off the scent. “I suppose that’s why I’m so distracted tonight.”

Big Max studied him skeptically. “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to tell me?”

“That’s all I can tell you,” Caleb said.

“Well, hell’s bells, if you can’t do better than that and you can’t concentrate on poker, get on out of here. You’re wasting my time.”

Relieved by the prospect of an early end to the uncomfortable evening, Caleb was about to take him up on it when Big Max suddenly looked a whole lot less feisty. “Is everything okay?” Caleb asked him, worried by the sudden uncertainty he saw in the older man’s eyes.

“Sure. Why wouldn’t it be? You’re the one acting crazy tonight,” Big Max grumbled. “Don’t know why you showed up here in the middle of the week, anyway.”

Caleb regarded him with real concern now. “Max, it’s Sunday night, same as always,” he said gently. “You asked me about church not two minutes ago.”

Big Max looked flustered, but he covered it with anger. “Of course it is. Stop trying to confuse me. Go on, now. I’m going to bed.”

Caleb wasn’t about to leave, not unless there was someone else around. “Is your housekeeper here?”

Max glowered at him. “Why do you care about that? You hoping Jessie will send you home with another piece of pie?”

“Exactly,” Caleb said, unwilling to admit that he wanted to be sure that there would be someone nearby in case something really was wrong.

“Well, I sent her home, so you’re out of luck,” Max said ungraciously. “Now, stop dillydallying and go.”

“I wouldn’t mind staying for a while,” Caleb offered. “That drink you made went to my head. I’d like to make myself a cup of coffee.”

Though the old man would never admit it, Caleb thought he detected relief in Max’s expression.