Down the Dirt Road (14 page)

     Twilight was quickly settling in around her when Jennie heard the sound of a truck’s engine coming up behind her.

     Uncle Tommy.

     Determined to ignore him, she continued walking, kicking rocks and cursing under her breath with almost every step.  Jennie was never one to cuss but in recent weeks it seemed she was doing it a whole lot more.  Another step towards becoming an adult?

      She marveled at how much she had changed, grown up actually, in just a couple of weeks.
  Turning eighteen was supposed to be a monumental birthday, legally become an adult who could smoke if she so chose or buy all the lottery tickets she wanted.  She could join the military but couldn’t legally carry a weapon.  Turning eighteen gave her the right to vote and apparently the ability to swear
and cuss as much as she wanted.

    Uncle Tommy’s truck slowed slightly as it neared but he never stopped.  It was probably for the best, she was in no mood to be cordial.

    By the time she decided to head back home the sky had turned a deep purple hue, highlight by thousands of tiny twinkling stars.  The moon was but a mere sliver in the sky but it was enough to light her way back along the familiar old road.  The night sky was a carbon copy of the last night she spent with Michael.  Everything had seemed so perfect then in contrast to the mess of lost dreams and broken emotions that it had become.

   The house was dark but for a lone bulb glowing in the living room window.  Jennie let herself in and silently made her way to her bedroom hoping to avoid any further conflict with Momma.  She had a big day ahead of her tomorrow and the best thing she could do was get some sleep. 

 
The stillness in the house
since Daddy left was unnerving.  It was as if his life force sucked all the energy from their home, negative and positive.  She and Momma moved about the house in a  haze; an eerily quiet haze.
  

 
Pausing outside her mother’s bedroom door
for a moment
she thought she heard the sound of quiet crying.

   Had she been wrong?  Did Momma still miss Daddy as much as she did? 

   There was no denying the charge of excitement
Momma had been exhibiting when
her husband’s brother had come to visit but perhaps the reasons were completely different than Jennie had first thought.

   Continuing on to her own room, she pressed the door closed gently so as not to disturbed Momma. 
Sh
e collapsed on top of the lavender
and white eyelet comforter she had covered her bed with since her tenth birthday and buried her face in one of the dozen throw pillows she had always loved.  Using her left arm she swept all the rest of them onto the floor in frustration.  Hers w
as the bedroom of a little girl;
innocent and sweet. 
Lavender walls, thick purple carpet and white sheer curtains exuded innocence and youth. 
That sweet, innocent girl was gone.  The sun didn’t rise and set on the shoulders of her first love anymore, her days were no long
er filled with idle chit chat and
local
gossip and she was no longer unscathed by loss and heartbreak.

  Jennie rolled over and screamed in to the mattress as loud as she could.  She screamed until her throat stung and her lungs ached.  Then she yelled every foul word she could think of into her pillow.  The pent up frustrations and anger buried deep worked their way to the surface until she was exhausted from the effort.

   Throwing
her body over so she was on her back, arms flung out to the sides, she studied the terrain of the popcorn ceiling over her bed.  Her eyes were wet, her throat beyond sore.  How she longed to be ten again, when life was simple and the only cares she had were making sure her bed was made and getting to the school bus on time.

 
  Growing up was turning out to be a real bitch.

1
2.

    Jennie had never ached so much in her life.  The thirty minutes she just spent soaking in a ridiculously hot bath had done nothing to ease her sore muscles.  Factory work a lot harder than she had expected.
  The first week had been all introductions, paper work and safety videos.    The next two weeks she spent shadowing her supervisor, learning the ins and outs of creating quality paper products from raw ingredients.  The last five days had been the hardest working days of her life.  Since being given the OK to go out on her own, Jennie had used muscles in her body she didn’t even know existed.  Never before in her life had she been so happy for a weekend.

    The soak in the bathtub had come even before her afternoon chores. 
Without it, there was no way she would have even made it to the barn. 

   She could hear Momma singing in the kitchen.  Momma had been spending less and less time in her room, Jennie hoped that meant Momma was coming out of the deep mourning and rejoining the world.  She still hadn’t left the house except to sit on the front porch.  Maybe it was her fault.  Jennie had taken over all the shopping and other business matters which gave Momma no reason to leave the farm at all.

    Well, at least she wasn’t sleeping her days away any more.  That was progress, right?

    From the front of the house, Jennie heard the doorbell ring.  They weren’t expecting anyone, not that she knew of anyway.  She listened as Momma walked across the wide planked wood floor and opened the door.   Muted voices travelled up the stairs from the front room but she couldn’t make them out.

    Maybe it was Uncle Tommy again.  He and Momma had spent many a night sitting on the front porch talking about
Daddy and the “good ole days”.  She closed her eyes and leaned back against the tub allowing the rest of the warmth in the now pretty lukewarm water to soak into her muscles.  She was just beginning to drift off when she heard her mother’s voice calling up to her.

    “Jennie?  Jennie!  Come down here!  You have a visitor!”

     A visitor?  No one had been by to see her in weeks.  Not since school started and all of her so-called friends returned to the rigors and excitement of their senior year.

     She sat up
reluctantly and pulled the plug from the drain
.  “OK, Momma!
  Be down in a few minutes!”

     The heat of the bath helped some but she could still feel every muscle as she quickly dried off and threw on a pair of cut off shorts and a black tee shirt.  Dragging a brush through the thick, tangled mop of curls as she walked down the stairs, the brush fell from her hand as she saw who waited for her in the front room.  The plastic brush clanged against each step, almost in slow motion, as she studied her visitor.  Time seemed to stand still as they eyed each other,
a cornucopia of emotions flooding Jennie in quick succession- confusion, agitation, anger.\

    “What are
you
doing here?”  The words were sharp, they cut like a knife through the thick tension that filled the space between her and her ex-best friend, Trisha.

    Trisha’s expression was pained.  Sadness and a hint of fear colored her blue eyes and her voice shook ever so slightly as she spoke.

     “Can we go outside and talk?  Please?”  The plea in her words was almost enough to soften Jennie’s heart.  For the briefest of moments she longed to forget the past, run to her friend and hug her until they both cried the last of their tears.  But then she remembered the pain, the heartache of what Trisha and Michael had done; the bonds of trust that had been severed completely and irrevocably.

    “I suppose so.”  Jennie took the last few steps in a rush and brushed past Trisha nearly knocking her friend over.  “You really shouldn’t be here though.  I have nothing to say to you.”

    “Well, I have something I have to say to you.”
  The words were tough but her voice was weary.  Jennie studied
her former friend as she held the door to the front porch open.  Dark splashes colored the skin beneath her eyes and her usually naturally pink cheeks were pale.  Trisha looked a lot worse for the wear than Jennie did and Jennie was the one whose life had turned upside down barely six weeks earlier.

     Instead of responding she settled herself into the wood rocker that used to belong to her father and folded her hands across her lap the way Momma did when she was about to deliver a long lecture on Jennie’s behavior and the many ways it would displease God and her disgrace her Christian upbringing.

    Trisha perched somewhat precariously on the edge of Momma’s rocking chair, looking pained and uncomfortable.  For a while she just studied her hands as she worked them in her lap before she looked up at Jennie, tears flooding her normally crystal blue eyes.  Crickets and cicadas sang a noisy tune as the sun began its trek toward the west.

      Jennie just waited for her to speak.  She wasn’t about to make this easy for her ex friend.  She deserved all the
misery the world could rain down on her.  Except for maybe spontaneous combustion; that idea no longer seemed as appealing as it had a month or so ago.

     
“Jennie, I…. Michael and I ….”

      Trisha’s anguish was real, that much Jennie could see.  Maybe she and Michael had broken up.  Better yet, maybe the lying, cheating bastard had lied to and cheated on her too and now she felt really bad about what she had.  Bad enough to come to Jennie and beg forgiveness.  She wasn’t too sure she would give it to her right away but maybe, one day they could be friends again.

   Maybe.

  “Jennie…. I
… I’m pregnant.”

  The bomb exploded and then the whole world went
deathly
silent around them.
  Movement and sound ceased to exist as Jennie stared at her former friend.  Seconds ticked by in a sort of vacuum as Jennie worked to process the information Trisha had just thrown at her. 
Pregnant
?

     “How did that happen?”  She blurted finally.

      “Aww…come on, Jennie, I think you know how…”

     “Of course I know
how!” 
Jennie snapped.  “I meant how did you let that happen? For God’s sake, didn’t you
use
anything?”

       If it were possible for Trisha to become even more colorless than she had been when she arrived, she did. 

      “You didn’t use… protection?!”  The last word echoed across the front yard bouncing of pines and tall oak trees until it was only a whisper
between them.

    “Michael said we would be OK.  That he would stop before …before … anything could…happen.”

    “Come on, Trisha, you took health class.  You
know
that doesn’t really work!”

     They just stared at each other, Trisha looking helpless and scared.  Jennie was angry yet oddly grateful.  It could have been her sitting there so
lost and forlorn if she had let Michael sweet talk her that night down by the lake.  For the first time since Daddy died she f
ound herself thankful that thing
s hadn’t worked out
between her and her first love.  Maybe Momma was right- things, even bad things, always happen for a reason and God really did know best.

   There was no way Jennie was anywhere near ready to experience the things Trisha was about to go through.  Teenage pregnancy was rare in their small, God-fearing town.  Too many pointing fingers and too few pews in the country church for such scandal.  Everyone knew everyone’s business.  It was only a matter of time before fingers would be pointing at Trisha and Michael.  Would she have to leave town?  Give the baby up for adoption?  Abortion would never be an option in Jennie’s home but Trisha’s more forward mother might approve of such an action.  She might even encourage it.

    “So, what are you gonna… do?”  The question was tentative.  She wasn’t sure she really wanted to know.  Especially if the best option was to get rid of it.

     “Um… well, Michael and I have talked about it.  And we have
decided… we are gonna… Oh, shoot, I’ll just say it.  Michael asked me to marry him.”

     Trisha shrunk back against the rocking chair as though she
Jennie might strike her
.
In truth,
Jennie was stunned beyond words.  The Earth ceased to spin on its axis for the
briefest of moments as everything around Jennie began to shift wildly in sharp contrast to the too still surroundings.

     “He what?”  The words came out in a whisper, she wasn’t even sure her voice made an actual sound but Trisha nodded slightly in response.

       “He proposed.  Neither of us believe in abortion and I couldn’t bear the thought of someone else raising my baby so a
doption was out of the question
.  Besides, Ma was adopted and she despis
es her birth mother for giving
her away like that.  She wouldn’t hear of her grandchild being tossed aside as she puts it.”