Because of the Rain Page 12

  She’d not spoken with her oldest daughter since the weekend the girls had been told about the pregnancy. Anna thought they’d at least agreed to disagree on the topic. Yet, when almost three weeks had gone by without any word from Kara, Paul grew concerned and called her.

  “I don’t know what there is to talk about, Dad,” Kara had replied tersely. “I just can’t deal with this. I’m sorry. Truly, I am sorry, but I don’t think this is something Mom and I can discuss anymore. I don’t think there’s anything else to be said.” She’d refused even to say hello to her mother.

  Paul had hung up, more angry than hurt. But Anna was hurt. It cut deeply to have Kara’s continued rejection and disapproval. As much as she wanted to reconcile with her daughter, she simply didn’t feel that she could deal with one more conflict in her life right now. She tried to put it out of her mind. Yet, how could she put her own child out of mind? She couldn’t pretend it didn’t matter. It mattered a great deal.

  Paul had played mediator between mother and daughter. He had called Kara and told her of their decision to put the baby up for adoption. Anna thought Kara would be relieved that at least they weren’t keeping the baby. But even after this news, it seemed there’d been no softening on Kara’s part. Paul still could not persuade her to even speak with her mother on the phone.

  At that, Anna allowed herself anger. How could Kara be so unfeeling, so seemingly ignorant of the anguish in which she and Paul had made their difficult decisions? In many ways, the anger was easier to deal with than the hurt. It caused deep pain to realize that her daughter could forsake her at a time when she most needed her love and support.

  She and Paul both feared the changes they saw in their daughter—Kara’s seemingly changed beliefs on abortion and the almost haughty attitude that she wore so often now. Anna worried about what had provoked these changes. Had she and Paul failed to properly instill in their daughter the values and morals that they treasured so highly? Had they failed to pass on the very essence of their deeply held faith? These questions tortured her like thorns in her already wounded flesh.

  As cold-hearted as Kara had been toward Anna, Kassi was warmth and sweetness. She truly seemed to understand the degree of her mother’s suffering, and she had given Anna such reassurance of her support and her empathy. “You’re doing the right thing. Mom. I just know you are,” she’d told Anna more than once. The conviction in her voice had been a real comfort to Anna.

  Kassi also made excuses for her sister, telling Anna, “She doesn’t mean to hurt you, Mom. She wants to be there for you—I know she does—but I think she truly thinks she can still talk you out of having the baby. She’s scared for you, Mom. Even for your life—for what you’ll go through giving birth. She’s seen––in her job––what can go wrong during birth.”

  They’d both laughed at the comparison of Anna’s pregnancy to the canine and feline gestations that Kara dealt with at the animal clinic. Anna knew there was probably a small bit of truth to what Kassi said. But she felt a hot flush of shame when she admitted to herself that much of Kara’s emotion was purely selfish—embarrassment for Anna’s situation, impatience for the inconveniences it caused her, and probably more than anything, her stubborn need to always be right. Anna felt responsible for Kara’s self-centered spirit, and she rebuked herself for failing to give her older daughter whatever it was that instilled compassion and selflessness in a child.

  Though Kassi was attentive and careful with Anna, she could not hide her anticipation of the new year about to begin at the university. Kassi had finally begun to feel comfortable with campus life. She’d made close friends at school and was enjoying her studies. It was only natural that she was anxious to get back to that life. Anna knew it was wrong, but she was a little jealous of her daughter’s enthusiasm, of her young carefree life. For one rash selfish moment, Anna wished she could trade places with her daughter. If only she were packing for something as exciting as going back to school instead of for the exile that awaited her.

  Paul’s voice brought Anna back to the present. “Honey, do you want this bag up front, or can it go in the trunk?” Paul had loaded the car in silence. Now he was down to the last few items.

  It had been difficult deciding what to bring. Though the Walkers’ apartment was furnished, Anna would still need everything for the kitchen. And though she wanted in no way to make the apartment feel like home, she did, at the last minute, pack a few knickknacks to set about on the coffee table and nightstands.

  She carefully wrapped framed photographs of Paul and the girls, and of her parents and Shirley, and put them in the backseat of the car. She was afraid the family pictures would be constant reminders of all she had left behind, but she decided she could always pack them away if looking at them made her too homesick.

  They had agonized over what to tell their families. In the end, it came down to a choice between telling the awful truth, and making up an elaborate story—telling a lie…there was no other honest way to put it. And though the truth was painful and hurtful, she simply couldn’t tell the lie, couldn’t keep up the pretense of any story they could have fabricated. Now, as she packed to escape all those they could not tell, she remembered with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach the day they had told her parents.

  On a sunny day, just three weeks ago, they’d driven the sixty miles to the Greysons’ home in the country. Her mother had taken it especially hard. Charlotte Greyson was worn down with the burdens of caring for Anna’s grandmother, and since Paul and Anna had never told her parents about the rape itself, they’d had to absorb that horrible fact at the same time as the news of Anna’s pregnancy.

  They’d eaten lunch together, laughing and exchanging news as though nothing had changed, as though things would always remain the same.

  After lunch Anna went down the hall and helped her mother feed her grandmother and get her settled back into the hospital bed that dominated her small bedroom. Almost five years ago Grandmother Cavender had moved from her farmhouse ten miles outside of town into the Greysons’ home. Her first two years in their home had been spent puttering contentedly about the large sunny rooms, helping her daughter care for the house and the large collection of houseplants Charlotte had nurtured over the years.

  Now Grandmother spent her hours in the bedroom Liz and Anna had shared as teenagers. The elderly woman drifted in and out of wakefulness, mostly unaware of her surroundings, though seemingly free of pain. She had lived this way for almost two years now, ever since a stroke had left her nearly bedridden. Anna sometimes wondered how much longer her grandmother could go on like this. And how much longer her mother could continue to care so patiently for the tiny, frail woman whose years numbered nearly a century.

  Her mother’s days were consumed with the arduous chores of feeding and bathing her mother—each procedure such a painstaking process that she barely finished one when it was time to begin another.

  The family had tried to convince Charlotte to place her mother in a nursing home, or at least to hire a nurse to come into their home. But Charlotte Greyson wouldn’t hear of it. Her only concession was to hire a woman to clean the house once a week, and that was at her husband’s insistence.

  Anna’s aunt drove from Chicago to relieve Charlotte once or twice a month, and Anna and Liz helped when they could. But essentially, Mom had committed herself to being her mother’s caretaker for the remainder of the older woman’s life. Anna at once admired her mother’s devotion to her parent and was angered by her stubbornness in not allowing outside help to ease the burden. She knew well who Kara had inherited her stubborn streak from.

  Now, with lunch finished and Grandmother napping, Anna could not put off the reason for their coming any longer. She sat beside Paul at the round oak table in her parents’ elegant dining room. Across the table her parents nursed second cups of coffee. The sun cast bright patches on the lace tablecloth where the remains of a fragrant cherry pie sat in the middle of the table. The sunny bay window behi
nd them was filled with Mom’s plants, green and flowering, though a yellow leaf here and a faded blossom there hinted at neglect.

  Suddenly nervous, Anna stared down into her grandmother’s delicate china cup, her own coffee long grown cold. Her heart began to pound.

  Jack and Charlotte were relaxed, smiling, unaware of the gravity of their daughter’s visit. Anna reached for Paul’s hand, which rested atop the table. He wrapped strong fingers around hers, and she sighed involuntarily.

  Her parents exchanged curious glances. Paul squeezed her hand again. She felt his strength and knew his grasp conveyed his willingness to do the telling if she but asked. But for her parents’ sake, she could not let the task pass to Paul. The words must be her own.

  She looked into their expectant faces. “Mom, Dad, we… we have some bad news to give you.”

  Alarm came into her mother’s eyes, and her father’s smile faded, his jaw tensing. Love for these two people who had given her life surged through her. The deep lines in their faces and the strands of gray in their hair touched her in a way she did not fully understand. An emotion, new to her relationship with her parents, welled fiercely within her, and she recognized it as the same protectiveness that tore at her heart when Kara or Kassi suffered pain or disappointment.

  Swallowing hard, Anna took her mother’s thin hand in her own. Its coolness, the knuckles gnarled with arthritis, surprised her. She hadn’t realized until this moment how much her mother had aged over the past few months.

  Anna choked on tears, but she looked into her mother’s eyes and hurried to tell what they had come to tell. “Mom, I want you to know that I’m doing fine. We haven’t wanted to worry you, because I really am fine but… Do you remember when I went with Paul to Orlando last spring?”

  Numbly her parents nodded in unison, waiting, she knew, for the unimaginable.

  “I… I was walking alone one night, and… I was attacked…and raped.”

  Her mother gasped as the announcement sank in, and Anna tightened her grip on her hand. “I wish that was all of it, Mom, but…there’s more.”

  Anna found herself directing her words at her mother. Jack Greyson was a rock of strength, and Anna knew he would deal with the news in his own strong quiet way. But her mother would need reassurance. Her mother would need convincing that Anna’s words were true.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  “Oh, Anna,” her mother said, a thin but almost cheery note in her voice. “You’re pregnant?”

  Anna knew what her mother was thinking—hoping… She couldn’t allow her to carry that hope for a moment. “Yes, Mom. I… I became pregnant when I was raped.”

  “Oh, Anna, maybe not. You…you don’t know that. Maybe it is Paul’s baby you’re carrying. You don’t know,” her mother repeated, her voice high and pleading.

  “No, Mom,” Anna said firmly. “Paul had a vasectomy seven years ago. We know the baby could not be his. We know that for certain.”

  Paul and Anna had never shared their decision about the vasectomy with her parents. It must shock them to find out there were so many things about her—about them—that they didn’t know. Even now she wasn’t sure her mother understood. Anna’s mother had never been comfortable speaking about such things with her children.

  “We haven’t told anyone except the girls, of course, and Shirley, and I will call Liz and tell her,” Anna continued. “We aren’t sure when—or if—we will tell anyone else. I know that makes it difficult, Mom, but…well, we don’t want it known. At least not yet.”

  “What…what will you do, honey?” Her mother’s eyes were glazed over, and her face was a mask of confusion.

  When Paul explained that Anna would be going to New Haven until the baby was born, explained that they planned to give the child up for adoption, Anna knew that her father grasped everything. She knew that he would be there to convince her mother of the terrible truth of this news and, in time, to offer comfort and a strong shoulder to lean on.

  Sitting together in the house that Anna had grown up in, she and Paul answered her parents’ many questions and made polite conversation. Every sound seemed magnified in the silence of the house. The clock ticked loudly on top of the bookcase in the front hall. Outside the back door, the air conditioner purred like a huge, contented cat.

  In a small strangled voice, Anna’s mother asked them if they would stay for supper, but Anna knew Paul was anxious to get back to the city and knew, too, that her parents needed time alone together to recover from the shocking news. They said their goodbyes tearfully, without acknowledging the time that would pass before they would next see one another.

  While Paul brought the car around, Anna went back to the bedroom to bid her grandmother goodbye. Grandmother Cavender lay on her back in the high bed, one bony arm gripping the side of the raised bedrail, the other clutching the neatly turned back quilt that covered her thin frame. Her eyes were closed, the lids translucent, a tracery of pale blue veins beneath the thin skin. Anna tiptoed to the side of the bed and leaned over to place a light kiss on the cool wrinkled cheek.

  Her grandmother’s eyes fluttered open. There was recognition in the faded brown eyes, “Well, love…your…heart, Annie,” she said in the slow quavering voice that age had bestowed on her. She sighed and closed her eyes again.

  Anna smiled and her heart soared. Rarely had her grandmother seemed to know her in the past two years. The words of blessing—”well, love your heart, Annie”—were old, familiar ones that held sweet memories. Now they were a gift.

  “Goodbye, Grandmother… I love you,” she whispered. “God bless you.”

  Driving away from her childhood home that afternoon, Anna felt as though a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Yes, she would worry about how her mother was coping, but at least now she could be herself with her parents. This secret was too heavy to carry, along with everything else she bore.

  Anna called Liz the following morning. The two sisters had always been close. Five years older than Anna, Liz had been her constant protector and encourager since the day she was born. Now her sister assumed the role once more.

  “Oh, Anna, are you sure you can give this baby up?” she cried. “Have you thought about how it will be to wonder every day where that baby is, where that child is on every birthday?” Liz’s first grandchild had been born in April, and Anna knew her sister had been reminded anew of the tender sweetness a baby brought.

  But of course she’d thought about it. These were questions she’d asked herself a thousand times. But always, the child’s questions seemed more urgent. She explained to Liz that she and Paul hoped for an open adoption, that they hoped to remain in contact with the adoptive parents. But of course there was no way to know yet how it would all work out.

  “I know you’re doing the right thing,” Liz cried. “I know you are. But, oh, Anna, I just don’t want to see you hurt.”

  They wept together across the phone lines, and Anna was comforted by her sister’s response. When she told Liz that she was going to New Haven, her sister offered their home instead.

  “Liz, thank you. I know I would be welcome there, and I did think about it, but… well, this isn’t something Matt should have to deal with. A ten-year-old shouldn’t have the burden of keeping a secret of this magnitude. And New Haven is so much closer. Paul will be able to come every weekend.” Anna’s voice broke as she thought anew of being without him.

  Liz didn’t argue with Anna’s reasons, but asked, “Have you told Mom and Dad?”

  Anna told her about revealing their trip to her parents’ house the day before, and Anna knew that Liz would be another source of strength for their mother.

  Paul’s mother already knew about the rape, and she accepted this new disclosure about Anna’s pregnancy with her usual strength and her no-nonsense take-charge attitude. Shirley offered to take care of Paul’s laundry and the housecleaning in Anna’s absence. Anna made Paul promise to allow his mother that privilege. She knew it would be good for b
oth of them.

  It seemed that the Lord was teaching her a great deal about allowing herself to be ministered to, to allow the precious people God had placed in her life to encourage and uplift her. Anna began to see the pride that had kept her silent for all these months for what it was. She was humbled—and lifted up at the same time—by the genuine caring and love offered so graciously now to Paul and to her.

  It amazed her once again to see the phenomenon of God’s grace in the most formidable circumstances. How many times had they felt His mighty hand shelter them in the midst of turmoil, seen great spiritual growth spring from the soil of adversity? It built up her faith in a way she could not have imagined a year ago. Someday, perhaps, she would be able to testify to that great Power. Perhaps somewhere down the road in her humble testimony an inkling of the purpose of this tragedy would be found. She found the thought comforted her.

  Anna handed Paul the last of her things to be packed in the backseat of the car: a stack of books she’d been wanting to read along with her laptop and iPad. Though she couldn’t exactly keep all her friends up to date on what was happening in her life these days, she thought it would help her mother and the girls if she at least kept in touch with them.

  Emma had suggested she keep a journal of her thoughts and experiences. Anna wasn’t sure she could do that just yet, but she had an empty notebook, just in case.

  With a final glance at this wonderful house she and Paul shared, she locked the back door and went around to the passenger side of the car. Even though she felt like she was already saying goodbye, there was no need for her and Paul to say parting words yet. They had a three-hour drive ahead of them.

  The landscape seemed…dusty, and though they’d turned the calendar’s page to September, August’s sultry days had not yet given way to the cool breezes of autumn, and Anna watched through the bug-splattered windshield as plowed fields and unfamiliar small towns rolled by. Though they’d driven this same route two weeks ago, she felt as though she were traveling through a foreign country. She longed for the familiar streets of their Chicago neighborhood and felt the deep pangs of homesickness already.