won’t live in fear of what might come. I won’t go through that terror
again.” “Mama, I don’t understand. You talk as if you know for a fact
that the baby will be deformed or something.”
They stared at each other for a moment, and Amy saw more than anger and
reproach in her mother’s dark eyes. There was fear in those eyes, too,
a stark and powerful fear that transmitted itself to Amy, chilling
her.
“Someday,” Mama said, “when the time was right, I was going to tell
you.” “Tell me what?” “Someday, when you were ready to be married,
when you were properly engaged, I was going to tell you why you must
never have a child. But you couldn’t wait for the proper time, could
you? Oh, no. Not you.
You had to give yourself away. You had to pull up your skirts the
first chance you got.
Still little more than a child yourself, and you had to throw yourself
at some high school boy. You had to rush out and fornicate in the
backseat of a car like a worthless little slut, like the worst kind of
pig. And now maybe it’s inside of you, growing.” “What are you
talking about?” Amy asked, wondering if her mother was completely
mad.
“It wouldn’t do any good for me to tell you,” Mama said. “You wouldn’t
listen.
You’d probably even welcome such a child. You’d embrace it just like
he did.
I’ve always said there was something evil in you. I’ve always told you
that you had to keep it in check. But now you’ve loosened the reins,
and that dark thing is running free, that evil part of you. You’ve
loosed the evil in you, and sooner or later, one way or the other,
you’ll have a child, you’ll bring one of them into the world, no matter
what I say to you, no matter how I plead with you. But you won’t do it
in this house. It won’t happen here. I’ll see to that. We’ll go to
Dr. Spangler, and he’ll abort it for you. And if there’s any sin in
that, if there’s mortal sin for someone to bear the burden of, it will
rest entirely on your shoulders, not mine. You understand?”
Amy nodded.
“It won’t matter to you, will it?” her mother asked meanly. “One more
sin won’t matter to you, will it? Because you’re already destined for
Hell anyway, aren’t you?” “No. No, Mama, don’t–” “Yes, you are.
You’re destined to be one of the Devil’s own women, one of his
handmaidens, aren’t you? I see that now. I see it. All my efforts
have been in vain. You can’t be saved.
So what’s one more sin to you? Nothing.
It’s nothing to you. You’ll just laugh it off.” “Mama, don’t talk to
me like that.” “I’m talking to you like you deserve to be talked to.
A girl who behaves the way you’ve behavedhow can she expect to be
talked to any differently?” “Please . . .” “Get a move on,” Mama
said. “Clean yourself up. I’ll call the doctor.”
Confused by the several twists that events had taken, baffled by her
mother’s certainty that the baby would be deformed, wondering about
Mama’s sanity, Amy went upstairs. In the bathroom she washed her
face.
Her eyes were bloodshot from crying.
In her bedroom she took another skirt and a clean blouse from the
closet. She stripped off her sweat-streaked, wrinkled clothes. For a
moment she stood in bra and panties before the full-length mirror,
staring at her belly.
Why is Mama so certain that my baby will be deformed? Amy asked
herself worriedly. How can she know such a thing for sure? Is it
because she thinks I’m evil and that I deserve this sort of thing–a
deformed baby, a sign to the world that I’m the Devil’s handmaiden?
That’s sick. That’s twisted thinking.
It’s ridiculous and crazy and unfair. I’m not a bad person. I’ve made
some mistakes. I’ll admit that. I’ve made a lot of mistakes for
someone my age, but I’m not evil, damn it. I’m not evil.
Am I?
She stared into the reflection of her own eyes.