"Thanks far coming," she said, and sat back, taking on that far-off look in her eyes again,
"Bye," I said, and left the house.
I hurried home to tell Mommy every-thing. When Daddy came home. I told him about my visit. too. We talked about it at dinner, and I could see they were both afraid I would fall victim to such events.
"Autumn's mother isn't all wrong, honey," Mommy said. "You have to be a little paranoid in today's world, especially today's youthful world. Every new generation seems to inherit some additional dangers. Sometimes I wish we lived back in the eighteen hundreds."
"No you don't," Daddy said. "You'd be waiting half a year for me to return from a sea duty."
They laughed at that. but I had often mused about living at a different time. Movies and books could make it seem so much more romantic. Maybe people did spend more time with each other, but swirling about them freely and unchecked were devastating diseases, more opportunities for accidents, and terrible poverty. We pay a price for progress. Mommy told me, and for a moment she looked worried about what my share of that price might be.
Nightmares had a field day in my sleeping brain for a week after my visit to Autumn. I never heard anything from her, not a phone call, and then, one morning at breakfast. Mommy told me Autumn's parents had indeed decided to send her to a special school. In fact, she was already gone.
At school, her name fell through the floor of conversations to the basement reserved for the long forgotten. Wench and Penny looked very satisfied with themselves. Penny, especially, made a point to tell me I should have listened to them.
"You have to know who you should be loyal to and who you shouldn't if you want to get anywhere in this world." she said.
"We're deciding whether or not to give you another chance." she added, speaking down to me as if she sat on a high throne.
Many of the other daughters and even sons of naval personnel did seem to be frightened of them, always agreeing with anything they said and never challenging a word. At school they were like queen bees making little demands of the drones who swirled about them everywhere they went, hoping for a smile, a compliment, an invitation to a party. They threw me their condescending smiles, expecting me to join the pack, but I didn't. I wasn't afraid of being alone or having friends who weren't from naval families. However, they looked disgustingly confident that I would come around and soon practically beg for their friendship.
I didn't want to say anything negative about our new home and my life here. so I didn't tell Mommy about any of this. Daddy was so happy at work, and Mommy was making some new friends she truly enjoyed. In fact. I thought she was happier here than she had been anywhere. One night only a little more than a month after we had moved to the Norfolk base, she revealed why.
Daddy was on a night instruction, so Mommy and I had dinner ourselves, and then, after we had cleaned up the kitchen and I had done my homework, she surprised me by coming to my room. I heard the knock on my door and saw her standing there looking as if she could just burst with excitement. Without hearing a word from her. I smiled.
"What?" I asked.
"I want to talk to you," she said, and came in to sit on my bed. I was brushing out my hair, "Just do what you're doing," she said. "I like to watch you anyway, honey. You're getting to be a beautiful young woman."
"Oh, Mommy," I said. blushing. "I am not."
"Yes, you are. Grace, and why shouldn't you?" she teased. "Look how handsome your father is and how beautiful your mother is."
"That's true," I said. "but it doesn't always follow the children will be."
"Take my word for it. Grace. You're an attractive young lady and will only grow more so. Anyway, I'm not here to tease you about your looks. I'll leave that up to your father. You like it better when he teases you anyway." she said without any envy. Mommy truly enjoyed watching Daddy and me. I could see it in her eyes. "Soon I hope to have more on my mind," she added.
I stopped brushing and turned to her. "What do you mean?"
"Well, honey, your father and I have had a long discussion, and we've concluded that we should try again to have another child. While we have been here. I have seen an obstetrician, and I have taken tests. In fact, so has your father," she revealed.
"What sort of tests?"
"Tests to determine if we are capable of having another child. We've tried at times in the past and failed, but we've never been as determined about it as we are now," she confessed.
I could see the resolve in her eyes. It took my breath away. Was it always just a matter of how much they really wanted a child?
"Anyway," she continued, "the tests have confirmed that we should have no problem. I know it might seem odd to you that we want another child with you already nearly fifteen. but I'm still of childbearing age and knocking on the door of not being, so if we are ever going to do it, we have to do it now. Understand?"
I nodded, but it was not only strange to me to hear her speak so candidly about it. The prospect of her actually being pregnant and my having a baby brother or sister now was both fascinating and frightening. Surely such an event would change our lives radically. What if the new baby was another girl? Would she become Daddy's special Sailor Girl? Or what if the baby was the boy I knew he'd always wanted? Would both of them devote all their affections to him, and would I become more like a guest in my own home? I felt guilty even having these fears, but they were there, running under my thoughts, a stream full of selfish fish.
"We both felt that now that your father is truly settled into a position that has some stability, it would be a good time to try again. I haven't felt this relaxed and confident about our lives for some time. Besides your father earning more, this house is actually the first in which we could have a real nursery."
I nodded, not knowing what to say.
"Amway," she said. smiling. "I wanted you to know our plans so it doesn't come as a shocking surprise to you. I am so confident I'll get pregnant this time. Grace," she said with bright, happy eyes.
I realized that despite my introduction to sexual education in health classes and what I heard and knew from talking with other girls. I really didn't understand how someone just makes up her mind to get pregnant. Of course. I understood how birth control worked, but from the way Mommy talked about it, it seemed as though the man simply took better aim at those floating eggs, or all the times before they were both not fully committed to it happening, and that was why they had failed.