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“I keep going,” Sophia said.
That she was sure of. It was the only solution, for now, until she could think
of something better. “I keep going as I have. We keep this between us.
Everyone else finds out when they have to, not before. Then,” she raised a
hand to stop him from interrupting her as he tried to speak up, “and only
then, does my father, and anyone else, find out. By then it will be too late for
him to stop me. I’m having this baby. I have to.”
And so the decision was made.
One that Benny did not agree with, and one that she had made in the worst state
of her life. But it was all she could do for the moment. As a good Catholic girl,
she couldn’t have an abortion. She couldn’t have a baby out of wedlock
either, but what do you do when you have no choice?
During the day she went about
what she always did, trying hard to keep distracted. It didn’t matter what she
did or how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop thinking about Jonathon. It was
like that when he was alive too, but at least then she could smile when she
thought of him. Now she couldn’t. She just felt utterly alone and depressed.
The nights were just torture, lying in the same bed as she did when Jonathon was
still there. She could still smell him on her pillow, and sometimes she felt him
holding her as he had before. But when she realized it was her mind toying with
her, she cried herself to sleep.
Hiding the pregnancy was not a
problem for now. It would be a little while longer before she would start
getting big, and the sickness had almost stopped. Being around a bunch of guys
each day helped. It wouldn’t matter how many symptoms she had, they wouldn’t
cotton on to what it really was, and she could just pass it off as the flu.
Benny, heaven bless him, knew but didn’t say a word, though his expression
grew more concerned as time wore on.
Sophia had avoided her mother
like the plague though. Mothers always knew. But avoiding her was starting to
cause trouble, so it was only a matter of time before Sophia had to face the
inevitable. She felt like throwing up everything she thought about the long
term. She knew it was all going to come out at some stage, and she had been
racking her brain to think of some way to explain the baby without divulging the
full story. Though the more she thought, the less likely it would be that she
could explain this is 25 words or less.
And so on the exterior, every
day went on as usual like it had for nearly a year now. Inside, she was in
turmoil. Though so far she’d hidden it relatively well.
“What on earth are you gonna
do when you start, you know …” Benny asked, as they sat in her car near the
waste dump while they waited for a drop off.
“When I get big, you mean?”
“Yeah, that.”
“I’ll hide behind lamps,
like they do on TV shows I guess,” she answered flippantly as she threw a half-finished
museli bar out the window. Her appetite wasn’t improving just yet.
“I’m serious!”
“So am I at this point,”
Sophia said deadpan.
Benny sighed. “Okay, let’s
try and look at this logically. What’s the worse your father could do to
you?” Sophia shrugged. She didn’t have to answer. Benny, as an Italian man
the same age as her father, already knew the answer to that one. “Okay, if he doesn’t
kill you, what do you think he’ll do?”
“Well,” Sophia rearranged
herself in her seat and opened her window further in a bid to keep the nausea
away, “I’d be out of a job, for one.”
“Yeah well, that’s another
thing. Shouldn’t you be, you know, taking it easy or whatever?”
“What,” Sophia had to laugh,
“be at home with bare feet watching TV all day? Come on, it’s not like that
anymore.”
“Maybe not. But I don’t
think your doctor would like you hanging out with a pack of mobsters all day,
unloading trucks, risking getting shot. This isn’t an office job you know.”
“I realize that Benny. But
it’s my job, I like my job. I realize there’s no precedent for this, there’s a
lot of things I gotta play by ear. I might not be in the best emotional state to
handle it, but I’m dealing with it the best I can. My brain is just …”
“I know, kid,” Benny reached
his hand out and placed it on her shoulder. “And I’m here for you; you know
that don’t you?”
“Yes. Thank you,” Sophia
smiled, but she felt like crying again. She’d been doing that too much lately.
“I’m sorry I’ve put this on you. I just didn’t have anyone else that I
could …”
“Hey, I’ve known you since
you were born, haven’t I?” Benny asked as he gave her shoulder a shake.
Sophia nodded. “You should be able to come to me, about anything, okay?”
Sophia nodded again. She couldn’t answer as the tears started falling down her
cheeks. Benny pulled her over and held her as she cried.
It was the first time she’d
let go in front of anyone, but she wasn’t about to stop now that Benny had a
tight grip on her. She realized now how much she needed and missed the comfort,
as ill-timed as it was. She knew she shouldn’t be allowing herself to work
herself up in a state like this when they were about to meet some ‘clients’,
but the release from not feeling completely alone was so great that she
couldn’t stop herself. She couldn’t feel or hear anything other than her
relief.
Benny was understandably
distracted as well, so neither of them heard the other car pull up. Only the sounds of the gunshot and Sophia screaming
broke them out of their embrace.
© Cynthia M. Piromalli
©2004 StoriesByEmail.com
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