CHAPTER 5

Amanda Briggs was sitting on the sofa with her legs curled under her, drinking coffee and stroking her daughter’s hair. Shirley Ann was lying on the sofa, her head in her mother’s lap. Shirley Ann’s eyes were red and swollen from crying. Amanda just stared out the picture window at the wind gusting snow flurries across the lawn.

“Did you tell daddy yet?”

“Yes, I did. I told him on the phone just a little while ago.”

Shirley Ann began sobbing again. Her mother’s stroke on her hair never faltered.

“What did he say? And tell me exactly. Was he mad?”

“He wasn’t mad.”

“Did he cuss and yell?”

“No. He was very calm. He was busy and I don’t think it all sank in at the time.”

“Is he coming home?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

“Mamma, I am so sorry. I don’t know what to do. All I knew was I had to tell you. I’m sorry that it hurt you and I hope you don’t hate me but …”

“Honey, I don’t hate you. No one hates you.”

“Daddy will.”

“No, he won’t. He knows how to handle … unexpected things. He does it every day.”

Shirley Ann wondered if her dad had asked who the father was. Her mother asked earlier but Shirley Ann said she wasn’t ready to say. Shirley Ann knew she would have to tell them soon. She knew when she’d confided in her mother that it would all come out eventually. She couldn’t put it off forever.

“Honey, I know this hasn’t been easy. But there are some things I have to ask. You may as well talk to me before your father comes home. It will be easier that way. I was sixteen once. I know. Talk to me now while it’s just us.”

“Okay.”

“How long have you been seeing this boy?”

“It’s been going on since summer. We haven’t really dated in public because he has a girlfriend and I have Tommy, and we’ve sort of kept it a secret.”

“So when did you see one another?”

“I would tell you I was going downtown to meet Tommy and then I wouldn’t. I’d go meet … him. Sometimes I’d say I was over at Kathy’s and I wasn’t. I’d be with him. He has a car.”

“Shirley Ann, if you want me to see you through this thing then you’re going to have to start treating me like someone you trust. Like you treat your friends. You’re going to have to level with me. Do you understand?”

The weather dropped another five degrees and the wind whistled around the front door. There was no sunshine outside and certainly none inside. The gloom of a gray wintry morning rushed through every window of the living room and Shirley Ann was so long answering that Amanda thought she might have dozed off. But finally with no further urging, the daughter said a name she knew her mother wasn’t expecting.

“Louis Wayne Sterrett.”

“Dr. Sterrett’s son? Have you told him?”

“He knows.”

“And?”

“He’s going to tell his parents tonight. We both wanted to wait till after Christmas but I just couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t get all through Christmas with that on my conscience. And he agreed.”

They both stiffened as they heard car tires on the gravel driveway. Shirley Ann began to sob again, not in fear, but in the shame she knew she’d feel when she looked in her father’s eyes. They waited for the kitchen door to open but it never did. Instead, someone knocked at the front door.

Shirley Ann sat up and pulled her hair back and wiped at her face, hoping to magically erase the redness and puffiness for whomever was at the front door. Amanda walked across the room spreading the wrinkles out of her dress with both hands and reached the door as the anxious visitor pushed the bell for the second time. She opened it, and there stood the father of her unborn grandchild. Tall, scared, and handsome. There was no other way to describe him. Amanda thought maybe she should add brave, because it took a lot of nerve to ring that doorbell. As a fellow human being she wanted to shake his hand. As a mother she wanted to wring his neck.

“Mrs. Briggs, I’m Louis Wayne Sterrett. Is Shirley Ann home?”

Amanda Briggs gave Louis Wayne the same old silent, one-armed wave-in that Paul Franklin was giving her husband right at that moment, although she had no way of knowing it. Louis Wayne stepped in and Amanda closed the door behind him and found Shirley Ann standing in the middle of the room in equal parts shock and elation. Her prince had come to her rescue.

“Mamma, this is Louis Wayne.”

“I know who he is. Sit down.”

“Mrs. Briggs, I guess you know why I’m here.…”

“No, no I don’t. I know what you’ve done, but I don’t know why you’re here.”

“I’m here to lay claim to what I’ve done and I don’t know any better way than to do it face-to-face.”

Amanda Briggs would remember that little speech many years to come and would repeat it often for all who would listen. It was a character-sketch-in-brief of a young man and who he was and what he would become. Amanda Briggs wasn’t shy and neither was Louis Wayne Sterrett, and she liked that. She liked him in spite of what he had done to her daughter and to her family. He had a lot of man in him for a seventeen-year-old, and she only hoped Buddy would see the same qualities she was seeing.

“Mr. Sterrett, this family is in turmoil because of you.”

“I know that, and while I’m not proud of what has happened, I am also not ashamed and I’m not going to let anyone else be ashamed because I love your daughter and I want to marry her.”

“Louis,” Amanda said, shortening his name to match her temper, “you are both in high school. How are you going to marry this girl and raise this baby?”

“I have a part-time job now, and after graduation I can go to work full time and on top of that my family has money.”

Amanda wanted to fire a sharp and biting comeback but could only focus on his honesty. She was afraid Buddy would see it as cockiness.

“I’m going to make some lunch. You’re welcome to stay. You might as well eat with us. You’re practically family.”

“Yes, ma’am, and I’m looking forward to the day I will be.”

But just as Amanda got to the kitchen door, a flash of anger hit her. She turned and spoke sharply to Louis Wayne. “If you’re so in love with my daughter, why did you have to sneak around for the past four months instead of dating her like a girl should be dated?”

“That’s a hard question. Do you want the truth?”

“If you’ve got the truth in you, son, I want it.”

“I was dating Barbara Suter, coach’s daughter, and I knew if I broke up with her, he’d cut me from the team.”

“Well, you can be sure he’s going to cut you now.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You want Pepsi or Dr Pepper?”

“Dr Pepper.”