Chapter Forty-One

I walked in the door at home to a hungry feline. When I reached up in the cupboard for a can of cat food, I noticed the blinking light on the answering machine. I hit the message button, holding my breath Alicia had called. By the time the tape rewound, I had Kitty's food opened. As I spooned out the fishy smelling stuff, I heard Betsy's voice.

"Fay, it's Betsy. Drop everything and give me a ring when you get in."

I heard a second caller hang up without leaving a message. Then while the tape returned to its start position, I tapped out Betsy's home number I had written down in the back of my telephone book. After three rings, her answering machine kicked on. "Betsy, if you're there, pick up. It's Fay."

I waited a few seconds to the sound of silence. "Okay, so you're not home. I am, and will stay here until you call."

Before I headed for my favorite spot to curl up on and decipher the contents of Marie's diary, I called Alicia's dorm. Like numerous times before, I listened to a number of unanswered rings and finally hung up. I thought about giving Allen a jingle, but decided against it. If he had heard from our daughter, he would have called. He would have left a message since I wasn't home.

"If you want to join me, I'll be in the living room," I told Kitty, who was too busy chowing down to pay me any attention. Then I picked up the diary I dropped on the counter when I came in and headed for that comfortable spot on the corner of the living room couch. Instead of propping my foot on the coffee table, I kicked off my loafers and tucked both feet up underneath me. It would have been a good idea to ice down the ankle since there was still some swelling, but I didn't want to take the time to mess with it. My mind was hungry for answers this little book possibly held.

I was several pages into Marie's diary when I knew something was terribly wrong. The fact that tears were rolling down my cheeks confirmed what Joe said earlier. I read about one of those once in a lifetime romances. It was just as he had said. Only the pages I read never mentioned Joe as the father to the baby Marie carried. The pages I read told about how Marie had met Thomas. They had a brief affair that lasted until the day Thomas introduced his older brother Joe to her. It was love at first sight for Marie. She soon discovered Joe felt the same way. Life was magical for nearly a month.

The doctor told Marie it wasn't the virus going around that had her hanging her head over the toilet every morning for the last week. She was pregnant. Marie was elated, until the doctor told her how far along she was.

She was devastated at the news. The doctor offered the name of a clinic in New York that performed abortions, since it was still illegal to have one in Pennsylvania. Marie had no money for an abortion. But even if she did, she would not be able to go through with it. She had conceived a child out of wedlock. She would not compound that sin by adding another.

She loved Joe too much to deceive him by telling him she was carrying his baby. When she confronted Thomas, he told her they would run off and get married. Start fresh in another state. Then Thomas drove her to an abortion clinic out of state, gave her a fistful of hundred dollar bills, and left her at the door.

Marie was alone in a strange city. But she had enough money to catch a bus to about anywhere she wanted to go. So that's what she did. She took a bus to Ohio where an old girlfriend from high school had settled.

The diary ended with the birth of Angel. But nowhere from beginning to end had I read that Joe had fathered Marie's child.