Here I am. Send Me.--Chapter Twenty-Nine

Claire's confession begins.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

         The old woman sat roughly down into her chair with a wince. “I need to raise my foot to keep the swelling down on this ankle. Would you mind pulling that ottoman over for me?”

         Chris stepped across into the living room area, picked up the footstool, and carried it to Claire. With a grunt, she lifted her injured leg onto it. Brutus trotted over and lay on the floor next to it.

         She looked at Chris and her eyes filled with tears. “I’ve needed to tell this to someone for a long time.” She started her story.



         EIGHT YEARS AND TWO MONTHS PREVIOUS



         Claire clomped up the newly repaired steps to the front porch of her mobile home. Joey, a handyman that she knew from church, had done a good enough job, but he hadn’t come cheap. For what she paid, she could have bought the tools and done the work herself. But there were better things to do with her time. She had been able to get an extra twelve-hour Sunday shift, which was time-and-a-half and would make her financially whole for the month, unless fate had another surprise in store.

         Her feet just plain hurt from twelve straight hours spent at a dead run and without a minute to sit down and take a breath. She had eaten the cheese sandwich that she packed for her mid-shift meal in her left hand while she had filled out reports by hunting and pecking on the computer with her right. Her body was crying out for a long, hot shower and then bed.

         The house was dark, and she was debating with herself whether to grab a quick snack or just go straight to her bedroom. She opened the door, clicked on the light, and saw a figure sitting on the couch in the living room.

         The shock made her knees go weak and she fell back against the wall. It was only fear and force of will that kept her from sliding to the floor.

         “Who’s there?!” Even with the adrenaline pounding through her veins, she forced her eyes to focus. She relaxed when she heard her daughter’s voice.

         “It’s me, Momma.”

         Claire crouched down to pick up her keys from the floor. Her left knee popped. When did that start happening? “Courtney, what are you doing sitting here in the dark? You should be in bed. You’ve got your finals coming up. Now is not the time to be slacking. Being accepted at MTSU doesn’t mean a thing if you fail your finals and don’t graduate high school.”

         That was when Claire noticed the tears streaming down her daughter’s cheeks.

         Courtney’s words were simple and to the point. “Momma, I’m pregnant.”

         The words hit Claire cold, and she struggled for something to say. “Are you sure?”

         Courtney pointed at two white plastic sticks lying on the coffee table. Claire’s eyes first focused on the tape she had used to repair the broken leg of the table, but she forced herself to move the two steps to the table. The sticks were two different brands of home pregnancy tests. She recognized them both. One showed two pinks lines, and the other showed a cross. Both told her that she was about to become a grandmother.

         Claire was tired and confused and frustrated and, finally, angry. A little voice in her head told her that she needed to put the anger aside. Now was the time to sit down and hold her little girl. But anger won out.

         “How could you let this happen?!”

         The teenager looked down into her lap and the tears dropped in earnest. “I don’t know.”

         This was too much. “You don’t know! Did you ignore all that stuff they taught you in your health classes! It’s simple. Keep your pants on and you don’t get pregnant!”

         “I’m sorry.”

         “I don’t think you understand the situation. ‘Sorry’ doesn’t create the time to care for a baby and go to college. ‘Sorry’ doesn’t stop all the gossip and backbiting. ‘Sorry’ doesn’t get your life back. It’s gone. All your plans. All your dreams. Gone!”

         Courtney’s voice came out behind a sob. “When I tell Cal, we can get married and raise the baby together.”

         “Cal? Cal Marshall? I thought he was serious about that girl he brought by here a few weeks ago.”

         “They had a fight and broke up.”

         Claire stepped up so that she could look directly down on her daughter. “So, in the last few weeks, Cal broke up with his girlfriend, you two started dating, you started having sex, and you got pregnant. I didn’t raise you that way. I didn’t raise you that way at all.”

         Again, the little voice in her head was telling her that she was going too far. It was time to remember that this was her little girl. And she was frightened. She needed to be loved and comforted, not judged and scorned.

         Claire shook her head and went to bed.

         But that doesn’t mean she slept. After storming through the house and, through force of will, not slamming the door to her bedroom, she made her way into the master bathroom and continued her subvocal rant to the mirror as she brushed her teeth. Her rant included details of how her daughter had been raised to be a good Christian girl, peppered with plenty of what-will-the-church-think statements, and topped off with more vivid descriptions of how she had slaved to prepare a future for her daughter and that the girl had thrown it all away through lack of self-control. She finished it off with “Self-control equals character and, if you don’t have one, then you don’t have the other.”

         Had Courtney been sitting in the bathroom listening, she would not have understood a word. It sounded like a series of harsh, whispered hisses bubbling through the toothpaste foam which spilled out of Claire’s mouth, covered her chin, and spattered the mirror.

         She leaned against the sink as she spit out the foam and wiped her chin. She took deep breaths, trying to slow her heart rate. Her nursing training brought forth the name ‘resting tachycardia.’ Who’s resting? She thought to herself as she flopped onto her bed.

         She did not turn the bedside lamp off as she lay, staring at the ceiling. Her eyes filled with tears. Wiping them away, she started to pray. Her first prayer was angry and selfish. “Father, what are You doing to me? What did I do to deserve this? Why are you punishing me?”

         The same little voice that had spoken to her earlier spoke again, but she made no effort to hear.

         She continued, “Please make this all a mistake. Make Courtney wrong. Let it all be a couple of glitches in the home test results. She’s just a child; she doesn’t know how to do those things.”

         As soon as the words she’s just a child came out of her mouth, she felt what the little voice was saying.

         It’s not about you.

         Suddenly, all she could think about was her terrified daughter, sitting in the dark for hours and waiting for her to come home. She needed a mother more than any other time in her life and Claire gave her a judge.

         Lying in bed and praying felt wrong. She had spent too much time ‘and praying’ of late. She had driven ‘and prayed’, walked ‘and prayed’, worked ‘and prayed’. It was now time to just pray. To devote every ounce of her energy to the act of prayer. She slid out of the bed and to her knees and spoke aloud. “God, help me to pray for my child.”

         Her chest swelled with the love she felt for Courtney. There were no words. No thees or thous. Just the fixed picture in her mind, heart, and soul of Courtney and this picture was painted with love. Then a more powerful flood of love came over her, the love of God for her and her family.

         The next emotion that flowed over her was guilt. She had heard a sermon once that God did not want people to feel guilt. It was poppycock. We do things that we should feel guilty about. Claire felt guilty and rightfully so. She braced her arm against the bed, pulled herself to her feet, and made her way to the door. She opened it and peered into the living room.

         Courtney was still on the couch but was now lying down. Her breaths made a steady pattern of sleep. After worrying all day, her little girl had collapsed in exhaustion. Claire went to Courtney’s bedroom and took a blanket and a pillow from the bed and started back to the living room. She stopped at the door and turned around. A small paw stuck out of the bundle of bedding materials. A tug revealed the aging and worn teddy bear that had been on the bed so long that she no longer noticed it.

         She took the items and spread the blanket over Courtney before trying to tuck the pillow under her head. Finally, she gently placed the bear in her hands. Her heart cried out as her child gripped the bear tightly to her breast without waking.

         Claire sat on the floor next to the sofa and prayed through the night.

         “Momma?”

         It took a few seconds for Claire to realize where she was. Her days of doing sit-ups in gym class were long past and sitting up from the floor took some rolling around, but she made it to her knees. “Good morning, honey. I’m sorry about last night.”

         Courtney burst into tears and threw her arms around her mother. Claire held on tightly. The little voice in her head was quiet.