No Sensible People Chapter Fourteen (part 3)

Previous

Stuart called and Aunt Lucy took the call in her room. I couldn't hear everything but I could tell she was telling him more about how everything had happened and she invited him over for dinner.

"I got one of those pre-seasoned whole chickens from the grocery store. The kind that's already stuffed. A turkey would've been too much," she told him.

Stuart came over about 4:30 after quickly whipping up strawberry shortcake from an angel food cake mix he had in his cupboard, and a package of strawberries from the freezer. He didn't bring up any of what happened
until after we had all eaten.

"What are you going to do about Frank?" Stuart asked Aunt Lucy. "He's coming home in two days, you know."

"I will tell him," Aunt Lucy said. "I won't put you in the position of keeping everything to yourself."

"I'm not worried about me," Stuart said.

"I suspect he'll be angry, but he'll forgive me," Aunt Lucy said. "This was one indiscretion. He certainly has had plenty. Frank's not exactly in a position to hold anything against me for too long," she told him.

"But the difference is that Frank didn't love any of those other women, and you have loved Denny Ferguson your whole life."

"It doesn't matter how I feel about Denny," Aunt Lucy said. "Even if he could forgive me and we could get together it's not like we could all head back to Leifton. I can't exactly handle greeting my rapist in the toothpaste aisle."

"Taffy's not staying in Leifton," I interrupted.

"Where's he going?" Aunt Lucy asked.

"He doesn't know yet," I said.

"Well good," she said. "I'm glad he's not staying there. But he's still not going to forgive me for the abortion. Think of how he is with Jennie. Imagine how he'd be with his own."

Aunt Lucy was talking to herself more than she was talking to Stuart or me. I decided to go ahead and ask what I needed to know. Maybe one of them would tell me.

"What's an abortion?" I asked. "Why does it make Taffy so mad?"

Aunt Lucy looked sad as she reached over and touched my hair.

"You're so little," she said.

"I'll be ten in two weeks," I told her.

"What do you know about how babies are made?" she asked me.

"I've seen the animals," I said.

"Well, it's a little more complicated with people," she said. "At least it is for most people."

Aunt Lucy went on to explain the abortions were done when the baby had started to grow inside the woman, but something had gone wrong. Either something was wrong with the baby, or the woman, or the situation she's in,
and she can't handle having it grow in her anymore so she has a doctor help her get the baby out.

"Then what happens to the babies?" I asked.

"The babies die, Sweetie," Aunt Lucy said.

"Is that like when Mama lost those other babies before they were born?"

"It's a little like that," Aunt Lucy said. "Except your mama wanted those babies. She tried very hard to take care of herself so those babies could be born healthy."

"But Taffy never got mad at Mama when she lost the babies. He was really nice to her."

"They weren't his babies," Aunt Lucy said.

"You didn't want Taffy's baby?" I asked.

"I didn't think it was Taffy's baby. I told you how animals are different from people. With people, with good people, you're together because you love each other or at least because both people want to be together. With animals sometimes, it's like sticking a bull in the yard with a cow. That bull doesn't care if that cow loves him, or if she's scared, or if he's hurting her...he just goes after her, gets what he wants."

Aunt Lucy was crying again, and Stuart suggested that I stop asking questions. Maybe it was too hard for her. Maybe she could explain more later when she was feeling better. But she said no. If she stopped she'd have to start over again, and she didn't want to go through this any more times than she had to.

"Mr. Lutzen was like that bull, the way he went after me," she explained. "I loved Denny very much, and I knew he loved me, and I wanted to be with him. That's the difference. The baby could have belonged to either one as far as I knew. I couldn't have gone nine months thinking that maybe I was growing Mr. Lutzen's baby after what he did to me. I would've gone crazy. I know I would have. And now Denny tells me he knows that Mr. Lutzen had a vasectomy long before that, and the baby couldn't have been his after all."

I thought really hard to myself and gave Aunt Lucy a puzzled look.

"Mr. Lutzen had been fixed, Jennie," she stated.

"Oh," I said. "But why wouldn't you know that? I've seen animals that were fixed before. You can tell."

"Doctors do that a different way on people than they do on animals, Jennie," Stuart cut in. "You can't tell."

"All Taffy can see right now is that at one point, he was supposed to be a Daddy, and I stopped that. He's too sad about that and too mad at me to see anything else right now." Aunt Lucy explained.

"If you knew at the time that it was Taffy's baby would you have had it?" I asked.

"I don't know, Jennie," she said. "It was hard enough to go through when it was real. I can't go through the what-ifs."

"When Mama lost the other babies, Daddy told me God decided it wasn't time for them to come to this world after all. He said he thought God would give them back later, maybe even for someone else to take care of."

"That's a nice thought, Jennie." Aunt Lucy said. "I hope Denny can understand it someday."

Stuart asked me if I was okay with everything, if I understood, if I thought I'd be all right.

"I think so," I told him. He said he was glad and asked me if he could talk to Aunt Lucy privately for a while. It had been a long holiday so I decided I would go take a bath and let them talk.

Next Section

No Sensible People on Amazon

My Lulu Store