Love and Honor

(Author's note: the movie that the Roves are watching in the middle of the chapter is DIRTY DANCING, and I have no permission to quote it, either.)

Chapter 5

Adam's Path

"Is that you, Adam?" came Bonnie's voice as he entered the house. The sound was coming from her bedroom -- no, HIS bedroom, which she had usurped. When he had first offered shelter he thought it was clear that it was an emergency arrangement only; that she was supposed to look for a more permanent refuge.

Yet Bonnie did nothing, except complain that nausea and lack of energy were keeping her from accomplishing too much.

Surprisingly, Adam's father, who had originally resented Bonnie's imposition, accepted her excuse. He said he had seen similar morning sickness and mood swings in his wife when she was pregnant with Adam. And the fact that one such "mood swing" had ended in her suicide years later left him very anxious not to disturb Bonnie.

"Mrs. G was here, today," she said as he walked into the bedroom. "She wanted to give you this brochure, about that art contest in Baltimore."

He took it and examined it. Normally he would be interested in the genre of art and who would be attending, but today he skipped down to the price tag. "Wow! First prize, $5000. With that we can pay all your medical expenses, plus give the rest to Dad as a sort of rent."

"But it would be your prize, Adam, not mine."

He shrugged. "I don't need it for anything."

For some reason, that seemed to worry Bonnie instead of reassure her. Finally she blurted out: "Adam, I think I've done something awful."

"What is it?"

"When Mrs. G was here -- she realized that I was pregnant. I was too ashamed to explain how I screwed up my life with some college guy, so I said it was yours."

Nearly any other male might have exploded at that point. But Adam sat and tried to figure out the consequences. Ironically, Bonnie beat him to it.

"I wasn't trying to trap you into helping me. Look, Mrs. G said she'd send a counselor to me tomorrow, her daughter-in-law. I'll tell her the truth and she'll get the message back to Mrs. G."

Mrs. G had a daughter-in-law now? Somebody -- presumably Jane's older brother - must have gotten married, and nobody had bothered to tell Adam. That was a measure of how far he was in exile from what he once considered his second family, and that influenced his answer.

"Nah. It doesn't matter what they think of me anymore. Just concentrate on your own problems."

Adam's father came home from work about an hour later. Apparently hoping to defuse the tension, he had rented a video of a teen movie that he had enjoyed in his younger days. On finding that the film dated a year before his own birth, and that it was set even further back, around 1960, Adam doubted that he could relate to it. And yet when they watched he did find himself empathizing with the central character, who like Adam was sensitive, shy, and inarticulate. The only problem was that the character was a girl. Adam watched all the way to the point where she confided to her boyfriend that she was "scared of everything -- and most of all I'm scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I'm with you."

Adam got up. The girl had expressed his feelings about Jane perfectly, except that he had already "walked out of this room", and knew that he was doomed never to enjoy that kind of love again.

"I'm going to the shed. I may work there all night. Don't worry about me."

His Dad was used to Adam being "struck by inspiration" and retreating the shed at odd times, and Bonnie was too wound up in her own problems to complain, so neither objected.

In the shed, Adam tried desperately to throw himself into a project. After all, if he as to win the contest money he had to have an artwork to enter in the first place. But none of his ideas worked. Finally he decided to stretch out on his workbench and sleep. Sometimes inspiration came in dreams.

"Dad?" said a little girl's voice.

"Yes, darling?"

"Can you help me with my pitcher?"

She handed him an incomprehensible scrawl, the sort of thing you'd expect from a three-year-old. He looked at it solemnly, and added an extra scrawl in one corner of the picture.

"Mommy! Daddy helped me with my pitcher!"

"Already trying to turn her into an artist, aren't you?" came his wife's voice behind him. Adam turned around to look at --

Nobody. He was awake and alone in the shed.

Whom had he married? Jane? Bonnie? Some other woman? He couldn't tell. But one thing that seemed clear: it wasn't just a random dream, but a glimpse into the future.

The next day the counselor, Lily Girardi, showed up. She struck Adam as rather weird, nearly thirty years old but full of the latest slang. Adam thought that might be a pose to make teens comfortable (though it had the opposite effect on him, and he tried to imagine its effect on Mrs. G). But he also noticed that she had tattoos, which was rather a permanent commitment.

She insisted on talking to Bonnie in privacy. After a half hour, she emerged to give the Rove men her opinion.

"Financially, I think we can help. There are charities to support pregnant women, particularly to persuade them not to go the abortion route, which is relevant here. Emotionally, I'm not so sure. I'm no psychologist, but it seems to me that Bonnie is very depressed and frightened. She's used to getting into scrapes and wiggling out of them again, but this is a crisis that simply can't be finessed. She needs outside support. And in particular, there's a matter of schooling. She wants to drop out, but she shouldn't lose the advantages of education, or she'll be stuck in poverty forever. Try to see that she goes. She should be able to get half a year in before she has to give birth."

Adam and his father stared at each other. Clearly they weren't going to be rid of Bonnie any time soon.

Suddenly the events of the past few days appeared to Adam in a new light. They weren't a series of bumblings, there were part of a vast metaphysical plan to bond Adam inextricably with Bonnie. No, not a plan -- that implied that Adam was a hopeless pawn. The image of a path worked better. Four months ago he had made a choice between Jane and Bonnie, and though it seemed momentary, it was a choice for life. As in the Robert Frost poem, the paths taken and not taken would make all the difference.

Adam had the image he needed for a picture. He also knew he was doomed.