[Thursday, November 30, 1989]
Tami had seen the message on the refrigerator when she got home last night, but this morning when she opened the door to grab the milk, she ignored it once again:
Your Mom called. Says call her back ASAP!
She kept busy with classes and her evening shift at Applebee's, but when she stepped through the apartment door at 10:30 PM, the phone rang again. Gretchen happened to be in the kitchen, wiping down the countertops, and so she answered it.
Tami had just kicked off her shoes when Gretchen said, "It's your stepfather."
"My stepfather?" Tami didn't think of Pastor John that way. He was her mother's husband. Was that how he'd introduced himself? Reluctantly, she took the phone from Gretchen, who eyed her with a raised eyebrow before disappearing from the kitchen. "Hello?"
"Tami, your mother is beside herself." Pastor John had such a strong, clear voice for such a generally quiet person. She supposed you had to when your job entailed preaching. "She's very upset you didn't tell her you were engaged. And now you haven't returned her calls. Why?"
"Because I'm pregnant," Tami said. There, just have it out. See what he said to that little bit of directness.
"I assumed." He didn't sound particularly upset. He sounded calm. Perhaps resigned.
"That doesn't offend you?" she asked.
"Offend me? It's no offense against me, I'm sure. But you have hurt your mother's feelings by telling Mr. Taylor and not telling her."
"That's all? That's the only reason she's upset?" Tami asked incredulously. "Really?"
"Well, naturally she's also upset that you chose to fornicate."
Tami sighed. Such a word choice. Fornicate. Was that Pastor John's word choice or her mother's? Probably both, thought it sounded academic coming from Pastor John's lips.
"I didn't tell Mr. Taylor. He…found out."
"Well, tell your mother that." He paused. "Tami, Eric's father said some nonsense about you planning to get married at the courthouse. Why not have the wedding at First Baptist, even if you only have time to throw together a small one? It's your home church after all. I'll marry you two."
"You will? Even though I'm a fornicator?" Tami was being downright testy now. Could she blame it on pregnancy hormones this early? The truth was, she was already growing defensive in preparation for the onslaught from her mother.
"By having this child, you and Eric are doing something that takes a lot of courage, especially at your age. A lot of young women would have chosen an easier way out. And a different young man might have pressured you to choose it. Marriage is not something to be entered into lightly. I understand your urgency, but you don't have to entirely dispense with the solemnity. You don't have to elope before some government bureaucrat when you can get married before your family and friends and God. I know you don't have time to plan much, and that you can't afford a large wedding, but you can use the chapel."
First Baptist had a historic chapel that dated to the late 1800s that was used for small prayer meetings and a larger sanctuary that was used for regular worship. She'd been in the chapel a few times. It was small and quaint and though old and little worn, beautiful in its way, with traditional stained glass and the earthy smell of wood.
"I've got some church ladies I can usually get to help me with anything," Pastor John continued. "I'm sure they'll help you whip together a cake and punch reception in the fellowship hall to follow, manage the set up, and get flowers arranged in the chapel for you so you don't have to pay a florist. No one has to know the reason for the rush. We can put the word out that for financial reasons you needed to share housing in the spring."
"Well, technically, that's true."
"Will you consider marrying in the church? I think it would help to calm your mother."
The truth was, Tami wasn't excited about a courthouse wedding. She was afraid it would feel more like having a sentence passed than taking a beautiful and sacred vow, but she hadn't wanted to try to arrange a church wedding, not given the circumstances.
"I know the county clerk," Pastor John continued. "I'll help you get your license fast, and I can sign it, of course."
"Okay. That sounds good. Thank you."Tami was reeling a bit from the way the adults in their lives seemed to be somewhat taking over, with advice and ideas – first Mr. Taylor, now Pastor John. She was simultaneously offended and relieved. She felt underwater, and these lifelines that the grown-ups kept throwing were something solid to cling to.
At the same time, she wondered if she should be making more of her own decisions here, and if the adults weren't in just a little bit of a hurry to cover up the embarrassment of her pregnancy, as if this was the 18th century instead of the 20th. Yet she had to admit, she didn't want to be visibly pregnant and unwed herself. She'd known those girls in high school, the whispers that had haunted them, the lives they'd ended up leading as single mothers, stuck in dead end jobs, feeding their children on food stamps, never quite getting ahead, no matter how hard they tried. They hadn't had families who could, or would, help, who would guide them with a wisdom gained through the years. A few had had boyfriends, but none had had committed husbands to love them and shoulder part of the work.
"Will you speak to your mother now?" Pastor John asked. "If I go get her?"
"I guess."
"Tami!" came her mother's scolding voice a moment later. "Good girls wait until they're married to have sex. I told you that!"
"Well I'm not a good girl, Mom. I'm a horrible girl, aren't I?"
"Tami, I raised you better than this."
Tami heard a murmuring in the background, Pastor John saying something indecipherable.
"Tami," her mom said with a heavy sigh, "I'm mad you didn't talk to me, and that you didn't follow your upbringing, but I'm glad you've decided to do the right thing. And Eric…well…except for getting you knocked up….he's a good boy, all and all. And last night John reminded me of Jesus and the woman at the well."
Great, so Tami was like the woman with five husbands who was shacking up with a man who wasn't her husband.
"And he reminded me of the woman taken in adultery."
Even better. Now she was comparable with an adulteress.
"Let he who has no sin cast the first stone and all that," Mom said. "And John also suggested maybe we could give you $2,500 as a wedding gift. To help with the baby when it comes."
"Wow." Tami hadn't been expecting her mother to move from anger to resignation in the space of a few sentences, but she supposed her mother had worked through that process last night, with the help of Pastor John. Still, she'd had to get out a few cutting remarks.
Tami hadn't expected a gift either. Between Mr. Taylor's generosity and Pastor John's, they'd have a good nest egg. "Thank you. And, Mom…we didn't tell Mr. Taylor first. We were taking the pregnancy test at his house, and he forgot something, and walked in on us waiting on it. I would never have told him before I told you, if it were up to me."
"I don't really believe that, but thank you for saying so."
Tami shook her head. Well, she'd tried to throw out an olive branch, anyway.
"You're not going to quit college are you?" her mom asked.
"I don't want to. Mr. Taylor suggested that I should, at least until Eric is finished and is in the NFL or has some other job. He thinks we can't juggle it all."
"That's because he's a man."
Tami leaned against the kitchen wall. What did that mean, she wondered?
"Don't quit, Tami. Don't make that mistake. I never told you this, but I was enrolled in college when I met your father. I left after half a semester to follow him to Tyler for his job. I was so in love. It didn't make sense for me to go back once I was pregnant with you, and your dad already had a decent job, so I never did go back. If you quit now, you may never go back. And who knows what your future might hold if you had a degree. You can be so much more than I ever was. Don't quit."
This plea surprised Tami. During her teenage years, her mother had not emphasized academics so much as moral behavior.
"I wish I'd encouraged you more when it came to school," Mom said, almost as if reading her thoughts. "I've been trying with Shelley, and maybe that was a mistake. Now she has a new way to rebel against me. Her grades are slipping."
"I know. I tried to talk to her about it. And I don't plan to quit, Mom. We'll find a way for me to stay in school."
"Good. I'll come down after the baby is born, for a few days, to help. You'll have a second room in family housing? For the baby? Mr. Taylor said Eric's scholarship would cover it."
"Yeah, we looked at the apartments the other day. They have two bedrooms. It's bigger than the place I'm in now."
"Well, I'll have time to come down once a week to babysit, if you and Eric need to get out together, marriage build and all that. God knows your dad and I needed that when you two were young. I've got plenty of time now. I quit my job."
"You did?"
"John likes me at home."
"You shouldn't let him make you – "
"- Tami, I like me at home. I'm tired. I've worked fifty hours a week for peanuts for years at a job I hate. And now I can do more volunteer work at the church. I can do what I want. I'm leading the Women's Ministry now."
"You're happy?"
"Yes, Tami. Happier than I've been in a long time."
"Good. I love you, Mom." Those were not words they said often enough to one another.
"I love you, too, Tami. I wish your daddy could have lived to give you away." She sniffled. Tami hoped Pastor John wasn't there to hear that. Then again, he'd had a long, prior marriage himself. Maybe they talked about their late spouses to each other. "I care about John," Mom said. "I really do. But sometimes I still miss your father something awful."
"So do I."
"I think he would have approved of Eric, after he smacked him in the back of the head for knocking you up."
Tami laughed through her pooling tears.
"Shelley wants to talk to you."
Tami brushed her hand quickly across her face.
"When were you going to tell me you were getting married?" Shelley asked.
"Soon," Tami said. "I suppose Mom told you I'm knocked up."
"Uh…no…she didn't. Really?"
"Yes."
"I'm going to be an aunt!"
Tami pulled the phone away from her ear, Shelley had shouted so loudly.
"I'm totally going to be the cool aunt!" Shelley continued. "The coolest aunt ever. But how did you get pregnant? Did you plan it?"
"No, we didn't plan to get me pregnant before we were married, our second year of college! The condom broke."
"Oh." She paused. Mom must be leaving the kitchen. Then she whispered, "Good thing I went on the pill last month."
"Shelley…are you…"
Her voice was a normal volume again. "I'm going to be 17 in a few months, Tami. I'm not a baby anymore."
"I thought you broke up with Danny."
"I'm back with Kash."
"The Pentecostal guy? Why do you need to go on the pill then? I thought he didn't believe in sex before marriage."
"He's been revising his beliefs. He told me the word they translate fornication in the Bible really just means incest in the Greek."
"Uh-huh. Well, be careful Shelley. Just because you did it with Danny doesn't mean you have to do it with him. Make sure he respects you."
"He respects the hell out of me."
"How are your grades so far this year?"
"Not as good as last year, but I'm passing."
"Passing as in…."
"C- passing," Shelley said.
That's what Tami was afraid of. "Oh, Shell. You were on a great track."
"It's okay. I'll pull them up next semester."
After a bit more conversation, Tami told her good night.
She walked into the living room, where Gretchen was staring at her intently. "You're pregnant?" she asked. "Is that why you're getting married?"
"You overheard all that?" Tami slumped down onto the couch beside her.
"It's a small apartment."
"It's not the only reason," Tami insisted.
"I know," Gretchen said, "that boy is head over heels for you. Any cynical asshole could see it." She smirked. "Even me."