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God, this was embarrassing to admit. Since she’d left Jackpot, Vivian had tried to live a normal, stable life. Get to work on time. Save her money. Pay her bills. She’d thought she was safe from the chaos of her father because she only interacted with him when he said he needed money.
She dumped the milk and eggs into the flour mixture with a splash, adding to the mess on the counter. No wonder her dad had thought she would help him. She’d left Jackpot intent on leaving schemes behind, but she’d always given him money whenever he’d needed it. She’d gotten out; that was all she had been concerned about.
She started mixing. “Then he disappeared. I don’t think that even everything I had was enough to cover his debts.”
Karl put his hand on hers, stopping her furious beating. She looked down at the bowl. There were no lumps in the pancake mixture. They were overmixed and would be tough.
“You were at the bar that night because of what your father did.”
“Yes.” The actual timeline was a little different than what Karl was assuming, but it was close enough.
“And your job?”
The frying pan banged when she set it on the stove, a great, satisfying sound that rang through the apartment and echoed in her ears. “My father’s debts cost me that, too.”
“Ah.” Karl nodded as though he understood, but he didn’t understand anything. Not her fear, not how close she had come to slipping and crashing into a hole deeper than the Grand Canyon. “If you hadn’t been fired, would you have come to me for help?”
“No. I would’ve told you about the baby, but…”
“But you would’ve done it with a phone call rather than a cross-country drive.”
“I was raised by a single parent. I could’ve made it work.” Plus, she wouldn’t have had a long drive with which to talk herself out of an abortion. And she would’ve had the money to pay for one, too. As life had actually happened, though, she’d driven to Chicago certain she would ask Karl for abortion money, but then spent the drive coming to the realization that she couldn’t go through with one.
Objectively, she could see she was vulnerable both financially and emotionally. If a friend had been in her situation, she would suggest an abortion and then question the friend’s judgment when she decided to have the baby anyway. But there was nothing objective about being faced with such a decision, and she couldn’t say anything other than “I’m keeping my baby”—as if she was in a Madonna song.
She’d given herself trigger reactions. If Karl had said “I don’t want a baby” or “How dare you bring this into my life?” or something else of the sort, she’d have mentioned abortion. He hadn’t, and so she hadn’t. It hadn’t been the best way to decide to have a child, but Vivian was certain there were people who’d had children based on a fuzzier decision-making process. Even if she didn’t know any.
She wasn’t going to let herself think about the consequences of leaving a major life decision, such as having a child, in the hands of one man’s reaction to the news. She’d been in an emotional chasm at the time. If she were being honest with herself, she hadn’t fully climbed back out yet. She was on the edge of the canyon, teetering, and her life could go either way. Sometimes lifting herself over the edge and back onto solid ground seemed a sure way to lose her grip completely.
“And we can see how well that turned out,” Karl said.
Pancake batter dripped onto the counter as she whipped around to face him. “I’ve done the best I could with what I have. When the longest you’ve ever lived in a place after your seventh birthday is two years, let me know how willing you would be to pack up and leave your life behind, no matter how less than ideal it is. Until then, shove off.”
“Your mother?”
“She died in childbirth. And, yes,” she added, turning back to the pancakes on the stove, “women still die in childbirth.” The thought should scare her, but death seemed the least of her worries right now, especially since her baby would have a stable father and welcoming family. More than she’d started out with.
