Blessings by Belva Plain

years we’ll be married and have as many babies as you like. You want to finish college and go to law school, don’t you? Where’s the money to come from if we get married now?”
    “You said they were rich and they’d help. You said so.”
    “Well, I thought so. But I can’t squeeze something out of them that they won’t give, can I?” For a second he put his head down on the rim of the steering wheel. “Oh, Christ!” he groaned. He turned back to her. “My father’s willing to give whatever you need to take care of it. And more. Anything you want, he said. Take a trip to Europe. Rome. Paris. Buy things. Rest yourself and get over it. As much as you want, he’ll give you.”
    Then Jennie was shaken by a rage such as she had never known. It was a killing rage; she could have killed. And she pounded the dashboard.
    “What does he think I am? A slut to be paid off? Europe? Do you know what you’re saying? He offers me a vacation … what do I want with a vacation when I’m asking for love, for help, to be accepted—”
    “Jennie! You have love! I love you, you know I do. How can you talk like this?”
    “How can you, unless they’ve convinced you too? Am I a slut to you too?”
    “Don’t use that word. It’s nasty. It stinks.”
    “Don’t tell me what words to use! I’ll use whatever words I want. I’ll tell you right now what happened there. I can hear it and I can see it as clearly as if I’d been hiding behind the door. Your mother, that icicle … You think I don’t know what she wants? A girl like that snippy kid—what was her name? Annie Ruth or Ruth Annie or something? ‘We’ve been friends for generations, you know. And isn’t it just lovely that the young people are engaged? A secret romance—we never guessed.’ Yes, it would be a different story if I were Miss Old Family instead of Miss Nobody. There’d be no talk of abortion, just a quick wedding under the trees in your garden. No, pardon me, in Miss Old Family’s garden. I’m sure they’d have one. And the baby would be a seven-month, such a darling—” Her voice had risen in outrage.
    “God, Jennie, don’t! It’s not like that at all!”
    “Of course it is! Any idiot can see it. I knew it the moment I walked in the door. And you—you let yourself be brainwashed. You, the big, brave man who was going to take care of me. ‘Don’t worry, darling, I’ll take care of everything.”
    Peter turned the ignition key, and the windshield wipers began to clack.
    “There’s no sense going on like this if you’re only going to scream at me, Jennie. We have a problem, and screaming won’t help.”
    Her nerves snapped. “Shut those damn wipers off, will you? I can’t hear myself think.”
    When he obeyed, she sat for a moment, bringing herself under control. Then she remembered something.
    “Did you by any chance see your Aunt Lee?”
    “Yes, I went to her.”
    “Ah! And she said?”
    “I’ll tell you. She said we should get married. She liked you. She said she’d lend us some money.”
    “She did?” Jennie’s eyes filled. “Why, that’s absolutely wonderful of her!”
    “Well, she’s like that. Romantic under the crust. Funny for a Lesbian, when you think about it.”
    “That’s a cruel thing to say.”
    “I didn’t mean it to be cruel. It’s just the way it strikes me.”
    “Will she lend us enough to get by?”
    “Jennie … I can’t take anything from her, no matter how little or how much. My parents would be furious. They were furious when I told them.”
    “Why? If they don’t want to help, I should think they’d be glad to have somebody else do it for them.”
    “It’s a long story. She has a tendency to interfere. I shouldn’t even have said anything about it.”
    “To them or to me?”
    He sighed. “To either, I guess.”
    But he had told her, had been honest enough to tell her, and she softened.
    “Oh, Peter, what are we going to do?”
    The windshield wipers echoed, To do, to do, to do. He