Free The Gift by Danielle Steel Page A

away. And they couldn't force her to tell them.
    “Who is he?” her father shouted at her again and again. I'm not letting you out of this room until you tell me.”
    “Then we'll be here for a long time,” she said quietly. She had done so much thinking since she'd found out that even her father didn't scare her. Besides, the worst had happened now. She was pregnant. They knew. What more could they do to her?
    “Why won't you tell us who he is? Is it a teacher? A kid? A married man? A priest? One of your brother's friends? Who is it?”
    “It doesn't matter. He's not going to marry me,” she said calmly, surprised at her own strength in the eye of the hurricane that was her father.
    “Why not?” he raged on.
    “Because he doesn't love me, and I don't love him. It's as simple as that.”
    “It doesn't sound simple to me,” her father said, sounding even angrier, while her mother cried and wrung her hands. Maribeth felt terrible as she looked at her. She hated hurting her mother. “It sounds like you were sleeping with some guy, and didn't even love him. That's about as rotten as you get. Even your aunts loved the men they slept with. They married them. They had decent lives, and legitimate children. And what are you going to do with this baby?”
    “I don't know, Dad. I thought I'd put it up for adoption, unless …”
    “Unless what? You think you're going to keep it here, and disgrace yourself and us? Over my dead body, and your mother's.” Her mother looked imploringly at her, begging her to undo this disaster, but there was no way for her to do that.
    “I don't want to keep the baby, Dad,” she said sadly, as tears came to her eyes at last. “I'm sixteen, I can't give it anything, and I want a life too. I don't want to give up my life because I can't do anything for it. We both have a right to more than that.”
    “How noble of you,” he said, furious with her beyond words. “It would have been nice if you could have been a little more noble before you took your pants off. Look at your brother, he plays around with lots of girls. He's never gotten anyone pregnant. Look at you, sixteen and your damn life is down the toilet.”
    “It doesn't have to be that way, Dad. I can go to school with the nuns while I stay with them, and then go back to school in December, after I have the baby. I could go back after Christmas vacation. We could say I've been sick.”
    “Really? And just who do you think would believe that? You think people won't talk? Everyone will know. You'll be a disgrace, and so will we. You'll be a disgrace to this whole family.”
    “Then what do you want me to do, Dad?” she asked miserably, tears streaming down her face now. This was even harder than she'd thought it would be, and there were no easy solutions. “What do you want me to do? Die? I can't undo what I did. I don't know what to do. There's no way to make this better.” She was sobbing, but he looked unmoved. He looked icy.
    “You'll just have to have the baby and put it up for adoption.”
    “Do you want me to stay with the nuns?” she asked, hoping he would tell her she could stay at home. Living at the convent away from her family terrified her. But if he told her to leave, she had nowhere else to go.
    “You can't stay here,” her father said firmly, “and you can't keep the baby. Go to the Sisters of Charity, give up the baby, and then come home.” And then he dealt the final blow to her soul. “I don't want to see you until then. And I don't want you seeing your mother or your sister.” For a moment she thought his words would kill her. “What you've done is an insult to us, and to yourself. You've hurt your dignity, and ours. You've broken our trust. You've disgraced us, Maribeth, and yourself. Don't ever forget that.”
    “Why is what I did so terrible? I never lied to you. I never hurt you. I never betrayed you. I was very stupid. Once. And look what's happening to me for it. Isn't this enough? I can't