Free And Then I Found You by Patti Callahan Henry

parking lot, Caleb and Jack threw bags into the truck’s bed before walking
     to opposite sides of the vehicle and climbing into their seats. Caleb looked so like
     Jack, and questions she rarely allowed to surface rose with a furious roar.
    Yes, it was the damn un-knowing.

 
    six
    BLUFFTON, SC
    1996
    The first telling had been the worst: her parents. Katie had said the words, “I’m
     pregnant,” and then hid her face behind her hands. Molly was a senior in high school,
     and her questions were simple and yet completely complicated: Would the baby have
     a dad? Where would the baby live? These were, of course, unanswerable.
    After the family tears had been shed, Katie left to tell Jack. Yes, he needed to at
     least know that their last time together had been much more than a simple last time.
    The road between Bluffton and Birmingham seemed formed of a flimsy connection like
     the lines drawn on the astronomy chart that hung in her childhood room. She was five
     months along and could no longer put off the inevitable. We are pregnant.
    If she had ever imagined this moment, which of course she had, she was carrying Jack’s
     child, yes, but they’d be married and living in a two-bedroom house with a front porch.
     They’d do laundry together and match socks while watching a movie in the living room.
     They’d talk about whether to have a holiday party; they’d argue over whose family
     was more annoying. They’d plan the pool for the backyard and argue over bills. Then
     one day, together they’d visit the doctor to hear the news, “You’re going to have
     a baby.”
    Instead, Katie had been alone on the day she’d heard the news from a nurse at the
     doctor’s office in Bluffton. The earth had opened wide and her Planned Life fell in.
     She’d held a protective hand over her belly and known that decisions needed to be
     made. She could no longer deny that a child, already five months along, was growing
     inside her body. Her child. Jack’s child.
    An hour into the drive, anger arrived as an unwelcome guest: boisterous, raging, and
     red-faced.
    Katie thought about Lida and how the young girl would believe that Katie had deserted
     her—exactly as her mama had, just as her aunt Clara had. Lida had been the girl Katie
     wanted to heal more than any other and now she was causing more pain by leaving the
     wilderness early. Moving her hand over her stomach, Katie felt as if Lida and her
     own child were somehow one, as if she were being given a chance to do right and well by this child. How could she ever bring a child into this world that wouldn’t be
     totally loved? Completely adored by both parents? Completely wanted? Yes, that was
     the word— wanted. Katie had seen—first- and lasthand—what could happen when a child wasn’t completely
     wanted. It seemed ridiculous to even think that this child wasn’t loved and in so
     many ways wanted, but was that enough?
    Katie banged her fists on the steering wheel. Now? Seriously, now when he’s married? She pulled the car to the side of the road, to the emergency lane (if there was ever
     an emergency, this was one) and ranted at the sky and the gods and all she’d believed.
     Bent over the steering wheel, she fought tears that came without regard for her need
     to stay calm.
    Flashing, pulsing blue lights surrounded the car, bouncing off the rearview and side
     mirrors. Kate wiped at her face, embarrassed at her own tirade and at the emotions
     that had ripped through her like razors.
    The policeman came to the car and Katie rolled down the window.
    “You okay, Ma’am?”
    Katie nodded.
    “Have you been drinking?”
    Katie protested, holding up her hand. “No, Sir.” And then the oddest thing happened.
     She began to laugh. It was a giggle at first, the kind a child would emit in the middle
     of Sunday school when the teacher spoke of Adam knowing Eve. Then she was into full-blown laughter, bent over the steering wheel. Sobs and
     laughter mixed in