Free In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume

just
la-di-dah
, as if they were still talking about the president and the general. She prayed Henry couldn’t tell how fast her heart was beating. He swallowed the food in his mouth, swigged some Pabst Blue Ribbon, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and told her. Not everything. She knew he was holding back, but for now, she was satisfied just to know her father’s name, Mike Monsky, that he and Rusty hadgone out for a few months and—
Bingo!
—she was pregnant. She didn’t say what she was thinking—
You can’t get pregnant from playing Bingo
.
    Once, when Miri was in sixth grade, she’d tried asking Rusty. “So this father of mine…is he alive or dead?”
    The color had drained out of Rusty’s face. “I don’t know.”
    “Come on, Mom…”
    “Honestly, Miri, I don’t know.”
    “Were you married to him?”
    “That’s a hard question to answer.”
    “Either you were or you weren’t.”
    “I
said
that’s a hard question to answer, Miri.”
    “I just want to know if I’m a bastard or not.”
    Rusty exploded. “Don’t ever let me hear you using that word! That word has nothing to do with you.” Then she choked up. “You were loved from the moment you were born.” That was the last time Miri asked her mother about her father. Because what was the point? At least no one said he was
a no-good son of a bitch
, the way she’d heard Cousin Belle describe her daughter’s husband. They didn’t say anything, which in a way was worse.
    “This talk has to be a secret between us,” Henry had said that night last April as they’d walked to his car, each of them with an ice cream cone. “Okay?”
    She didn’t tell him how much she hated secrets. Hated them with a passion. Were adults ever honest with kids? Aside from Henry, none had been honest with her—not Rusty, not Irene. They lived in a world where children, even teenagers, were protected from the truth for their own good. That’s how they got out of saying anything. Ever since she could remember, the adults would stop talking when she walked into the room. They’d smile at her, then change the subject.
    Now here was Henry telling her
she
had to keep this a secret from Rusty and Irene.
With pleasure, Uncle Henry
.
    “I’d be in big trouble for breaking their rules. Who am I to say you have the right to know about your father? I don’t have kids. I don’t know how I’d feel if I did.”
    “Thank you, Uncle Henry.” She didn’t ask any of the hundredsof questions already forming inside her head. She’d save them for another time.
    She wondered where Mike Monsky was now. Maybe he’d been a passenger on the plane to Miami yesterday. Maybe Dr. Osner would have to identify him by his teeth and dental X-rays. Rabbi Halberstadter would pray over him, even though there would be no next of kin for the rabbi to comfort. Who’s to say Mike Monsky hadn’t bought a huge insurance policy on his life before he’d boarded the doomed flight and once they discovered
she
was next of kin, she would get the money? Would she take it? She didn’t have to think twice. Yes, she’d take it! For Rusty and Irene and Henry, who had raised her without a dime from him. Just don’t expect her to visit his grave, Rabbi. She’d give him the same thing he’d given her. Not a second thought. Even if he’d bought that policy she knew it was just because he’d felt guilty for all the years he’d neglected his daughter. If he even knew he had a daughter.
    Henry
    Hadn’t Rusty told her anything? She had a right to know. It was
her
life, her history. He may have been young then, but he remembered how Irene had argued with Rusty over calling Mike’s family. Rusty wouldn’t hear of it. “He’s gone, Mama. He’s probably on a ship in the Pacific by now. Anyway, I don’t want to marry him.”
    “You should have thought of that sooner,” Irene told Rusty, one of the only unkind remarks he’d ever heard from his mother.
    Irene shipped Rusty off to Aunt Ida’s in