Fragile

My parents stared at me, but I wasn’t sure of the expression on their faces. Was I supposed to be scared that I couldn’t figure out how they were feeling? I wasn’t sure what to think. My mother was the first to react, but not as bad as my father was about to. She covered her mouth in disbelief and shook her head with disappointment. My father was next and stood up from the table.

“Boy,” he started out calmly and continued to bore his eyes into John. “Get the hell out of my house! Now!”

“George, please,” my mother said, but my father seemed to ignore her completely.

“Get out of my house, now! I want you out!” He yelled and I visibly shook at the volume of my father’s voice. John slowly began to stand up, but I grabbed his arm and made him stay seated.

“No, dad; you can’t do that,” I said in a normal tone, which was filled with fear.

“You stay out of this,” my father pointed at me.

“No!” I shouted at him and he glared at me with deep-seeded anger. “No. This was something John and I decided together. So if you’re going to kick him out, then I’m going with him.”

I held onto John’s hand as my father continued.

“Isabella Marie Kent, you will not speak to me like I am a piece of shit on the street. You speak to me with respect and you don’t tell me ‘no’. You still live in this house, under my roof and under my rules, and I will not tolerate your behavior. John, you’re leaving now. Isabella, I want you up in your room. Now!”

It felt like I was back in elementary school again. Whenever I did something that I wasn’t supposed to do, I was sent to my room and was given the same speech by my father: You live under my house, my rules…blah blah blah. This time, I felt panic when he was yelling at me. I knew this wouldn’t go well, but I hadn’t expected it to blow up so badly in my face.

John squeezed my hand before pulling out of my tight grip and slowly stood up from the table before going off to the guest room to collect his belongings. My father breathed deeply before looking back at me; disgust written all over his face.

“I want you up in your room right now, Isabella, and I don’t want to see until tomorrow morning before we take you to an abortion clinic to have that taken care of,” my father stated in a calmer voice than he was using before. His cheeks were reddened and my mother was staring down at the table, not uttering a word.

“You can’t make me do that, dad! I’m not getting an abortion.”

“Excuse me?” He raised his eyebrows at me. “You’ll do what you’re told.”

“I’m not a child anymore.”

“Then quit acting like a child!”

“I’m not! I’m nineteen years old and I am having this baby whether you like it or not. And you will be a grandfather no matter what. You have no control over my body and what I do anymore. I’m an adult!”

With that, I stood up from the table and went upstairs to my room. I sat on my bed with tears of anger welling up in my eyes. I’m pregnant; I don’t deal with emotion well. This fight sent me over the edge. I could hear my mother and father yelling at each other, arguing about John and him getting me pregnant. They would never know the real story of my pregnancy, but I began to think that maybe the real story would have attracted a calmer response from my father. Odds are that he would probably still want me to get an abortion anyway.

A few minutes had passed, the arguing had died down, and I jumped at the knock at my door. It opened slowly, revealing my mother. I pursed my lips together, trying to keep my tears from streaming down my face. She closed the door behind her and sat down next to me, stroking my hair.

You okay?” She asked, looking me in the eyes. She wasn’t always the type of mother that would console me when I was upset. Then again, I was never really upset about anything before. The first time she saw me cry was while we were watching a movie, and there was no pointing in consoling me; it was only a movie.

But, this time, I broke down; I cried like I never had before and she pulled me into a hug, my tears staining her shirt.

“Shh,” she whispered and began to rub my back. “It’s okay. You’re father is just upset, that’s all. It’ll be okay.”

- - -

The next morning came faster than I had expected and I didn’t want to get out of bed at all. In this household, my father’s word was law. When I finally decided to crawl out of bed, I stumbled clumsily into the bathroom across the hall from my room and got sick; like that was anything new, but I think it was mostly out of anger that I got sick. After I felt less queasy, I weighed myself. It sort of became a tradition at least two or three times a month to check my weight and each time it gained more and more. Today I was weighing in at two hundred and thirty seven pounds. Jeez.

I walked back into my room after brushing my teeth and rinsing my face. Moments later, there was a soft knock on the door; it was my mother.

“Isabella, dear,” she said through the door. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah,” I said back and she opened the door slowly.

“I made breakfast before we go to the doctor.”

That made me feel queasy again. I couldn’t believe my father would do this to me. My mother came to sit next to me like she had done the night before. This time, there were no tears for her to catch.

“I know your father isn’t your favorite person at the moment but just between you and me, we’re going to the OBGYN,” she assured me. “I admit I was upset with your decision about engaging in that…activity before marriage, but I would never make you abort a baby.”

Relief, at last. I wrapped my arms tightly around my mother, and held onto her like there was no tomorrow. For once in my life, it felt as if she really, really cared about what I was doing with my life, even though this was an unplanned thing that happened.

“Just don’t tell your father, okay?” My mother asked with a laugh. I laughed with her and smiled widely.

“My lips are sealed.”

Of course there was no way in hell that I would tell my father this. I mean, he would find out eventually anyway, right? Let him find out on his own and deal with it.