fabric of the story:
I would have aborted you if I’d known he would leave.
Her mother had never wanted her! She rushed to the sink and retched.
LaDonna ripped paper towels from the dispenser, wet them, and pressed the wad to Sloan’s mouth. She patted her on the back.
Sloan shuddered, not from nausea but from her mother’s touch. She had just learned that she had been a tool, a way to make the man who’d contributed half her DNA to stay. The gamble had lost. He’d left them both.
“There, there…I do recall that terrible feeling of wanting to puke when I was pregnant with you. I thought I would throw up my toenails some days. I was over six months along with you before it passed. But it does pass, I promise.” Her tone had changed to a cooing, which was worse than being yelled at.
LaDonna turned Sloan’s face toward hers, wiped a mascara smear from her cheek. She smoothed Sloan’s hair. “My, you look a fright, but that’s okay. Creates sympathy.” She peered into Sloan’s eyes. “I’m right, aren’t I? You let yourself get knocked up by a doctor’s son because you understood what you’d gotten hold of.” LaDonna, seeming completely sure she’d drawn the right conclusions, smiled as if congratulating herself.
“What would that be, Mama? What do I get?”
“An eighteen-year meal ticket if you handle it right. Those men will do anything to keep that baby near them. So here’s what I’m thinking. You have this baby, and you bring it back to the trailer. We’ll take care of it together. And they’ll give us money to raise it up for a real long time.” She flashed a smile. “That sound like a good idea, honey?”
Sloan’s insides turned cold and solid as ice.
LaDonna patted her again. “Now let’s put on our smiley faces and go have a big old dinner that Franklin’s just itching to pay for. It’s graduation day.” She beamed a smile, grabbed the door handle, and stood back so that Sloan could pass in front of her.
“Little tummy episode,” LaDonna said once they sat down at the table, her hand on Sloan’s elbow. “You know how delicate a mama-to-be is at this stage.”
Franklin gave Sloan a concerned look, and Sloan offered a weak but hesitant smile to assure him she was all right, although it wasn’t true. When the waiter returned, she ordered a salad, unsure she could keep it down. She felt battered and bruised. Under the table, she felt Dawson grope for her hand; he captured it and held on until her icy fingertips warmed from his touch.
CHAPTER 17
W hen he was a kid, Dawson had owned a furry brown and white hamster he named Earl. Earl’s lifestyle commitment was to live in a cage where he slept, ate, burrowed into fresh sawdust changed every week, and exercised like a demon on a hamster wheel most of the night. Now all these years later, Dawson knew what it was like to live like Earl. Except that Earl probably didn’t think much about his life, while Dawson Berke dwelled constantly on his own life and what it had become—mind-numbing, pathetic, lonely.
Lucky clueless Earl.
The first thing he’d done after Sloan moved in was to open the file folder with his college letters of acceptance, brochures, forms, and applications and stuff each one into his dad’s paper shredder. He didn’t want to be reminded of what he wouldn’t have come September. Plans deferred due to unforeseen circumstances.
After graduation, Dawson took a job with a lawn service and came home every day hot, sweaty, and covered with grass clippings. He hated the job, not because of the hard, sweaty work but because he felt trapped, hammered in place, and without options. Months before, he’d had plans for college. He’d had choices. Now he was on the hamster wheel, spinning and spinning and going nowhere.
Franklin had told him that after the baby was born, they could live with him so that Dawson could save up money, maybe get his own place. He also said he’d pay Dawson’s tuition at MTSU
I would have aborted you if I’d known he would leave.
Her mother had never wanted her! She rushed to the sink and retched.
LaDonna ripped paper towels from the dispenser, wet them, and pressed the wad to Sloan’s mouth. She patted her on the back.
Sloan shuddered, not from nausea but from her mother’s touch. She had just learned that she had been a tool, a way to make the man who’d contributed half her DNA to stay. The gamble had lost. He’d left them both.
“There, there…I do recall that terrible feeling of wanting to puke when I was pregnant with you. I thought I would throw up my toenails some days. I was over six months along with you before it passed. But it does pass, I promise.” Her tone had changed to a cooing, which was worse than being yelled at.
LaDonna turned Sloan’s face toward hers, wiped a mascara smear from her cheek. She smoothed Sloan’s hair. “My, you look a fright, but that’s okay. Creates sympathy.” She peered into Sloan’s eyes. “I’m right, aren’t I? You let yourself get knocked up by a doctor’s son because you understood what you’d gotten hold of.” LaDonna, seeming completely sure she’d drawn the right conclusions, smiled as if congratulating herself.
“What would that be, Mama? What do I get?”
“An eighteen-year meal ticket if you handle it right. Those men will do anything to keep that baby near them. So here’s what I’m thinking. You have this baby, and you bring it back to the trailer. We’ll take care of it together. And they’ll give us money to raise it up for a real long time.” She flashed a smile. “That sound like a good idea, honey?”
Sloan’s insides turned cold and solid as ice.
LaDonna patted her again. “Now let’s put on our smiley faces and go have a big old dinner that Franklin’s just itching to pay for. It’s graduation day.” She beamed a smile, grabbed the door handle, and stood back so that Sloan could pass in front of her.
“Little tummy episode,” LaDonna said once they sat down at the table, her hand on Sloan’s elbow. “You know how delicate a mama-to-be is at this stage.”
Franklin gave Sloan a concerned look, and Sloan offered a weak but hesitant smile to assure him she was all right, although it wasn’t true. When the waiter returned, she ordered a salad, unsure she could keep it down. She felt battered and bruised. Under the table, she felt Dawson grope for her hand; he captured it and held on until her icy fingertips warmed from his touch.
CHAPTER 17
W hen he was a kid, Dawson had owned a furry brown and white hamster he named Earl. Earl’s lifestyle commitment was to live in a cage where he slept, ate, burrowed into fresh sawdust changed every week, and exercised like a demon on a hamster wheel most of the night. Now all these years later, Dawson knew what it was like to live like Earl. Except that Earl probably didn’t think much about his life, while Dawson Berke dwelled constantly on his own life and what it had become—mind-numbing, pathetic, lonely.
Lucky clueless Earl.
The first thing he’d done after Sloan moved in was to open the file folder with his college letters of acceptance, brochures, forms, and applications and stuff each one into his dad’s paper shredder. He didn’t want to be reminded of what he wouldn’t have come September. Plans deferred due to unforeseen circumstances.
After graduation, Dawson took a job with a lawn service and came home every day hot, sweaty, and covered with grass clippings. He hated the job, not because of the hard, sweaty work but because he felt trapped, hammered in place, and without options. Months before, he’d had plans for college. He’d had choices. Now he was on the hamster wheel, spinning and spinning and going nowhere.
Franklin had told him that after the baby was born, they could live with him so that Dawson could save up money, maybe get his own place. He also said he’d pay Dawson’s tuition at MTSU
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