Barbara Delinsky - Not My Daughter

"They disowned you," Sunny concluded, "which is what I may do to my daughter."

"You will not," Kate scolded.

"I may . I don't believe she's done this. Do you know how embarrassing it is?"

"Not as embarrassing as when I got pregnant," Susan said. "We lived in a small town of which my dad was the mayor-just like his dad before him-so the embarrassment was thoroughly public. My older brother, on the other hand, was a town hero. Great student, football star, heir apparent-you name the stereotype, and Jackson was it. I was the bad egg. Erasing me from the family picture was easy."

Sunny seemed more deliberative than disturbed. "What about Lily? Weren't they curious?"

"My mother, maybe." A fantasy, perhaps, but Susan clung to the belief. "But she was married to my father, and he was tough. Still is. I send cards on every occasion-birthday, anniversary, Thanksgiving, Christmas. I send newspaper articles about Lily or me. I send gifts from Perry and Cass, and yarn to my mom. She sends a formal thank-you every time." Susan held up an untwisted skein. "She thought these colors were very pretty. Very pretty," she repeated in a monotone, startled by how much the blandness of the note still stung.

"I'm trying to decide if Jessica can survive," Sunny said. "How did you make it with an infant and no help?"

"I didn't sleep."

"Seriously."

"Seriously," Susan insisted. She had learned to multitask early on. "I was studying, working, and taking care of a baby. After I graduated from high school, I babysat my way east. Babysitting was the one thing I could do and still have Lily with me, because I sure couldn't afford a sitter. When I got here, I did clerical work at the community college because that got me day care dirt cheap and classes for free. I was halfway through my degree when I met you two." Their girls were in preschool together. "That was a turning point. Friends make the difference."

"Exactly," Sunny cried. "If our girls hadn't been friends, this wouldn't have happened."

Susan was startled. Of the three girls, she saw Jessica as the one most ready to rebel. "If not with our two, then with another two friends," she said quietly.

Sunny calmed a little. "Tell that to my husband."

"Uh-oh." This from Kate, and with cause. Dan Barros was mild-mannered, but there was no doubt who ruled the roost. "He's blaming our girls?"

There was a pause, then a halfhearted "Not exactly."

"What did he say?"

"Oh, he doesn't say things. He implies. He infers. I'm telling Jessica that she needs to tell us who the father is, so that they can get married, which would lend at least a semblance of decency to this, but Dan keeps grilling me. 'How did this happen, where were you , didn't you see anything?' Bottom line? It's my fault."

"It isn't your fault," said Kate, though she was looking at Susan. "Is it?"

Hadn't Susan asked herself the same question? She picked up a PC Wool tag from a pile that lay beside the skeins. A striking little thing, the tag carried the PC Wool logo, along with the fiber content of the skein, its length and gauge, and washing instructions. "We gave our daughters the know-how to prevent this," she said as she absently fingered the tag. "But they didn't consult us."

"They consulted each other," Sunny charged. "They gave each other strength."

"Bravado," Kate added.

"That, too," Susan said. After touching the tag a moment longer, she looked up at her friends. "I'm forever telling parents that they have to be involved. They have to know what their kids are doing. Kids aren't bad, just young. Their brains are still developing. That's why sixteen-year-olds are lousy drivers. They don't have the judgment-actually, physically, don't have the gray matter to make the right decision in a crisis. They don't fully get it until they're in their early twenties."

"And in the meantime, it is our fault?" Sunny asked.

Susan didn't answer. She was suddenly wondering what all those parents to whom she had lectured would say when they learned her daughter was pregnant. Given her age and what some saw as a meteoric rise in her field, she had always been on shaky ground. Now she feared for her credibility.

She must have looked stricken, because Kate took her hand. "What our daughters may have lacked in gray matter, they made up for in parental influence. We taught them right from wrong, Susie. They've never before given us reason to doubt them."

"That's what makes this so absurd," Susan wailed. "I could give you a list of girls at school who are at risk of doing something like this. Our daughters' names would not be on it."

"Now there's a thought," Sunny said, sounding hopeful. "No one expects it from our girls, so no one will know for a while. That gives us time to figure out what to do." She looked from Susan to Kate and back. "Right?"

Susan was thinking that time might not help, when Pam came striding back from the front of the barn. "Hey, guys," she called when she was barely halfway past the stalls. "Were we supposed to meet?" She was unwinding a large scarf as she reached them. "I bumped into Leah and Regina at PC Beans. They said you kicked them out, Kate." Leah and Regina were Kate's assistants that day, two of eight part-timers who helped get PC Wool out in the quantity dictated by recent demand.

"I gave them money for coffee," Kate said after only a second's delay.

But Pam caught it and looked around. "What's up? You all look like someone died."

"No one died," Sunny said brightly. "We were just taking a last look at the holiday yarn. It was a great colorway. People are raving about the freshness of the colors-very holiday, but not totally traditional. I told you that we're giving the spring line a major Mother's Day push in Home Goods, didn't I? Do we have colors, Susan?"

"We do," Susan said, trying to hide the horror that the mere mention of Mother's Day brought. Lily would be in her ninth month then and would be huge. Picturing it, Susan could only think of pink and blue, not PC Wool colors at all.

She couldn't say that, of course. Going along seemed the safest thing. But Pam was a good friend, and her daughter was very possibly pregnant or trying to get pregnant. Tell her , cried a little voice in Susan's head.

But no one else spoke up. If Susan did, she would betray the others-and Lily.

So she said, "I'll work out the dye recipes Saturday. Do we have a deadline for the catalogue?"

Pam was their mail-order link. At least, that was what she called herself, though on that front she did little more than pass data to a manager. More crucial to the operation, she was a lobbyist for PC Wool, the women's link to the powers-that-be. If there was a conflict of interest, given that she was a Perry herself, no one cared. PC Wool had shown a higher percentage of growth in the last year than any two other departments combined.

"End of January," she said. "That means we need samples painted and photographed by mid-month." She lit up. "Can we do another spa weekend before Christmas to write copy? I loved that last year."

They had driven an hour inland to Weymouth Farm. The spa there had a reciprocal arrangement whereby Perry & Cass would provide them with PC bath soaps and gels in exchange for free use of vacant rooms.

"I may have trouble with that," Kate hedged. "My Percy State four have finals then. They'll need extra care."

Sunny shook her head. "Dan has every weekend between now and Christmas planned."

Susan was silent. In another month, Lily would be showing. Word might be out. Pam might hate them for not telling her sooner. Worse, Abby herself might be pregnant, in which case Susan would feel doubly guilty.

But Pam looked so eager that Susan dredged up her only excuse. "Rick may be coming," she said apologetically. "He's waiting to see how his assignments pan out for December. Until he knows, I don't dare commit."