Page 85 of The Singing Trees
He kept blabbing on, but she wasn’t processing any of it. She was way too young to have a baby, too young to be a mom. Her throat constricted at the severity of her mistake, trusting her pills. What had she done?
Oh God, what had they done?
Interrupting whatever he was saying, she asked, “Are you positive?”
He raked his mustache with his fingers. “You are undoubtedly pregnant, Ms.Mancuso.”
A surge of anger ran through her. This wasnothow she’d planned things to occur. They were supposed to get married, and she was going to establish herself in the art world, and then—only then—was she going to become a mother, helping Thomas realize his dream of becoming a father.
“Please stop calling me Ms.Mancuso,” she snapped, wanting to jump out of her bed and run away. “I’m not even twenty yet. With all due respect.”
Shouldn’t she be happier? Why wasn’t this news landing in a better way? Women dream their whole lives for this moment. Pregnant? She wasn’t ready to be pregnant. That was the business of a woman closer to thirty.
The short doctor adjusted his stethoscope. “I figured you’d want to tell your family yourself, as opposed to me intruding.”
“Thanks,” she said, still breathing in the peripheral edges of the news. It was a kind gesture, she thought.
But a baby inside her? Thomas’s baby. What wouldhethink? God, what would she do until he returned? How would her body react? Would she be able to still tap into her creative side? What about thepaintings she owed Sharon? How could she possibly keep doing what she was doing at the shop? What about waiting until the right moment? And what would Nonna say?
A few seconds after the doctor excused himself, her three visitors reentered the room. Annalisa considered holding back the news, only until she could wrap her own mind around it, but her tongue betrayed her.
“Turns out it’s a little more than dehydration,” she confessed.
Her trifecta, Nonna, Walt, and Nino, stood by her bed like three people in a painting, frozen there waiting on more. She really couldn’t take Nonna lashing out on her right now and was terrified that she’d be judged.
Nino, towering over the other two, said, “Well, out with it. What is it?”
Unable to look at Nonna, she found comfort in Nino’s bright eyes, up there hovering near the ceiling like lights in a pair of lighthouses. “You’re going to be an uncle.” Only then did she slide her eyes down toward Nonna, inching them really, ever so slowly, almost like she had dipped her toes into the Atlantic, testing the temperature.
“You’re pregnant?” Nonna asked. She slapped a hand onto her forehead and then crossed herself. “Ay yai yai.” No one could sayI told you sowithout a word like Nonna could.
Already feeling exhausted, she seared Nonna with her eyes. “Thanks for the support. I knew I could count on you to knock the last of the wind out of my sails.”
Nino and Walt seemed to slip into the background as Nonna stepped closer.
Where she struggled to find words, Annalisa did not. “Don’t judge me. I’m sure God is doing enough of that. He probably can’t wait to get me into the confessional at Saint Peter’s.” Come to think of it, she hadn’t been since before Hawaii. At least she’d made it a few times this year.
“Why couldn’t you resist the temptation?” Nonna finally said. “Why couldn’t you wait a little longer until you’re married. Until you’re ready.”
Annalisa felt like she was being kicked while she was down. She didn’t want to be pregnant any more than Nonna wanted her to be.
“It’s not the nineteen fifties anymore,” she said. “We’re at war. My fiancé is in the middle of it. The rules don’t apply like they did in your little bubble growing up in Naples.” Annalisa didn’t care that her cousin and Walt were back there somewhere. When she and Nonna needed to express themselves, an audience did little to temper their roars.
“You think this is the first war I’ve ever been through?” Nonna asked. “There’s never an excuse to go against His word.”
How could Annalisa argue? Still, couldn’t Nonna lighten up some?
“I’m not going to sit here and let you lecture me,” Annalisa said, keeping her temper at bay. “I’m not going to do it. We had sex, okay?” Annalisa felt a rush of frustrated emotions punch her in the chest. Unless someone had a time machine in the room, all this nagging her wasn’t helping.
Saying what was really bothering her, she let out, “I don’t even know if he’ll make it home to meet this baby, so don’t go on about how I’ve disappointed you.” The fearful thought lunged at her once it had left her mouth. No way she could raise their baby alone.
If only her mother were still alive. She would have understood and never attacked Annalisa, especially while she was lying in a hospital bed, wrestling with the news herself.
Nonna shook her hand in the air. “You haven’t disappointed me, Annalisa. I hurt for you. I know this isn’t what you wanted.”
Annalisa raised a fist back. “No, it isn’t! Not at all.”
The first tears came on like a hard rain, and Nonna went to her, putting a hand on her. Annalisa couldn’t take it. This wasn’t what she wanted at all. She was too young to have a baby, toraisea baby. She was still a child herself. She didn’t know enough about the world to teach someone else. She still had her own life to live.
