Meant-To-Be Baby. Lois Richer

Tillie and Margaret nothing. Why?

      As they rose to sing the closing hymn, Ben glanced at his hosts. Couldn’t these usually astute ladies see that something was wrong? That the young woman they’d raised was desperately unhappy?

      But as they chatted with friends in the foyer, on the ride home and all through lunch, Tillie and Margaret seemed oblivious to Victoria’s distress. They giggled at Mikey’s knock-knock jokes as if all was well.

      When the two seniors finally left for an afternoon nap and Mikey was engaged in a Disney movie on television, Ben couldn’t remain silent any longer.

      “Why don’t you tell your aunts you’re pregnant, Victoria?” he asked baldly, hating the way she winced at the word.

      “How do you know—it isn’t—you don’t understand.” She shoved a handful of dark hair away from her face and picked at invisible threads on her jeans.

      “What’s to understand? You’re going to have a baby.” Ben shrugged. “You’re not the first single woman to do that and you won’t be the last. Life happens.”

      “Unmarried motherhood doesn’t happen to girls Tillie and Margaret taught to revere God and keep His principles,” she shot back, her voice shaky. “That’s sin.”

      “I haven’t been a Christian very long,” Ben said, frowning at her. “But it seems to me that even David, a man after God’s own heart, sinned. And God forgave him.”

      Her lack of response made him wonder if Victoria had even heard him. With her arms wrapped around her waist, she rocked slightly back and forth, her white face pinched with sadness and stained with tears. Beautiful but heartbreaking. And sort of remote.

      “Victoria?” He touched her shoulder. “What about the baby’s father?”

      “He doesn’t want me or the baby.”

      “Are you sure?” Ben found himself curious—too curious—about that answer.

      “He doesn’t want a child in his life. It would wreck his plan, weigh him down with responsibility for someone other than himself.” She gave a tiny huff of laughter. “It took me five years and a ghastly mistake, but the one thing I finally realized about Derek is that he always ducks responsibility. He doesn’t have the ability to see beyond his own needs.”