It Happened on Maple Street

She was really going to leave him there alone. “Good night,” he said.

“I’ll see you in the morning, Babe,” Tara smiled once more, and let the door close.

He climbed between sheets that smelled as though they’d been hanging outside on the line, and wondered what had happened between the family room and the bedroom to cause such a change in Tara. Out in the hall, as she’d said good night, she’d been distant, hesitant. Not at all the sexual tiger that he’d been making out with all night.

He went to sleep with a hard-on.

I didn’t sleep that night. I tried, but the war inside of me was escalating to some kind of finale.

I’d missed my period and was scared to death that I was pregnant. Only Tim’s tip had been inside of me, but he had released fluid. I’d asked some questions at school, done some reading. If I was at my fertile time of the month, what we’d done on New Year’s Eve in the bed on Maple Street had been enough to impregnate me.

And the man I loved, the father of my possible child, was downstairs, sleeping in a bed that I belonged in, too. My father was next door, thinking I was a good girl.

Tim was eighteen and didn’t have a lot of money. His mother wouldn’t be able to help him, either. There was no way he could supp

ort a baby without giving up his whole life.

I wasn’t sure he loved me enough to do that. I wasn’t really sure he loved me at all.

He wanted me. I knew that. But if I’d let him go all the way in, if I let him have all the sex he wanted, would he tire of me and move on? Was I just keeping his interest because I was saying no?

He didn’t talk about his feelings. I’d told him I needed to be married to do what I was doing with him. I’d asked him to talk to me. I’d written him notes, telling him we needed to talk. Nothing was working.

My stomach was a massive knot by the time I heard my folks getting up. Pulling on my yellow robe, I brushed my teeth and went downstairs, down the hall past the laundry room, the bathroom, and stood outside his room.

Would he be awake? Naked?

Was he a morning person? A grouch when he woke up?

My parents were talking upstairs. They’d be descending soon. I knocked.

“Who is it?” He didn’t sound grouchy. He was groggy though, and I loved the sound. It made me want to crawl under the covers with him, leave the world and worries behind, and find peace and rest in the security of his arms.

“It’s me,” I said softly, debating whether or not to throw caution to the wind and follow my instincts. If I were pregnant, my parents were going to be disappointed in me soon enough anyway.

“Me who?”

“Tara,” I said, getting frustrated. Maybe I was the grouch in the morning. Or maybe I’d just had too many sleepless, fear-filled nights.

How in the heck was I going to raise a child on my own? Or hold my head up at church? My parents would be so disappointed. Mortified. I’d be an embarrassment to them.

Yet I couldn’t help but wonder what our would baby look like. Would it have Tim’s brown eyes? And my blonde hair? Would it be a girl or a boy?

Would I ever have a husband and family? Or had I just ruined my whole life?

Tim was still under the covers when I opened the door. “You knew who it was.”

“I didn’t think my Tara would knock before coming in,” he said, smiling.

I could melt in that smile. And lose myself in his dark gaze—no matter how bleak the future might be.

“That would be inappropriate,” I said.

“Maybe so, but it’s not like I’d complain. What time is it anyway?”

“Eight-thirty.”

If I were pregnant, I could make love with him all I wanted. Until he was done with me.