Olivia (Logan 5)

She didn't seem concerned even though it was true that fewer and fewer young men came around to visit her or ask her to go sailing, take walks on the beach or spend an evening in town. Now that I stared down at her squirming on the bedroom floor, her child quiet and unmoving between her thighs, I realized why she had so adamantly kept me from seeing her naked a number of times. A quick search of her closet would result in the discovery of a pair of girdles in a box. What I also understood now was her sudden and uncharacteristic interest in and desire for those baggy dresses she used to refer to as "Granny clothes" whenever I wore them.

I knelt beside her and put my hand on the infant's tiny chest. It felt cold already and it did not vibrate with any heartbeat, nor did it rise and fall with any breath.

"I don't think it's alive," I said.

She whimpered again.

"Please, Olivia, get it away. I . . . can't touch it," she said.

I didn't move quickly. I stared at the wrinkled little creature for a while, studying its facial features, its blue lips and its fingers so tiny even one of my own small fingers was the width of nearly all five of one of its hands.

"It was a boy," I said, more as a thought voiced aloud than anything she wanted to know.

Belinda closed her eyes and began to

hyperventilate. I watched her suffering for a moment, still dumbfounded at how well she had kept this secret. What would our daddy think of his precious little princess now? I wondered.

"Do you have any idea, even an inkling of an idea, how terrible this is, Belinda? Didn't you consider this inevitable outcome and think about what it was going to do to our parents? Why didn't you come forward earlier so Daddy could have done something about this instead of deceiving everyone and hiding your condition?"

"I was afraid," she murmured and began to sniffle and sob. "I thought everyone would just hate me."

"Oh, and now we just love you?" I countered. She closed her eyes and held her breath a moment. "Please, please, Olivia, help me," she begged. "How many months were you pregnant?" I asked.

"I don't know exactly, but at least six or seven," she said quickly.

"That's why this child is so tiny. It's a premature birth. I knew you were having sex with some of your boyfriends, Belinda. I just knew it. I told you this would happen. I warned you. Now look, just look at what you've reaped with your wild, selfish behavior."

She sobbed an apology.

"Right," I muttered. "We'll all just blink and it will be gone."

"Please, Olivia . ."

-Who is the father?" I demanded. She didn't reply. "You've got to say, Olivia. Whoever he is he bears at least half the-responsibility. Daddy's going to want to know. Who is it? Arnold Miller?"

He was a boy she had been with a great deal more than the others.

"No," she said quickly. "Arnold and I never went far enough."

"Then who was it, Belinda? I'm not going to play a guessing game with you. Tell me! If you don't tell me, I'll leave you here wallowing in this . . . disaster."

"I don't know," she wailed. "Please, Olivia."

"How can you not know unless you . . . my God, Belinda, how many boys have you slept with? And so closely together that you can't pinpoint who would be the father of this . . this child?"

At the moment I didn't know what bothered me more: that she had so many lovers or that I had had none.

She just shook her head.

"I don't know, Olivia. I don't know. I don't want to blame anyone. Please."

"You'll have to tell Daddy something, Belinda," I warned. "He won't settle for an 'I don't know."

She opened her eyes and gazed up at me, and for a moment, I thought she was going to reveal the father of her baby. Was it someone I knew well, too?

"Well?"

"I can't blame someone if I don't know for sure," she finally declared. "Can I?"