“Because you really are pregnant, Semantha. You don’t have any mental condition. You’re having a baby, and soon, too.”
A Plan
WHEN A CHARACTER in the novels I read, especially my romance novels, had a shock, the author would write, “it was like a clap of thunder.” Well, it was like that when I heard Cassie’s words. The air seemed to snap around me and be filled with electricity. It jolted me. I felt my entire body recoil and my heart sink in my chest.
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“What? What are you saying, Cassie?”
She turned and looked at herself in the vanitytable mirror. “Daddy needs his Asa,” she said, “and very soon now, you’re going to give him to Daddy.”
She spun around.
“It will be a wonderful day, a wonderful gift, and our world will return, our Heavenstone world. Just think. I’ll take care of him, be his mother. You can return to school, and no one will know what happened.”
“What are you talking about? Dr. Samuels said I wasn’t pregnant. He said—”
“He said what I wanted him to say. He was someone I hired to play the part,” she admitted. “He did a very good job, too, with my coaching and preparation, of course.”
“He wasn’t a real doctor?” She didn’t answer. “Why would you do that?”
“Why? If you knew you were really pregnant, you would have wanted to abort. Don’t say no.”
I stared at her, the words tripping over my paralyzed tongue.
“Oh, don’t be upset, Semantha. You’re doing a wonderful thing for our family. In time, you’ll not only understand. You’ll realize just how clever I’ve been and thank me.”
“Thank you?” Realizations were striking at me like meteors zooming down from outer space. “Then I didn’t dream about Porter raping me. He did rape me. All that I thought, that you told me were fantasies … what I saw happening, the date-rape drug … it was true, and you knew it.”
She turned back to look in the mirror.“Porter is intelligent and capable and, most of all, ambitious. He’s going to be the manager of the store starting next week, and in time, I’m sure he’ll become one of our top executives, maybe Daddy’s right-hand man, especially since I’ll be so occupied now with Asa. He has the right genes to father a Heavenstone. Believe me, I made a thorough study before I engaged him. He’s the youngest of four boys, and every one of his married brothers has had only boys.”
I had to catch my breath to speak. Every word she said quickened my heart even more. My legs felt wobbly. I leaned back against the wall. She continued to brush her hair as if we were speaking about the most trivial things.
“All that time you pretended to be interested in my health, my female problems, those special vitamins you said you got for me, all of it was just planning for me to get pregnant?”
“A healthy mother has a healthy child,” she said.
“And getting rid of Mrs. Underwood … that wasn’t because she was doing a poor job. You wanted no one else here, no one to see what would be happening to me.”
“She was incompetent.”
“No, she wasn’t. I was doing better.”
“You’ll do better. Stop worrying about that.”
“I’m not! That’s not what I mean, Cassie. All that business with Porter, making me attractive for him. At the right time, you asked him to rape me, and now you’re rewarding him? How could you trick me like that?”
“You were too young to understand, and you wouldn’t have agreed.”
“Why did you do this to me? Why didn’t you have a baby if a baby is so important?”
She didn’t answer. It made me even angrier. I took a step toward her.
“Don’t worry. You don’t have to explain. I know the answer, Cassie. You’re afraid of being pregnant. You’re afraid of sex. That’s why you’ve never had a boyfriend. You’re right, Cassie. I shouldn’t see a therapist. You should be the one seeing a therapist.”
She turned again but not with the face of anger and rage I anticipated. She looked quite calm. “I understand your anger, but that will pass, Semantha.”
“I’m right, aren’t I?” I insisted. “You’re afraid of sex. You’re terrified of getting married and having children.”