Jury of One

24

Blank faces, initially, the look of shock and disbelief. Waiting for the punchline. Waiting for their darling sixteen-year-old daughter to explain that she isn’t serious. They watch her, search her face, wait for a smile or laugh.

She tells them again. Yes, she is serious.

“How-who-who did this to you?”

There. The question she has anticipated, from her father. The first question, notably. “It’s not important, Daddy.”

She has no good reason for her refusal. It’s bad enough she has to tell them she’s pregnant-that much cannot be helped. She can’t tell them how. She can’t.

Todd Brisker? Rick Logenthal? Wally Josephs? Jed Arnold’s boy-what’s his name-Billy? Benji Carol?

Her father is suddenly pacing, small circles, jaw and fists clenched, throwing out the name of every teenage boy that comes to mind.

Her mother, Abigail Trotter, the lively facial features that still danced, her bright green eyes and tiny nose, animated eyebrows, now rendered into a blank expression, staring at her only daughter, her special beautiful precious daughter, as if she is a museum exhibit, something fascinating and unknown. Teenage Barbie got knocked up.

“It’s not important,” she tells them again.

“Shelly.” Her father, the powerful, promising politician, hands open, almost pleading. “How could you let this happen? How could you do this-” He flails for a moment, looks around the study helplessly, at the tax returns he has compiled, the financial statements ready to be sent to the state G.O.P. powers, then finds his wife quietly sobbing.

“How could you do this to your mother?”