Jury of One

4

See the perfect family. She sees it from the threshold of the kitchen, looking in on the family after she has excused herself from dinner. Not feeling well, she told them, which was certainly true, but instead of taking the stairs to her room, she has sneaked back to look in on them.

How can she tell them?

The four of them are there. Edgar, the eldest, seven years her senior, who has graduated from school out east and is now completing a master’s degree in public policy, looking more like Daddy every day, the same thick, cereal-colored hair, prominent nose, squared jaw. He sounds like Daddy, too, if you close your eyes and listen. Thomas, still an undergraduate out east as well, takes after Mother, a smaller nose, darker eyes, wispy light hair. Mother is there as well-Abby is her name-her sweet, round face and soothing voice, her blond cropped hair, watching Daddy with such dreams in her sparkling green eyes.

And Daddy, so proud as he watches his boys, as he dreams of greater things. He is a strong man raising strong men-and a lovely young daughter, a sweet, innocent little daughter! So aggressive and confident in all he does, the conviction with which he speaks, the old-school discipline with the boys, even the way he eats-mixing all of his food together, “like a dog’s breakfast,” before shoveling it all into his mouth.

It has been four weeks since it happened. Twenty-eight days. The incident in the city. The rape, yes, it was rape, no matter what anyone said! And now this. Four weeks, two positive home tests, one missed period. She is only sixteen years old and this.

How can she tell them? How, when her brothers are talking about master’s degrees and girlfriends, her father has some exciting news of his own, her mother is so proud of all the men in her family?

The answer is obvious. She can’t tell them. Not ever. They will never, they can never, ever know that the baby girl of the family, the darling princess, is pregnant.