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I’m eleven years old, and I’m sitting in the harvest gold rocking chair at Jimmy’s beach cottage, leafing through his grandmother’s True Confessions magazines. I’m over here a lot, because I love to read, and I’m running out of options. I’ve already torn through Gramma’s stash of National Enquirers in the outhouse. The stories in True Confessions are way better. All told from point of view of scandalous young women, they’re a mixture of adultery, premarital sex, drug use, cigarette smoking, and other things I know to be abominations to God. I am enthralled.
The grandmothers are talking to one another, but I’m not paying attention. Their voices are part of the background noise, along with the surf, the wind, and the rain tack-tack-tacking down on the roof. I’m engrossed in a story about a blonde nurse falling for a mysterious stranger Gramma mentions Peggy-Anne.
Peggy-Anne is one of my older cousins. She’s 15, and practically a grownup. We used to play together when I was little.
“Can you imagine? She went and got herself pregnant.”
Jimmy’s grandmother tut-tuts.
“And she has the nerve to play hooky from school because there’s no one to take care of the baby. It’s horrible. Just horrible.”
The magazine is still in my hands, but I’m not reading it anymore. Why is Gramma mad Peggy-Anne wants to take care of her baby? If I had a baby and couldn’t find a babysitter, I’d stay home with it, too.
I shrink back in my chair.
Gramma teaspoon clatters against the teacup while she stirs. “Back in my day, there was no such thing as premarital sex.”
I may only be eleven years old, but I know this is not true. There’s lots in the Bible, even. When God’s angels were pestered by the perverts of Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot brought them into safety. And then, to quieten the mob, he offered them his daughters.
I will never understand why this is ok by God.
A beam of sunlight shines in through the window, and the magazine glows in the light. The rain is stopping. I put the magazine back in the wooden magazine rack and bolt out through the screen door to the outdoors. The tide is out, and I have tidal pools to explore.
The door slams behind me.
I never do hear about Peggy-Anne or her baby again.
The grandmothers are talking to one another, but I’m not paying attention. Their voices are part of the background noise, along with the surf, the wind, and the rain tack-tack-tacking down on the roof. I’m engrossed in a story about a blonde nurse falling for a mysterious stranger Gramma mentions Peggy-Anne.
Peggy-Anne is one of my older cousins. She’s 15, and practically a grownup. We used to play together when I was little.
“Can you imagine? She went and got herself pregnant.”
Jimmy’s grandmother tut-tuts.
“And she has the nerve to play hooky from school because there’s no one to take care of the baby. It’s horrible. Just horrible.”
The magazine is still in my hands, but I’m not reading it anymore. Why is Gramma mad Peggy-Anne wants to take care of her baby? If I had a baby and couldn’t find a babysitter, I’d stay home with it, too.
I shrink back in my chair.
Gramma teaspoon clatters against the teacup while she stirs. “Back in my day, there was no such thing as premarital sex.”
I may only be eleven years old, but I know this is not true. There’s lots in the Bible, even. When God’s angels were pestered by the perverts of Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot brought them into safety. And then, to quieten the mob, he offered them his daughters.
I will never understand why this is ok by God.
A beam of sunlight shines in through the window, and the magazine glows in the light. The rain is stopping. I put the magazine back in the wooden magazine rack and bolt out through the screen door to the outdoors. The tide is out, and I have tidal pools to explore.
The door slams behind me.
I never do hear about Peggy-Anne or her baby again.
