Girls in Trouble Read Online Free PDF Page B

happened!” Abby cried, alarmed. She sat Sara down, she put one arm about her.
    “A baby,” Sara choked. “I held a baby.”
    Abby stiffened. “That’s just your hormones talking,” she said, rubbing Sara’s back. “When you’re pregnant, things upset you more. You should have seen me when I was carrying you. Detergent commercials made me weep. Another month, you’ll feel better.”
    “What if I don’t?” Sara whispered, but Abby shook her head.
    “Come on now. Go wash your face and I promise things will look brighter. Maybe after dinner we can all go out to a movie. A comedy. How about that?”
    But Sara hadn’t gone to the bathroom. She heard the noisy drone of the vacuum. She went to her room, bringing the phone in with her, shutting the door, and she called Eva, bursting into tears as soon as she heard Eva’s voice. It horrified her. She hadn’t even met Eva in person and here she was crying! “I held a baby today,” she said.
    “Oh, how hard for you!” Eva said. “I’m so sorry!” Eva’s voice was a soft blanket.
    “Am I doing the right thing?”
    As soon as she said that, she thought, oh God, how could she ask such a thing of Eva? Of course Eva would tell her she was, because as her parentskept telling her, what they wanted most was Sara’s baby, that that was the only reason they were being nice to her.
    “What do you think?” Eva said gently. “What feels right for you and for your baby?”
    Your baby. Her parents never called it “your baby.” Never called it anything at all.
    “I don’t know,” Sara cried.
    Eva sat listening to Sara, and then Sara heard George’s voice, low and grave and full of concern. “Tell her I’m here for her, too,” he said, and Sara felt a new flush of warmth.
    Eva didn’t sugarcoat, she didn’t make her situation out to be perfect. “The baby won’t have a lot of relatives, and George’s father is pretty old and set in his ways and not in the best of health,” she admitted. “But we have good friends, and they love children.”
    “Well, I can tell you’ll be doting,” Sara said, and as soon as she said it, she felt calmer, as if all her tears had been wrung out of her. “I feel better now,” she said.
    “I think it’s time we all met,” Eva said.
    “You really want to meet them?” Abby had asked Sara. “You think that’s wise?”
    “I have to meet them.”
    “Well, you can’t go over there alone,” Jack had insisted. “We’ll all go.”
    They had all trooped over, Abby in her best black dress, Jack in a suit and tie, Sara in her blue pregnancy dress. As soon as Sara had seen the house, warm and friendly, and as soon as she’d seen George and Eva, holding hands, Eva in bare feet, George in a worn denim shirt and jeans, something slowly had begun to uncurl inside of her. “Oh Lord,” Abby said under her breath.
    Abby was stiff and silent, and Jack kept looking down at his shoes, but Eva was so excited, her face shone. She kept laughing, kept grabbing for George’s hand. “I’ll make herbal tea,” George offered, jumping up.
    “Coffee?” Jack said. “With plenty of caffeine and sugar? We don’t really drink tea.”
    But what had really turned her parents against George and Eva was when they talked about making the adoption completely open. “There’s no reason Sara can’t be over here as much as she likes,” Eva said. “Even every day if she wants.”
    After that, things didn’t go too well. The more Eva and George talked about how Sara should truly be a part of their family, the more interest Sara showed, the more Abby frowned, the more Jack cleared his throat. “Sara already has a family,” Jack said.
    “Yes, of course she does, but there are all kinds of different families—” George said.
    “We want her to go on with her life,” Abby said. “To have what’s best for her.”
    “So do we,” Eva said quietly. “We’ve been doing so much reading, talking to other adoptive parents. It’s really a