When in Doubt, Add Butter Read Online Free PDF

Anyone.
    The guy I had believed was the love of my life—a guy I’d been with for a year, through all four seasons and one of every holiday and birthday—suddenly viewed me as his enemy. Not even a person anymore. He dehumanized me thoroughly. I was just something trying to block his way to happiness and success.
    Obviously, I realize that we were young, I had no idea what “the rest of my life” would look like, or how long that really stretches (if you’re lucky), but even now, I am shocked at the vehemence of his response. The cruelty of it.
    And yet I guess I’m glad it was handled that way, rather than in a more mediocre fashion, because if he’d hidden his coldness, or if he’d grudgingly agreed to marry me, I would have ended up in what I have no doubt would have been an epically terrible marriage.
    As it was, I told him I’d take care of it.
    He didn’t even ask how. Or if I needed help. Or even if it was done.
    That was the beginning of August. We spent about three more awkward weeks together, pretending nothing had happened, and when he left for Rutgers at the end of the month, I’m not even sure we went through the pantomime of kissing good-bye.
    And that was it.
    He was gone.
    In those days before e-mail, it required more effort to stay in touch. Not a lot of effort, of course, just some paper, an envelope, a stamp, and a few minutes to jot down a few words. But he didn’t even bother to do that.
    Neither did I, of course.
    But I was busy floundering in the previously uncharted territory of teenage pregnancy. Wild hormones, terrible mood swings, depression that felt like something separate from me, yet something I’d never be free of. I had real problems, to be sure, but hormones can take whatever you’re feeling and make it a million times worse. PMS was nothing compared to pregnancy.
    And PMS was bad enough.
    To say nothing of getting bigger by the day, despite the inability to keep down anything I ate. “Morning sickness” was a great fallacy for me, since it lasted all day and well into the fourth month.
    Finally I was able to eat macaroni and cheese, as long as it was made with Velveeta and topped with Frank’s hot sauce. Lots of it. I don’t think a vegetable crossed my mind, much less my lips, during those nine months.
    What did cross my mind was lots of thoughts of baby names and tiny clothes and locks of wispy soft hair and an increasing determination not only to keep the baby but also devote my life to being the best mother I could possibly be.
    I didn’t see marriage in my future. Not only did Mrs. Rooks’s warning ring hollowly back in my subconscious, but Cal’s turnaround made me feel like I could never trust another man again.
    Time has set me straight on that, fortunately, though I never came back around to the marriage idea. For a few years, I didn’t think I could ever trust anyone again. I didn’t even think I could trust myself to have reasonable judgment about anyone else. After all, I’d been sure I could trust Cal forever, and until he was put to the test, I had no idea that wasn’t the case.
    What if he hadn’t been put to the test? What if I hadn’t gotten pregnant, and our relationship had limped along until eventually we did what might have been expected of us and got married? I might have learned what was already a very hard lesson in a much, much harder way.
    In fact, I could even still be learning it today if it weren’t for his showing his true colors when he did.
    So I guess I had to be grateful for that. Still, it was a very hard time for me, as well as for my family.
    I worked as many hours as I could get at the Roy Rogers Restaurant where I’d been working since I was sixteen, saving my pennies and living in my mom’s house with the idea of staying at home with the baby as long as I could.
    I gestated.
    Ate macaroni and cheese. With Frank’s hot sauce.
    And gradually, I came to view the baby as my own and let go of the fear that some resemblance to