Renée sat across the table from her mother, slowly eating a bowl of cereal.  Marta knew the time was right for talking to her daughter.  Her husband was gone to work, and Bjørn was looking for a summer job.  She had dread in her heart, but her suspicions needed to be put to rest.  “Renée, you have been with Tommy for quite a long time now, yah?”

            “Yah, Mama.  It has been seven months since he gave me his ring.  We get along very well.”

            “Tommy is a nice boy.  We like him very much.  It is plain to see that you each care very deeply for the other.  Papa and I both feel that there is much passion between you.  We are very sure that you are active with him in an intimate way.”

            “Mama, I do love Tommy very much.”

            “Yah, that I know Renée.  Love is a wonderful thing when you find it so young.  Tommy has touched you in that special way?”

            “When Tommy touches me, I feel tingly all over, and I want to hold him to me forever.”

            “Forever is a very long time, Renée.  Touching and feeling by someone we love increases our desires.  Does Tommy’s touch fulfill those desires, and lead you into complete intimacy?”

            “I can not imagine being intimate with anyone except Tommy.  He is the one.”

            “Do you not want to tell Mama?  We have never had secrets from each other.  Renée, I want an answer, are you and Tommy having sexual relations.”

            “Mama, you said that some things are private and should not be talked about.”

            “Renée, listen to Mama!  It is wrong to tell anyone who is willing to listen what should be kept private.  You are sixteen.  You are still a very young girl.  I am your mother, I have a right to know.  Even though your age is young, your body is that of a woman.  Have you, or have you not been intimate with Tommy?”  Marta was firm, and Renée knew she couldn’t avoid, or talk her way out of this conversation.

            “Yes Mama, it is true .  I have gone all the way with Tommy.  I hope that you are not mad or upset with me.  I love him, Mama.  He has asked me to marry him.  We want to be married next March after he turns eighteen.  He is going to ask Papa for my hand in marriage soon.  Mama, besides being the kindest, most generous boy I’ve ever known, he is a wonderful lover.”

            Marta’s eyes were closed.  She shut her eyes tightly, and expelled a long breath of air.  “Papa and I could not have picked out a better man for you, if we had tried Renée.  I am not sure that you realize what has happened within your body.  Have you noticed the change in your bryster?”

            “Yah, Mama, they are growing again.”

      “And, your nipples, they are more sensitive?”

          “Yah, is that the way it is to be a woman?”

         “Renée, I felt more rested a few days ago.  I hung some blouses in your closet.  I saw an unopened box with your pads.  Renée the receipt had the date of April.  Have you not used any pads since March?”

            “No Mama.  I did not need to use them.”

            “Renée, you did not have period in April, May, and now it is June.  Your bryster are fuller, and you have sensitive nipples.  Mama, is certain that the sickness you have had is not because you were nervous over exams.”

            “Oh, Mama!  Is there something wrong with me?  Am I going to die?”  She was terrified.

            “No, Renée, I doubt very seriously that you are going to die.  Renée, you are going to have a baby.”

            “A baby?  Mama, how can that be?  I thought you had to be married to get a baby.”

            “It is better to be married when a baby is made, but it can happen outside of marriage.  Did you not know this Renée?  Did Tommy not know?  When a girl gets her period, that means she is old enough to have a baby.  If she has sex with a boy, he can get her pregnant.  And, I believe this has happened to you and Tommy.  He wants to marry you?  How will he support you?  How will you support a baby?  Where will you live?  Who will pay for the doctor bills?  I do not know Renée.  I just do not know.”  Marta shook her head back and forth.

            Renée put her hand on her belly.  She wanted Tom now, and she wanted him bad.  She truly had no idea that pregnancy could occur to unmarried people.  She thought of the tiny life growing inside of her, and was more scared than she had ever been.  She put her empty bowl in the kitchen sink, then went to her room, and shut the door.  She removed a booklette from her drawer that Mama had given her quite some time ago, Growing Up and Liking It.  She read through it at the time then tossed it in the drawer.  Renée read it from cover to cover, then flipped back to page seven.  She looked at the diagrams, then read the paragraph over and over, “forming a soft little nest where the egg, if it should be come fertilized (united with a male cell), could lodge itself and grow into a baby”.  That was the only reference to pregnancy.  Why couldn’t it have been clearer?  Why didn’t they come right out and say it?  Why didn’t it say how that male cell got in there?  Why was so much left to the imagination?  Renée touched herself as she thought of the desire that built up inside of her the first night Tommy put it in her on New Years Eve.  She thought of doing it in the barn, on the car seat, in a hotel room, standing up, sitting down, him on top, her on top, on her hands and knees, him on his knees, in a bed, on the floor, against a wall... each time special, each time with the boy she loved, and each time she had no clue that what they were doing could result in another life, totally dependent on them.  If her mother didn’t know who was going to pay, she certainly didn’t know either.  She had to talk to Tommy.  She had to tell him that what they did had made a baby.

            Renée thought of going to Mrs. Hansen’s to use her phone to call Lydia.  She knew those boys had raped Lydia, and she wondered if Lydia knew about getting pregnant. Then she remembered Lydia was gone to spend the summer with her Aunt Grace. Marsha Hendricks... she had sex with that Hinkley guy, and with Bjørn.  Renée wondered why Marsha didn’t have a baby growing inside of her.  She hated Marsha, and would never call her.  She also knew she didn’t want to tell her brother about this.  She thought he would more than likely be furious at her, remembering how he was very upset when he found out she’d let Tom feel her up.  She thought of Tommy again, and was nearly overwrought with physical desire for him.  For the first time ever, she hated where she lived.  It was so far from anyplace.  She had no transportation, no telephone, she felt trapped.  Renée took a bath, dressed, and waited.  Tommy usually came over Saturday afternoon, once his horses were groomed.

            “Mama, please do not worry.  I know Tommy will know what to do.  He is very smart and always gets good grades in school.  We will find a way to pay for our baby, so we will not be a burden to you and Papa.  Please do not tell Bjørn.  This will not make him like Tommy.  He has always been suspicious that Tommy only wanted to use me as his...  I do not want to say another of Bjørn’s bad words, but I think you know what I mean.”

            “Yah Renée, I do know what word you mean.  Mama knows you are a good girl.  Mama knows bad girls know what to do to not get into this trouble.”

            “Mama, does Papa know?  Did you tell him that you thought I am going to have a baby?”

            “No Renée, I did not.  I wanted to know for sure that you and Tommy had been together in that way... in case there could be another reason.”

            “Another reason?  There could be another reason?  You mean maybe I am not going to have a baby?”

            “Renée, you are going to have a baby.  The other reasons would be only wishful thinking for one that does not want a child.  I do not think this is a wise time to have a baby, but it is on the way, and there is not anything that can be done to change it.  Unless God does not want this baby to be born, that is.”  Before Marta could say more, there was a familiar knock on the door.  She got up and went to her room.  She did not want to speak to Tom, or even to look at him at this time.

            Renée was a mixture of emotions when she saw her handsome boyfriend standing there.  As soon as he was in the door, she flung her arms around his neck, and was kissing him like crazy.

            He was bowled over by her behavior, and wondered what brought on this amorous attention.  Even knowing her mother was in the house, Renée placed her hand on their Viking, and stroked him over his jeans.  “Tommy we must go someplace.”

            “Renée that is quite obvious, and I’m all for it.  But, it’s broad daylight.  Where is it safe?  We almost got caught in the shack the last time.”

            “Tommy, please?  Any place, even here.  Please, I have been like this all morning.  Try to understand my need.”  Renée did not remove her hand from his body.

            Realizing she was practically crawling all over him right there in her parents living room, he knew for some reason she was out of control.  He reached in his pocket, and retrieved his wallet.  Counting his money, he found he had enough for a cheap room someplace.  They got in the car, and drove.  He could hardly believe it was Renée in the car with him. It was maddening. Tom composed himself as he checked into the same place they were at just the week before after the Prom.  Once inside, clothes went flying off faster than kids running toward a swimming pool. “Yah, Tommy, this is just for you.”

            “Anytime any way we can Renée, I always want to be the one that gives you the pleasure.  You have never been this hot.  Passionate, loving, and sexy always, but you are like another person today.  I’m afraid we would have gone all the way at your house had I not had enough money to come here.”

            “Yah, Tommy, I was going to take you to my bedroom if we had not left for here.”

            “Renée!  Is your mother home?”

            “Yah, but she knows.”

            “But still, we’re not married and in their house, with her at home...  You say, she knows?”

            “Yah.  Tommy, I have been feeling very much more so in love lately. I have been needing you more, and we have not been together so much now that we could not park on Rattalee Lake Road.  Please Tommy, please?”

            Tom couldn’t resist, not that he wanted to.  Her desire was enough to keep him at it all day.  And, that he did.  It was impossible not to notice the change in her breasts.  He noticed at Prom that they were more full.  Secretly he hoped they wouldn’t get too much bigger.  He teased that more than a handful was a waste.

            “I am not sure why Tommy.  My desire for you is even stronger for you, than before, but my love for you has grown also.  Tommy, remember when we talked and I told you I wanted to have babies when we were married, after I was a nurse, and you become an engineer?”

         “Yes, I remember. I hope that is the way it is Renée. Everything is so perfect between us that this is the way I always want our lives to be.”

            Renée reached for and placed Tom’s hand on her tummy.  “Tommy, I did not know, perhaps you knew, and thought I knew.  But, I did not know that our Viking could make me pregnant.  Tommy, I am going to have a baby.”