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April's Promise

By Terrie Todd

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Christmas was five days away and I was sure that I’d be dead within a week.
But let me back up. Even before that day, I had felt a little bit off. I should have felt excited about the holidays. I was fourteen years old, and life was pretty much the same every day on our farm and in the little town of Mainsfield, Manitoba, with its one main street and its handful of businesses. So the holidays were always something to look forward to, even now that I’d finished Grade Eight and no longer had to go to school.
But this year, a sense of impending disaster twisted deep within me. A dark feeling tried to surface, and no matter how diligently I attempted to push it down, I couldn’t ignore it completely. I was reminded of the time my teacher, Miss Grave, loaned me a book of Pablo Picasso’s paintings. For days after looking through it, I’d been convinced Picasso’s creepy Woman with Mustard Pot was peering out from the book’s pages at me.
Being out of school meant I could finally look forward to the Christmas concert. I no longer had to participate or feel like a fool standing up front reciting childish poems or singing. I was glad to be done with classes. For one thing, I had always had difficulty with reading, and it was a relief not to have to struggle in front of others. I’d also been taller than every student in our little one-room country school—including the boys—except for my true love Joey Madden. I hated standing out like a clumsy giraffe among the dainty peacocks like my sister Bernadette. Bernie loved the concerts. That’s because she carried herself with confidence and didn’t worry what others thought. Our brother Charlie took part in them with a sense of duty, like he did everything else. It didn’t matter to Charlie whether he enjoyed something or not. If it was asked of him, he did it. Being twins, Bernadette and Charlie had always shared something special between them that kept me feeling lonely and left out, and I felt this especially in the lead-up to the holiday concert, when they both mustered a cheer I couldn’t. This year, though, I would get to sit in the audience with the adults and watch my siblings perform from the comfort of the crowd. The only thing I would miss was drawing the backdrop for the play. I wondered who the teacher chose to do it this year.
I’d been nothing but relieved when my parents declared it unnecessary for me to continue school. No more struggling with books. No more getting in trouble for doodling in class. After that, I stayed home to help around the house and vegetable garden. I secretly kept drawing pictures in a sketch pad I kept under my bed. When Bernie brought home a Science book showing diagrams of the human heart, I practiced drawing it over and over. I wasn’t satisfied until, without looking at the book, I could reproduce the picture so closely that when I placed my paper over the page and held them both up to the window, it looked like the same picture. Then I started on the lungs. I didn’t show them to anyone. It was a stupid hobby.
While my siblings were at school rehearsing their parts, I got to stay home and help Mother with her week’s work of Christmas preparations. Even with the strange and gloomy feeling hanging over me, I found the tasks distracting—almost pleasant, even. Mother had let me choose a new recipe to add to our usual repertoire of holiday goodies, and I’d decided to try my hand at shortbread cookies. We had a good supply of butter, thanks to Daddy’s milk cows, which made the shortbread a cheap treat. By the following week, we’d be ready to assemble tins of baked goods that we would deliver to our friends and neighbors.
“The more variety in your cookie tin, the better your prospects for a good husband.” Mother’s little singsong floated across her green and grey kitchen the afternoon we began our baking, as though every cookie recipient would count and compare.
Maybe she was right, but I already had decided exactly who I wanted for a husband, and I’m sure Mother knew it. I’d been in love with Joey Madden for as long as I could remember. We’d grown up together, had spent time together at school, church, and social functions—and no matter where we found ourselves, we always managed to drift toward one another. We simply enjoyed each other’s company. Joey’s parents and mine were friends, and his sister Lillian and I got along well, too. It was only a matter of time before it happened. I hoped Joey was as certain as I was that we’d be together always.
I didn’t bother looking up at Mother. “I’ll just be happy if I can get this shortbread right.”
But try as I might, it was difficult to feel enthusiastic about baking—or any kind of food. A big part of the reason was that I had been feeling so sick, for so long. I was even starting to fear for my life. People were still talking about the big flu epidemic that had swept through just after the war. I’d been only four then and didn’t remember much about it. I had hazy memories of my grandparents on Mother’s side who both died from it. The rest of our family had been spared. Now, between the exhaustion I felt and my increasing nausea, I wondered if the flu was back. But surely that was unlikely? I had been feeling this way for weeks already and I was still alive. Besides, I seemed to be the only one in our household affected.
Eventually, Mother noticed. Two days before the school concert, she peeled off her apron and announced she was taking me to see the doctor. “Take a bath and wear your town dress.”
I felt a bit relieved. Maybe Dr. Bradley would give me some medicine to ward off whatever was making me feel like this and I could get back to normal in time for Christmas. We usually took baths only on Saturday night, so it felt like a luxury to fill the tin tub on a Thursday morning, the winter sun streaming in the kitchen window, my siblings off at school.
“Don’t dawdle,” Mother called from the other side of the grey blanket we’d hung across the kitchen for privacy. “The rest of the house is getting cold.” The bathtub was on the same side of the blanket as the wood stove, making my side warm and cozy.
I hurried to finish and then pulled on the red and green plaid dress I’d laid out on the chair—no easy feat, because it was getting too small for me. I’d tried to tell Mother I was still growing and needed some new clothes, but she said that was highly unlikely. “You’re almost fifteen. A full-grown woman, and the tallest in our family.”
That last part wasn’t quite true, but Daddy and I were nose to nose. It was clear that Charlie would soon catch up to me. But at thirteen, Bernie was the same height I’d been at ten. I ran a brush through my hair, wishing again that it were either a rich chocolate or golden blonde, not this in-between, nondescript, sandy color. At least it wasn’t frizzy like Bernie’s.
At the doctor’s office, I removed the too-tight dress and put on the light blue gown I was given. A nurse with a tight grey bun behind her white cap checked my blood pressure and pricked my finger for some blood. She asked me a bunch of questions, some of them embarrassingly personal, prompting Mother to jump in and answer for me. When Dr. Bradley came in, he asked the same questions, peering at me over the top of his spectacles, his long, greying eyebrows sprouting off in various directions. Then he poked around on my tummy while he chatted about mundane things and reminded me that he’d delivered me as a baby, and my siblings too—his first set of twins. Then he and Mother left the room while I dressed again.
When they walked back into the room, Mother’s face was powder white. I braced myself. I knew right then that he’d told her I’d be dead within a week. A month, tops. What did I have? Was it contagious? I didn’t so much mind the idea of dying, but I couldn’t bear the thought of spreading a deadly disease around to the people I loved. Maybe I’d have to go to one of those sanatoriums or something. Anything to keep Mother, Dad, Bernie, and Charlie safe.
Mother took a seat across from the doctor, which was a good thing because it looked like she’d fall over if she didn’t sit. Dr. Bradley sat in his desk chair and steepled his fingers.
“April,” he said. “Do you understand how babies come?”
“Yes, sir.”
I’d figured out at church how babies came, several Christmases ago, when Pastor Wellington read the story about the angel visiting Mary and announcing that she was going to have the Baby Jesus. I’d studied the picture of this visitation in our big old family Bible. I knew those pictures better than anyone. I wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything, though.
Dr. Bradley looked at Mother and they both looked at me.
“What do I have?” I asked. “Am I going to die?”
Big tears formed in Mother’s blue eyes then, and I knew I wasn’t long for this world.
“You’re not dying, April. You’re pregnant.”
I stared at her. Pregnant? “That’s… not possible,” I stammered. What she was saying didn’t make any sense to me. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, but I was certainly clear that I hadn’t seen an angel!
“I can’t believe Joey would do this.” Mother said.
I was so busy thinking about angels, I had to stop for a minute and refocus on what she was saying. Joey? What on earth did Joey have to do with anything? He wasn’t sick too, was he?
Dr. Bradley cleared his throat. “Perhaps I’ll leave you two alone to talk for a bit. I’ll instruct my nurse to give you some privacy and check back in a while to see if you have any questions.” He slid something that looked like a color wheel across his desk toward Mother and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
I watched him leave, then looked back at my mother. She was crying in earnest now, tears running down her cheeks. She pulled a hanky from her purse and blew her nose, then gave her head a little shake. She stared at me for a full ten seconds without saying a word. I began to squirm in my seat.
Finally, I broke the silence. “It must be a mistake. I haven’t seen any angels.”
Mother’s eyes grew wide and she stared some more. “Angels? Oh, Lord.” She put a hand to her cheek and shook her head. “This is all my fault. I haven’t taught you anything.”
“What do you mean?”
I could see the red creeping up Mother’s face like a thermometer. “You don’t get pregnant by having an angel visit you, April. You have to… be with… a boy.”
When she said the word “boy,” I shifted in my seat. I wasn’t entirely sure what she meant, but I had a bad feeling about where this was going. My mind scrambled for an explanation. I’d been around lots of boys…was that what she meant by be with? Of course, I wasn’t around them so much now that I didn’t go to school, but I had let Tommy Cooper beat me at checkers just last week when his family came to our house for Sunday dinner. And I’d talked to Joey after church, like always.
“Who did this, April? Did you let some boy touch you or did he force himself on you?” Then she let out a little gasp. “It wasn’t a grown man, was it?”
“Touch me?” My mind spun. I grew more uncomfortable the longer she talked. I had to force myself not to look away.
Mother picked up the color wheel the doctor had given her and studied it. “According to Dr. Bradley, you’re about three months along. That would have put it around September. Think back, April. To September. Did Joey touch you—in private…in a private way?” I thought her face might explode, it was so red.
“No,” I whispered.
It was the truth. But there was another thing that was also true.
I now knew precisely how I had become pregnant, and when.

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