Family Merger. Leigh Greenwood

the twitching toes, she didn’t appear frightened or overly angry. It was almost as though he were a momentary obstacle she had to deal with before she could move on.

      “When were you going to tell me about the baby?”

      She didn’t answer.

      “How were you going to keep it a secret?”

      “I’ll stay here until after it’s born. I don’t have to go to school when I really start showing. Miss Roper has people come teach us. I can get my GED.”

      He spent ten thousand dollars a year to send her to the best private school in Charlotte, and she was talking about a GED! Didn’t she have any idea how important it was to graduate from the right school? No matter what he had to do, he was determined Cynthia would do that.

      “We’ll worry about that later. Are you okay? You look pale.”

      “It’s because I’m pregnant.” Cynthia stumbled over the word that described her condition. “Mrs. Collias fixes meals especially for pregnant girls. She says she can make sure I have enough for the baby without getting fat.”

      Ron had almost forgotten Kathryn was still in the room. She had taken a seat near the door and was leafing through a magazine. She didn’t trust him alone with his daughter, but at least she had the decency to pretend she wasn’t listening to everything they said. He wondered if she was this protective of her other girls.

      “All expectant mothers are supposed to gain weight.”

      His wife had gained forty pounds then lost it within a few months.

      “If I get fat, I’ll never get it off.”

      Ron didn’t know how the conversation had drifted onto something as trivial as weight.

      “What about the boy?” Ron asked. “The baby’s father.”

      “He doesn’t know.”

      “You have to tell him.”

      “No, I don’t. It’s my baby. Besides, I don’t want to ruin his life, too.”

      “This is not going to ruin your life. I won’t let it.”

      “I’m a pregnant, unwed teenager,” Cynthia said, anger now rising to the surface. “There’s nothing your money can do to change that.”

      He felt as if he were being punished for working so she would never have to endure privation. “You still have to tell the father. It’s his baby as much as yours. He has a right to know.”

      “No, he doesn’t.”

      For the first time since seeing her, he sensed fear. “I’m sure he’ll guess when you don’t return to school.”

      “I told everybody we were moving to Connecticut.”

      Ron knew it would be impossible to keep her baby a secret even if they did move to Connecticut, but he would deal with that later. Right now he needed to get Cynthia home and settled into her own room. And he needed to get out of Kathryn Roper’s house.

      “Get your things,” Ron said. “I’m taking you home.”

      Cynthia pulled back from him. Something about her expression changed, something subtle that made her look less like a child and more like a woman.

      “I’m not going home. I’m staying here.”

      Ron knew his relationship with his daughter wasn’t the best in the world, but she’d never refused point-blank to do anything reasonable. “Why not?”

      “I just told you,” Cynthia said, sounding impatient. “I don’t want anybody to know.”

      “They’ll know soon enough.”

      “Not if I stay here and you go back to Switzerland. They’ll believe we moved to Connecticut, just like I said. I told them we were keeping the house with Margaret and everybody else in case we didn’t like it. I told them I didn’t want to go but some of your Yale buddies had talked you into it because it would put you closer to New York, that it would be good for your business.”

      Ron didn’t bother pointing out that such a story was so full of holes it probably wouldn’t last a day. The school would call if she missed more than one day without an excuse. Her friends would call. Neighbors would ask questions. There was no way she could keep her disappearance a secret.

      “Why don’t you let me take you home?” Ron asked. “We can both get a good night’s sleep and try to come up with a plan in the morning.”

      “A plan for what?”

      For the rest of your life Ron thought, exasperated. She didn’t appear to realize nothing would ever be the same after this. She would be a mother. That was a barrier that would separate her from her friends almost as effectively as moving to Connecticut.

      “Everything is going to be different after this,” Ron said.

      “I know that,” Cynthia said. “I’m not stupid.”

      “I never said you were, but even intelligent people can have trouble thinking through unfamiliar situations. There are so many things you can’t know at your age—”

      “If you tell me even once I don’t understand because I’m too young, I’ll walk out of this room.”

      “You don’t understand,” Ron said, “not only because you’re too young but because this is beyond your experience. Hell, your mother and I didn’t understand, and we’d been planning for you for three years.”

      “Age and experience have nothing to do with it,” Cynthia said as she got to her feet. “You’ve been a father for sixteen years, and you still don’t understand a thing about children.”

      “I don’t understand why you’re more upset about your friends knowing you’re pregnant than you are about having a baby. I half expected you’d be nearly hysterical begging me to help you get an abortion.”

      “I’d never do that! I want this baby. I need this baby.”

      “Cynthia, you’ve just turned sixteen. You’re in the tenth grade. How can you need a baby?”

      Tears sprang to her eyes. He reached out to her, but she backed away.

      “You never let me have a cat. I begged you over and over again, but you wouldn’t let me.”

      “I’m allergic to cats. You know that.”

      She started toward the door. “I would have kept it in my room. You never go there. I would have taken care of it myself.”

      She ran out leaving Ron wondering what had just happened. He turned to Kathryn who’d remained silent during the whole conversation, quietly turning pages in her magazine. Now she was looking at him with an expression of pity mingled with something that seemed to say You poor, dumb clod. You don’t have a clue, do you?

      “What? You’re looking at me like I’ve dribbled ketchup down my shirt.”

      “You don’t understand her, do you?”

      “Are you saying you do?”

      “Of course.”

      That irritated him. “There’s no of course about it. Has she told you something I don’t know?”

      “Not in so many words.”

      Erin used to say that. She said men weren’t supposed to understand women. “How about putting it into words a poor, dumb male can understand.”

      She stood and came toward him. She really was a lovely woman with a beautiful body. It was hard to concentrate on his daughter when he was having such a visceral reaction to this woman. Why wasn’t she married? What was wrong with the single men in Charlotte that she was left alone to oversee other men’s daughters?

      “Cynthia