By Gregory Stephens-North

They drove in separate cars, heading south. David and Joan drove their green and white Ford, following Jerry who knew the way. He had made arrangements with a woman he knew who handled these situations. He acted like he had been through this before. David seemed to go along with his good friend's plan. Joan, pronounced "Jo-Ann," had protested, but weakly. It seemed she was to have an abortion.

Miles passed in silence. David stared straight ahead, hands gripped tightly on the wheel, maintaining his typical speed, well under the limit. With each white stripe rolling under the car's long hood, Joan imagined the steps taken leading to this time.

Driving her home one night from a Democratic Party meeting in Morristown, New Jersey, Jerry made his move. It was a welcomed gesture, signifying to Joan that she was worthy. Jerry was known to have affairs. If he hadn't made a pass at her, she would have felt awful. Beside, here was a chance to make her David jealous. Jerry and Joan parted long enough from their petting to allow him to drive the car to a place he knew that was safe. She did not remember if they made love that first night. Regardless, it happened soon enough.

David? Where was he? Working down in Trenton probably, doing good for the disadvantaged citizens of the Garden State. Ever the dedicated public servant, he would not be home until very late. Meanwhile, for Jerry and Joan it was political meetings, casual offers for a ride home, and evenings of passionate sex. Acting out their disappointment with their mates, Jerry and Joan settled into a late summer rite.

Of course, they kept up their daily routines: Joan as the lovely wife of the talented son of the noted author; Jerry as the handsome, successful Town Alderman, married with two children. Their overt relationship had many and varied connections of its own. Jerry and David were good friends, fellow young stars in the Party. They and their wives frequently socialized. Jerry and Connie enrolled their daughter in Joan's dancing school. On the surface, all was well in Morristown. True, Jerry's wife Connie seemed to get drunk nearly every time David and Joan had them over for dinner, but nothing was mentioned. True, Joan was lonely and miserable, seeing herself as trapped in a relationship with a man who seemed to love his work more than she, but nothing was mentioned. True, David had to cope with her constant complaining, but if he had concerns about her, kept them to himself.

How had she come to marry this man who seemed to her so distant? It was not too hard to understand. At first, each seemed the other's solution.

For David, Joan was the beautiful, talented, well-spoken darling of the New Jersey Young Democrats, a perfect companion in his planned race for a congressional seat. A political career was David's chosen path to meet the responsibility of being the son of Sterling North, renowned author, literary critic, and raconteur of the North family's seemingly endless cocktail party. Joan seemed made for this world of his, brought up to always say and wear the right thing. She gave great dinner party.

For Joan, David was just what the doctor ordered. A marriage to him might mend fences with her mother. How had those fences been broken? First there was Harold, her beau of many years. Frustrated by Harold's entry into the Army, Joan took his stint in Germany as an opportunity to make him jealous. This she did by marrying a cadet she met at the Naval Academy, who just happened to be heir to a pie filling fortune. Then the cadet, not surprisingly, followed graduation by getting orders to ship out, stranding Joan in of all places Norfolk, Virginia. Returning to New Jersey after only six months, she admitted her mistake to her mother and filed for divorce. Her life seemed a failure at twenty-three, nothing more than a collection of dead ends. First she had left behind a career in dance that had consumed her early years and much of her parent's income. Though she excelled artistically, she had grown tired of it. So she enrolled in college. There she excelled academically, as she had in high school, but she left that unfinished to get married. Now that marriage was over, revealed as a childish mistake. Joan needed to make good fast. This she knew how to do. Joan did well, at first, in anything she to which she put her mind. In this case it was landing a respectable man who would love her and make her happy. Moving up in Democratic Party circles, she was elected secretary of the Young Democrats, part of the vanguard of "The New Frontier." She often worked closely with its president, an up and coming Princeton graduate and bachelor, David North. His father was famous. People talked of him running for congress. They started spending a lot of time together. Visiting David's apartment in Trenton, Joan had sex for the first time out of marriage. It was great. Harold was now old news. David and she appeared to be in love. He would be her ticket back to respect in her mother's eyes.

Later, David and Joan were married. This time her mother as well as her father attended. It was one of the social events of the season. They were THE buzz in Morristown. To Joan, this union meant she was okay. To David, this was fulfilling an expectation. Single men did not get elected to Congress. Their parents were all so proud.

At some point, Joan decided to tell David about her relationship with Jerry. Was it because she felt that David, who wasn't stupid, was beginning to be suspicious of the time she spent with his good friend? Was it because she hoped this would somehow trigger in David a change, jealousy leading him to make her place in his life the central one she so coveted. Either way, she was disappointed in his response. He seemed neither surprised, nor angry. So she was sleeping with his good friend the Town Alderman. That was interesting. She remembered no big scene, no harsh words. Their marriage of convenience continued, as did her time with Jerry. Joan and David continued to have sex. She said later that sex with David was the best of all the men with whom she'd been.

Late that fall, Joan realized she was pregnant. She told David first. He seemed okay with it at first, but changed his tune once they sat with Jerry to let him in on it. Unlike David, Jerry seemed quite agitated. He needed time alone with Joan to talk. David demurred. Jerry spoke of divorcing Connie, using her drinking to get the kids. They could all live together with their new child. That assumed, of course, that it was his. But from the beginning, she said she was not sure. Her lack of clarity in this matter seemed to dampen Jerry's interest in anything other than a quick resolution to "this problem.

Joan wanted to keep the baby, but Jerry refused to listen. He wasn't going to get a divorce. He wasn't going to let Joan and David raise what may well be his progeny. There was only one answer. He knew what to do and could make the arrangements. Joan was horrified, but paralyzed. David went along with the strong feelings of friend. The baby, it seems, would have to go.

So now they drove through the gray late fall day, one car leading the other, transporting Joan through this strange nightmare from which she could not awaken. Why was David so accepting of all this? Why was Jerry so insistent that it be this way? Why was she playing along as if she had no part in it, no word in what was to happen next? Maybe it was because she was so ashamed. All her life she had felt like nothing deep down inside. All the plaudits she received for her many accomplishments, all the compliments she received for her looks, her charm, her brains, her dancing, her cooking…all of it went down her heart's bottomless pit. Her soul was a hole that nothing filled.

Why was she like that? She didn't know. But it had always been like that. Always pining for something else beside what she had, for what she had could not make her happy.

She turned and faced David, observing him as he concentrated on the road ahead. Putting her white-gloved hands to her abdomen, she imagined she could feel the baby inside. Maybe this was different, she thought. This might make everything okay. She would have this baby. David would love it. David would love her. They would all be happy together. Jerry could visit now and then, showering the child with his abundant affection. Everyone would love this baby, especially her mother and father. But first she had to have the baby.

Coming into the city, she heard herself speaking out loud, talking more to herself than to David.

"I am going to have this baby."

David turned to her, then quickly back to the highway.

"What?"

"I said I am going to have this baby."

"But Joan, we have been through this…"

"David," she said turning to acknowledge him for the first time, "I am not going to have an abortion." Her voice acquired an edge, " If you try to make me, I will divorce you."

"Joan…" David began, straining on the second syllable as if to speak her name was to heft a great weight, "Jerry has this all worked out…"

"Jerry is not my husband. You," she said turning away from him, "are."

David did not know what to say. He had wanted this baby at the beginning, but Jerry and he had talked and this seemed all for the best at the time. Now this. He could always count on Joan to turn everything upside down. He did know this. They could not make her do it if she refused. Not knowing what to say, he drove on.

Philadelphia's outskirts were drained of color. The sun had passed over the city's downtown, leaving this outlying district in shadow. Eventually Jerry slowed, put on his turn signal, pulled up in front of what appeared to Joan as a particularly run down row of houses, and parked. David crept in behind, put the Ford in park, but left the engine running. Jerry walked up beside the car. David rolled down his window as Jerry leaned down beside it.

"This is it," Jerry stated, looking out over the car and pointing at a second floor window. Looking back into the car, he connected with something in Joan's face. She had not turned to him as he spoke. "You okay?" he asked her, peering passed David.

"She is not going to go in."

Jerry just stood there, leaning in the window, looking at Joan, trying to decide what to say. David sat very still, deliberately avoiding Jerry's stare. His could see his breath, chilled from air flowing through the open window. It started to fog up the windshield.

"Jerry," said Joan finally, breaking the ice that had built up between the three, "I do not believe in having abortions. It is wrong. David will accept whatever I decide. I am going to have this baby."

She turned and faced him for the first time. His head had been down. At her declaration, he looked up, a flash of anger washed briefly across his face, but it was quickly replaced with his politician's smile. Joan was on to it before the dimples had time to fully form.

"Go home to Connie, Jerry."

Jerry's mouth hung open, cradling whatever words he'd planned limply on his tongue. He closed it, shaking his head, deciding it was best to say nothing. He turned away from the window and walked slowly back to his car.

Joan was suddenly shocked into motion by his departure, opening her door and standing up beside the car, one hand on its roof, the other holding open the door.

"Jerry!" she called out to him as he was opening his car's door, beginning to slide in.

This man, with whom she had spent much of this year stopped and spun around at her call to him. She recalled every moment with him …her emptiness, his burning eyes, their arms clutched desperately about the other.

"You can…" she started huskily and quavering, then paused, looking for a moment at her feet. Her shoes were getting soiled in the slush. Gathering herself, she started again. Her voice now all poise and grace, "You can come and see the baby any time."

Jerry stood there, frozen for what seemed to her a very long time.

"Thanks," he said finally. Then he was in the car and driving away.

She stood watching the car until it turned a corner and was gone. She got back into the Ford. David rolled up his window and started to drive off. She watched the row house recede, trying to remember which window Jerry had said was that woman's.

"What should we do now?" asked David after a time.

"Well," she smiled, "we drove all this way…let's spend the weekend together!"

They did.

I remember the many times Uncle Jerry came to visit. He always had some nice present for me. Then one day, after we moved to Virginia, he stopped coming. I no longer remember what he looked like. I do know that he gave me my very first stuffed animal, a clown face pillow. In every picture of me in my crib as a baby, that pillow is there.