Only Uni (41 page)
After she finished the floors, she could move her furniture into the house. It would look and feel like a home. And she had done it all herself. Herself! She, who had always been hopelessly helpless.
As she rummaged in the fridge for an apple, her cell phone chirped. “Hello?”
“It’s Mrs. Choi. I’m afraid I have some bad news.” The apologetic quaver in her voice made her stand up and take notice.
“What’s wrong?” She squelched the burbling of unease in her stomach. It must be the pregnancy. Or maybe Mrs. Choi didn’t agree with the amount the painters charged.
“My nephew George called me. He’s decided against going on overseas missions.”
Oh, no. Please God, no. That’s all I need.
“I’m sorry, Trish. He’s returning on Monday morning, and he said he wants his house back.”
L
ex was late, as usual. Trish slouched against the kitchen counter and tried to ignore Jenn’s concerned looks, cast her way every few minutes. Venus leaned against the sink, her face tense, mentally preparing herself for whatever bad news had prompted Trish to call an emergency meeting for all four cousins that very night.
Jenn tried to smile. “You’re doing a great job on the renovations.”
She didn’t answer, not meaning to be rude, but because she was going to hurl her entire dinner — salad, no dressing — onto the linoleum floor. Nerves, not hormones. She swallowed, and the wave of nausea passed. “Thanks.”
“Where the heck is Lex?” Venus grabbed her Gucci bag from the counter and fished out her cell phone. “I should have picked her up myself.”
The front door creaked open — Trish made a mental note to WD – 40 the hinges. Oh, wait. She wouldn’t be here in three days. George could oil his own stupid hinges.
“Sorry I’m late.” Lex’s voice rolled down the carpetless hallway as she hustled toward the kitchen. “Wow. Oh my gosh, Trish, you did a good job — ”
“I’m pregnant.” It exploded out of her mouth.
Lex froze in the doorway to the kitchen. Her purse dropped to the floor with a
thunk
, along with her jaw. Jenn gasped. Venus had gone perfectly still.
Her entire body felt like it had been overnight in a minus-seventy degree cryo-freezer. Cold, rock-hard.
“Oh, Trish.” Jenn reached a hand to her.
“Don’t touch me.” Her lips barely moved. She’d shatter into a billion shards of ice if anyone touched her, the warmth of a human hand. She stared dry-eyed at the floor until Lex moved to stand in front of her.
“It’s okay to cry, Trish.”
“You always tease me about crying so easily.” A tear burned a track down her cheek. “ ‘Crocodile tears.’ ”
Suddenly it was Venus who moved to her and grabbed her. Her head fell onto Venus’s tall shoulder even as Jenn and Lex enfolded them both with more arms around her.
Her throat closed. She couldn’t breathe. She gasped hard and air rushed into her lungs, filling and cracking her chest, straining her ribs.
She shuddered as she cried, silently and open-mouthed.
Her cousins. Her friends. Her spiritual sisters. Her home.
Being in the center of a group hug was way too hot. She finally pulled away amid more sniffles, not all from her. Jenn — always prepared — dug tissues from her purse while Lex went to the bathroom and came back with a roll of toilet paper. She and Trish honked loudly while Venus and Jenn discreetly wiped their noses.
“What are you going to do?” Venus tossed her tissue into the trash bag.
“I don’t know.” Oh man, what was she going to do? She almost started bawling again.
“It’s Kazuo’s?”
“Yeah.”
Jenn tossed her own tissue. “Are you going to tell him about the baby?”
“I’ll have to, but not just yet.”
“Are you going to marry him?” Jenn twirled the ends of her hair.
Trish bit the inside of her lip. “I don’t know.” He didn’t know yet. Hadn’t asked her to marry him. He didn’t like children — she didn’t even know if he would marry her.
But then she wouldn’t be alone.
No, she and her baby would just be in the same house as a neurotic artist. Oh, joy.
But Kazuo had wealthy parents — they’d take care of her, even if he didn’t. Wouldn’t that be better than being on her own? Sure, her cousins would help, but she couldn’t even live with any of them — Jenn was caring for her mother, Venus’s condo was the size of a closet, and Lex was rooming with Mimi — the tramp — for free in exchange for help taking care of the house.
But marry Kazuo? She couldn’t believe she was considering it. Yet what options did she have? Hardly any.
“How far along?” Lex studied her abdomen, which was rather embarrassing since she’d always had a small pooch there.
“Two months.”
“Oh.” Venus straightened in surprise.
Trish’s nose closed again, and tears filled her eyes, but this time, she saw everything through a red haze. “Did you think I’d slept with him again? How could you? I’ve been trying so hard to
prove
to you that I was really trying to change.”
“Trish — ”
She didn’t have patience for Jenn’s placating tone. “No, you’re my cousins. You’re supposed to love me and believe in me, not wait around to see how I mess up again.”
Venus looked away, and Lex scuffed the floor with her sneaker.
“Is that all I am to you? A screw-up?” Okay, now she had started screeching. Not a good sign. She needed to calm down, except she had a raging pot of
jook
rice porridge in her gut about to boil over.
“I’m sorry.” Venus faced her with steady, humble eyes. She wasn’t one to try to hide anything. “You’re right, I wasn’t believing in you. And I’m sorry.”
“Me too.” Lex wouldn’t look at her, but her words carried clearly.
Trish gave a loud snuffle. It was kind of hard to be dignified with her nose running.
“You have been trying hard.” Jenn touched her shoulder.
“What kills me is that I’ve been doing my best to follow my three rules and become a better person. I changed my image, my lifestyle, and what happened?” She wiped her face with her soggy tissue. “It’s almost as if I hadn’t even tried to regain my chastity in the first place.”
“Your three rules weren’t bad — ”
“They obviously didn’t prevent this from happening. I don’t feel like being wholly devoted to God anymore, either.”
Lex stabbed a finger at her. “But think about it. Why were you doing all that serving? Did you have a heart for the people you were helping, or were you just trying to look better in God’s eyes?”
“Was it primarily to get references for your MDiv?” Venus didn’t accuse her, but her tone said she wanted Trish to be honest.
“Maybe. At first.” She liked the Sunday school kids, but she didn’t really know what she could do to help them grow in Christ. She just liked playing with them. She didn’t have anything to add to the support group at the Pregnancy Crisis Center — well, she did now — because those women had been through so much worse than what she’d had to endure with Kazuo. She did enjoy the time at Katsu Towers, but part of that was watching the K-dramas with the ladies. And even though people said they liked having her on the worship team, they didn’t know she was so bad that they turned her mic off.
Was she useful at all for God? Did He make this happen because she wasn’t pulling her weight or working hard enough?
Or maybe that whole thing about “the old has gone, the new has come” only applied to girls who stopped sinning as soon as they accepted Christ, rather than backslidden chicks like her who couldn’t stop struggling with the same things over and over again. Why hadn’t He helped her overcome her problems?
For that matter, why was it so wrong that she liked boys? It’s not as if she’d ever been unfaithful to a boyfriend. Maybe God didn’t like who she was, period. A red haze fell down over her vision. “You know why this is happening to me? Because God only sees the good girls. He doesn’t give a flying flip about people like me — ”
Venus’s hand flew so fast she didn’t even have time to blink before it slapped her across the face. Trish was so cold she barely felt the sting, but the blow knocked a gaping hole in her heart. Jenn and Lex both gasped.
“Don’t you be blaming God.” Venus’s almond-shaped eyes had shrunk to dark sesame seeds. “He doesn’t promise an easy life. We still have to face whatever the consequences of our actions are.”
Venus’s slap had jolted the hysteria bubbling inside her, but it hadn’t dulled her anger. “Yeah, well I thought if we repented, He helped us out.” Trish stabbed at her abdomen. “This isn’t helping.”
Her cousins were silent. A part of her wanted them to say something enlightening, to make her feel better or realize something profound about God and her situation, but another part of her wanted to feel angry and abandoned. Anger was easier to understand than why God had allowed this to happen.
“I honestly repented. I honestly wanted to turn my life around. But I can’t even serve at church without messing up.” Helping in the kitchen, the Sunday school Pet Day disaster, bonking into the microphone.
Lex flung her hands out. “God doesn’t expect you to be perfect.”
“Well, I still feel filthy. I feel like a whore, especially now. It makes me wonder if He really has forgiven me.” She waved to stop Jenn’s immediate protest. “I don’t want to argue about it. I know in my head I’m forgiven when I confess, but I don’t
feel
it.”
Jenn’s mouth worked back and forth a few moments before she asked a question Trish had been dreading. “Are you going to give the baby up?”
She closed her eyes. Griselle’s words still haunted her. Would she regret giving it up?
“You could keep it, you know.” Lex crossed one leg over the other. “Financially, I mean. You’ve got a good job, and we all know people who could provide daycare for you.”
“We can help out, too. My work schedule is very flexible.” Trish appreciated Venus’s offer, although to be honest, she had a hard time picturing Venus holding a baby.
Jenn nodded. “I’m taking care of Mom, but I can help, too. And Mom loves babies.”
“Thanks.” She didn’t know, practically speaking, how much they’d be able to help her, but their willingness to gather around her and shoulder some of her burden lifted some of the heaviness that had been weighing her down the past day.
There was so much she had to think about, so much to do. And so many other things to lay aside — would she need to give up her work on the worship team? At Katsu Towers? And she wouldn’t need references for her MDiv anymore — she couldn’t take classes right away, not with the baby.
She sighed as her eyes strayed to the paper strewn on the kitchen counter. She’d been trying so hard to impress others, including God. What use had she been?
“Well, but your dating life would be down the toilet.” Lex started to laugh, then suddenly choked as she gasped. “Did you tell Spenser yet?”
“Spenser?” Jenn’s brows furrowed. “Your coworker?”
Trish glared at Lex. “We’re not even serious yet, loudmouth.” And probably never would be.
“Sorry.” Lex ducked her raspberry-red face.
Venus’s sympathetic look seemed to mirror the ache in Trish’s heart. “Do you like him?”
“I don’t know.” Yes, she did. More than she wanted to.
“Will he . . .” Jenn licked her lips. “Would he stand by you after, you know . . . finding out?”
She couldn’t answer.
Venus had the courage to ask the hardest question. “Will it devastate you if he walks away?”
She swallowed — or rather, tried to. A gigantic pinecone had lodged in her throat and lacerated her esophagus, making it painful to breathe. “He’d never stay.” The words fell in the quiet kitchen, lying there like dirty snow.
“He might — ”
“No, he won’t. I don’t blame him. Kazuo had an affair with his wife, broke up their marriage.”
Jenn’s hand flew to her mouth. Lex stared at her in disbelief.
Venus sighed. “You have to tell him, then.”
Her heartbeat went from zero to sixty in 0.4 seconds. “What do you mean?”
“Think about it. Spenser’s involved with you, even if it’s not serious yet. Kazuo stole his wife. You need to tell him before he finds out himself.”
Jenn and Lex spoke at the same time.
“He’ll think you were trying to hide the baby from him.”
“He’ll think you were trying to deceive him.”
“At the very least, you have to let him know so he can break it off without too much emotional involvement from either of you.” Venus scrutinized her face. “You’d want that, right?”
“I want him to stay.” Trish buried her face in her hands. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“That’s not a good reason for him to stay.”
“I know. I’m being selfish.” She felt the tickle against her fingers and grabbed the fresh tissue from Jenn. She blew her nose. “It would have been nice to find out if he were The One or not. Now I’ll never know.”
“You might — ”
Venus cut Jenn off. “Don’t give her false hope. It’ll be nice if he surprises her, but don’t make her believe it would happen.”
Lex stuck her hands on her hips. “You are so cynical.”
“I’m realistic. People with their heads in the clouds trip and fall.”