"Ah, no, but I wasn't much for life planning in my youth." She didn't doubt that Jonah had privileged authority to have read her dossier - she had seen what the army's intelligence had on her during her rating and review and it was certainly detailed. She allowed him to go on pretending as though he didn't already know. "I got pregnant with Liza-May when I was in high school. I told Joe and he panicked; said he was too young to deal with it." She paused, recalling the rather bitter time before everything else. "I didn't know what to do so I went to my parents for help, and uh, well they disowned me. Gave me twenty minutes to pack my things and leave."
She sighed, hand holding the pommel of the saddle, her thumb rubbing over it, the sheen long worn off after years of use. "I was living in my car and going to school - what else could I do really? A couple of days later Joe came back, he apologized for what he said, what he'd done. I didn't blame him, still don't: we were kids doing stupid things, I wasn't even ready for it. He didn't know about my parents for three weeks, until Charlie told him. He took me home and we told his parents." She smiled. "His daddy was so angry. Not with him or me but that we didn't tell them straight away, and that I was staying in my car and more that my parents acted like nothing was wrong at church when I hadn't been there. He went over to my parents place and gave them hell."
She glanced to Jonah, still smiling. "Joe's family helped me get through school, gave me my first job and a home." The smile faded slightly. "Just after Liza-May's first birthday we found out Joe had cancer, terminal. His mom and me tried so hard to convince him to go to chemo, take the drugs but he and his daddy had talked about it. It would have meant that his last days with us, with Liza-May and me would be him sick in bed. He told me he wanted to have a baby, wanted to see our son. How on Earth that man knew that we had Jacks I could not tell you; but he did what he wanted. He lived long enough to see Jacks be born, almost made it to his first birthday too."
"The kids don't know their grandparents, my parents that is. The Wallace's helped me raised them, taught me how to run the farm and made me their family. Katie was always there, when she could be, but I made sure she didn't lose them: she needed them too much. Liza-May knows that Katie has parents and that I don't but I'm not sure if she understands or has made up a reason for the difference and Jacks has never asked about them. I had no plan when I was a kid in high school but after Liza-May I knew I was supposed to be their mom and make their world the best that it could be."
Safton