The Family Way
THE FAMILY WAY
ELLA
Conceived in love without pause or consequence. Stay wild, my wild, wild child.
—ELLA GADDY, TO HER UNBORN BABY
1978–1979
“Just to recap,” Senator Gaddy said, settling into the easy chair in his study, as he tried to get his head around the enormity of both the situation and his daughter. “The father of your unborn child is married?”
“Yes,” Ella answered, almost smugly—at least it seemed that way to Alice Lee, who insisted on being included in all discussions. Also present was Eve Lynn, standing stoically in the corner along with Knox and his Dupont heiress, though neither said a word.
“And this married man doesn’t know you’re with child? ” Alice Lee asked.
“I don’t want him to,” Ella said, holding her ground.
“Ever?” Alice Lee demanded.
“Ever.”
“Because?” asked Alice Lee, pushing the point.
“Because it’s none of your fucking business,” Ella said.
Everyone held their breath as the Senator, realizing that Alice Lee’s presence only exacerbated an already unstable situation, encouraged her and Knox, along with his silent but wide-eyed heiress, to excuse themselves and let him handle things.
And with that the family get-together blew apart, with Eve Lynn fleeing to her room due to a sick headache, and Alice Lee and her brother both making plans to cut the visit short.
Still, Alice Lee couldn’t leave the room without imparting a few choice words to her mother, loud enough for all to hear. “Well, the good news is at least she’s not a lesbian.”
“Who said I’m not?” Ella countered, and then to her brother’s new girlfriend, added, “If we don’t get a chance to say goodbye in the morning it was lovely to meet you, Miss Dupont.”
Very few details were revealed over the course of the next few weeks. All anyone knew was that Ella had gotten pregnant in her gap year, sometime in April or May. She had considered an abortion but felt that this baby was the very best of her and the mystery father and needed to be born. She told her father that she still intended on going to law school in September of 1980, but first wanted to make sure that her child would be raised in the right kind of environment.
Needless to say, the Senator and Eve Lynn were relieved.
“I’m not a martyr,” Ella said. “I don’t think I can do it myself, and I don’t want it to be raised by you guys,” she said matter-of-factly, which they found both offensive and a relief. She planned a home birth, which Eve Lynn reluctantly agreed to, and wanted to interview prospective families so she could choose who would have the honor of raising this special being, who was conceived in love and destined for greatness.
“I’ll have my attorney get involved,” the Senator said, arranging a meeting just before Christmas during which Ella insisted on an open adoption, so everyone could know each other.
“That sounds difficult,” Eve Lynn said later that night, after the Senator relayed Ella’s desire for continued communication after her child was placed. “She needs to put this behind her,” she said, brushing her long ash- blond hair a little harder than necessary. The Senator walked over to her, trying to calm her frayed nerves.
“Nothing’s changed,” he told her. “Ella is still going to Harvard next year.” Eve Lynn looked at him as he reassured her that they would take care of this matter with expedience and discretion, and no one would be the wiser.
“Besides, the lawyer assured me that open adoption never comes to much.”
Eve Lynn nodded, took a Valium, and went to bed.
By the new year, the unfortunate situation, as Eve Lynn referred to her daughter’s condition, seemed headed for resolution. Ella had whittled her baby’s choices down to two families: one from Chicago, the other from Denver. And Eve Lynn had even purchased a few items for the baby as both a going-away present and a peace offering to her daughter, which touched Ella deeply. Eve Lynn finally was able to sleep unaided at night, but that all changed one afternoon when she overheard a phone call Ella was having with her attorney that ensured a lifetime of insomnia.
“Since my child will be biracial,” Ella was saying, “I need assurances from each family that they will raise him or her to celebrate and embrace both the Caucasian and African American cultures.”
Eve Lynn didn’t hear much after that; she just walked to the library, shut the door, and stood in front of the Senator, who was working at his desk.
“Our daughter,” she said, pouring herself a large tumbler of Gaddy bourbon, “is pregnant with the child of a married black man ?”
“I know,” he said. “Essie told me.”
“Essie?” asked Eve Lynn, confused, and then aghast. “You don’t mean her son…” She whispered, as if the thought of Harlan impregnating her daughter was too frightening to say aloud.
The Senator shook his head. “Darnell,” he said softly. “Essie’s nephew.”
Eve Lynn struggled to remember. It had been years since she’d seen Darnell. “You mean the one that went to Howard University?” she asked.
The Senator nodded.
“But he’s… so much older, isn’t he?” Eve Lynn asked, trying to do the math while getting her head around it all.
“Darnell is twenty-eight, married, two kids,” said the Senator. “He’s a doctor,” he added, hoping that would somehow lessen the blow. It didn’t.
Eve Lynn sat, dumbfounded, as Boo explained that Essie had long suspected a romance between Ella and Darnell, revealing that Essie knew about the pregnancy months before Ella had told her parents. She’d guessed the paternity and confronted Ella, and while Ella didn’t confirm, she didn’t deny.
“Essie doesn’t think Darnell knows,” the Senator told his wife, whose head was spinning. “He’s a well-respected doctor and she didn’t want to upset the balance of his life. They had only been together once and apparently Ella had been the aggressor,” he said with a certainty that left no room for further questions.
But of course, Eve Lynn had a question. “And we know this because?”
“Because Ella told Essie,” he said softly.
“Essie has known about this for months and never said a word,” Eve Lynn said, with an icy finality that left no room for a future.
The Senator and Eve Lynn Knox Gaddy dismissed Essie and James the next day. James was seventy-two, Essie sixty-seven. They had met as children on the Gaddy farm. Their parents had worked for Boo’s parents.
When Ella heard, she was bereft and inconsolable. Within days, she went into early labor and delivered a baby boy three weeks prematurely.
She held him once.