Chapter 10 #3
“We’re going to have it,” he said. “We’re not in any hurry, but we’re going to get married at some point, and we want your blessing.
” From Sabrina’s perspective, everything was wrong with his answer.
Getting pregnant out of wedlock did not sit well with her.
Having a baby now seemed like a mistake.
In her opinion he was too young to marry, or to have a baby.
And having created a mess that would impact them forever, not being in “any hurry” to marry and clean up the mess did not sound like the appropriate reaction to her.
Whatever they did, she thought they had done it all ass-backward.
He needed to finish school, graduate, get a good job, be able to support himself, find the right woman, get married, and then have a child, in that order.
She was willing to concede that Arabella might prove to be the right woman one day, but not yet.
“How are you planning to support yourself and a child?” she asked him directly.
She was still supporting him fully financially, since he was still in school.
“Can Arabella support the three of you?” she asked innocently.
Both the young people shook their heads, and looked appropriately embarrassed.
“In my opinion, one has children when one is fully responsible and can afford to support them. No one supported us when your father and I had you. Your father didn’t have a big salary, but we lived on it.
So what you’re asking for is not just my blessing, but you want to know if I’ll support the three of you.
” He had his inheritance from his father, but it was in trust and he was not of age yet to collect it.
“It happened a little faster than we expected,” he said awkwardly.
“We haven’t told him yet, but I think my father might help us,” Arabella said in a subdued voice. “I just started at Goldman, but the salary is very decent. And I’m hoping my father would buy us an apartment.”
“In my opinion neither of you are old enough to get married,” Sabrina said unhappily. “If you’re old enough to have a child you should be old enough to support yourselves and not be dependent on your parents.”
“You were younger than we are, Mom.”
“I was, but your father was twenty-seven. He’d been working for five years, and had a proper job.
You’re in school, you don’t have a job lined up, and Arabella would have to support you.
And I’m paying rent for both of you right now.
You’re exactly where you should be at your age, finishing school, starting out, figuring out your path in life.
But not married with a baby. You can’t support yourselves, let alone a baby.
” She turned to Arabella, “How are you going to work with a baby? Can you afford to hire a nanny, who would probably require a higher salary than what you make? You both have a bright future ahead of you, possibly together, but you’ve leapt right into the deep end of the pool, and want to take responsibilities you’re not ready for.
You can’t expect me to be thrilled about that.
“You’re even casual about getting married.
You’re in no hurry. Why not? Is marriage so unimportant to you that it’s no big deal, no need to rush?
You’re having a baby, unemployed and unmarried, you want an apartment from Arabella’s father, and you expect everything to magically fall into place, and your parents to continue supporting you.
” She looked intently at her son then. “This is everything I didn’t want for you.
The timing is terrible. Fifteen-year-olds make mistakes in the back seat of a car, grownups don’t.
Some do,” she conceded, “but it’s not the right way to start out.
I want so much better for you, Justin. I’m disappointed in both of you,” she said, looking from one to the other. “You know better.
“And if you expect me to be thrilled and celebrate, I can’t.
I think you’re starting out on the wrong foot in every possible way on the two most important steps in your life: marriage and parenthood.
I can’t be happy for you when I see you making a mistake and being irresponsible.
The concept may be right, but the timing isn’t, and you both know it.
” They didn’t argue with her or disagree.
Justin had thought she would be upset about it, but not as upset as she was.
He hadn’t expected her reaction to be so strong.
Their pleasant weekend ended there. The subject was too huge to be treated lightly, and was the only topic of conversation from then on.
She asked them where they intended to live, and they drew a blank there.
His student apartment was too small for them and a baby, in fact it was too small for even the two of them.
Neither of them could afford to move into the kind of apartment they wanted with the space they would need.
Justin couldn’t pay rent, but Arabella was expecting her father to come through with a fancy apartment.
They were like two children asking a lot of their parents. Too much, in Sabrina’s opinion.
“And if he doesn’t buy you an apartment? Then what?” Sabrina asked.
“We’ll figure it out,” Arabella said weakly.
“The time to figure it out is before you get married and have a baby, not after. I suppose I should be grateful that you want to get married at all, but what kind of marriage is this? A shotgun wedding between two kids? Sound marriages are not based on lust and irresponsibility, they are founded on solid ground between two responsible adults, which both of you have just demonstrated that you’re not.
In fact, you are anything but. And even if your father decides to support the three of you, this isn’t the way it should happen.
” She didn’t want to leap in, rescue them, and pay all their bills.
“I’ll get a job as soon as I can, Mom,” Justin said contritely.
“I see your point.” He hadn’t expected her to be as tough as she was about it, and Sabrina was sorry they had jumped the gun and gotten carried away and pregnant before following all the steps in good order.
She would have preferred to see him be more responsible than that and was disappointed to see that he wasn’t.
Arabella had remained quiet through most of it, letting Justin deal with his mother.
She was a quiet, respectful presence. But basically, the impression Sabrina got was that they hoped she would be ecstatic about a baby in their midst, and offer to give them a baby shower, without addressing the important questions.
And she didn’t think Malcolm would have been happy about it either.
“When are you thinking about getting married, if you do?” she asked them as her final question, and Justin glanced at Arabella and looked vague.
“I don’t know, we haven’t thought that much about it.
Sometime before the baby, I guess, or after.
The marriage seems less important to us than the baby,” he said honestly, which upset Sabrina too.
They were putting the cart before the horse in every possible way, according to her generation’s standards, but not theirs, since many people of their generation didn’t bother to get married at all now.
“The baby is due in September, so I guess sometime next summer, maybe in August, when we’re all together for our summer vacation.
” It was all too casual for Sabrina, and there was a definite chill between mother and son when Justin and Arabella left for the airport on Sunday.
Sabrina was angry that he had put himself in this situation, taking on the burdens of marriage before he was responsible enough to do so, a surprise pregnancy, and a baby conceived out of wedlock, with no thought to how they would manage in the future, and the assumption that their respective parents would do it for them.
It was everything she didn’t want for her son.
Their big news on Sunday cast a shadow on the rest of the visit, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.
It was Justin’s life, and he had no idea of the magnitude of what he was taking on.
He was still a boy and taking on the responsibilities of a man.
He seemed completely unprepared for marriage or a child. He was still one himself.
—
Xavier called her to thank her for dinner, after Justin and Arabella had left, and he could hear the simmering anger in her voice, and asked her what was wrong.
She decided to be honest with him and not tell him everything was fine, because it wasn’t.
If they were friends, she needed to be real with him, as he had been so far with her about the failure of his start-up, the money he had lost, and the state of his marriage.
They needed to share the good times and the bad, which was real life.
“It’s my son, the one you found so charming and intelligent,” she said, both angry and discouraged.
“He’s making a mess of his life on all the important issues.
” Xavier was surprised to hear it. He had found Justin a very responsible, mature young man with good values, and a lovely girlfriend.
Justin had impressed Xavier when they met.
“What’s he done?” Things seemed to be going smoothly the night before, but clearly something had gone wrong.