“Yes, I do.”
“Honey, it’s been three months. You don’t even know him.”
“You don’t always have to know someone to love them,” I say, wondering if that even makes sense, and knowing that it does. “I know the things that matter.”
“Jessa,” Dad says. His voice is clipped and somewhat detached. “You’re pregnant.”
“I’m aware. I just told you that.”
“Are you calling to tell us that you’re marrying this man you’ve only known for three months?”
“I… no, that’s not what—"
“You’re not marrying the father of your child?!” Mom exclaims dramatically. She starts wailing and drops the phone. I can picture her, distraught like a movie starlet, fat tears rolling down her cheeks one after the next.
“You just told me that I can’t possibly know this man. Now, you want me to marry him?”
“You’re the one that claims to love him,” Dad says. It’s strange to see him and Mom on the same page for once. They’ve been at someone’s throat their whole lives—either each other’s, or mine. “If that’s the case, then why not marry him?”
I bite my lip, frustrated with the way this conversation has flipped. “I just wanted to tell you that I was having a baby."
“Out of wedlock. A sin.”
“Mom!” I snap. “This is the twenty-first century, not the Scarlet goddamn Letter.”
“I don’t care what century it is,” she snaps. “Rules are rules.”
“I don’t subscribe to your rules or your beliefs.”
“I knew moving to the city was a bad idea,” Mom cries. “Look at you. Only a few months ago, you had the whole world at your feet. Now? Well, now—"
“The whole world at my—Honestly, what are you smoking, Mom?”
“Don’t you take that tone with your mother!” my father roars.
“I’m trying to have a conversation with the two of you!” I yell back. “I’m not a child.”
“No?” Dad asks. “Because this sounds like the kind of thing a bratty, rebellious teenager would do. If you’re going to have premarital relations, then you should have at least had the forethought to get him to wear a condom.”
“Oh my God,” I gasp as my skin crawls. “This cannot be happening.”
“Your father is right,” Mom says sniffily. “You should have been more responsible, Jessa.”
“Well, I wasn’t, okay? And now, I’m going to have a baby."
She sniffles again. “Does he know?”
“Of course he knows.”
“And he wants to be a part of the child’s life?” Dad asks.
“Yes. We’re going to raise this baby together.”
“But he hasn’t proposed.”
“He doesn’t subscribe to the same archaic beliefs that you two do,” I say. “We’re alike that way.”
“If he respects you at all, he’ll propose.”