TRICKY TRIANGLE

CHAPTER 11

FEBRUARY 1986

“When are you gonna tell Eddie that he’s gonna be a father?” Hal asked his wife.

Dawn looked startled. “Why do I have to tell him?”

“Who else? Surely you don’t expect me too?”

“Why does he have to know?”

Hal laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Dawn, he’s a close friend of ours. He’s gonna find out sooner or later that you’re either with child or had a child.”

Dawn’s eyes looked sad and pleading. “I know I don’t deserve it. But I was hoping you would claim the child is yours.”

“Honey, Eddie knows I’ve had a vasectomy. He’s gonna put two and two together.”

“Yeah, but the rest of the world doesn’t know.”

“But that’s a lie. I don’t want to live a lie.”

“So, you’re not gonna help me raise her?” Dawn asked with a stern expression as she folded her arms.

“Of course I am,” Hal replied, and then he frowned. “You know you’re gonna have a girl?”

Dawn shrugged a shoulder. “No, not for sure, just a hunch. Anyway, if you’re gonna raise her, you are her father, even if the sperm wasn’t… You know… .”

Hal pursed his lips and nodded. “Look, I will let people assume I’m the dad, but we still need to let Eddie know he’s gonna be a father. Then if he wants to go along with your wish, fine. But also, if he wants to be part of the child’s life, he has every right.”

“Does he? What right did he have having sex with a married woman?”

Hal snorted. “You let him.”

Dawn’s jaw clenched, and Hal could see tears welling. “So now you’re reneging on that night being your fault too?”

“No,” Hal said with a sigh, closing his eyes and put a hand on his forehead.

“Now my blood pressure is spiking right before my doctor’s appointment,” Dawn groaned.

“I’m sorry,” Hal said, sighed again, and looked at his watch. “We better go.”

An hour later Dawn had a dreamy look on her face as she and Hal exited the doctor’s office. She linked her arm with her husband’s. “We’re gonna have a baby girl, Hal.”

Hal was thrilled that she said we, not I, and grinned. “I guess you were right.”

“About what?”

“You said you had a feeling it was a girl.”

Dawn giggled, shrugged, and hung onto Hal’s arm a little tighter. Hal had been worried that Dawn would end up with postpartum depression worse than with David and Luke. Between her age and manner in which she conceived, he felt the outlook for her mental health was bleak.

But now he could see that his wife was excited about the prospect of having a daughter. He remembered when they were expecting David, and he picked up on clues that Dawn hoped for a girl. Then with Luke, she actually bought some girl’s clothes before he was born. Hal often wondered if the unfulfilled desire for a daughter contributed to Dawn’s struggle with depression.

As Hal pulled the car out of the doctor’s parking lot, he felt joyful with the contented smile on his wife’s face. Her getting a daughter might be a difference maker in what was sure to be a complicated situation. It pained him that he wasn’t the biological father. However, that actually made him the more determined to raise their girl as his own.

Hal’s grin then left his face when he realized that right now was the best time to broach a subject they’ve been avoiding. “You know, it’s probably time we should let the boys know that they’re gonna have a sister.”

Now the smile also left Dawn’s face, and she gave Hal a startled look before she asked. “You’ll claim to be the father, right?”

“Listen, Dawn, I’m fine with letting people assume I’m your baby’s father. But are you asking me to lie if someone happens to press the question on us?”

“No,” she replied sullenly. Hal thought for a second she was going to give him a pouty lip. “But if the boys don’t press it, who will? They don’t know you’ve had a vasectomy, do they?”

“I never told them, so I don’t know how they could.”

“Good, so the only person that knows is Eddie. And what better person to be the only one?”

“That’s another thing though, Dawn. This will be Eddie’s only child, what if he wants to be involved in her life? What if he wants joint custody? We won’t be able to hide her real parentage then.”

“I believe he will honor my wishes.”

“I hope so, but who knows the human heart?”

“It’s deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it?” Dawn added with a coy smile. “But he loves me, and he’ll want what’s best for our little girl as well as our marriage. He will understand that you appearing to be the father will allow her to grow up without the stigma of, you know…”

Her words, “he loves me” and “our little girl,” were like a slap in the face from the green eyed monster. But Hal shook it off. “I believe you’re right. I was just cautioning that you never know about people.”

Now Dawn felt a sting of guilt by her husband’s words of never knowing about people. She never thought she would ever be an adulterous woman, but she was with her growing abdomen as one of the consequences. Hal also probably thought his best friend would never go to bed with his wife, but he did. What would her boys think of her if they knew the truth?

“Will you contact David and invite him to dinner tonight?”

“Sure.”

When Hal got off the phone with their son, she asked why he was frowning.

“Dave sounded nervous, saying he has something he needs to talk to us about,” Hal replied. “He said he had been putting it off, and he wanted to talk to you and me alone. He said he would tell his brother right after he talked to us in private. I told him Luke wouldn’t be home from basketball practice until five thirty, and asked if he could come early. He said he’ll be here by five.”

Dawn felt a wave of anxiety pass through, and she put a hand on her stomach. Did David have a serious illness? Was he gonna drop out of college? Was he in legal trouble? Was he gonna come out as gay? He had been awful secretive about his love life since he graduated high school.

At five on the nose, Dawn, Hal, and their oldest son took seats at the kitchen table. Dave twisted a drinking straw in his fingers when he blurted. “My girlfriend is pregnant, and were gonna get married in April.”

Dawn and Hal stared at their son with gaping mouths. Dawn now suspected who and was horrified. Hal composed himself first. “And who’s your girlfriend?”

Dave glanced at his mother. “Angie Ferguson.”

Now the protective mother surfaced, and Dawn tried not to sound stern when she asked. “So, do you have to wait until April so her divorce can be finalized?”

“Mom, it’s not what you think.”

“Oh, and what do I think?”

“You probably think Angie is a loose woman, or something. Well, she’s not!”

“David, I like Angie, and I realize she’s had bad luck with men, but…”

“But what?” David asked disgruntled, and he abruptly folded his arms.

“Who’s Angie?” Hal asked with a frown.

“She works at the department store,” Dawn replied.

Three years earlier, Dawn got David a part time job at the store where she was employed. He continued working there as he went to community college, pursing an A.A. in business. Then he had planned on a university and a bachelor’s degree.

“Her dad owns the store,” David added in an attempt to put his girlfriend in a good light.

“And what does he think about this?” Dawn asked.

“He doesn’t know.”

“How could he not? I could tell for the last couple weeks that she was with child. I assumed she got back with her husband. I had no clue that you put her in that condition. I mean, I knew you two were chummy and all. But for goodness sakes, she’s thirty-two years old and going through a second divorce. You just turned twenty.”

“Three months ago.”

“Oh, three months ago?” Dawn added sarcastically. “I guess it’s not that big of an age gap then after all.”

Dawn glanced at her husband, and then did a double take. His expression looked more forlorn than when he had picked her up at Eddie’s after her night of debauchery and adultery.

“Look,” David explained. “Angie married her high school sweetheart just a month after they graduated. Within the first year, she discovered he was cheating on her with her best friend. I mean, can you imagine that?”

Hal noticed Dawn’s eyes looked startled, and then she simply bowed her head and nodded.

“Then her current husband leads her on about starting a family when they were dating,” David continued. “Then after a year of not being able to conceive, she gets checked out and is perfectly, um, fertile, I guess. So she tries to get her husband to get checked. He puts it off, and puts it off. She keeps pressing, and he finally confesses that he has had a vasectomy, and actually doesn’t want any more kids.”

Dawn and Hal both looked at each other, both wondering what the other is thinking.

The discussion continued. Dawn and Hal questioned their son about college. They brought up adoption as an option. They suggested he didn’t have to get married just because she was pregnant, but he could still support her. How did he know the child was his anyway?

After dinner when Dawn and Hal informed both of their sons that they were gonna have a sister, Dawn felt like a hypocrite. When the question of pregnancy after seventeen years came up, Dawn just said it was an accident, that she didn’t think she could still get pregnant and had become careless.

“You know, Angie and I are having a baby girl, too,” David said happily.

“Really, a little girl?” Dawn asked pleasantly. “You never said when the due date was.”

“You never asked.”

Dawn pursed her lips in exasperation. “Well, I’m asking now.”

“May fourth,” David replied. “How about my sister?”

“June twenty-third,” Dawn answered.

“How about that!” Luke laughed. “I’ll have a niece before I have a sister.”

“Yeah, you guys, how about that?” David chuckled. “You’ll be grandparents before you’re parents again.”

Dawn and Hal looked at each other. Dawn looked stunned and speechless. Hal smiled weakly. “Yeah, how about that?”

(DESTINY’S BIBLE STUDY NOTES AND QUOTES)

(The LIFE and MINISTRY of JESUS Part 24)

(See Matthew 12:22-50 Mark 3:20-35)

Whatever the sin, if the soul repents and believes, the guilt is washed away in the blood of Christ. But he who rejects the work of the Holy Spirit is placing himself where repentance and faith cannot come to him.

It is by the Spirit that God works upon the heart. When men willfully reject the Spirit, and even declare it to be from Satan, they cut off the channel by which God can communicate with them.

It is not God that blinds the eyes of men or hardens their hearts. He sends them light to correct their errors, and to lead them in safe paths. It is by rejection of this light that the eyes are blinded and the heart hardened.

Often the process is gradual, and almost imperceptible. Light comes to the soul through God’s word, through His servants, or by the direct agency of His Spirit. But when one ray of light is disregarded, there is a partial benumbing of the spiritual perceptions, and the second revealing of light is less clearly discerned. So the darkness increases, until it is night in the soul.

People are influenced by their own words. Often under a momentary impulse, prompted by Satan, they give utterance to jealousy or evil surmising, expressing that which they do not really believe. But the expression reacts on the thoughts.

It is not only by resistance, but by neglect that the soul is destroyed.

When the soul surrenders itself to Christ, a new power takes possession of the new heart. A change is wrought which a person can never accomplish for themselves. It is a supernatural work, bringing a supernatural element into human nature.

It is not necessary for us deliberately to choose the service of the kingdom of darkness in order to come under its dominion. We have only to neglect to ally ourselves with the kingdom of light.

The only defense against evil is the indwelling of Christ in the heart through faith in His righteousness.

Unless we become vitally connected with God, we can never resist the unhallowed effects of self-love, self-indulgence, and temptation to sin. We may leave off many bad habits, but without a vital connection with God, through the surrender of ourselves to Him moment by moment, we shall be overcome.

Without a personal acquaintance with Christ, and a continual communion, we are at the mercy of the enemy, and shall do his bidding in the end.

Jesus’s brothers often saw Him full of grief; but instead of comforting Him, their spirit and words only wounded His heart. His sensitive nature was tortured, His motives were misunderstood, His work was uncomprehended.

His brothers presumed to think that they could teach Him who understood all truth, and comprehended all mysteries. They avowed faith in God, and thought they were vindicating God, when God was with them in the flesh, and they knew Him not.

There were none on earth who could comprehend His divine mission, or know the burden which He bore on behalf of humanity. Often He could find relief only in being alone, and communing with His heavenly Father.

Christ loves the heavenly beings that surround His throne. But what shall account for the great love wherewith He has loved us? We cannot understand it, but we can know it to be true in our own experience.