Fairie grimaced as dry heaves wretched her fourteen-year-old body. Nausea woke her each morning, and this morning she had vomited twice. The acrid taste lingered in her nose and mouth. With a sigh, she placed one hand on her protruding abdomen. She was slender and people would notice her changing figure soon. News spread fast in her small town. She would hear whispers. They would call her a whore, and a slut.
Thoughts whirled through her head. Her uncle had been so charming. She had trusted him. After all, he was eleven years older. But men couldn't be trusted.
If only the clock could be altered. She would find a way to escape. And she would scream. Maybe she would also avoid him. As she looked back she saw all her mistakes. But then, older men in the family should be trustworthy. She hated men!
At times she had thoughts; evil thoughts of getting rid of the problem. If only the baby would just go away, her life would be normal. But such ideas were only dreams. The past could not be changed. Once you got pregnant, you lost your reputation.
Early in 1926, Fairie had a baby boy named Calvin. He grew into a husky boy with a ruddy complexion and wavy auburn hair. Since Ma and Pa raised him, Calvin thought Fairie was his sister. Ma, a slender lady with a sharp mind, blue eyes and brown hair which she pulled into a tiny bun, had already raised three boys. She instilled Calvin with good sense and confidence. When he learned to shoot a gun, Ma told him she was proud. He could now look after her — like a man should.
While attending the local school, he learned math and reading. But he inherited a genetic disease which damaged his vision, and he preferred working with his hands. Nothing mechanical ever broke that he could not fix. He also enjoyed woodworking, and built both cabinets and bookcases.
When Calvin was nineteen, someone told him Fairie, not Ma, was his mother. The story made him sick. He pushed aside the facts, and continued to call his grandmother "Ma." If a family member asked about family history he'd say, "Don't go looking into mine. That's something you don't want to know."
Once, he got drunk and stumbled back home. Ma saw him and cried. When he saw her tears, he vowed never to drink again. At church, he heard the Gospel and made a profession of faith.
Pa bought land in Whitfield County Georgia, and Calvin, who was twenty, worked the cotton fields with him. Once Pa died, Calvin couldn't run the farm alone. He and his wife moved to Walker County Georgia where he got a job in a factory. Despite his paltry salary, he found clever ways to provide for his family. Once he purchased a load of spare bicycle parts for a few dollars and built bikes for all four of his boys. Produce from the huge garden he cultivated fed the family.
In 1976, I met Ray, Calvin's third son. Ray and I started dating and married in 1978. We have been married for 28 years and have five children.
The Supreme Court handed down its Roe v Wade decision in January of 1973. Since then, 47 million babies died because women wanted to get rid of the problem. Babies are people, not problems. I am glad abortion was not legal eighty years ago. My father-in-law, my husband, and my children would have never been born.
