The Last Laugh: Making Sense of It All - Softcover

Fairchild, Jane Driskell

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1491790040 ISBN 13: 9781491790045

Verlag: iUniverse, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

After a prom night date rape leads to pregnancy, seventeen-year-old Jane is forced to marry her attacker and grow up too soon. In her new life, she must learn how to straddle the gap between the life she once imagined for herself and her new reality. After the marriage predictably fails, she is determined to become something more than just another teen-mom statistic. She longs to complete her education, achieve financial stability and create a secure life for herself and her two small children. However, she soon learns that in the late nineteen-sixties, the world-and her own life-are in turmoil and there is no security for anyone. Swept up in the whirlwind of rapid social change, Jane embraces the women's liberation movement, anti-war activism and life on a commune where she hopes to live in a world of peace and love. With resilience and determination as she strives to make sense of the world around her, she overcomes daunting obstacles and finally begins to see her dreams come true. In The Last Laugh, author Jane Driskell Fairchild explores the lifelong aftermath of teen pregnancy while delivering an inspiring message that teen moms can find success and happiness in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds.

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The Last Laugh

Making Sense of It All A Memoir

By Jane Driskell Fairchild

iUniverse

Copyright © 2016 Jane Driskell Fairchild
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-4917-9004-5

Contents

Dedication, vii, 
Author's Note, xi, 
Preface, xiii, 
Acknowledgments, xv, 
Prologue, xvii, 
Part I The Event, 
Chapter 1 A Gathering Storm, 3, 
Chapter 2 The Big Night, 9, 
Chapter 3 The Hard Part, 19, 
Chapter 4 The Wedding: Before, During, and After, 29, 
Chapter 5 Reality Sets In, 39, 
Chapter 6 A Long, Bleak Winter, 47, 
Chapter 7 Sippy Cups and Tupperware, 55, 
Chapter 8 On Our Own, 59, 
Chapter 9 Moving On, 65, 
Chapter 10 Downward, 71, 
Chapter 11 Turning Point, 81, 
Chapter 12 Angels, 85, 
Part II The Aftermath, 
Chapter 13 Cataclysms, 97, 
Chapter 14 On My Own, 101, 
Chapter 15 A Rocky Pasture Makes a Sure-Footed Colt, 109, 
Chapter 16 Lean on Me When You're Not Strong, 119, 
Chapter 17 The Commune: The Upside, 127, 
Chapter 18 The Commune: The Other Side, 135, 
Chapter 19 Our Real Home, 147, 
Chapter 20 The Day the Music Died, 153, 
Chapter 21 Summer Warmth, 159, 
Chapter 22 Next Steps, 163, 
Chapter 23 Who's Who?, 173, 
Chapter 24 1L, 183, 
Chapter 25 Oh My God!, 193, 
Chapter 26 The Last Laugh, 201, 
Afterword, 207, 

CHAPTER 1

A Gathering Storm

Dazed and numb, I stood on a trash-strewn, concrete median in a steady rain on busy South Fifth Street in Springfield, Illinois, that day in late May 1961. The storm was moving closer; thunder rumbled somewhere off in the distance, and soon it was pouring. Six lanes of speeding cars whizzed around me in all directions — colored lights blinking red to yellow to green, reflecting off the wet pavement — as I tried to figure out what they were doing, why they were there, why I was here, with one foot on the traffic island and the other in the busy road.

I barely felt the raindrops streaming down my face and hair. Water ran down my arms and soaked through my blue-plaid cotton blouse. I vaguely realized that my matching powder-blue flats were probably ruined from the fast-forming puddles. But what did it matter if my clothes were perfect and all matched anyway? My life would soon be over.

Out of nowhere, a car sped straight toward me as I vacantly stared at it. I tried to move, but my body was frozen in place, not responding to the danger at hand, as if we were playing a game of chicken. A horn blared. Muddy water splattered onto my legs and skirt.

The car veered off sharply, barely missing me. Or maybe I jumped out of its way a bit.

But I did want to die, to lie dramatically young and lifeless, in the middle of the road. My parents and friends — my entire high school — would come to my funeral and cry over my casket. Maybe they would never find out what I now knew.

I was pregnant. Pregnant.

The previous day, my mother had asked me if something was wrong because my period was late. I had no idea but obviously, after she had questioned me several times the past few days, I had to find out. Today after school, I had taken a city bus to the public library under the guise of doing homework, but my mission was far more urgent. With one eye keeping watch down the aisle, uneasy that someone would see me in the Health Education section, I furtively checked the stacks, looking for books that could explain my problem. My face flushed as I leafed through a few pages of one. The books, with intimidating titles such as A Mother-Daughter Talk and Boys and Bodies, contained within their pages things I had never known or thought about. I shrunk back against the shelves and swiftly scanned through another volume. There it was, a chapter called "What Are the Signs of Pregnancy?" My eyes quickly skimmed over the words.

Instantly, I knew. All the subtle signs were there: sore, swollen breasts, the tiny bit of nausea I had begun experiencing just days before, and the telltale sign most females know instinctively from the time they are born: my period was late — by nearly three weeks — I quickly realized. There was no other explanation. I had to be pregnant.

For a brief moment, I stood there, frozen, suspended between girl and woman. Then I quickly moved toward the library desk and found the courage to check out the book. I stuffed it into my book bag and — breathing so hard and fast I thought I would faint — slipped out the back exit door of the building.

Hoping no one had seen me, I ran to catch a bus to Carole's house, also on South Fifth Street. She was the first person I thought of; I had to talk to her. She was one of my best friends but was ever so much more mature and worldly than my other girlfriends, most of who were, like me, innocent and naive. Surely she would know what to do.

I clamored onto the dirty, wheezing vehicle that was bound for her neighborhood. She lived in a small, gray-shingled place with dirty, chipping paint and scruffy tufts of grass scattered around a muddy yard, situated right on an entrance ramp to Route 66, which bisected our town.

In my confusion, I had jumped off the bus before it stopped, and rather than moving toward her house, I had run in the opposite direction. Blindly flying across the lanes of fast-moving cars, I dashed onto the median strip to where I then stood, facing the traffic and the oncoming storm. Pregnant.

I regained my bearings just in time to see more cars coming towards me. I have to get out of this street before I get hit. Completely soaked and with water pouring off my body, I dashed back across the lanes of traffic and ran the short distance up the sidewalk to my friend's house. I was panting, my heart was pounding, and I couldn't get there fast enough.

I quickly let myself into the familiar entry hall, kicked off my wet shoes, and ran up the stairs into her girly, lavender bedroom where I knew she would be. I imagined her listening to the radio and curling her golden-red hair up in curlers, or trying on a new shade of mascara, still doing the teenage girl things we did every day, but suddenly I was grown up. I was old. I would never be seventeen again.

Carole was lying on the floor with her legs propped up against a wall, twisting the cord of her purple Princess phone around in her fingers, talking to her boyfriend, Bill.

I dried off with an old bath towel on the floor and flopped onto her bed. Shivering with fright and the dampness of my clothing, I began scanning the library book I'd checked out, again reading the words I didn't want to see and the things I didn't want to know, trying to comprehend it all.

I wanted to scream, but my throat tightened. Fear of my friend's mother lurking around a corner made me swallow it, and instead I motioned to Carole: Get off the phone! Get off the phone! Now!

Click.

In a stage whisper in case her mother was home, I mouthed, "I think I'm pregnant! I'm pregnant!"

Her huge green eyes slowly opened wider, eyebrows raised in disbelief. Her glossy red mouth dropped open, and I think her hand came up and touched her lips, sort of slow motion. That would have been just like her — dramatic.

"You mean, you and Rich did it?" she gasped. Rich had been my steady boyfriend for the past three months. She had set us up on our first blind date, which happened to be my seventeenth birthday.

I stammered, "Well, I'm not sure. I don't think we went all the way...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: iUniverse
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2016
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1491790040
• ISBN 13: 9781491790045
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 228
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: KreGa Onlinehandel GmbH; 4950000000000; info@krega-onlinehandel.de; ; Birkenweg 31; Brakel; 33034; Deutschland