'Life's Choices', Chapter 5

Due to readers' urgent requests for me to put up the continuing chapters of my 'Life's Choices' ficitional, I am finally giving in. :)  The reason I hadn't been putting them up for awhile was just for fear that someone may take the story and publish it under their own name.  That's been kind of worrying me.  Anyway, JUST to make sure that that still does not have any chance of happening, I will only be putting the 7 of the 8 chapters of 'Life's Choices' up on God's Daughter.  Perhaps I could send you the last chapter in an e-mail...?  Well, anyway...we'll see. :)

copyrighted 2010, Raquel Z. Duarte

Chapter 5:


A couple days later, Leona’s cell phone rang. She didn’t recognize the number calling, so flipped it
open and answered. The voice she heard was one she least expected.
“Hello, Leona,” Peter Gunn’s voice rang deeply through the phone’s speaker.
“Peter,” Leona said. “Hi.”
“I - uh - found your name in the phone book and called your house.”
Leona’s back went rigid as he continued to speak. She hoped he hadn’t said anything to her parents.
“I asked to talk to you, but your parents said you weren’t there. They gave me your cell phone number, so I just thought I’d give it a try. I hope you don’t mind.”
Leona stayed silent. She did mind that her parents had given out her information, but at the same time, she felt glad that Peter had called...she didn’t know why, though.
“I was calling to see if you’d like to meet me at the pizza place for lunch.”
Leona’s blood froze. Was this guy another one like Jerry? Trying to lure her in, only to leave her standing hurt and used?
“Strictly on a friendship basis,” Peter quickly added.
Leona felt herself relax a bit.
“Hello?” Peter said.
“Sorry,” Leona answered.
“Thought I lost you there,” Peter chuckled. “You haven’t said a word.”
“Sorry,” Leona said again.
“Hey, if you don’t want to do this, then I won’t force you. I just thought maybe you could try getting your mind off of...everything for a while. Take a holiday.”
Leona was sure she knew what he meant by ‘everything’. What else could he mean? Besides, Leona thought. He’s been through all this before with his sister.
What time?” she asked.
“Does 1 o’clock sound okay?”
“1 o’clock sounds great!”
“See you then!”
“Okay,” Leona nodded. “Bye!”
Two hours later, Leona found herself sitting across from Peter Gunn at the local pizzeria. She hadn’t really known what to wear, but had finally decided on comfy jeans and a light blue t-shirt. She was surprised, when she had shown up, that Peter was dressed in the same outfit.
“Great minds think alike, I guess,” Peter had laughed when he noticed. That deep, musical laugh that Leona remembered so well from the first time she met him.
They had seated themselves in a comfortable, bouncy corner booth, after ordering a small cowboy pizza. At first, Leona had been nervous and uncomfortable. This reminded her too much of her first date with Jerry.
No, Leona told herself firmly. This isn’t a date. Strictly on the friendship basis.
Peter soon put her at ease by talking about his life in general, the weather, his job.
“So where exactly do you work?” Leona inquired.
“I work for a local radio station. Doesn’t pay much, but my rewards are even greater than money when I hear feedback from listeners on something I had said that touched them. It’s really encouraging!”
“You’re a DJ for the Christian radio station?” Leona asked, incredulously.
“Yeah,” Peter said, puzzled. “Is that so surprising?”
“No, not really,” she admitted. “But...I think I heard you once, when I was flipping through the channels. I never listen to the Christian station, but one day I did and I heard you. Yes, yes, now I’m sure it was you. You have the same voice on the air as you do in person,” she smiled. “Anyway, you were talking about...how God has a plan for our lives.” her voice grew quiet and she played with the lip of her glass of water. It was right after hearing him on the air that she had heard the Pregnancy Center commercial...that’s what had started all of this!
“That’s the day I met you, wasn’t it?” Peter asked, slowly.
Leona nodded, still concentrating on her glass.
“By the way, have you read that Bible that I gave you at all?”
Their pizza came just then and they were caught up in eating and talking about other things, so that Leona was able to avoid the question. The truth was she had. But she didn’t understand it. It didn’t really make any sense to her, but she didn’t want to tell Peter that. He might think she was weird to not be able to.
It was a wonderful day for Leona. She hadn’t had so much fun since she found out she was pregnant. During the time she was with Peter she had almost forgotten the fact that she was, but when she arrived home and felt a wave of nausea, she suddenly remembered again. What was even worse was that her mother was concerned and started asking questions after she had found out Leona had thrown up in the bathroom. Leona made the excuse that she wasn’t feeling well - which, actually, was the truth - and her mother suddenly got all worried that her daughter had caught the flu.
“No, Mom,” Leona had tried to tell her. “I’ll be fine, okay? Just calm down. I’m okay now.”
This happened over the next few weeks - as did her talks with Peter. They would occasionally meet in the park, or go for a drive around town, or go to their favorite eating spot - the pizzeria. Leona enjoyed their talks more and more every time, but a barrier that always came up was when Peter started mentioning God.
“Can’t we just leave God out of the picture?” Leona asked one time. “Why does He have to come up in everything?”
“Because He’s real, Leona,” Peter told her. “He’s part of everything - including me.”
Leona hadn’t known what to say, so just kept her mouth shut any time Peter mentioned God after that.
One time, Peter mentioned Sarah in their conversation and told Leona that his sister had said ‘hello’ to her. Leona had thought it sweet of Sarah, but she couldn’t bring herself to go back to the Center just yet.
A few days went by, and one morning, as Leona was changing to go meet Peter again (at the park, this time), she noticed something. Her belly was starting to have a bulge right at her uterus. She stopped putting her shirt over her head and ran her hand over her stomach. Yes, a definite bump was beginning to form.
No! Leona thought. Not yet! Not now!
But she knew that she had to face it. She couldn’t go on hiding this fact of life forever. Leona finished dressing (after choosing a different shirt that was a bit more loose around the middle) and sat down on her bed to think. She didn’t have much time before she had to meet Peter, but she needed to make a decision, here and now.
She knew already that she couldn’t tell her parents. That would just be impossible. She didn’t know anything about being a mom. She had had no siblings to care for and her mother and she had never talked about it. She didn’t have a job - and wouldn’t be able to get one if she had a baby hanging around her all the time. The whole idea about keeping the baby was impossible! Why were there even Pregnancy Centers? How could they know all the details going on in a girl’s life? The people at the Centers must be crazy! They had no idea how difficult it was to keep a baby.
Sarah does, a voice in the back of her head said.
Leona pushed the thought out of her mind and made her decision. She was going to the Planned Parenthood Clinic right now and get this whole thing over with. She would never have to tell her parents, and if Peter or Sarah asked her, she could just tell them that she had a miscarriage.
She grabbed her purse and dashed out to her car before she could change her mind. Why was she afraid that she would, though?
She arrived at the clinic ten minutes later and walked in.
“Can I help you?” the receptionist asked.
“I’m here for an appointment,” Leona said.
“Did you have it scheduled?” the woman asked, looking through her desk calendar.
“No,” Leona said. “I just now decided. Is it possible to get...it done really quick?”
“Why don’t you have a seat in the lobby and I’ll see if we have a doctor free.” The woman waved to the lobby room and then disappeared through a door.
Leona began to feel nervous. There were a few other girls in the lobby, but Leona suddenly felt alone and almost scared.
“This your first time?” a girl sitting near her asked.
“Yeah,” Leona mumbled.
“You seem kinda nervous,” the girl stated.
"I am,” Leona tried a wobbly grin. “A little.”
“Well, don’t be,” the girl said with a wave of her hand. “It’s nothing, really. Just try thinking of it as getting an overgrown toe nail removed. That’s pretty much what it’s like. I mean, it’s something not alive. Almost like a fungus.” The girl seemed to emphasis ‘it’ a lot.
Leona was shocked. All this time she had been calling ‘it’ a baby...but was it really just what the girl had said? Like an overgrown toe nail?
“Anyway, you’ll get used to it after a while,” the girl said.
“Get used to what?” Leona questioned, with puzzled look.
"Get used to coming here,” the girl laughed, almost freakishly. “This is my fifth time.”
"Your fifth time getting an abortion?” Leona was shocked.
“Well, yeah, what did you think I meant?” The girl laughed again.
By this time, the two other girls who were in the lobby were listening in on Leona’s and the other girls conversation. One of them piped in, “It’s my third time here, actually. And my friend here has been here once before.” She waved to the girl sitting next to her.
Leona felt herself sink deeper into her chair as her mind swirled with so many different thoughts. How could these girls talk of this procedure so lightly? Didn’t they ever think of what they were losing?
“I’m sorry,” Leona said, quickly. “I just remembered that I had a previous engagement.”
She got up and rushed out of the clinic into the parking lot, into the outside air. Something in that building stifled her, as well as the disgusting talk of those three girls. Leona was about to get in her car, but before she did, she caught sight of Peter’s black Toyota pulling into the clinic parking lot. He pulled up alongside her and got out of his car.
He looked stern, Leona noted. What was he about to say?
“What are you doing here?” he said, demandingly. Leona had never seen him upset before, and even now, it was almost a sympathetic sternness.
“I-I,” Leona stumbled for the right words, and before she knew what she was doing, she threw herself into Peter’s arms and sobbed against his shirt. She felt him pat her back and stroke her ponytail, but she wasn’t able to talk for at least a full minute. Finally, Peter gently pushed her back from him and looked down into her eyes.
“I couldn’t do it, Peter,” she looked at the ground and shook her head, sobbing. “It’s my baby. My own little baby!” She could hardly control her voice. Her tears flowed freely and her voice broke through her sentences.
She looked up and was shocked to see tears forming in Peter’s eyes. “You did the right thing, Leona,” he said. “It is your baby. God blessed you with this little one for a reason.”
Leona nodded. Yes, God had. Was this why God had made her get pregnant? For her to realize His hand in her life...how He could change her mind about something so difficult to even think about. Yes, He had changed her mind in that lobby room with those three other girls.
“Peter,” Leona said. “Could we go to the park? We were planning to anyway, weren’t we?”
Peter nodded and grinned. “Yeah, that was the reason I came looking for you. You’d never missed one of our dates - I mean,” he quickly added. “Talks before. For some reason, I just had a feeling that I might find you here. Oh, Leona,” he hugged her. “I’m so glad that you made the right decision.”
A few minutes later, they were sitting on a park bench in a secluded area of the large park. It was the same place that Leona had parked alongside, the first day she had met Peter.
They sat side by side, their backs to the road, facing the large park lake. A few geese lazily swam by. Leona had her hand on her little bulging belly and her other hand tucked under her leg. She now felt such a strong, powerful emotion about her baby. It must’ve been what a mother feels who can’t wait to hold her little one in her arms. Leona smiled to herself. How drastically she had changed in the last hour or so!
“Peter,” she began.
“Yeah?” he asked, turning to her.
“I’ve tried reading that Bible you gave me,” she said. “I didn’t really understand it...until I was flipping through it one time and got to a part in that book...oh I don’t remember the name of it. It starts with and ‘r’.”
“In the New Testament?”
“Yeah,” she nodded.
“Romans,” he said.
"Yes!” she nodded again. “Romans 5:8, I believe it was. It went something like: ‘For God commanded His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us’.”
“Good job,” he smiled. “You quoted it perfectly!”
Leona smiled back at him. “I didn’t try to memorize it, but I guess it just impacted me so much, it stuck in my brain. Does that verse mean that even before I got pregnant, even while I was thinking of aborting my baby, that Jesus had died for me 2,000 years ago?”
Peter only nodded.
Leona’s eyes filled with tears. “I can’t believe that, Peter.”
He shifted his position on the park bench so that he was facing her. He took her hand in his and said, “Leona, if you believe that - if you believe that Jesus died for you and that He rose again afterwards...He will forgive you of all those sins...and you can be saved. You can be a Christian.”
“I think that’s what I want, Peter,” she said, looking him in the eyes. “That’s what I need - to be forgiven. I’m a filthy, rotten sinner. Peter, I-” her voice broke. “I almost murdered a baby that He made inside me.” She looked down at her belly, then back up at him again. “Oh but Peter, can He forgive me for that?”
“He already has, Leona.” He squeezed her hand. “He already did.”