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“Have you been there yet?”
“No.” Her lip trembled. “But I have an appointment after school on Monday. Will you go with me?”
“Of course,” Peter said, squeezing her hand. “I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
“The way I understand it is, first, I have an interview, then the procedure is scheduled-there’s a waiting list-and I have to be accompanied by someone.”
“That will be me,” he said.
“After the procedure I’ll be kept there for a few hours, until they know I’m all right, then I can go home. But I don’t want to go home.”
“You can come to my house,” Peter said. “I’ll take care of you there, then take you home later.”
“What about your father? I don’t want him to know.”
“There’s a way into the house through the garden. He’s usually in his office, so I can take you upstairs.”
“We have to face the possibility that something might go wrong. In that case I’ll have to go to a hospital.”
Peter thought about that. “I don’t see any way that we can keep you out overnight. If you need to go to a hospital, I think you’ll have to tell your parents.”
“I don’t want to do that,” she said.
“I understand, but you have to think of them, as well as yourself.”
“I know, but I’m afraid.”
“I know you love them, so think about what you’re afra
id of-disappointing them in some way?”
“Yes.”
“If I’m facing something I’m uncomfortable about, what I do to handle it is, I think about the worst-case scenario,” Peter said. “What is the worst thing that could happen? Then I figure out what I would do if the worst thing happened. Once I’ve decided that, I feel a lot better. What’s the worst thing that could happen in this case?”
“For my parents to find out what I’ve done.”
“Let’s think about what that would mean,” he said. “What would they say to you?”
“They would be shocked, especially my father.”
“Of course, but how would they react after that?”
“Once the initial shock was over they would be sympathetic,” she said. “And they’d want to know who the father was.”
“Would you tell them?”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“Do you think they would punish you in some way?”
“Peter, I’m eighteen; they can’t spank me.”
“Would they ground you? Place some sort of limitations on you?”
“They can’t do that, either. If they treated me like a child, I’d move out.”
“How would you support yourself?”
