Today the cat got out of the bag. Kyle told his brother, on what he thought was a private Facebook message, that Laura is pregnant. What ensued was a maelstrom of events and conversations.
The first conversation involved me and Kyle. Laura sent me a text message, "Bethie knows I'm pg. Kyle flapped his big mouth on FACEBOOK!!!" Kyle and I were both in the family room so I asked him how that happened. He was surprised. He said he had sent his oldest brother a private message but the brother had responded on Kyle's wall. Then he went on the offense. Why shouldn't we tell people? He doesn't care if anyone knows. I said we had agreed we wouldn't let it be common knowledge until she was past her first trimester so we wouldn't have scads of people to 'untell' if she had another miscarriage. Then he sort of turned on me, and I have to say I didn't like it one bit. He accused me of being ashamed to tell my friends my unmarried daughter was pregnant. That's not exactly a lie but that wasn't my motivation. He accused me of not wanting people in my church to know. That's also true but not a huge concern for me. Judgmental Christians are a dime a dozen and I'm used to them. I'm frankly more concerned about them finding out that my father is gay than my unmarried daughter is pregnant. But, truthfully, neither one is a very pleasant situation for me. I understand this is the way Kyle argues. I stood my ground but left the discussion with a bad taste in my mouth.
Since I knew my sister knew, I decided to call her. She was very happy for to hear the news. She is very happy for all of us. She knows I will have discomfort when my dad finds out but reminded me that he is no one to judge. If, when I tell him, he tries to cast aspersions on Laura, I can remind him of a couple of family faux pas he made. Then suddenly I was embroiled in a conversation with her about our other sister and the never-ending conflict between the two of them. It hurt me deeply because she feels I have let her down in this. I feel I have no greater obligation than to speak honestly about where I stand and what I feel about this conflict. I can't blindly defend her. Although I feel she is being victimized by our other sister, I worry about alienating our little sister and thus cutting lines of communication as well as ruining opportunities to patch things up between the two of them.
As the night wore on, Laura also got angry, not about the pg news getting out, but about Kyle telling her that he and I were going to set up a chore list so we can all get ourselves into a cleaning and job routine before this blessed event happens. She sobbed uncontrollably as she drew a bath for herself, "I'm so tired, and you and Kyle think I'm a lazy slob. He thinks my job isn't important and that I don't do anything at work."
(Oh, Lord. What did he say to her? Is it her hormones? Are we being unfair to her?)
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