She looked down to the ground, and Diesel waved to her. It was a goofy little finger wave.

Valerie opened the window, and I climbed inside.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"Look at my test strip!"

"Maybe it made a mistake."

"It's the fifth time I've taken the test. They keep coming out positive. I'm pregnant. I'm goddamn pregnant. Albert Kloughn got me pregnant."

"Didn't you take precautions?"

"No, I didn't take precautions. Look at him! He looks like a loaf of yeast bread just before you bake it. He's soft and white and totally without substance. Who would have thought he'd have sperm? Do you know what this poor kid will look like?" Valerie wailed. "It'll look like a dinner roll."

"Maybe this isn't so bad. I thought you were all anxious to get married."

"I was anxious to get married, not to get pregnant. And I don't want to marry Kloughn. He lives with his mother, for God's sake. And he makes no money."

"He's a lawyer."

"He chases ambulances down the street. He might as well be a German shepherd."

It was true. Kloughn was having a difficult time getting his practice established and had resorted to listening to the police band.

"A woman has choices these days," I said.

"Not in this family!" Valerie was pacing and waving her arms. "We're Catholic, for crissake."

"Yeah, but you never go to church. It isn't like you have religion."

"You know what's left when the religion goes away? Guilt! Guilt never goes away. I'm stuck with the goddamn guilt for the rest of my life. And what about Mom? I even mention abortion, and she'll be crossing herself until her arm falls off."

"Don't tell her. Tell her the strip was negative."

Valerie stopped pacing and looked at me. "Would you get an abortion?"

Whoa. Me? I took a beat to think about it. "I don't know," I said. "I'm having a hard time relating. The closest I've come to childbirth is buying a hamster."

"Fine," Valerie said. "Suppose Rex was never born. Suppose the mommy hamster had an abortion and Rex was bagged up along with the dirty kennel bedding in the breeder hamster cage."

Sharp pain to the heart. "When you put it that way..."

"It's all his fault," Valerie said. "I'm going to find him. I'm going to track him down, and I'm going to maim him."

"Kloughn?"

"No. My dog turd ex-husband. If he hadn't run off with the babysitter this never would have happened. We were so happy. I don't know what went wrong. One minute we were a family and then next thing I know he's in the coat closet with the babysitter."

"Open up!" Grandma yelled from the other side of the door. "I gotta go. Lock yourself in some other room."