IT WAS WHILE sitting in my stepbrother's car at the drive-in restaurant that I told him I was pregnant with his child. I loved him very much, and I hoped we could get married right away. When he said he didn't want to marry me, it was like having cold water thrown in my face. He said he'd "take care of it." This was the 1950s, and he arranged for me to have an illegal abortion at a friend's house. I felt panicky and confused and alone. I was 18 years old and too frightened to talk to anyone.
As a small child I had learned in a Christian Science Sunday School that God is Love. A family friend had taken me to Sunday School a few times. Then, when I was 12, I started attending more regularly. I had a quick healing of a badly infected ingrown toenail I'd had for over a year, through the prayers of a Christian Science practitioner. That healing really impressed me, and it reinforced my understanding that God is reliable.
It was shortly after this healing that my mother remarried and this stepbrother came into my life. My mother, as a single parent, had worked outside the home for years, and now she was so happy because she could stay at home. I didn't want to do anything to shatter her newfound happiness. My stepbrother was six years older than I and lived with us. Over a period of months, he and I developed a strong attraction to each other. I didn't want anything to happen between us, because I was afraid it would totally destroy my mother's new marriage. But he forced me into a sexual relationship when I was 16, and after that we were frequently intimate, which continued for some time, although in secret.
