whole estate. He asks Jessica to be his wife but she says yes but to keep it a secret until he gets back. That same day Hester then informs Jessica that she cannot talk to him anymore and that Meg and Jack were just being nice and they are an item. Jack is leaving in week and her mom cooks up a scheme when Joe takes Jessica to the doctor to get checked because she has been really sick that Hester leaves and Meg seduces Jack as a going away "present". At the doctors visit Jessica finds out she is pregnant, her parents suspect that she had intimate relations with Billy Simple on the way to town, but she will not say who the father is. Meg then pretends to be pregnant, forcing Jack to marry her before he leaves, although he loves Jessica. He does make Meg sign a paper saying she and Hester will receive none of his estate unless she actually gives birth or has a miscarriage. Her mother tells the town that Jessica has gone crazy, so had to be isolated (during her pregnancy). Hester and Meg have a plan to have a miscarriage with witnesses but the witness sees Jessica's pregnancy while she is there so Jessica's father and mother suffocate her and Hester comes up with a plan to take Jessica's baby after it is born. Jessica's baby is born Christmas Day and Joe has a change of heart and decides not to take her baby. Jessica's father tries to kill Jessica's mother, his wife because he is done with everything but he has a heart attack. They convince Jessica to come back for the funeral with the baby and to go to the funeral without Joey because no one knows she had a baby. Then at the funeral, when they announce that Meg gave birth, Jessica breaks down, screaming that they stole her baby and attacks Hester. She is put in a mental asylum for 4 years, and makes friends with a Jewish man, Moishe Goldberg. She helps him to get better and when he is released, Moishe contacts Billy's lawyer, Richard Runche who fights and frees Jessica. Meg and her mother agree to give her the land entitlement for their old property plus another 10 acres (40,000 m2) on the condition that she never approaches her son, Joey, or tries to get