“Autumn, I’m sorry, but it just won’t work out for you to stay with us any longer. Hannah’s too impressionable. She looks up to you. You know that, don’t you?”
“Sort of.”
“Whatever you do, she wants to do. If you stay with us, Hannah will think it’s just fine to have sex and get pregnant before you’re married. We don’t want that. And Dannielle—it wouldn’t be good for her reputation for everyone to know that her best friend is pregnant and not even married. Do you understand?”
“I guess.”
“Our church helps support a home for unwed mothers—Helping Home. It’s a nice place where you can stay until you have the baby. I already called about it.”
“I don’t want to go to a home for unwed mothers.”
“Just until you have the baby,” Carole says.
“No! I’m not going to have a baby! I already decided!”
Carole looks at me puzzled, then gasps.
“An abortion?? You’re planning an abortion??”
I look away, not wanting to answer.
“Oh, God! Oh my God!”
“I can’t have a baby,” I tell her.
“Yes you can!” she screams. “I won’t have you murdering a baby!”
She takes both cups from the table and jams them into the dishwasher, then sponges off the table and counters in quick, jerky motions. She opens the refrigerator door, then slams it shut again. I sit watching, not knowing what to do or say. She leans against the sink counter with her back to me. After a while, she sits down again.
“Even if you didn’t get any religious training at home, our family always offered you good Christian values. You know it’s wrong to kill a baby. I want you to do the right thing. I’ll take you to Helping Home this morning and help you get settled.”
She reaches for her purse, takes an address book from it, and starts fumbling through the pages.
“No. I won’t go there.”
Carole stops looking through the address book. After a long while of silent, angry staring, she tells me to pack my things and she’ll take me to the County Home.
“We can’t be your foster family any longer,” she says.
“Fine,” I say, walking past her to Danni’s room.
I zip all of my school stuff into my backpack and cram everything else into three big grocery bags. By the time I get everything together, Carole’s waiting in the car with the engine running and the passenger door open. I toss my things in the back and get in. She doesn’t say anything. She just drives.
I gaze out the window as we go past Palm Avenue School, past Hamilton High, and onto the freeway, heading in the direction of downtown Los Angeles. Thirty minutes later we pull into a parking lot next to a large building with a sign that says “County Receiving
Home.” Carole shuts off the engine and gets out of the car.
I gather up my bags and backpack and follow Carole through the big glass doors into the reception area. She takes my arm and walks me up to the reception desk. Reaching into her tote bag, she gets a large brown envelope labeled “Foster care papers.” She flips through papers, slides them back in the envelope, and puts it on the desk in front of the receptionist.
“It isn’t working out for Autumn to stay with us anymore,” she says.
“Let me have you talk with a social worker,” the receptionist says.
“No thank you,” Carole says. “All of the papers are in order.”
She turns and walks out the door without a backward glance.
“Sit down,” the woman at the desk tells me, shuffling through Carole’s papers. She picks up her cell phone and calls for an intake person.
After a few minutes, a short, plump black woman with a kind face comes out to the desk. Her badge says Felicia Fenton, M.S.W.
“Autumn? Come on back, Honey. We’ll get you settled.”
I get up to follow her.
“Bring your things,” she says, picking up my largest shopping bag and leaving the rest to me.
“It’s going to be just fine,” she says.
I don’t think so.
Chapter
8
Ms. Fenton unlocks a heavy steel door leading into a broad corridor and clips her keys back on her belt.
“Our doors are locked from the outside, for the protection of our children. But they’re not locked from the inside.”
To prove her point, she opens the door we’ve just walked through, then closes it again.
“You can walk out these doors any time. We hope you won’t, but this is not a locked facility. You’re not a criminal. You’re not in jail.”
Ms. Fenton walks me back to the intake area, unlocks the door and leads me into a small windowless cubicle.
“Meet Ms. Smeal,” she says. “Eleanor, this is Autumn Grant.”
Ms. Smeal looks up from her paperwork.
“I’m happy to meet you, Autumn,” she says, though I wouldn’t say the look on her face is exactly one of happiness.
“If you’ll bring Autumn back to my office when you’re finished . . .”
“No problem,” Ms. Smeal says.
Ms. Fenton closes the door behind her and Ms. Smeal motions for me to sit in the chair beside her desk. She puts her paperwork on a side table.
“Let’s go through your backpack first,” she says.
I look at her, not understanding what she means.
“Put your backpack on the desk and we’ll inventory it,” she says.
I put my backpack on the desk, still not understanding what’s going on. Ms. Smeal removes every item, one by one, then makes a list of everything. Cell phone (not in service), my dad’s wallet and all of its contents. Gram’s purse and contents, my notebook and everything in it, dividers, assignment sheet, zippered plastic packets, each book by title. When she finishes noting every single thing from my backpack, she puts it all back and places it in a large, mesh bag.
“You’ll get everything back when you leave,” she says. “We’ll provide you with everything you need while you’re here.”
“But I need my backpack. It’s got my books, and . . .” I think about my grandmother’s hair and the heart shaped stone but decide not to mention them, “. . . and some things I care about.”
“They’ll all be locked away in a safe place. No personal items are allowed here.”
She writes my name, date of birth, date and time of arrival on a label, and attaches it to the bag.
She takes a “Physical Description” form from a stack of papers on the side table and attaches it to a clipboard. She has me stand up straight, back against the wall, and takes a Polaroid picture of me.
While she’s waiting for the picture to develop, she fills out the top of the form with the same information that’s on the bag label.
“Now, Autumn, if you’ll just take off your shoes and sweatshirt, we’ll get you weighed and measured.
I’m surprised to see that I weigh 133 pounds. It doesn’t seem like I’ve been eating much at all, but maybe I was and I just don’t remember. Usually I weigh somewhere between 118 and 122.
“Turn facing the other wall, please.”
Ms. Smeal measures my height with one of those long sliding ruler things.
“5’6 l/2” she says, filling in more blanks.
She attaches the now-developed Polaroid to the form. I’m glad this picture won’t be appearing in any yearbook.
“Now, let’s see. Eyes.”
She looks into my eyes, cocking her head as if trying to find a better angle.
“Brown? Not exactly. More hazel, I’d say,” more like she’s talking to herself than to me. She cocks her head in the other direction for one more look.
“Definitely hazel,” she says, filling in another blank.
“Hair? Blond? Light Brown? We’ll just say blond.”
“Skintone? Light.”
“Distinguishing characteristics? Any scars, piercings, tattoos, birthmarks?”
“Just . . . t
wo of my toes are sort of . . . webbed.”
“Let’s have a look,” she says.
I take the sock off my left foot and point to the two toes next to my big toe.
“Ummm. Born that way?”
“Yes. My father has . . . had . . . had the same thing.”
Ms. Smeal jots a note under distinguishing characteristics.
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“Okay. Take everything off but your underwear.”
“Why???”
“It’s just part of the check-in routine.”
“I don’t want to!” I say, thinking how obvious my pregnancy is when it’s not hidden beneath clothes.
“Nobody wants to, but we have to do it. It won’t take long.”
“What if I won’t do it??”
Ms. Smeal shakes her head. “You don’t want to be like that—like you’ve got something to hide.”
I just sit there with my arms folded. No way am I taking my clothes off for this . . . this . . . jail warden.
“Well. . . I can call two more attendants in here, and they’ll forcibly remove your clothes. Or you can do it yourself.”
I still don’t move.
“I promise you, you’d rather do it on your own. Give yourself a break.”
Ms. Smeal has her hand on the phone, watching me. So, okay, I take off my other sock. Then my baggy pants. Then my loose T-shirt.
“Stand up, please.”
I do, and she looks me over from every angle.
“No other distinguishing characteristics,” she says. “Except it looks like you’re pregnant. Right?”
“Wrong!”
I don’t even know why I said that except I don’t like this woman and it’s none of her business whether I’m pregnant or not.
“Have it your way,” she says.
She adds a note to the form. I reach for my T-shirt, but she takes it from me, along with my pants, shoes and socks, and puts them in the mesh bag next to my backpack.
“Time for a shower,” she says, walking me through a side door to a shower stall. She hands me soap and shampoo and tells me to wash thoroughly.
“I just took a shower this morning!”
“All right. Now it’s time for another one.”
She pulls the shower curtain aside and I step in.
“Hand me your underwear please,” she says. “I’ll have clean things and a towel waiting on this bench,” she says, pointing to a wooden bench along the wall. “I’ll wait here for you.”
I take my time in the shower, even though I don’t need another shower. When I get out, Ms. Smeal hands me a towel and points to the stack of clothes—jeans, T-shirt, socks, underwear, sitting on the bench.
“These will do for now. You can choose something more to your liking tomorrow.”
“I don’t want these clothes! I have my own clothes!”
Ms. Smeal shakes her head.
“Your clothes will be laundered and kept safely stored for you,” she says. “While you’re here we’ll provide you with clothes.”
What can I do? I’m trapped here. After I’m dressed again, Ms. Smeal asks me to be sure all of the tangles are out of my hair. Then she has me sit in a chair under a bright light.
“We have to check for lice.” she says.
“Lice! Shite! I don’t have lice!”
She takes a very fine-toothed comb and starts to comb my hair. I jerk my head away.
“This won’t take long, and it has to be done. Again, I can call other attendants to help if that seems necessary.”
She takes the comb to my hair again. Starting at my scalp, she combs roughly through a few sections of hair at a time. She checks the comb carefully after each harsh stroke—strokes that leave my scalp stinging.
When she’s finished with my hair, we go back to the other room where she takes all of the items from my shopping bags and lists them. Then she puts them back in the bags and puts the bags in with my other stuff in the labeled mesh bag. She locks the bag behind a door leading to a large storage room.
“Perfectly safe and waiting right here for you,” she says, smiling.
Like that’s supposed to make me feel good? I no longer can get to anything of my own. Absolutely nothing! Not even my little stone heart. Not even a single strand of my grandmother’s hair!
“I’ll have you see the nurse before you go back to Ms. Fenton’s office,” Ms. Smeal says, picking up the phone and dialing.
“Daisy? I’ve just done an intake on a new girl, Autumn Grant. She says she’s not pregnant, but . . . Okay. We’ll be right down.”
She hangs up and tells me what I’ve already figured out. The nurse wants to see me.
“What size shoe do you take?” Ms. Smeal asks.
“A nine.”
She goes back through the “clothes” door and comes out with a pair of new, cheapo running shoes.
“Nine and a half. The closest we have right now,” she says, handing them to me.
“I have my own shoes that fit! Why can’t I at least have my own shoes??”
“It’s just how we do things here. Put these shoes on and we’ll go see the nurse.”
The nurse, Daisy Lee, her badge says, is dressed in those green pajama things like they wear on TV hospital shows. She motions me into a smaller room where there’s a scale, a blood pressure thing, and all that other stuff nurses have in their offices.
“How are you, Autumn? Any physical complaints?
“No.”
“Slip your shoes off and step on the scale.”
“I already did that with Ms. Smeal!”
“I know. I’m sorry. We need to do it again.”
I slip off the shoes, easy because they’re too big for me, and step on the scale. Then I move over to a chair where the nurse does the blood pressure thing, looks in my ears, mouth, nose and throat. When she looks in my eyes she asks if I may be anemic.
“I don’t know.”
“Please take off your top and jeans and sit here on the examining table,” she says, motioning to one of those high, narrow bed things. “You can leave your underwear on.”
She listens to my heart and lungs, then has me lie down. She pokes gently around my belly. She listens with her stethoscope at several places, then goes back to a spot just right of my belly button, where she listens for what seems a long time.
“You can put your clothes on,” she tells me. “We’ll talk in my office.”
I dress and go back to the area where Ms. Lee’s desk and files are.
“Have a seat,” she says, nodding toward a little couch against the wall opposite the door.
I sit down and Ms. Lee sits beside me.
“Everything looks good. Your lungs are clear, blood pressure is good, good heart rate . . . Are you aware that you’re pregnant?”
I feel my face getting hot and I’m pretty sure I’m turning bright red.
“Pregnant?” I ask, as if I’ve never heard the word before.
“Yes. Pregnant. Do you know that you’re pregnant?”
I sigh. “Yes.”
“Have you been receiving prenatal care?”
I look at her blankly.
“You know, things to protect your baby’s health, like getting monthly check-ups from a doctor? Taking prenatal vitamins? Eating a balanced diet?”
“I’m not going to have a baby,” I say.
Ms. Lee looks puzzled.
“But you do know you’re pregnant.”
“Yes, but . . .”
Ms. Lee, who has been nothing but businesslike up to now, takes my hand in hers. She looks directly into my eyes, searchingly.
“Tell me,” she says, holding my gaze.
I look away, focusing on a poster urging “Wash often, for your health and the health of others” and showing soaped up hands over a bathroom sink.
“We’re here to help.” Ms. Lee says.
With a soft smile and warm dark eyes, she again encourages me to talk about my pregn
ancy.”
And so . . . finally . . . the words that were blocked in my throat with Danni, come rushing out, filling the room with so many secrets so long kept. Jason’s birthday. The champagne. The waiting/hoping for my period. The positive results of several home pregnancy tests. The jumping jacks. The trip alone to Planned Parenthood to arrange for termination. The accident. The missed appointment. The weeks lost to amnesia. The new appointment at Planned Parenthood.
“Are you certain you want an abortion?” Ms. Lee asks.
“I have to,” I say.
“No one has to if they don’t want to. Are you aware that there are plenty of other options?”
I nod.
“What does your boyfriend say?”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Well, then . . . the father. What does the father say?”
“Jason,” I say, unable to think of him as the father.
“All right. Jason. What does Jason say?”
“He doesn’t know.”
“What would he say?”
“He’d want us to get married and be Mommy and Daddy. I can’t do that. I know I can’t. I’m going to college. I’m up for a volleyball scholarship. I’m not the teen mom type.”
The phone rings and Ms. Lee answers.
“No . . . we’re not quite finished . . .”
She hangs up and turns back to me.
“That was Ms. Fenton. She’s ready to do your orientation and get you started on academic testing, but that can wait a while . . . Do you know when you had your last period?”
“May 9.”
“You’re sure?”
“Pretty sure. I had to figure it out when I got my first termination referral from Planned Parenthood.”
Ms. Lee takes a calendar from her desk and starts counting weeks back to May 9.
“It’s pretty late for an abortion,” she says. “When is your doctor’s appointment?”
“Next Wednesday.”
“In a week?”
“Yes.”
“And then it will probably take another week to get you in for the abortion,” she says, still looking at the calendar, frowning.
“I’ll call and see if we can move your appointment up. In the meantime, though, I’ll take you back to see Ms. Fenton.”
In her office, I sit across from Ms. Fenton at a desk that’s cluttered with papers and sticky notes and what looks to be the remains of someone’s McMuffin breakfast. She spends a few minutes glancing through the papers in the file Carole left, then looks up.
No More Sad Goodbyes Page 7