No More Sad Goodbyes

by Marilyn Reynolds

  “You’ve been through a hard time,” she says.

  I nod.

  “You’re not alone. All of our young people have been through some kind of hard time. But we’re all here to help. People care. I care. You’ll see.”

  I’m wondering if the aliens are coming for me again. It’s like I’m floating over the desk, looking down on a scene from a movie. “Autumn . . . Autumn!”

  Ms. Fenton looks at me strangely.

  “I was asking if you’d eaten yet this morning.”

  “Oh. Yeah. I had fruit and cereal at Danni’s.”

  “Danni?”

  “My friend’s house—where I was staying.”

  She glances again at my file.

  “Oh, yes. The Hopkins family . . . Things didn’t work out with them?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Well . . . Come with me. I’ll show you around and then we’ll get on with the paperwork. Always more paperwork,” she says, smiling.

  I follow her into a large area lined with shelves. Clothes are stacked according to type and style.

  “You can choose from any of these things in the morning. Ev­erything gets laundered after each use.”

  She shows me to a small room with two beds. The bedspreads are colorful and everything is clean but . . . it doesn’t feel right to me. It’s not like home, or like a place I belong. And where would that be, I wonder? Where would I belong now?

  Back in Ms. Fenton’s office there’s a message waiting for her from the nurse.

  “Well . . . Ms. Lee managed to get an appointment for you at Planned Parenthood this afternoon. I guess the academic testing will have to wait until tomorrow.”

  “I’ve passed all my high school proficiencies.”

  “Right. We’ll call for your records. In the meantime, though, we always do academic placement as part of our intake. It lets our teachers know what level of work to offer you while you’re here with us.”

  “I’m a senior at Hamilton High,” I say.

  “Well . . . we like to get students back to their home schools if they’ve been doing well in that setting. Unfortunately, Hamilton High School is beyond our transportation boundaries so until we find a closer placement for you, you’ll attend school here.”

  It’s late afternoon when we arrive at Planned Parenthood. This is a different place than the one I went to near Hamilton Heights, bigger, with a crowded waiting room. Ms. Lee leads the way to the receptionist window.

  “Hi, Shirley. Thanks for getting us in,” she says to the woman sitting behind the window.

  “We got lucky with a cancellation.”

  I sign in and show the temporary Medi-Cal card I got back in September for the first termination appointment.

  Shirley takes a copy and then hands the card back to me. “It’ll be

  a few minutes. I’ll call you.”

  Ms. Lee and I sit next to each other on blue plastic chairs. She takes some adoption pamphlets from the table next to her and hands them to me.

  “I already saw these before,” I tell her, trying to hand them back. She doesn’t take them.

  “That was a while ago, right?”

  I nod.

  “You may need to start thinking about what you’ll do if you’re too late for an abortion.”

  I gaze at the top pamphlet, not really looking at it. I can’t be too late for an abortion!

  A young black woman in the same kind of green pajama things Ms. Lee was wearing earlier in the day opens the door next to the reception window.

  “Autumn Grant?”

  “I’ll wait here for you,” Ms. Lee says.

  I follow the woman down a long hall where again I’m weighed and measured. Then she leads me to a small examining room where she takes my temperature and blood pressure.

  “Doctor will be with you shortly,” she says, leaving me to wait on the examining table with nothing on except this paper thing that just barely reaches to the waist and is open in the back. I’m gazing at my belly when one of those forceful kicks jars me. This gets me thinking about Danni and last night. Did she feel that kick? Did she tell her mother about it? Did Carole plan to barge in on me just as I was getting out of the shower? Are we still pinky-finger sister-friends? What’d Danni tell people when I didn’t show up at lunch today?

  The doctor, Dr. Singh, taps lightly on the door and comes in. She checks my chart and asks the same questions Ms. Lee asked earlier today. Then she asks me to lie back and put my feet in the stirrups. I hate what’s coming! I frown at the sign on the ceiling that says “SMILE.”

  Dr. Singh calls for the nurse to come in. As soon as she enters, the doctor puts on sterile gloves, applies a lubricant, tells me to re­lax, and pushes her finger way up into my vagina. At the same time, she puts pressure on my belly, feeling all around the outside as she pokes around inside. Again she encourages me to relax, and to take deep breaths. Relaxing’s not that easy right now.

  After that torture, I’m sent to the lab for blood tests.

  When I come out into the waiting room, loaded down with pre­natal vitamins and information on “Healthy Mom, Healthy Baby,” and a handful of tissue, Ms. Lee takes one look at my tear-stained face and walks toward me.

  “Too late?” she says in a whisper.

  “Uh-huh,” I say, wiping at my face with the tissue.

  Ms. Lee takes the vitamins and puts them in her bag.

  “I’ll hand these out to you each morning, to be sure you’re get­ting them. You should look over the reading material though.”

  On the way back to the home Ms. Lee says, “It’ll be okay. Lots of girls get through this just fine.”

  I know she’s just trying to help but I’m really tired of people telling me things will be okay when I know they won’t.

  Traffic is heavy. We’re moving along between a big gravel truck on the right and a red Honda on the left. The Honda’s just like ours except ours was white. With its right blinker flashing, the Honda zips in front of us, causing Ms. Lee to hit the brakes.

  “Some people!” she says.

  I watch as the Honda speeds forward, cuts in front of the gravel truck and catches the Avenue 62 off-ramp.

  “Did you see that jerk?”

  I saw it. The Honda. The gravel truck. I know what could have happened to the car and the people in it. But why is it that drivers like the one in the red Honda get to crowd in front of a gravel truck and escape untouched and my dad, who was always careful, gets crushed? And why is it my mother died when I was only five? If there’s a good and loving God, like Carole and Danni say there is, why does He let such bad things happen to such good people?

  And why is it that some girls have sex with anyone, anytime, with no protection, and get away with it, and I do it once and I’m caught? And why, why, why, wasn’t I returned to earth in time to get an abortion?

  Chapter

  9

  It’s dinnertime by the time we get back to the county home. Ms. Lee walks with me into the dining hall.

  A girl yells out from clear across the room, “Hey, Lee!”

  She comes racing over to us.

  “Tell them I’m special. I need more than one dessert!”

  Ms. Lee laughs.

  “Madison, this is Autumn. Will you show her the dinner rou­tine?”

  “Happy to,” she says, “for an extra rice pudding.”

  “Deal,” Ms. Lee says, stopping to talk to one of the servers on her way out.

  Madison’s taller than I am, and sort of heavy, but not in a sloppy, obese way. She’s wearing a badge with her name, Madison Peters, written at the top and LEVEL ONE in big bold letters spread across the middle.

  “You’re in good hands, now,” Ms. Lee says. She puts her arm around me and gives me sort of a half hug.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Bye. Thanks.”

  Ms. Lee stops to talk to someone at the counter on her way out.

  “She’s nice,” Madison says, watching Ms. Lee leave. �
��She helped me a lot when I first came here.”

  I wonder if Madison was pregnant when she first arrived, or if Ms. Lee helped her in some other way.

  It looks as if everyone else is pretty much finished eating, but the food is still out and there’s a woman in a white smock and one of those tight hairnets standing behind the serving table. Madison shows me where to get a tray and utensils and I check out the choic­es. I get a cheese enchilada with red sauce, refried beans and rice. My dad never liked cafeteria food—said it was institutionalized. But I didn’t realize how hungry I was until just now and this tastes good.

  The woman in the white smock hands Madison a bowl of rice pudding and we take our food to an otherwise empty table.

  Madison flashes a big smile at me. “Thanks for helping me get an extra bowl of rice pudding!”

  “No problem,” I say, swallowing a bit of enchilada and smiling back.

  “Why are you here?” she asks.

  “My friend’s mom said I couldn’t stay there anymore,” I tell her, not knowing what else to say.

  “Did you piss her off, or is she just a bitch?”

  “Both, I guess,” feeling guilty about agreeing to the bitch de­scription.

  “Why are you here?” I ask.

  “My mom’s in jail. She’s a druggie.”

  Madison says this like it’s nothing. I’ve never known anyone whose mom was a druggie, or who was in jail. At least I don’t think I have.

  “What’s ‘Level One’ mean?” I ask, pointing to her badge.

  “It means I’ve earned enough points to get privileges. Like, I’m free to go anywhere in the facility I want to, and I get special snacks, and trips to the mall, that kind of stuff. It’s easier if you’re a Level One, so you should start working on your points right away.”

  I let Madison have my rice pudding, too, since I’m not wild about sweets. When we finish eating, we go back to the so-called living room, where there’s a TV, a bunch of board games, some books, four upholstered chairs and a couple of couches.

  “It’s visiting hours now, so some of the girls are out in the com­mon area,” Madison says, glancing at the clock. “Do you know which bed is yours?”

  I point in the direction of the room Ms. Fenton showed me ear­lier in the day. Madison makes a face.

  “I hope you don’t need much sleep.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re in with Dericia. Sometimes she gets kind of . . . loud . . . after she’s had visitors. Like tonight. Her mom’s here tonight.”

  It’s only a little after seven, but I’m so tired all I want to do is take a shower and go to bed. This will be my third shower for the day, but I feel all sticky from the examination at Planned Parent­hood. I search the shelves for pajamas, then go into the bathroom for a shower. Except it turns out the “bathroom” only has a toilet and sink in it.

  “Madison?”

  She glances up from the TV—some ancient Cosby Show re­run.

  “Where are the showers?”

  “They’re down at the end of the hall, past Ms. Lee’s office,” she says.

  “Thanks. I know I’ll sleep better if I take a shower,” I say, walk­ing toward the door.

  “Whoa!” Madison yells. “You can’t take a shower now.”

  “Why not?”

  “The doors are locked. Everybody showers in the morning. No nighttime showers.”

  “That’s so lame!”

  “Tell me about it,” Madison says. “When I get to be God people will shower whenever they feel like it.”

  I’m sooooo tired. According to the clock, it’s been about twelve hours since Carole walked in on me in the bathroom and saw I was pregnant. It feels more like weeks ago, though. I browse the book­shelves, hoping to find a copy of Ordinary People. No such luck. Now that I’m finally getting into it, I don’t get to read it anymore. None of these books looks very interesting. Anne of Green Gables, which I read in the fourth grade. The Face on the Milk Carton, fifth grade. There are two of the early Harry Potter books, which I’ve also read, a bunch of beat up paperback romance stories and a copy of Gone with the Wind. Maybe I’ll try that. I heard it was pretty good.

  I change into the loaner PJs and crawl under the covers of my assigned bed. It’s not nearly as comfortable as the bed at Danni’s.

  I try to concentrate on reading, but I can’t. What’s going to hap­pen to me? For the first time I think about the baby inside me. Dr. Singh assured me it is a baby at this stage, not just a blob of cells. I’ve got a baby inside me and I don’t want a baby inside me. Why didn’t I get it taken care of as soon as I knew I was pregnant? Now I’ve got to go the full nine yards, only with me it’s the full nine months.

  I finally give up on reading and close my eyes, drifting between scenes of gravel trucks and Hondas, babies and guide dogs. In my dream I’m back at my old house with Dad and Grams except it isn’t exactly like my old house and Grams looks a lot like Carole. We’re telling our dreams and it’s like I’m two people, the one who’s dreaming and another one who is thinking about how weird it is to be telling a dream in a dream. Then there’s a sudden shift and the house starts shaking and we’re sliding around in our chairs.

  “Earthquake!” Dad yells. “Earthquake!”

  Except it isn’t a dream-earthquake. I struggle awake, caught for a moment between dream and reality, trying to make sense of the strange place I’ve awakened in. A short dark-haired girl stands at the foot of the bed across from mine, yelling and throwing things.

  “That cocksucking, motherfucking prick!”

  She hauls off and throws a shoe against the wall. I rub my eyes and sit up, still half asleep.

  “That shit for brains maggot infested asshole!”

  Another shoe, this time hurled against the wall by my bed. Now I’m awake.

  “Fucking . . .”

  A woman in a Raiders sweatshirt and black jeans rushes into the room and puts her arms around the girl.

  “Shhhhh. Dericia. Shhhh.”

  The girl struggles to get loose but the Raiders woman keeps a tight hold. Several girls are standing at the door, peering in.

  “Get back to bed, girls,” Raiders says.

  “Told ya,” Madison says to me before she turns and walks away. “She talks in her sleep, too.”

  “He’s a PRICK!!!”

  “Dericia! Enough! . . . And you girls get back to bed NOW!”

  The remaining girls drift away.

  “Go back to sleep,” Raiders says, looking over her shoulder at me as she walks Dericia out of the room.

  Back to sleep? After that?

  It’s not like any of those words are new to me, but . . . I’ve never been awakened by someone screaming them so up-close and per­sonal, or witnessed within arms length such an earthquake force of anger.

  After breakfast and hygiene we get fifteen minutes to put our rooms in order and gather things for school. Dericia’s picking up her shoes and placing them neatly beside her bed when I get back to the room. I fold my pajamas and put them on the shelf beside my underwear and socks. When I reach for my sweatshirt—their sweatshirt—at the foot of my bed, Dericia stands up and makes eye contact.

  “I’m Dericia,” she says.

  “I’m Autumn.”

  “Sorry ’bout last night,” she says, smiling.

  Dericia’s dark hair is pulled back in a neat ponytail. Her features are delicate, like you might see on some old-fashioned pre-Barbie doll. She’s wearing a “Level Three” name tag.

  “I get pretty pissed off sometimes,” she says, still smiling.

  “I noticed,” I say.

  I don’t mean to sound sarcastic but I guess maybe that’s how it came out because Dericia stops smiling.

  “You’d be pissed off too, if you had my asshole father.”

  “My father’s dead,” I say.

  “Lucky you,” she says, walking out into the corridor.

  After I take the tests, Ms. Fenton looks over the evaluation print-o
ut.

  “Your test scores are excellent,” she says, smiling.

  Madison comes rushing around the corner, practically running into Ms. Fenton.

  “Hey, Miss F. You better watch where you’re going!” she says, laughing as she zips past us.

  Ms. Fenton laughs, too.

  “That was Madison. You’ll get to know her soon.”

  “She showed me around last night.”

  “That figures. She probably got an extra dessert or two in the process.”

  “Rice pudding,” I say.

  Ms. Fenton laughs again. “That’s a girl who knows how to work the system.”

  Ms. Lee joins us in Ms. Fenton’s office to talk about my school options.

  “One possibility would be for you to attend our on-site school for a month or so while we try to place you with a family in your old school district. That way you could return to your home school.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  But really, what’s the use now? Pretty soon it’ll be obvious to everyone that I’m pregnant, no matter how loose my clothes are. I don’t want to be waddling down the halls of Hamilton High, preg­nant. If I were back living in Hamilton Heights and going to Hamil­ton High School, someone would be sure to tell Jason I’m pregnant. And even though it seems like things can’t get worse, it would be way worse if Jason knew I was pregnant. The baby’s due in three months! I wish the aliens would come back for me and keep me until this is all over.

  “I’d like to encourage you to enroll in our district’s Teen Moms program,” Ms. Lee says. “You’ll learn how to take good care of yourself for the rest of the pregnancy, and what to expect during labor and delivery. Plus you can work at your own pace to complete your academic credits.”

  “A school van would pick you up in the morning and drop you off in the afternoon,” Ms. Fenton says.

  I think about Sarah, all dejected, standing on the corner wait­ing for the special van to pick her up. It’s not how I want to see myself.

  “Think about it,” Ms. Fenton says. “We’ll talk again later this afternoon.”