Exit, Pursued by a Bear

by E. K. Johnston

  “It doesn’t change a thing,” he says.

  I exhale a breath I didn’t even realize I was holding. “Could you pray for my parents too?” I add. “They’re also in the middle of this and not sure what to do.”

  “Of course,” he says. “And for Polly and for the police officers who are working on your case.”

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “You’re going out of town for the abortion?” he asks. He doesn’t flinch or hesitate on the word.

  “Yes,” I say. “I mean, I could do it here. At the hospital I’d have to have my parents’ permission, but they would give it. I just want to do it somewhere where I might not be so subject to rumours. I’m not ashamed, I just . . .”

  “You just want your business back,” he says. “As you should. It’s between you and God, and whomever else you choose to be involved. My door is, at least metaphorically, always open. If someone starts throwing around stupid words like ‘It’s a gift,’ or ‘It’s in God’s plan,’ you come right here, and I’ll find you ten ways in which it isn’t.”

  I wonder how I’ve known Reverend Rob all my life and never realized he was a superhero. I keep bringing out the best in people, it seems. Officer Plummer, Tig, Dion, heck, even Polly. It’s very annoying. A stupid silver lining whose cloud I never wanted to see in the first place. I hope it’s not supposed to make me feel better. Honestly, sometimes it’s all I can do not to turn into a ball of rage about it. I liked it better when I built people up by cheering for them. That way is predictable and good exercise and fun. This way costs too much, and there’s nothing in it for me. I miss the days when I was someone that people could ignore or discount, and still feel good about themselves.

  “It’s getting dark,” the reverend says. “Your parents will be worried.” He manages to say it like he would say it to any other kid out past sunset. He manages to treat me like I’m still normal. Maybe this is the way I can be normal now. I have that list of people who treat me the way I want to be treated. Maybe it’s time to edit my life accordingly.

  “I was out for a run,” I say.

  “I never would have guessed that,” he says with a completely straight face, taking in my running gear and messy hair. “Do you want a ride?”

  “No, I’ll just run home,” I say. “But maybe you could call them and tell them I’m on my way?”

  “They’ll probably appreciate that,” he agrees, and opens his Rolodex. “Remember, Hermione, anytime. Not just Sundays at nine thirty.”

  “I know,” I say. “And thank you, again.”

  I run all the way home, but for the first time since I started, it doesn’t feel like I’m trying to escape something. It feels like I just love to run.

  CHAPTER 18

  ON THURSDAY NIGHT, I HAVE one of the worst conversations with my mother that I have ever had. I know it’s coming, even though she doesn’t, and somehow that makes it unfair. But as Polly says, everything about this is unfair. And I have to keep pushing.

  “Mum,” I say, knowing that there’s no easy way to do this. “I want Polly to go with me tomorrow.”

  We’re in the living room. I’m watching television and Mum is doing laundry. Or at least that’s what it would look like if we were suddenly photographed. In reality, I am sitting on the chesterfield and staring at the wall, and Mum is folding the same pillowcase over and over again. Dad is on evenings this week. It’s been quiet.

  “That’s fine, hon,” she says. She sets the pillowcase down, finally, and starts to fold something else. “We’ll pick her up on the way.”

  “No, Mum,” I say. “Just Polly.”

  The laundry pile grows taller and Mum just looks at me. She doesn’t understand.

  “If you come . . .” This was much easier when I practiced it in my head. At least she’s sitting too far away to reach out and put her hand on my knee. The distance I’m asking for starts now. “If you come, you’ll hold my hand and you’ll sit there and you’ll love me and support me, and you’ll be awesome at it. But I can’t. I just can’t. I’m going to need a friend. I’m going to need Polly. Because I’ll need you to be my mother when I get home, and if you’re there when it happens, it won’t work. I need you to be my mum.”

  I see her parse it, what I’ve said, and I can imagine her telling Dad when he gets home. He’ll come into their room quietly, trying not to wake her up, and she’ll wake up like she always does. And then she’ll tell him what I’ve said, and they’ll both cry. In the morning, they’ll act like nothing happened.

  “Okay, Hermione.” I can tell it kills her. It should probably kill me too, but I just can’t let it. If I start, I’ll never stop. “Polly can drive you.”

  The laundry pile keeps growing, all neat corners and flat planes, sorted into piles by owner. It would be comforting, if comfort didn’t make me want to scream. I go back to watching the wall until it’s late enough that I can go to bed without causing any more concern than I already cause. Then I watch the ceiling until I fall asleep.

  —

  I wake up slowly, way before my alarm goes off, which is the worst. If it’s a fast snap to alertness, sitting bolt upright in bed with my fingers knuckling into the sheets, there’s no way to deny what happened. A slow climb, like this morning, waking warm and cocooned in the blankets, gives me enough time to forget, and then recall; enough time for everything to come crashing back into my memory, or lack thereof, like that first time in the hospital when I made Polly tell me the details with no grace to them at all. It’s not the way I like to start any day, and starting this one like that seems like a particularly bad omen. I take four deep breaths, and force myself to shrug it off. I can’t eat anything, so at least I won’t vomit, and I get ready for the day methodically, keeping myself at arm’s length until I have made peace, again, with my life now.

  Polly comes to get me very early. I have decided on a clinic in Toronto, which means we have to go early to avoid traffic. When I get in the car, Polly blares the radio so we don’t have to talk. Mum stands on the front porch while we drive away. I don’t look back, but I know she doesn’t go inside until we turn the corner.

  —

  We drive in silence for two hours. There were other clinics, closer clinics, but I picked the one with the best reputation. Also, I picked the one that was closest to the lab where they will be testing the DNA of the fetal material they remove. Officer Plummer didn’t say it was necessary, but when I told her where my appointment was, she said I had made a good choice. When we pass the airport in Mississauga, I start to navigate, giving Polly directions as she weaves in and out of traffic to get to our exit. At last, we pull into a parking lot, and Polly puts the car in park.

  “Are you sure this is it?” I ask.

  “Did you expect there to be a huge sign with flashing lights?” Polly asks. She looks immediately sorry. “I didn’t mean it. I mean, I meant it, but I didn’t mean to sound so . . . mean.”

  “Polly, if you were going to pick a day to be you, I would really appreciate it if you picked this one,” I say. “And there is a sign. It’s tiny, but it’s over there.”

  It’s small and grey, nearly blending into the side of the grey building. It says WOMEN’S HEALTH CLINIC in nonthreatening letters. There are six other cars in the parking lot, but no people around. Polly locks the car doors, and I sling my bag over my shoulder. I’m already wearing a long skirt, like it says on the website. It’s the only one I own. I didn’t have a top to go with it, which makes me feel uncoordinated. I don’t remember why I bought it, or when, but I will never forget the day I probably ruin it. I have a change of clothes and the other supplies they suggested packed into the bag. I feel very, very small.

  “Come on,” Polly says, and takes my arm. We walk across the parking lot together, and Polly rings the bell.

  “Name and size of party,” says a female voice. She’s not dispassionate, but she’s
not exactly reassuring either.

  “Hermione Winters,” says Polly. “And there’s two of us.”

  “Come on up,” says the voice, and the door buzzes open.

  Inside, the clinic looks like an office building. There are grey walls with a green line painted at about waist height. We follow the signs up a flight of stairs to an open reception area. There are plants and lots of natural light. I concentrate on breathing and remembering where to put my feet. The receptionist is the woman we heard on the intercom. While she takes my information and hands me the clipboard, she buzzes two other people up.

  Polly steers me into the waiting room. There are two groups there already. One is a woman who is very thin and very hungry looking. She’s not really a group, because she’s by herself. The clinic recommends not driving home, but the subway is close by. I wouldn’t want to take transit, but maybe she doesn’t have a choice. The other group is an Indian family, a very pretty girl in a perfect sari sitting between her parents. They are all very stiff in their seats. I focus on the clipboard.

  At nine o’clock, when the Palermo Heights students are rising from their seats to sing the national anthem, a short nurse walks into the waiting room and calls my name.

  “I love you,” Polly says suddenly when I’m almost to the door.

  “I know,” I say.

  We do our best not to snicker. That would be really inappropriate, but when I walk past the skinny woman, she is smiling.

  The nurse doesn’t touch me, but she takes me into a room with an oddly shaped chair and tells me what to do.

  “We have to do this next part,” she says. “But I’ll make it fast.”

  “Thank you,” I say, and she smiles in a way I am sure is supposed to be reassuring, but I am beyond that.

  “Are you here of your own free will?” she asks.

  I nod.

  “You have to say it out loud,” she says.

  “I’m here of my own free will,” I say.

  “And you understand that you are choosing to terminate a pregnancy?” she says.

  “I do,” I say.

  “You are of sound mind and have told us your complete medical history?” she asks.

  “I am and I have,” I say.

  “Do you have any questions?” she asks.

  “A police officer is supposed to get the fetal tissue after the abortion,” I say. There are short cuts I could have taken, but I say the whole thing, to be sure. “Is she here?”

  “Yes,” the nurse says. “She’s here and the doctor will collect the sample.”

  This nurse is probably the most tactful person I’ve ever met. I wonder whether she is naturally this empathic, or whether it’s a learned skill. I wonder whether she goes home at night and cries, or whether she can leave all this here when she goes. She certainly knows my circumstances, but she doesn’t feel patronizing at all.

  “Are you ready?” she asks.

  “Yes,” I say. “Yes I am.”

  She presses a button, and the doctor comes in. The anaesthesia is explained, and the procedure is outlined one more time. I’m pretty sure I could recite it at this point. The doctor has a special collection bag. Usually, it’s just a medical waste container, but this one has the OPP seal on it. My fetus might not get to be a full person, but it’s sure as hell going to be official.

  A blood test determines that I don’t need a shot, and then they give me the laughing gas. The doctor ruled out a local anaesthetic because she was afraid I would panic at the loss of sensation. She’s probably not wrong. Sleeping has been weird lately, and I’ve been obsessed with lost time. At least if there’s laughing gas, I’ll be in a good mood. As soon as I start to react to the gas, though, I do panic. The nurse takes my hand immediately, and keeps me still.

  “Shhhh, sweetie,” she says. “Remember, you said yes to this.”

  I have no idea how she knew exactly what to say to me. Maybe in addition to being the most empathic person of all time, she’s also a mind reader. In any case, I’m now convinced that God put her on this earth to do exactly this job, and I hope she gets one heck of a karmic payoff for it later.

  “There will be a slight cramping sensation,” the doctor says, and then there is, and then it’s done.

  The collection bag isn’t see-through, exactly, but I can tell there’s a mass inside it that wasn’t there before. I can’t react properly to anything, though. The gas is making me fuzzy. But I remember that I picked this. That I said yes. And I don’t panic or cry or anything like that.

  “Okay, Hermione,” says the nurse. “We just need to walk a short way to the recovery room.”

  I walk. Well, I shuffle. The nurse helps me change, because the gas makes it hard to do buttons and laces, and by the time I am sitting in the chair, I look like a dental patient who just had laughing gas to fix a tooth.

  “I’ll get you some water,” the nurse says. “And then I need to go back into the waiting room. If you need me, press the bell next to your chair, okay?”

  “Thank you,” I say again. Then I lean forward. “Really, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” she says, passing me a cup, and then I’m alone.

  I have just enough time to start thinking again, which would not end well, before the door opens and the skinny woman comes in. After her, about ten minutes later, is the Indian girl. Then a woman covered with tattoos. Then a woman who looks like she hasn’t smiled in a decade. Then a woman. Then a woman. And we all sit there and stare at the floor.

  “When I get home,” says the woman with the tattoos. “I am going to have the coldest beer you can possibly imagine.”

  “I bought ice cream,” admits the skinny woman.

  “You should get Baileys,” says the woman who doesn’t smile.

  “I asked to see it,” says the Indian girl. We are all quiet. “Just to be sure. It didn’t look like a person. Not even a little bit. Not like those religious people say. I did the right thing.”

  “Yes, honey,” says the woman with tattoos. “We all did the right thing.”

  I’ve never met any of these women before, and I will never see any of them after today. I don’t know their names and they don’t know mine. I’ve been on teams and in clubs my whole life, surrounded by people who are united by a common purpose, and I have never felt anything like this. Maybe it’s the gas, but until this moment, I have never felt such a kinship with a person who was not actually family. I love every person in this room, and I’m pretty sure that if they asked, I’d do anything for them.

  Anything, except have a baby.

  PART 3

  Now is the winter of our discontent.

  CHAPTER 19

  DR. MALCOLM HUTT DRIVES UP from London every Wednesday to meet with me in my living room. Our first meeting is the week after my abortion, the day after my follow-up appointment at the hospital. I’m healthy and not pregnant, and therefore I have decided it’s time I start talking with a psychiatrist. Dr. Hutt was on the rather short list of candidates. I was not expecting him to be available so quickly, nor was I expecting house calls, but apparently he’s some kind of bigwig who is nearing retirement and is looking for a challenge. That’s just great. For him.

  “Here’s the deal,” he says, balancing a travel mug of coffee on his knee as he sits on the chesterfield. His notes, or rather the blank paper that will eventually be his notes, are spread out on the coffee table in front of him. I am sitting on the love seat. It’s not what I expected. “You tell me the truth, and I won’t patronize you by asking dumb questions we both know the answer to, just to hear you say it out loud. Deal?”

  “Is that always your opening offer?” I ask. “Or am I special?”

  “You’re special,” he says. “I’m driving for two hours, after all, and your town appears to lack basic necessities like a Tim’s.”

  “The coffee shop o
n Main Street is really good,” I tell him. “And you’ll only have to tell Alma your order once. She’s never forgotten a thing in her life. Well, a thing that’s related to coffee.”

  “Good to know,” he says. “What are your biggest problems right at this moment?”

  His question takes me off guard, and I answer without thinking. He probably does that on purpose.

  “Waking up,” I say.

  “Because you forget what happened?” he asks.

  “No,” I say. “Because for a moment I don’t remember where I am or what I’ve been doing, and it’s like waking up in the hospital again.”

  “That makes sense,” he says. “What else?”

  “I’m overthinking everything,” I say. “What I say, what I do. Everything. It’s very annoying.”

  “And?”

  “I’m pretty sure I’m doing this wrong,” I say.

  “What does that even mean?” he asks. I glare at him, and he smiles. “Seriously, Hermione. I promised no stupid questions. Just explain it to me.”

  “I wish I could tell you what happened,” I say. “But I can’t. It’s not denial or willful blindness. It’s not that I’m ashamed. I’m really angry. And if I could tell you what happened, I would shout it from the rooftops.”

  “But you don’t remember,” he says.

  “It’s more than that,” I tell him. “I don’t remember what we had for dinner last Friday, but I remember eating. I don’t remember asking Santa for a bicycle, but I remember getting it on Christmas morning. This—my attack—it’s just this huge blank spot. I don’t remember anything, and so I can’t feel anything. Except, I should feel something. And I don’t.”

  “Would it help you if I said this was acceptable?” Dr. Hutt asks. “That it’s normal, even, in the face of lost time?”