by Nancy Adams
“I know it’s hard,” Calloway continued in his solemn tone, “but it’s got to be done. You say two weeks before you’re able to leave hospital. Then we’ll arrange it for then. Marya was very organized as you know. During her last days, she’d given all her instructions for her funeral—”
“She knew I’d be too weak to do it,” Sam interrupted.
“I’m sure she wanted to save you the heartache,” Calloway corrected. “Anyhow, all I need from you is a date. That’s it.”
Sam closed his eyes and felt the tears that were welling up inside of them.
“Make it the 26th,” he let out gently. “The day I get out. We should do it as soon as possible.”
Calloway let out a barely perceptible sigh of relief. Within the whole company, he was the closest to Sam. Therefore it had been given to him to arrange the date with Sam for Marya’s funeral. It was a painful business, reminding a grieving man of the very wound that had hurt him so badly. But it was something that had to be achieved.
“Thank you,” Calloway said to Sam.
“For what?” Sam asked, opening his eyes once more and returning his gaze to the sad tree.
“I don't know, really,” Calloway expressed. “I wasn’t looking forward to this. Until this morning I was merely coming to see how you were. But the board got wind of my visit and decided to give me this assignment—calling me an hour before I arrived in Denver.”
Sam smiled gently, his eyes misted with tears.
“Poor old John Calloway,” Sam remarked, “always the one that’s offered into the lion’s den to retrieve some meat. It’s the price you pay for being too close with me. You should keep your distance like the rest of the board.”
“I wouldn’t call us close, Sam. We see each other in person—what?—six times a year?”
“The last year it’s been eight times. This being eight.”
“Precisely,” Calloway let out with a grin. “Not exactly buddies!”
“But about as close as I have.”
“Yeah, I guess. Anyway, tell me—as we’re friends—there’s something that I’ve been meaning to ask.”
“And what’s that?”
“What was it like driving a supercar along mountain roads like a bat out of Hell?”
Sam smiled wider and turned from the window to face Calloway.
“Absolutely amazing,” he began. “I just kept pushing it and it gripped the road like a wildcat to a carcass. That was, until I crashed!”
Calloway laughed out loud and Sam grinned too. It was good to have someone in the room with him. Someone to communicate with. He’d felt as if he were fading a little, stuck in that hospital room all alone. He’d requested time to be on his own, so apart from Jess, he didn’t really get to see anyone. Bormann had come several days before, and once he’d gotten what he wanted, he hadn’t been back. Although in truth Sam was glad of that. Calloway’s friendly face, however, brought an element of respite to Sam’s withered thoughts and the rest of John’s stay was pleasant, the two chatting casually about bits and pieces, the conversation only touching on anything serious when Calloway had asked Sam when he was willing to come back to the fold.
Sam simply reiterated his earlier conversation with Bormann, when the new CEO had visited him. Namely, that Sam needed some time—possibly years—away from the company to get his personal life in order. He wanted to spend as much time with Jess as possible and make sure that the little girl had every parental need taken care of. He had only one thought: his daughter.
“Well, you go and be the best dad you can,” Calloway said to this, “and we’ll see you when she’s grown tired of her old man. My own daughters have just become teenagers and they appear to see their old man as naught but a cashpoint! I’m not even allowed in their rooms anymore, let alone able to read them a nighttime story. You go and enjoy little Jessy for as long as you can. Or as long as she’ll let you, anyway!”
Sam beamed warmly.
“I will, Johnny,” he answered. “I will.”
CHAPTER THREE
Four days had passed since Claire had sat sobbing over the positive pregnancy test in Beth's bathroom. She was now sitting with her best friend once again. This time, though, they were sitting in a Denver abortion clinic waiting room.
Claire was shaking all over, visibly nervous, and Beth was doing her best to soothe her friend, rubbing her back with her hand. Only two other people sat in the waiting room, a couple—male and female. Claire looked across and saw the same tepid terror that existed in her own eyes shining in those of the girl.
The nurse came over and handed Claire some forms to fill out and a pen. Claire took them with a shaking hand before gazing down at the forms incredulously, the words on the first page making no sense to her. Everything appeared to be happening as if in a dream, and Claire felt herself being carried along on an impossible tide of numb confusion.
“Would you like me to fill them in for you?” Beth inquired, nodding toward the forms.
“Yes, please,” Claire let out in a whimper, handing them to her friend.
Beth took them with one hand and removed the other from around Claire’s back. She began going through the questions, only asking Claire for information when she needed to. When she did, Claire would answer in a blank manner, and the dead tone in her friend’s voice made Beth very sad.
The moment that Claire had gotten confirmation of the pregnancy from her doctor two days ago, she had gone to Beth’s and told her friend that she wanted to get rid of the pregnancy. Moments later, Beth had begun making the arrangements over telephone and everything had moved along quickly. The first appointment with the clinic had been the day after Beth had called them and now, a day after that, Claire was due to have the procedure. Because she was less than a month gone, it wasn’t going to involve a major operation and would instead involve the taking of medication that would induce a miscarriage. When, during the previous day’s appointment at the clinic, the doctor had described the procedure, Claire had felt physically sick and Beth had had to hold her as she shivered. It sounded so cruel. Poisoning her body with pills in order to kill the unborn fetus.
Now, as she sat moments away from it all, Claire considered Sam within this predicament. She felt callous that she hadn’t told him. That he was having no say in it. After all, it was his child as well. Once or twice over the last days she had pondered the idea of calling him. Of explaining it all. But this was made all the more difficult by the fact that he was in the hospital recovering from a major car crash. She wondered whether she’d even be able to get ahold of him if she did try.
Plus, what was the point anyway? another voice inside her cried out. It was her body and she had convinced herself that this was the best thing to do. These were the facts: She was nineteen. About to start her second year at college. She was due to go to medical school in two years. She was going to be a doctor. This had been settled long ago in her mind. All of that would be lost if she were to have a child. And what kind of mother would she be? A teenager pretty new to the world herself with no college education, no profession, no partner. She would either end up working part-time in some supermarket followed relentlessly by financial need, or surviving on welfare or her parents. If she was lucky, maybe she’d get to enroll at night school once the child was older, perhaps in thirteen or fifteen years. Would that type of restricted life—one so unexpected only a month ago—make Claire eventually resent this child? Would she really be able to be a good mother in those conditions?
It might seem odd that within all this thinking not once did Claire consider that she could be supported by Sam’s billions. Not once did she consider turning to him. Essentially, she was driven by a singular mind. If she were to have the child and raise it, she would do so alone. In truth, most of us would consider immediately that they were holding within their womb the heir to a fortune and possibly, in Claire’s position, go further toward duplicitous aims. It wouldn’t be the first time that a child had been perceived as a go
lden egg. As opposed to say, a child!
It’s safe to say that Claire wasn’t at all like that. Anyway, her thoughts on a future of raising the child were merely hypothetical at this stage, and not something that she was seriously considering.
Most of all, Claire simply wanted to get on with her life. A life that she’d been planning since she was ten years old and her mother had taken her around the hospital to see where mommy worked. As June had guided her around the wards, Claire had loved that there were people whose job it was to make the sick better. To breathe life into death; light into dark. This path that she was on had been forged for so long that it was deeply ingrained in her. She felt the sudden pregnancy like a bomb going off inside of her, throwing her off course and opening up a schism in her life.
It was this that drove her to the clinic. It was a resolve that pushed her dreamily onward upon its tide. Even Beth had been shocked by Claire’s absolute resolve to terminate the unborn child and how quickly it had come to her. When Claire had originally come back from the doctor’s and instructed Beth to make plans for the termination, the friend had felt the need to at least ask Claire if she really wanted to go through with it. Claire had answered assuredly that she did. The seriousness on her face had convinced Beth not to ask again.
And so here they were.
Once the forms were filled in and handed over to the receptionist, it wasn’t long before Claire was called into one of the private rooms. It felt like a mere flash to her, everything moving along an insatiable current. Inside the room she was told to take her clothes off and get changed into a clinic gown, which was laid out on the bed. The nurse then left and Claire and Beth were all alone, standing in the middle of the sterile little room, the only items in it being a hospital bed against the wall, a little chipped chest of drawers against another wall and a little trolley that would probably be used to hold things during the procedure. In one of the corners was a little metal surgical sink. Nothing else ordained the place. No pictures, no plants, no windows. Merely four yellow-painted walls. The room was desolate and stunk strongly of disinfectant.
“Do you want me to help you get undressed?” Beth asked gently.
Claire walked trance-like toward the bed, picked up the gown and sat down. She gave a slight frown as she held it in her hands.
“I think I’ll be okay,” Claire finally said to Beth’s question.
Beth took this final opportunity to come and kneel down in front of Claire.
Looking her friend in the eyes and seeing the tears welling up in them, Beth asked, “You sure you’re up to this? We can postpone it for a few days—a few weeks even. See how you feel after that. I mean, it’s only four days since you found out.”
Claire closed her eyes tight. She didn’t say anything and the tears began to drop from her long eyelashes. Looking out into the gaping darkness of herself, she asked the expanse what she should do. Just as she had back on the cliff top when she and Sam had spent that last moment together. Just as she had when he’d crashed his car. She felt just as confused now as she had on those occasions, and she begged the expanse for a sign, for a light.
But it was never going to be that easy for Claire, and soon she realized that she had only herself at this time. Sure, she had Beth. But she could never give this decision to Beth. It was both unwise and cruel. No. It would entirely be up to Claire.
She opened her eyes and looked down at her shaking hands, the gown held in their trembling grasp. She didn’t feel right. Didn’t feel sure. Wasn’t that enough reason to walk away? There was a life inside of her. Don’t ask her how, but she already felt it. She felt a change. Even a fortnight ago, before she knew, before she was sure that her period was definitely late, she had felt some change inside of her. The subsequent late period and three tests that she’d taken at Beth’s had merely confirmed what she already knew inside: that something was happening to her.
And now she stood on the crest of a wave about to demolish this change. She was essentially a Christian and believed that all life was sacred and that hidden beneath everything was some kind of purpose that drove us on upon the thread of our fates.
Claire suddenly stood up, knocking the gown from her lap and onto the floor.
“Are you okay?” Beth asked her.
“I’ve got to go,” Claire muttered looking with terrified eyes at the door.
“Then we’ll leave,” Beth assured her. “I’ll square it with reception. You just walk out and get in the car.”
Beth reached into her handbag and took out her set of car keys, handing them to Claire. The latter took them and immediately left the room, walking straight past reception and out of the building. She then headed across the car park and got in Beth’s car.
Once she was inside, Claire felt something inside of her exhale with relief. She wiped her eyes and sat looking out the windshield at a little park. Her eyes were instantly taken by a group of children playing together, their mothers chatting on a little bench at the park’s edge. There was so much joy in those children as they capered about, like angels dancing within the light of creation. Through her tears, Claire beamed a wide smile and began laughing gently to herself. Seeing them so filled with joy, their happy smiling faces, gave her such relief. Relief that she was doing the right thing by not terminating the baby. It didn’t mean that she would be raising the child. She hadn’t even begun to think of the implications of going through with the pregnancy. I guess it’s a split case of raising the child myself or adoption, she mused.
Claire quickly shook her head and told herself that this could all wait. There were so many more immediate concerns. Such as if she would tell her mother. And if she didn’t, how she would hide it from her and the rest of her family. There was college too. It would be impossible to survive an academic year pregnant. In under nine months she would be taking her exams. What if my water breaks in the examination hall?
Again she shook her head and simply contented herself that, for the moment, she’d done the right thing. All the other decisions could be left for another day. There would be many of them, that was for sure.
Just then, Beth opened the driver’s side door. Claire’s gaze turned from the joyous children as she watched her friend get inside the car. Beth reached across and took Claire in her warm arms.
“You made the right decision,” Beth whispered into her ear.
“I know,” Claire let out, clutching her friend even more tightly.
CHAPTER FOUR
Juliette was wrapped in the warm embrace of Jules’s arms as they lay upon a sun lounger gazing up at the clear, starry night. They were in the garden veranda at the back of the guesthouse. The clouds of earlier had dissipated throughout the day and the two had a clear view as they gazed up at the cosmos stretching out above them.
The meal provided by the old lady—whose name it turned out was Bella—was what Juliette had expected; rice, beans, a little stew, some salad and tortillas. They had both eaten it at the kitchen table with the old woman—who was a widow of ten years living on her own—and Juliette had strung up a conversation with Bella while she and Jules ate. The old woman had told her that her family had lived in Santa Maria since a Spanish monk had climbed the hill over three hundred years before and decided to build a church there and start a settlement. She claimed that her ancestors were among the men who laid the first foundation stones of the church before bringing their families over from Spain to live under its divine glare. The old lady asserted that in all those years since, there’d not been one murder, or crime for that matter, not in all of Santa Maria’s long history.
“It is the church looking down upon us,” Bella had said with sincere assertiveness. “Shining its divine light upon our souls and washing us of impure thoughts.”
The old lady had then crossed herself and looked up at the ceiling. Juliette had smiled at the gesture. Jules had simply shrugged, tucking into his food with savage relish. Glancing at her husband, Juliette felt a sliver of light caress her soul. S
he enjoyed watching Jules eat when he was hungry. It reminded her of so many times when he had returned home from work when they’d been a family, tired and hungry. He’d forget his manners all together as he shoveled the food down into his gasping engine.
After the meal, they’d both taken a hot shower. Not together, of course. Their souls were still a little wary of each other and neither had pushed things toward reuniting their bodies as of yet. They’d held each other, for sure. They were holding each other now as they lay on the lounger. And they’d held each other both nights since Juliette had been released from hospital, curling up in bed together. But never had they truly become one.
By the time they’d finished showering, the sun was busy settling itself snugly into the horizon, and they’d both gotten dressed to go outside and enjoy it. After that, they’d walked downstairs and out to the pretty garden at the back of the house. They’d seen the small veranda through the window earlier while eating their food in the kitchen, and decided that after washing they’d sit out there.
Now, they were lying under the all-encompassing gaze of the moon and stars.
“Jules,” Juliette said from beside him, her frame nestled into his, making them one.
“Yes, Juliette,” he answered in a weary tone, the long bike ride having tired him out.
“I feel I need to explain something—”
“I told you in the hospital,” Jules interrupted without taking his eyes from the cosmos, “that you didn’t need to explain anything of the last sixteen years. I understand and forgive you unconditionally. However, I’ve also noticed that you’ve been chomping at the bit to get some things off your chest, so I guess you better have your say.”