On Thin Ice

by PJ Sharon

  I set down the half eaten cookie and focused on my hands, resisting the urge to tug at the ragged skin of my chewed cuticles. “What about forgiveness?”

  “What about it?”

  “Is there forgiveness for people who don’t protect children?” I immediately wanted to take back the question. I knew I was skating on thin ice and I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know the answer.

  “That’s a tough one.” She fingered her beads for a minute and then grasped the crucifix. “Forgiveness is always available. If someone is sorry for what they’ve done and they ask for it. Sometimes the hardest part is having a willingness to accept it.” Her eyes glowed when she talked about God. It was as if she knew Him personally—like He was her best friend. I wondered what that would feel like—to have God always on your side and there whenever you needed him. She continued on. “People do things that they think are so awful that they don’t believe they deserve forgiveness and the guilt keeps them separate from God. If you’re truly sorry for what you’ve done and you ask God to forgive you, then He will. But you have to have some faith to believe you’ve been forgiven, so you can move on and not be tempted in the same way again. Does that make sense?”

  “I think so. But what if someone does something wrong but it’s to protect someone else?” I might have been splitting hairs, but I’d seen the results of self-sacrifice. My mother had left college and given up the life she wanted to have children. Dad had sacrificed himself in the name of duty to God and country and he bore scars inside and out to show for it. Even the sister in front of me, who believed in God enough to give her life in service to Him, had given up on having a husband and family of her own. My situation seemed far less noble, but I was still faced with sacrificing a life for the greater good. They had all chosen to live with the consequences of their sacrifice and I needed to know if it was worth it.

  “The answer to that one is inside each of us. It’s a matter of conscience, I think. You have to weigh out the cost and the benefit and decide what you, as an individual, can live with.”

  “It comes down to mathematics, then? Cost/benefit ratio equals living with the end result?” I closed my calculus book and pushed it aside, dissatisfied by her answer.

  “It’s not quite that simple.” She ruffled my hair. “You’re smart. You’ll figure things out.” She cupped my chin in her hand and lifted my face to meet hers. “God loves you, Penelope Anne Trudeau. He wouldn’t give you choices without giving you the tools to make the right decisions.”

  “Can I ask you something?” Dark smudges ran under her eyes, showing the fatigue of answering a thousand unanswerable questions. “Why did you become a nun?”

  She studied the wooden crucifix that hung around her neck. “I wanted to help people, I guess.”

  “You could have become a doctor or a nurse...still had a family.”

  She was quiet for a moment fingering the beads. “It’s hard to explain, but I’ve always known I would serve God, even when I was little.” Her eyes scanned the room slowly, finally falling on the old maple bed frame that she had slept in as a child and I had inherited. “You know, my best memories of Dad are when I was a little girl and he would kneel beside the bed with me and teach me prayers at night. I felt so close to him then. It was like God connected us somehow. I think I’ve been trying to find that feeling again.” Her eyes glistened when she looked up, and then she smiled. “When I’m helping people...people who really need me...I get that same sense of closeness and purpose. Like there is something important that I’m contributing to.”

  I nodded, unable to think of another question or an argument for what she’d said. “I’m glad you’re happy.”

  “The first few years, when I joined the convent, it was hard. I was the youngest initiate there and the disciplined routine took some getting used to, but once I made it through and transferred to the mission in Africa, everything fell into place.”

  I shook my head and pushed the tray back to her, the stew only half eaten. “You are definitely not like any nun I’ve ever met.”

  “Why, because I don’t wear a habit all the time?”

  “That, and you...well...you seem so young.”

  She laughed, “Trust me; being young is an asset when you have long days and hard work ahead of you.” She looked at her watch. “Speaking of which, it’s almost midnight. You need to get some sleep. Six a.m. comes early.”

  “Yup.” I yawned.

  “I hope I helped.” She stood and bent over to give me a hug. “God’s in your corner, little sister. He wants you to be happy and healthy. But you have to want that for yourself, too.”

  “I know. I’m not really sure how to make that happen. It seems like everything in the world is working against me lately.” Exhaustion seeped into my bones and I suddenly felt like I was a hundred years old.

  “Ask God for guidance.” She picked up the tray and then turned in the doorway, “It’s true what they say—that God works in mysterious ways. The answers to our prayers can come when we least expect them.”

  Chapter 23

  Friday, September 10

  Only three weeks to show time. It gets harder every day to leave Mom’s side knowing it could be the last time I see her. But she keeps insisting that I go. I made all of my practices this week and oddly enough, I’m skating better than ever. George even complimented me on my Blues. Other than feeling tired, this pregnancy thing has me hungrier than I’ve been in a long time. I’ve eaten dinner with Dad and Marie every night this week and Mom seems happier, more at peace, less worried. I get full fast, but at least I don’t feel like throwing up after. It was one thing to induce vomiting to cut a few calories, but puking every morning involuntarily for the last month has cured me of any desire to vomit ever again. I think the nausea is finally passing. My complexion has cleared up too. Marie says that my skin has a radiant glow and I’ve had four good hair days in a row.

  Regardless of all of this good news and Marie’s talk, I scheduled the abortion for next Tuesday. I’m prepared to ask God to forgive me, but not to tell my parents that their little girl has ruined her life—and theirs. Sami’s going to drive me to the clinic, and then I’ll spend the day at her house until her mom comes home from work.

  I’ve thought this through and it really seems the best decision. I have to do what’s right for my Mom and Dad, for Carter, and for my future. I try not to think about the baby growing inside me, but I can’t help but wonder what he or she would grow up to be. What if I’m destroying the person who might one day find the cure for cancer?

  Irony is a heartless bitch.

  ∞∞∞

  I woke to the sound of my father screaming. This had occurred often throughout my lifetime, so I stuffed my head under my pillow and tried to ignore it. Between his nightmares and the lumbering snore that had driven Mom into a separate bedroom after Grampa Fred died, it was a wonder any of us got any sleep. I rolled over to block out the sound. Then I heard Marie’s voice and panic rose in my chest. I flew out of bed and ran down the stairs.

  “Call 911!” Marie rushed down the hall from Mom’s room. “Tell them we have a bleeding emergency.” I stood paralyzed, staring in the direction she had come from. “Penny! Do it. Now!”

  My nerves kicked in and my limbs began to work. I called for an ambulance and then joined my sister and father in Mom’s room at the end of the hall. Mom looked ghostly pale and wasn’t moving. “Is she...”

  “No. She’s unconscious.” Marie went around to the other side of the bed, a stack of towels in her hand. It was then that I saw it. Blood had soaked through her nightgown and pooled beneath her, spreading in a large red stain that covered the sheets and mattress.

  “What’s happening?” My heart drummed inside my chest and my voice escalated.

  “She’s hemorrhaging. I don’t know why, but it seems to be vaginal. Help me, Penny.” My father stood back against the wall, his eyes wide and unfocused, his jaw slack.

  I ignored my father and foc
used my attention on Marie, pushing down the terror that surged through me. “What can I do to help?” The smell of blood filled the air and my stomach curled in on itself. I will not throw up, I will not throw up. I clamped my jaw tight and swallowed, breathing shallow breaths.

  “When I turn her, stick these towels underneath her.”

  I followed instructions, my pulse thundering in my ears. The sound of sirens wailed in the distance as we wrapped my mother in layers of towels. We threaded them through her legs like a giant diaper, trying to absorb the blood as it drained out in dark clumps that turned crimson against the white cloth.

  “Dad. DAD!” Marie screamed until my father turned to look away from the blood pouring out of his wife’s body. “Go outside and wait for the ambulance.”

  He backed out of the room, moving in slow motion. A minute later I heard the sound of voices and heavy footfalls coming down the hallway. Two uniformed paramedics took over the scene. I backed out of the way and watched them work on my mother. They questioned Marie and loaded Mom onto a stretcher. I stood in the corner, numb, hearing only bits and pieces of what they were saying. “Pulse is weak, BP 90/60, severe blood loss.”

  The ambulance pulled away a few minutes later, my father following in his Jeep. He had recovered enough to give orders and wanted us to follow in a separate car so we could take shifts at the hospital. I stood in the driveway, wrapped in my sister’s arms, her voice crooning soft assurances against my hair. “It’ll be okay. She’s in God’s hands now.”

  I couldn’t speak through the lump in my throat. Was this God’s way of punishing me for being a coward? Was God angry because I didn’t have the guts to face the consequences of getting pregnant? If he wanted me to suffer, he’d done a damn good job.

  “Why?” The word came out in a strangled cry. “Why is God doing this to her—to us?” I looked into my sister’s eyes wanting an answer—demanding the truth.

  Marie’s face was pale and yellow under the street light, her eyes thick with tears. “God isn’t doing this, Penny. Mom got sick and she is dying. It’s the natural order of things, whether we like it or not.” She choked out a sob and then recovered, rubbing my back in circles and turning me away from the street. “Suffering is the hardest part of being human—being alive. But if there wasn’t suffering, we wouldn’t know the preciousness of life. I know it’s hard to understand, but everything in life is about balance. Life and death, darkness and light, sin and redemption...you can’t have one without the other. Not now, but someday you’ll see that there are gifts in every situation.” She walked me up the driveway towards the brightly lit house looming in the darkness. “Sometimes, the gifts are hard to find. But we have to be looking for them or we’ll never see them. And then hopelessness takes over.”

  We lingered in the kitchen of the house we’d each grown up in separately. With eight years between us, it was like we’d had different parents, different childhoods. But now, somehow we’d found a connection—a strange solidarity. Both of us stood to lose the only mother we had, and so we stood together—me grasping for answers, and her clinging to faith. I remembered something Grampa Fred had said once when I asked him about God. He said, God is simple to know, but He’s not easy to understand.

  My sister wiped the tears from my cheeks, “Let’s get changed and go to the hospital.”

  ∞∞∞

  I felt the clock tick past the 2 a.m., 3 a.m. and then 4 a.m. mark, sipping jasmine tea and dozing in the waiting room at the hospital. Marie and Dad were in the chapel waiting for news from the doctor. I opted to wait alone. They’d wanted me to go in and pray with them, but I just couldn’t make myself do it. Regardless of what my sister—the nun—had said, I was pissed at God. My mother didn’t deserve this. I’d known she was dying, but why torture her? Couldn’t God just let her die peacefully?

  The sound of rubber soled shoes on waxed tile had me lifting my head in anticipation. Marie and Dad approached, flanked by a Middle Eastern man in a white lab coat. Marie had on a long brown skirt and white blouse, her hair covered under the veil of what she called a wimple. With her face serious and plain in the glaring hospital light, she looked every bit the nun and much less like my sister. I set my cup down and stood, holding my breath for bad news.

  Dad had his arm around Marie’s shoulder and a pang of jealousy pricked my heart. “So how is she?” I asked, focusing all of my attention on the doctor.

  “She is stable for the moment. It is true that she lost a lot of blood, but we believe it is related to a hormonal issue.” His thick accent made it difficult to understand, so I cocked my head to listen closer. “Mrs. Trudeau is in peri-menopause. She experienced heavy bleeding as if she was having a menstrual cycle, only her uterine walls expelled all of the blood at once. I’m sure that the cancer and medications she’s been taking have complicated this condition. She is resting comfortably now. Tomorrow we will run some tests to determine if the cancer has spread to her uterus.”

  “Can we see her?” my father asked.

  “She won’t be awake for several hours. I suggest you all go home and rest. You can come back later this morning.”

  “I’m not leaving.” I recognized Dad’s stubborn tone.

  Marie came to my side and wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “Penny and I will go home, make some calls, and come back later with breakfast for you, Dad.”

  “Thanks Marie, I don’t know what I would have done without you tonight.” He rubbed his forehead and flashed a tired smile at my sister as if I wasn’t standing beside her.

  She hugged him and kissed his cheek, rewarded with a hug in return. Too tired to scream, I looked on silently wondering for the ten thousandth time, what had I ever done to this man to make him treat me like I was invisible?

  Chapter 24

  I spent most of Sunday at the hospital with Mom and Marie. We sent Dad home to get some rest, shower and change. He had argued, of course, but in the end, Mom and Marie won out.

  My mother sat up in bed, pale against the white pillows, but conscious and communicating. “Marie, why don’t you go down to the cafeteria and get something for you and Penny to eat?” By the conspiratorial look in her eye, it didn’t take a mentalist to know she wanted to talk to me alone.

  Marie kissed her forehead. “I’ll be back in a while. Do you want anything in particular, Penny?”

  “Whatever.” I couldn’t take my eyes off my mother, IV lines snaking out of her arm and an oxygen lead stuck up her nose. The last thing I wanted to do was eat. Marie disappeared out the door and the squeak of her black nun shoes drifted down the hall.

  “How are you doing, Sweet Pea? And don’t say ‘fine’.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re feeling better, I see.”

  “I’m sorry I gave everybody such a scare.”

  “I’m all right, really.” I ignored the twinge in my belly.

  The room got quiet after that as my mother studied me. “You seem different. Something...I don’t know. You look better than I’ve seen you look in a long time.”

  “Thanks a lot,” I said, with mock offense.

  She grinned at me and then winced. “Don’t make me laugh. It hurts when I laugh.” She reached her hand out to me. A memory of childhood came back in hi-def, her reaching out for my hand when we took long walks around the block, naming the trees and flowers in everyone’s gardens as we passed by the neighbor’s houses.

  I reached for her and our hands rested on the bed, fingers entwined, together again. “I need to tell you something, Penny.” Her eyes looked more gray than brown, as if the light were going out behind them. She squeezed my hand tighter. “Whatever you decide about skating, it’s all right with me.”

  “What are you saying?” I asked carefully.

  “I’m saying that I know your heart hasn’t been in it for a while. I’m sorry I pushed you so hard. If you don’t want to do it anymore, I understand.” The words came out slowly, as if she had to think and work for every syllable. “I only want wha
t’s best for you.”

  “I don’t want to quit.” I thought about this being my last chance to be honest with her. My voice dropped and I stared at the tiled floor. “I just don’t want to compete anymore.”

  She squeezed my hand again and closed her eyes. I could tell she was in pain. My stomach gnawed at me as if empathizing. “I know, Sweetie.” She dragged in another breath, her grasp on my hand weakening. “I want you to be happy...do what’s right for you...it’s the only way...be happy, Penny.” Her head rested on the pillow as if too heavy to lift, but when she opened her eyes, I saw a quiet strength rise to the surface from somewhere deep inside. “I want you to go to school tomorrow. Keep living your life. Do you understand?”

  “Mom, we don’t need to talk about this now. You need to focus on getting better.” The warmth of my hand against the coolness of hers made my heart ache.

  “I’m not going to get better, Sweet Pea. I don’t have much time and there are things I want to say.” She closed her eyes for a moment, and sucked in a breath. “I need you to know that everything I’ve done has been for you.” She must have seen me flinch, because she added. “I don’t regret a thing, Penny. Do you hear me? I’d do it all again just to see you have an amazing life—a future filled with good things.” Her voice grew soft, her breath labored.

  “I know, Mom. I understand.” I didn’t really, but all I could think about was easing her pain. I hated seeing her suffer like this, so far from the strong woman that had climbed trees and played tag with me when I was younger. If she’d asked me right then to help her die, I would have. I loved her that much. Or maybe I was that selfish. I couldn’t be sure.