A Leg to Stand On

by Colleen Haggerty

  11

  UNFORGIVABLE

  I received the call in the early-morning hours. “Hello?” I said, a pit forming in my stomach. I had inherited Mom’s fear of middle-of-the-night phone calls.

  “Colleen, everything’s fine,” Mom reassured me. I breathed a sigh of relief, happy to hear her voice. If everything was fine, her call could only mean one thing. “It’s a boy!” she said excitedly. “Molly had the baby. He was born just about an hour ago.”

  I sat up in bed and rearranged my covers. The lilt in Mom’s voice gave away her delight at her first grandchild’s birth. A big smile came to my face. I was flushed with excitement, too.

  “How is everybody doing?” I asked. My sister-in-law, Molly, had been on bed rest for the past six weeks for something I didn’t really understand.

  “Everyone’s doing well. There were no problems. He has ten fingers and ten toes. His name is Brendon.”

  “That’s great, Mom. How long will they be in the hospital?” I was trying to figure out how to rearrange my schedule so I could drive the two hours to see him. Then I said, “Oh, wait, today is Sunday. I can come down today!” My heart skipped a beat in excitement when I realized I could see my first nephew on his first day of life.

  “Wonderful. Just call before you leave.”

  “Okay, Grandma, I will,” I said in a joking tone. Mom had discussed at length how she didn’t like the title of grandma. Although she didn’t have an alternative yet, she at least knew her grandchildren wouldn’t be calling her that.

  “Oh, stop!” she said through her laughter. “I love you, honey.”

  “I love you, too, Mom.”

  On the two-hour drive to Bellevue, I was surprised at how nervous I was to be around a baby. During the drive, I smoked more cigarettes than usual. After an hour and a half of driving, an image of Molly going through labor flashed through my mind. I couldn’t help but remember myself in stirrups having my baby vacuumed out of me. I let out a gasp, old emotions flooding through me, and I suddenly burst into tears. I sent out a silent prayer to the child I’d given up: I’m so sorry, little one. I’m sorry. Wait for me till I’m ready.

  At the hospital, looking for Molly’s room, the familiar antiseptic odor held a different memory, filling me with dread. I had both fond and horrid memories of being in the hospital after my accident. I loved my physical therapist and the nurses, but I hated all the pain I experienced and how my accident had forever changed my life. I took a deep breath and wiped away the tears before knocking on Molly’s door.

  Mom opened the door, a little bundle of white cotton in her arms.

  “Come in,” she said in a hush, retreating back into the room. Molly was in bed. My brother Kevin was sitting in a chair next to her, holding her hand. My mom’s new husband, Larry, was sitting in the corner reading a magazine. I was intrigued to see my mother hold a baby. She was so confident, so strong, and she oozed Mama Bear energy. Is that what I would look like as a mother? I walked up to look at Brendon sleeping in Mom’s arms. “Ooooohhhh, he’s so tiny,” I remarked. My breath became shallow.

  The room was uncharacteristically quiet for my family. As I gave my hugs, hellos, and congratulations, everyone spoke in whispers. I was shown the sink and instructed to wash my hands before holding the baby. Kevin and Molly looked tired and were softly talking to Mom and Larry about lunch plans as I washed my hands. I walked over to Mom and stood in front of her swaying body.

  “Do you want to hold him?” she asked. I nodded my head tentatively and held out my hands.

  “Why don’t you sit down to hold him, honey.” I walked over to the plastic rendition of an easy chair, sat down, took a deep breath, and held out my arms. Mom placed Brendon in my arms and slid her arms out from under mine. He was wrapped tightly in a soft cotton blanket, with just his head and upper chest exposed.

  He was so light. He barely weighed an ounce. I couldn’t believe his skin, so pure and white. His eyelashes were tiny and blond; I could see the veins in his eyelids. His diminutive hands were folded, as if in prayer, against his chest. The weight in my chest felt like love and sadness all at once. My throat constricted and seared with pain. Tears filled my eyes. Is this what I gave up? What would my son have looked like? How horrible am I that I snuffed out one of these? My baby would be almost four years old by now.

  I looked up at Molly and Kevin. “He’s beautiful,” I whispered, almost too overwhelmed to speak. I knew they could see my tears. Were they more than what was appropriate? Were they confusing to them? I couldn’t hold them back. I just let them flow. Brendon was so beautiful, so incredibly angelic.

  I’m so sorry. God, I’m so sorry, I said inside my heart. My faith, faded though it had been in recent years, lived ever-present just under the surface of my awareness. Though there were days when I seriously questioned whether there was a God, at this moment, I was sure I was in the presence of the sacred.

  Brendon started wriggling and making noises, and I didn’t know what to do. I looked at Mom in a panic. Taking my cue, she said, “Here, let me give him to Molly. He might be getting hungry.”

  I sat still, reeling from my few moments with Brendon. I wanted to keep holding him, but he scared me. How could something so little scare me? Then I remembered how my eight-week-old fetus had scared the shit out of me. Small things can be very scary. Brendon was born on December 2nd. I had finals and end-of-the-quarter papers to write. Back at school, after my tender day with Brendon, I was melancholy, and the familiar sadness I had lived with since the abortion returned full force. After Rob and I broke up, I stayed in Seattle and worked at the stock brokerage firm. I’d taken three years off before going back to school to finish my degree and thought I was doing well now. But in the aftermath of what was such a miraculous event for my brother, for my family, I was alone in my sadness all over again. That day with Brendon had put a chink in my carefully crafted Super Girl armor, allowing the sadness I usually kept in check a tiny escape route. I longed to talk about this sadness. I had been back at school for a little over a year by this time, but I hadn’t developed any close friendships. The people closest to me, my family, had no idea I had had an abortion. I had told only a few friends back when it had happened, but in their minds, it was long over—no big deal.

  I agreed to spend the two weeks of my Christmas break with Kevin and Molly in Bellevue, helping with the baby. After a grueling week of finals, I packed my bag and headed south.

  Molly had married my brother only ten months prior, and I didn’t know her very well. Kevin was at work all day, which allowed time for Molly and me to get to know each other through this lens of motherhood. While she was learning how to be one, I was learning what I gave up.

  I learned babies don’t sleep when we want them to. Because she was nursing, Molly bore the brunt of Brendon’s irregular sleeping pattern. I was a deep sleeper, so I usually slept through the middle-of-the-night feedings. I woke up each morning to make Kevin his coffee as he got ready for work. If Brendon woke up, I held him and kept him quiet for as long as I could so Molly could sleep. I followed Molly’s lead and swayed back and forth, dotting each rocking motion with tiny bounces. I kissed his nose and his toes, surprised at my natural ability to hold and care for this infant. My first few days with Brendon were accompanied by an ache in my heart. I was afraid it would explode and expose the truly horrible person I was to have given up an opportunity for all this. But I felt like Brendon was protecting me from a full-on emotional crash. Looking into his face caused this ache, but his innocent, beguiling stares back at me took away the pain.

  I loved diving into his endlessly deep-blue eyes. He reminded me of an old man, with years of accumulated wisdom. Brendon just stared at me as if he held a secret. I searched, wondering if he knew the soul I’d snuffed out. Did you know him? Did you talk to him? Is he mad at me? I whispered to him when we were alone. I felt silly wondering this, but Brendon felt like he was still a part of God’s world, still attached to heaven.

&nbs
p; Molly didn’t leave the house often, but on one occasion, when she left Brendon in my care for an hour, he had a crying fit. No amount of rocking and swaying helped. I didn’t have a bottle to give him since he was nursing, and he didn’t want his pacifier. I remembered seeing Kevin maneuver Brendon during similar crying fits. I tried some of his moves: turning him facedown with his stomach over my forearm, lifting him up in the air above my head, patting his back with more force than seemed appropriate for a baby. Nothing worked. Brendon’s howls intensified. I started crying, too. “Please stop. Please just stop now.” I begged and pleaded, and this wise little baby turned into a menace, taunting me, showing me what a horrible mother I would have been. I couldn’t even comfort a crying baby. I ping-ponged from feeling guilty to thinking, It’s a good thing I gave up motherhood. I would have been a lousy mother.

  The day before I was to go back to college for winter quarter, we were all sitting in the living room. Molly was on the couch holding Brendon, and Kevin was sitting next to her, sipping coffee. I sat across from them noticing how they looked like the perfect family. Will I ever have that? I silently lamented, just beginning to feel again the yearning for a family of my own, which I thought I’d long ago dismissed as a possibility.

  “Colleen, Molly and I want to ask you something.” Kevin put his arm around Molly’s shoulder.

  “Sorry, guys, I can’t stay any longer,” I joked. “I have to get back to school.” We all laughed. Although we all knew I was kidding, a huge part of me wanted to stay in this baby bubble. Time slowed down here.

  “Actually, we’d like you to be Brendon’s godmother.” Kevin eyes twinkled and looked into mine.

  I gasped. My heart started racing. I had a million questions. “What does that mean?”

  “Well, we know you don’t go to church much anymore …” I flushed with guilt hearing him speak so openly about what I had never admitted to the family. Because being Catholic was such a huge part of my family’s identity, I’d simply stopped talking about church and hoped that no one had noticed. “But we feel like you’re a very spiritual person. We want you to be able to share your beliefs and values with Brendon.” Really? Me? But I’m such a louse. If you knew what I’d done, you wouldn’t be asking me this. There was no way I could reveal my secret, though, especially to Kevin and Molly, and especially now that they had a precious baby. Then something stirred in me. From beyond the deep, remorseful, dark place within me came a small voice, reminding me I did have value and goodness to give. I had been finding my own way spiritually, trying to form a new relationship with God that made sense to me. And as a person learning to live life with one leg, perhaps I did have something of strength and resilience to share with this little guy.

  “I’d be honored,” I said through my tears. I looked over at Molly, holding my godson, my godson, and I smiled. I walked over to the couch, sat next to Molly, and the four of us hugged.

  Brendon’s baptism was a month later, at the same church in which I was baptized. During the ceremony I felt proud to hold this place of honor on the altar, sharing this moment with Kevin and his family. But I couldn’t ignore the pit growing in my stomach, leaving me hollow. I had to force myself not to fall into the abyss of guilt and sadness. If I had been alone in the church with God, I would have thrown myself on the altar and begged his forgiveness. Whether I fully believed in him or not, Catholicism was the only path I knew for making amends for sin. But I stood still. The church was full of smiling, happy people, so I steeled myself behind my armor and smiled along, willing my eyes to sparkle instead of cry.

  The gnawing guilt followed me back to Bellingham. Since I had no one to talk to, I found myself ruminating and condemning myself for the abortion instead of studying. I spent long hours wondering about what my own baby would have been like instead of writing my papers.

  One morning I woke up and knew that I needed to make this right with God. I had never been to confession for my sin of abortion. True, I hadn’t been attending mass often, but I grew up a good Catholic girl, and I figured I had earned the right to talk to a priest. I decisively called up the local Catholic church and made an appointment. I needed to move past this guilt, and the only way I knew how to was to seek God’s healing.

  A few days later, I was sitting on a small couch in the rectory, waiting for the priest to arrive. A comfortable plaid easy chair was waiting for him, too. Shelves were littered with ecumenical books, and plaques with bible quotes lined the walls: “Blessed be the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.” The room smelled heavy with the scent of age and old incense. My hands were sweaty, so I kept wiping them on my jeans in case he shook my hand when we met. My heart was racing. Can I really confess? Can I really tell him what I did?

  The door opened quickly, and he ambled in. He was balding and wearing glasses. He smelled like Ivory soap. His jowls hung over a black-and-white collar. Yep, he was every inch the parish priest.

  “Hello, Colleen.” He offered his hand, and I shook it, hoping mine wasn’t too sweaty.

  “Hello, Father Dempsey. Thank you for seeing me.” My shaking voice gave away my nerves. I resisted the tears, wishing this feeling would go away. I paced inside myself, like a caged animal.

  “We’re lucky to have such a beautiful day in January, aren’t we?” Father Dempsey said.

  What? We’re going to chitchat? I thought I’d just blurt out my confession.

  “Yes, we are.” My feeble smile gave away my discomfort. I looked around the room.

  He looked right at me. His eyes were soft, but not as kind as I needed. “What can I do for you, Colleen?”

  “I, um, I want to make a confession.” I swallowed hard. I wiped my hands on my jeans.

  “Yes, whenever you’re ready.”

  “Four years ago, well, um …” The words didn’t want to come out. I hadn’t told many people, and it didn’t feel right to use the word “abortion” in association with me. “I had … I had an abortion.” I hung my head in shame. Dread enveloped me. I was scared shitless now that I’d told him. What would he say? I desperately wanted him to come over and hug me and tell me I wasn’t a piece of crap. I wanted him to live out the Christian values of forgiveness and compassion that were heralded around the cluttered room in books and art.

  “I see.” Silence.

  Unbearable silence.

  “I was twenty years old,” I said, needing to fill the space, which in itself felt so accusatory and scornful. I needed him to understand why. “I had lost my leg a few years before, and I was in school, and I just couldn’t have the baby.” I was crying now and trying desperately not to. I could hardly talk because my throat was closing up, like it wanted me to just shut up.

  He handed me a tissue. He didn’t say a word. I wiped my eyes and my nose and looked up at him. “What can I do to be forgiven?”

  “In the eyes of God, Colleen, abortion is an unforgivable sin.” He sat in his chair like a statue, unmoving. His eyes turned hard. I had to look away.

  My heart started beating wildly, and a combination of terror and rage started to rise from my stomach into my throat. What the fuck is he talking about? I thought I was supposed to be able to confess my sins and be forgiven. I’d pushed through some significant doubts and real reservations to make this appointment, trusting that, though I had not been practicing regularly, my childhood faith would still be there for me if I returned to it. Now I was learning that what I had done was completely, utterly unforgivable. I’d never heard this before. Didn’t even inmates on death row receive forgiveness for their heinous crimes if they repented? I looked back at him. His hands were together, fingertip to fingertip, just under his chin. His eyes were unchanged. My heart was completely broken.

  “Colleen, I understand this isn’t what you want to hear, but …” I couldn’t hear anything else he said. We talked about fifteen minutes more, but I don’t remember a word. While he was talking to me about the church and God and
Jesus, I was thinking about how I just wanted to run the hell out of that room. I wanted to get in my car and have a cigarette. I just wanted to go back to my house and light up a joint and disappear from the pain I was carrying in my chest cavity. I replied to whatever he said to me during those minutes, but I couldn’t give voice to what I really wanted to say. I couldn’t slap him across the face like I wanted to because even now, sitting unforgiven across from this cruel man, I was still a good Catholic girl.

  “Colleen, I have another appointment coming in a few minutes. Shall you and I schedule another appointment so we can talk about this some more?” He reached over to grab his black leather calendar as if there were no question I’d say yes.

  “Sure.” Not one chance in hell. We set up the appointment, and I wondered if he knew, as strongly as I did, that we wouldn’t be meeting again.

  I couldn’t walk out of his office fast enough. Once I was outside the rectory, I gasped for fresh air, for relief, and I started to bawl. Keep it together till you get to the car, Goddamn it. But I couldn’t. The floodgates had burst, and I was along for the ride. I couldn’t get to my car quickly enough. Through my tears, my mouth watered at the thought of a cigarette. My hands were shaking so much I had trouble grasping the keys at the bottom of my purse. When I got inside my car, I uncharacteristically locked the doors. I didn’t want him to be able to come after me. I didn’t want anything Catholic to seep into my car. I drove away as fast as I could. I was crying too much to have a cigarette, so I just drove to the closest beach.