by Nicole Maggi
Lise held my hand the whole time.
I didn’t ask her to, she just did it. After a while it felt like a natural extension of my arm. Me and Lise, connected. Her, here, for me.
When it was all done, and I was cleaned up, we sat back in the chairs. Alanna tapped the papers in my file into order and laid it on the counter. “Everything I see on the ultrasound indicates it’s safe to terminate. It’s your choice, Mellie. Do you want to go ahead with the surgical abortion?”
“Yes,” I said. It was easier to say this time.
A glance passed between Alanna and Lise.
“The thing is,” Alanna said, “because you’re sixteen—”
“I know there’s no parental permission law in Colorado,” I said. “My dad talks about it, how we need to protect girls from making bad decisions for themselves.”
“That’s true.” Alanna shifted in her chair. “You do not need your parents’ permission to have the abortion. But…” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “There is a notification law. While you don’t need their permission, I am required by law to tell your parents you are having an abortion forty-eight hours before you do it.”
The air sucked out of the room.
I think the clock stopped ticking.
My world stopped.
I couldn’t breathe.
“Can’t you—?” It came out in a whisper. It sounded so far away, like it wasn’t even my voice.
Alanna shook her head. “I can’t make an exception. The state medical board could find out and shut down the clinic. You could get permission from a judge,” she went on. “But we would have to get the process started now so you could meet with a judge as soon as possible.”
Meet with a judge. I thought about all the judges my father has had over for dinner in the course of his campaign for state senate. Judges from all over his district and beyond. They’re supposed to be apolitical, but based on the conversations I’ve overheard, they aren’t. How could I expect them to grant my petition when they all know who my father is and what he stands for? “I can’t meet with a judge,” I said. The pitch in my voice was rising. “My parents will find out. I can’t trust that they won’t. My father is too connected.”
“I’m so sorry, Mellie,” Alanna said. “The closest state without any parental involvement laws is New Mexico. If we could get you to New Mexico—”
“How is that supposed to work?” I didn’t mean it to come out so angry, not when these two amazing, kind people were trying so hard to figure this out for me. But I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t get to New Mexico. The only time I’d been allowed to go anywhere overnight without my parents was either to a sleepover at Delia’s house or a church retreat. And I couldn’t expect Delia to cover for me. Not now. Not for this.
All the strength I’d felt earlier seeped away, taken from me by the faceless men who’d all made this law, who’d sat in their oak-paneled room and judged teenage girls they didn’t know anything about.
Except they weren’t faceless.
They all wore one face.
My dad.
I pulled my hand away from Lise’s. “I…I have to go. My parents…they’ll expect me home.”
“Mellie—”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I said, answering the question that Alanna had left dangling. “I’m caught either way. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
I ran down the hall, back to the waiting room where Daphne was nursing Sadie, singing to her. My insides twisted. She looked up as I flew across the room, opening her mouth to say something, but I was already out the front door before I heard what it was.
Outside, the night was dark and cold, the stars clear and calm against everything that stormed inside me. The parking lot was empty now. The streets were deserted. I was truly alone. I looked up to the heavens. Once upon a time, the sky held limitless possibilities. Now it felt like it was closing in on me.
I wanted to scream.
I’m so sick of being afraid.
But I don’t know what comes after the fear.
Signed,
Mellie Rivers
March 14
Close to dawn
Dear Ms. Tilson,
Years ago, before my dad started treating me like a “young lady,” he took me and my brother hunting. I wasn’t allowed to carry a gun, but I was allowed to hold and shoot my dad’s when a deer appeared. I missed. Jeremy got super pissed at me because the gunshot startled the deer and all the other animals in the forest, so we didn’t bring anything home. “Why’d you let her shoot?” he complained to my dad, whining that if he’d been given the chance, he wouldn’t have missed and how we’d all be eating venison for the next two weeks.
Jeremy and I bickered for so long that my dad finally grabbed both our elbows and wheeled us back toward the car, saying he was sick of listening to us and we’d lost the privilege to hunt with him for the rest of the season. (I never got invited again.)
As we got closer to our car, a strange sound echoed through the trees. It was a high-pitched keen. We all froze. The sound rose and fell, like some kind of inhuman symphony. We followed it until we found a coyote caught in a bear trap. The lower part of its back leg was half torn off. Blood stained the leaves on the forest floor. The coyote keened again. Being so close, I could feel its pain, like its wail was coming from my own heart. As we approached, the coyote raised its head off the ground and stared at us with wide, brown eyes that were slowly dulling. Pushing us behind him with one hand, my dad raised his rifle with the other. One clean shot later, the coyote lay still and quiet.
I can’t stop thinking about that coyote tonight. How the trap caught it and it lay there, dying, for who knows how long. I am that coyote. The jaws of that trap are around me now.
There is no way out.
New Mexico may as well be Neverland. If I have the abortion, my parents will know. If I don’t have it, they will know. Either way, I’m caught with no escape.
I am not suicidal. I want my life. I want it so bad I can taste it on my tongue. I want my life.
I need a way out of the trap,
the one
clean
shot
that’s going to put me out of my misery.
Signed,
Mellie Rivers
March 14
Dear Ms. Tilson—
I’m writing this before the second period bell. I haven’t seen Mellie yet. I haven’t seen her or talked to her since she ran out of the clinic last night. I wanted to call her, but she doesn’t have a cell phone and I couldn’t call her house. Not without raising suspicion. And I couldn’t find her in the halls this morning. I’m worried about her. Cara cornered me as I passed by her locker in my search for Mellie. “Are you okay?” she asked. “You look weird.”
“I am weird.” I peered over her shoulder at the streams of kids moving past us in the hallway.
“No, I mean, more than usual. Lise. Lise.” She snapped her fingers in front of my face and I looked at her. “You’ve been completely distracted lately. I don’t mind you hanging out with other people, but I miss you. And you’re making me worried.”
I met her gaze and saw the real concern in the blue depths of her eyes. I let out the breath I’d been holding all morning. “You’re right, Cara. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize, just tell me what’s up.”
“I can’t.”
She sighed overdramatically, and I put my hands on her shoulders. “I know that sucks, but it’s all I’ve got right now. Let’s just say…someone I care about needs my help. That’s what’s distracting me.”
“Oh, Lise.” She leaned her head so her cheek touched my hand that was on her shoulder. “Of course it is. That’s who you are. That’s why I love you.”
Writing t
his now, I think if I was in Mellie’s situation, I’d tell Cara what happened. I’d tell Rowan. I’d tell my mom. I’d be able to tell so many people and have their support and love.
But Mellie is all alone.
I have to see her today.
—Lise
March 14
Dear Ms. Tilson,
I didn’t sleep at all last night, and this morning I had an idea. I went to the bathroom I share with my siblings and opened the medicine cabinet. What’s in here that I can use to get rid of this baby? I thought.
Would half a bottle of aspirin do it? Laxatives? If I broke into my dad’s liquor cabinet and drank an entire bottle of gin, would that do it? What would get rid of this baby without taking me down with it?
I stood in front of the medicine cabinet for so long that Bethany practically broke the door down banging on it and yelling for me to “Hurry up already!”
In the end, I swallowed a fistful of aspirin, a few expired prescription painkillers from when Hannah had her appendix out, half a bottle of cough syrup, and some Imodium, and then chugged two glasses of orange juice because the pamphlet from the PCC said too much vitamin C is bad for the fetus.
I was reaching for my coat when the first wave hit.
My bowels clenched. I dropped my coat and ran to the downstairs bathroom. “Are you okay?” Bethany called after me. I made it to the bathroom just in time. As I sat hunched on the toilet, my stomach churned upward. I grabbed the wastebasket and vomited into it. Bethany, who had followed me, backed out of the doorway. “Oh my God. Gross. Mom!”
“No, not Mom,” I gasped in between the second and third wave of sick. But it was too late. A second later, my mother appeared. She waved Bethany away, telling her to get herself and the girls to school, and bent over me, rubbing my back and murmuring, like she did when I was little. I would’ve cried at her kindness if I hadn’t been vomiting so hard. I wanted to curl into her, have her tell me I was going to be okay, even though I wasn’t.
My insides were on fire, pain twisting its way up and down my intestines. Surely, surely, the baby was going to come out along with everything else inside me. But then my mother would see the blood and she’d know…
I shuddered. Mom pressed a cool washcloth to my forehead. “I’m going to replace this bag and I’ll be right back,” she said, whisking away the foul wastebasket. The instant she left, I reached out to shut the door behind her. I balled up a bunch of toilet paper to wipe myself, prepared to see blood.
There was no blood.
Just the brown and yellow stain of shit and piss.
I wiped again, so hard my skin burned. Not even a drop of red. Maybe it would take a while? Maybe it was still coming? But deep down I knew it wasn’t. Deep down I knew there was no easy way out for me, no clean shot to put me out of my misery.
The door creaked open. “I called the school,” Mom said, sliding the newly lined wastebasket in front of me. She was just in time too. She rubbed my back as I heaved. When I was done, she stepped back and appraised me. “Do you think it’s something you ate?”
Thinking fast, I said, “There were crab cakes at that art opening last night. Maybe that.”
“Oh, honey.” Mom pushed a loose strand of my hair, dampened with sweat, behind my ear. “We live on a mountain in a landlocked state. You should know better than to eat crab.”
“Thanks for the sympathy, Mom.”
She laughed, a kind, generous laugh that she only let out when she wasn’t doing a million things at once. My heart twisted with my gut. I missed that mother. I wanted the mother I could be truthful with, who I could ask what happened when she had her abortion, if it was really so horrible or if it was the best decision she ever made.
But I don’t have that mother.
Lise has that mother.
I felt empty, my stomach only a dull ache and not a fiery pit of pain. “Give me a minute to clean myself up, okay?”
“I’ll make you some tea.” She took the dirty wastebasket and closed the door behind her.
I wiped myself one more time—still no blood—and flushed the toilet. I’d been so stupid, swallowing a bunch of pills that had no hope of aborting this baby. I was going to have to do it the hard way. I turned on the water in the sink and leaned against the cold porcelain, listening to the water run and run and run…at least I’d gotten out of school today. I wasn’t sure I could face Lise. I couldn’t be as strong as she wanted me to be, and I didn’t want to see the disappointment in her eyes.
Mom asked me if I wanted to lie on the couch and watch TV or if I wanted to lie in bed with her iPad. We kids aren’t allowed to have our own iPads, but sometimes Mom will let us borrow hers, like if we’re out to dinner and Joanie starts to get whiny. I chose the iPad in bed.
Mom tucked me in up to my chin, placed a cup of tea on my nightstand, and put the wastebasket next to the bed. I was pretty sure I was all emptied out, my guts and my heart. My chest felt hollow.
“I have errands to run—will you be okay by yourself?”
“I think I’ll be okay.”
She gave me a sympathetic look. “Are you sure? There are some things I need to do for your dad’s campaign but—”
“Mom, go. I’m fine.” Both of us knew what we weren’t saying: Dad’s stuff was more important than a sick teenager.
“Okay. I’ll be home around lunch.”
I listened to her footsteps on the stairs, the creak of the closet door as she got her coat, the whoosh and slam of the front door as she left.
I’m writing this all alone. I have the entire house to myself. That never happens. It’s too bad I’m too weak and nauseous to enjoy it.
Beneath the aftermath of the pills, I recognize the familiar nausea of morning sickness. It’s still there, clinging to my insides, growing stronger inside me as I fade away.
Mom forgot to set the parental controls on the Netflix on her iPad, or she figured I’m a good girl who wouldn’t watch anything she disapproves of. And sure, I’m going to watch as many episodes of Parks and Recreation as I can before she gets home, because Dad has never approved; he thinks Leslie Knope is far too liberal. But first there’s something else I need to look up on the internet. It’s a good thing I overheard Dean Frasier telling Jess Niles how to wipe your search history clean in French class recently. He didn’t want his parents to find out he searched for gay porn. Apparently Jess Niles is allowed to have an iPad, even if his parents have no idea he’s gay.
Oh—please don’t share that. I don’t want to be responsible for outing him.
I wonder how many other kids at school are living double lives and hiding secrets from their parents.
Signed,
Mellie Rivers
March 14
Dear Ms. Tilson—
I’m really, really worried about Mellie.
She wasn’t in school today (which you know since she wasn’t in class). I should’ve called her last night after the clinic, made up something to get her on the phone. But I figured I’d see her in school, and we could figure out together what she’s going to do.
But she wasn’t here. I have no idea what is in her mind, and I am so worried, Ms. Tilson, so freaking worried.
So I went to her house.
I think I went to her house once, a long time ago when we were kids. I didn’t remember it until I was standing at the top of her driveway. Suddenly I had this sharp feeling I had been there before. It must’ve been in the winter, because I remember snow. I remember sledding down the hill from the top of the drive toward the house. And I remember her mother having hot chocolate for us when we came inside, red-cheeked and covered in snow, laughing.
I wish I could take us back to that day and warn Mellie about what would happen, give her some other destiny to avoid all this pain.
I descended the driveway, practicing what I was going to say with
every step. I’m dropping off Mellie’s homework, Mrs. Rivers. Is she here? I’d love to see her. By the time I got to the front door, I was shaking. It didn’t help that the door is huge. It belongs on a castle in England, not on a house in Colorado. It’s made out of heavy, dark wood, and you can totally imagine it at the mouth of a dungeon. No wonder she can’t tell her parents.
I rang the doorbell, hoping Mellie would answer. The English dungeon door creaked open. No such luck.
“Hi, Mrs. Rivers,” I said.
She squinted at me. “Hello, uh—”
“Lise,” I supplied. “Lise Grant. I’m a friend of Mellie’s from school. I…I used to be in Girl Scouts with her.”
“Oh, yes. Hello.” She pressed her lips together, maybe recalling the reason Mellie left Girl Scouts. I rushed on so she didn’t have too much time to think about it.
“Is Mellie here? I have her homework assignment from biology.”
“How thoughtful of you.” She pushed the English dungeon door open a little wider to allow me to step in. “She’s upstairs in her room.”
“Is she okay?”
“She’s better now. I think she ate some bad crab last night at that art show.” She said “art show” like it was a euphemism for “biker bar” or something.
“That’s too bad.”
“Were you there?”
“Um—yes. My boyfriend’s mother owns the gallery.”
“Your boyfriend.” Again, she said “boyfriend” as though what she was really saying was “the man you dance naked for at a strip club.”
“I didn’t eat the crab,” I said quickly, because I knew that wasn’t why Mellie was sick.
“Well, Mellie shouldn’t have either,” Mrs. Rivers said. “But she’s feeling better now. Go on up.”
“Thanks.”