“Tell me what’s wrong,” Brionney said. “Isn’t it time you trusted someone?”
“You said one day I’d be ready to tell you and that you would still love me. I’m not ready. I can never be ready. But I need to tell someone.”
Brionney leaned against the bed. “I’m listening.”
Now that the moment was here, the words came easily. “I aborted a baby once.” Karissa’s eyes were still dry, but inside, her heart was drowning in the tears she could not shed. Brionney didn’t gasp and pull away as she’d expected but reached out for her hand. Karissa let her take the hand, but she couldn’t watch her friend’s expression. Why wasn’t there a window to stare out of? Instead she focused her gaze on a bouquet of white lilies someone had set by her bed.
“I was sixteen when I found out I was pregnant. I was so afraid my father would kill me, or disown me, or something. I didn’t know what to do. I had absolutely no one I felt I could turn to. Everybody knew our family was above reproach, and my getting pregnant would have damaged our family’s reputation forever. I knew my father would look at me with his terrible eyes and tell me I would go to hell and that he never wanted to see me again.” There was a slight tremble in her voice. “Can you even begin to understand how I felt?”
“I can’t, not really,” Brionney said. “But I know you, and I think you must have felt desperate to do what you did.”
Karissa nodded. “Desperate doesn’t begin to cover what I felt. But I am trying to excuse myself, really. Because I know that being desperate doesn’t change what I did.” Silent tears gathered in her eyes. “A million times I’ve looked back and told myself that there were other options. I could have run away. I could have confided in one of my teachers at church or school. I didn’t have to kill my daughter.”
“It was a girl?”
“They didn’t tell me it was, but I heard two nurses talking, and I looked at my chart when the doctor left the room. They had it written there.”
“What about the father?”
Karissa’s brow furrowed, and she felt a stab of half-remembered pain shoot through her heart. “I loved him. He was a senior at my high school. He played football, and he was really good. He wasn’t a member, and I never dared tell my family I dated him.” She shrugged. “I could never date the boys at church because my father would talk to their parents and to the boys. He would give us a lecture every time we went out, and haul us over the coals if we missed our ten o’clock curfew by even a minute. Ten o’clock on weekends! When everybody else was just beginning to have fun, we had to go home.”
“He probably worried about something happening to you.”
“To me?” The words came as a snort. She met Brionney’s gaze briefly. “No, he worried about what effect we might have on his salvation. I don’t think he really cared about me. Oh, I know that sounds like a child speaking, but even now I can’t think of one time when he said he loved me.”
“Well, surely he wanted your family to make it to heaven.”
“Yes, by any means possible.” Karissa laughed dryly, but tears still filled her eyes. “I used to compare him and Satan; they seemed to have the same motives—glory and force. But do you know something? I never once heard him bear his testimony. I don’t think he really believes. I think he stays in the gospel because it looks good, or perhaps because that was how he was raised.”
Brionney didn’t reply, but Karissa saw the pity on her face. She plucked at the thin blanket on the bed before rushing on. “His name—the boy’s—was Tyler, and I thought he loved me. I thought he would take me away from my life and from my father. But it was just a game for him, I think, and it was over before I found out about the baby. We were together three months.”
“Did he ever know?” Brionney’s voice was soft.
“About the baby? Yes. I went to him later. I was beginning to show, and I was so scared that my father would find out.” Karissa took a deep, shuddering breath. “Tyler seemed glad to see me until I told him. Then he stopped talking all of a sudden. He asked me to meet him the next day at the mall. I did. He gave me money and the address of an abortion clinic. He said not to bother him again, and that if I did, he would deny it, or get a bunch of his friends to say that I was with all of them. I knew that whatever I chose, I was lost. Either my father would kill me, or God would. So I accepted the least scary option at the time. God wasn’t real to me, but my father was. Only—”
“Only what?”
“I know I will have to pay for my sin, and I know that I chose badly, not just for my daughter, but for myself. My father could have killed me or raised a big fuss, but it would have passed. I understand that now. But what I chose instead was to deprive my baby of her chance for life, and myself of a chance for salvation.” Karissa looked at her friend, her eyes wet and pleading. “Can you believe I did that, Brionney? Can you believe I killed a living person?” Her voice broke, but she continued unevenly. “What was I thinking? Sometimes when I’m really busy, I almost forget, but then it all comes back. If Malcolm knew, he’d hate me. I don’t think he could ever forgive me. And why should he, when I don’t know if I can forgive him for not being there when I needed him yesterday?” She rubbed at her eyes with her hands. “Now my second child is gone, and I don’t know if my commitment to our marriage is strong enough to take this second death.”
Brionney gave her a little shake. “You can’t think that way. There’s still a chance your baby will live. Karissa, back then you were just a child, a scared, lonely child. It was a mistake. A terrible, dreadful mistake, but you can’t blame yourself any longer.”
“But I am to blame!” Then more quietly she added, “Please, let’s not talk about it anymore. I’ve told you, and now you understand what this baby means to me. I thought maybe God was going to take pity on me, but I see it’s impossible for me to ever be happy in the way that you and Jesse are.” She felt the tears envelop her, bitter and stinging, sliding down her face. “Why didn’t my father ever bear his testimony?” she asked.
Brionney didn’t know.
* * * * *
After hearing Karissa’s painful confession, Brionney’s heart was in turmoil. Karissa had aborted an innocent baby who had depended on her for life! There was a deeply ingrained part of Brionney that cried out at the injustice and claimed there was no redemption for such a heinous act. To her, pro-choice activists were people who wanted to spend their money and keep it at the same time. They claimed a woman’s choice superseded that of an unborn fetus. But hadn’t they made their choice when they agreed to a physical relationship? Brionney believed emphatically that they had. If you don’t want to be pregnant, she thought, you practice abstinence. That is the choice. Once a baby is conceived, then its rights must come first.
There was another argument, Brionney knew, that women should have the same freedom as men to have relationships without responsibilities. But women, no matter how disguised, were not men, and they had, like it or not, the divine power of bearing children. Why would they want to be equal to men? To lose or transfer this power? Besides her eternal relationship with Jesse, Brionney knew there was no greater or more precious bond than that between mother and child. She remembered the miracle, the extraordinary feeling of newness, the responsibility that came with creating new life. How could someone destroy that glorious, unequaled feeling within the lifeless walls of an abortion clinic?
Yet here was Karissa, silently torturing herself year after year. Not even hell could exact a greater punishment. Compassion instead of condemnation filled Brionney’s heart.
“I have to help her,” she said to herself.
“Is she okay?”
Brionney hadn’t realized she had said the words aloud until Delinda Goodrich spoke to her. “She’s fine, but we won’t know about the baby until later. The doctor’s going to do another ultrasound.”
Delinda simultaneously twisted two thick rings on the blunt index fingers of both hands. She used her thumbs, twirling the precious stones a
round and around. “Landsakes!” she exclaimed, darting a glance toward Karissa’s door. Her long earrings swung back and forth. “Who could imagine such a thing happening? I can hardly believe it.” She turned her soft eyes on Brionney. “Is there anything we can do? Meals? A blessing?”
Brionney shook her head. “I’m the one who cooks, and it’s ridiculous for you to drive forty minutes when I’m perfectly capable. And she’s had a blessing. We just need to wait now.” Then she thought of something. “Look, Delinda, there may be some way we can help Karissa. She has some questions about God and forgiveness. When you come visiting teaching during the next few months, maybe you could focus on that? You know, forgiveness. Just a little at a time.”
“Is there any particular thing you’d like me to discuss?” Delinda asked intently.
Brionney hesitated. No, she couldn’t breach Karissa’s confidence. “Follow the Spirit. I think Karissa is close to wanting to come back to church. Maybe we can help her.”
Delinda nodded and disappeared into Karissa’s room. As the door closed behind her, Brionney walked to the waiting room to see if Jesse and the girls had finished with church. One of the babies inside her stomach moved against her side, and she rubbed the spot, feeling an unidentified body part. The baby moved again.
This silent communication brought back Karissa’s dreadful secret with undeniable force. Was there any forgiveness for what Karissa had done in her youth? If it was in my power, I would forgive her, Brionney thought. But I could never forgive myself.
It was always harder to forgive yourself.
Chapter Fifteen
The ultrasound room was white, or at least it seemed so at first to Malcolm. When he looked closer, he could see the walls were papered and held a faint but intricate wheat design that was only visible if he concentrated on it. When he didn’t, it faded again into a bleak white. But the whiteness of the room was nothing next to the look on Karissa’s face when she saw the nurse wheel him through the door.
She said nothing, but her eyes pierced his as they had done when he had gone to her room yesterday. When she’d asked him to leave. Obviously, she still didn’t have anything to say to him.
He had prayed during the night as he remembered doing only on his mission. Like he had prayed for Jesse to come to know the truth. Jesse had, but his decision had come years too late for Malcolm to take him into the waters of baptism. Jesse had said it was because he didn’t want to hurt his parents, but Malcolm still wondered if Jesse’s delay hadn’t been a reflection of a reluctant missionary’s wavering faith—Malcolm’s faith.
If only God would answer his prayers about the baby . . . about Karissa.
“I’m being released today,” he said to Karissa, though she hadn’t asked.
“If all goes well, your wife can go home with you,” said Dr. Fairfax cheerfully, seemingly unaware of the undercurrents in the room. Malcolm knew that even if they were both released from the hospital, he wouldn’t be going home with Karissa. That big house was too small for them right now. Maybe he’d go camping in one of the native villages for a few weeks—until Karissa either threw him out completely or forgave him. Of course, camping would be rather hard with his foot messed up so badly. Instead, he would have to crash at a friend’s house in town.
The doctor was watching the picture on the screen now, a smile on his face. “See that heartbeat? It’s still strong. I think whatever stress this baby endured yesterday, he or she has put it behind him.”
Only when Malcolm let out his breath did he realize he’d been holding it.
“And the placenta? Does it look all right?” Karissa asked.
“It seems fine,” Dr. Fairfax replied, moving the wand to the left side where the placenta was located. “I was worried about the bleeding yesterday, but the placenta seems very firmly attached. From what the ultrasound can tell us, I think everything’s going to be fine. I’ll want you to take it easy for a while, of course. Don’t lift anything even remotely heavy, and get a lot of sleep.”
Karissa’s face held a trace of the shock she’d shown yesterday before her collapse. The wide green eyes blinked unbelievingly, and Malcolm felt a sudden pity. She had fully expected to learn that the baby was dead! There had been not even a sliver of hope inside her heart. He laid a hand on hers, wanting to comfort her, and to his relief, she didn’t pull away.
“I’ll go sign the papers for you both to leave,” Dr. Fairfax said. “I see no reason to keep either of you, though Malcolm, you have to be sure to take all your medication. I don’t want your wounds getting infected.” He crossed to the door and paused, turning a warm grin on them. “And stay away from those bears, would ya?”
Malcolm chuckled to be polite and even Karissa smiled, but her eyes were unfocused, as if looking at something far away, or perhaps inside herself, to the baby.
“It’s going to be all right,” Malcolm said tentatively.
Karissa came out of herself to ask, “Do you have a place to stay?”
Malcolm grimaced. “I thought you were committed.”
Her eyes darkened and her forehead wrinkled. “I am,” she retorted, “but are you? Are you really?”
Her words made Malcolm angry. He felt a hot flush creep up his neck and face, and his wounds started to ache. “I love you, Karissa. I want to be with you.”
“Look, I care about you, but I can’t be with you right now,” she said, and her expression was so devastatingly sad that Malcolm wanted to gather her into his arms and comfort her. If only he could get out of the stupid wheelchair!
“What is really wrong here?” he asked. “I know you’re mad at me, and I feel I even deserve it.” That much was true. Why couldn’t he be a stronger person? Why couldn’t he stop smoking as easily as Karissa had? Why couldn’t he have been with her when she had needed him the most?
Her face tightened. “Nothing’s wrong,” she nearly yelled at him. Her voice sounded angry, but her brown eyes were huge and scared.
“Tell me. Be honest.” At his urging, she grew pale and her eyes flashed.
“It’s nothing!” she nearly hissed. “I just need some time. I gave you time when you needed it. And you still didn’t stop smoking, and look what almost hap—” She broke off and turned her face away from him.
What is she not saying? He wanted to wrest the truth from her but didn’t want to upset her further, fearing it wouldn’t be good for her or the baby. Instinctively, he knew she was speaking more from her fright or from mixed-up hormones than from any feeling of hatred she harbored toward him. If they could get past this day, this experience, maybe she could open her heart to him. “What do you want me to do?” he asked simply.
The fear in her eyes lessened. “I want you to stop smoking.”
He fought anger and resentment, knowing that the feelings stemmed from his own guilt. “I will try.”
Her lips fell in a frown, and he knew his “try” wasn’t good enough. But he didn’t dare say more for fear of another failure. Above all, he was being honest. Didn’t that count for something?
“Look, you’d better get home and get some rest,” he made himself say. “We’ll talk later. In a few days. You have my cell number if you need to reach me.”
Karissa nodded calmly and slid off the examining table. “Take care of yourself,” she said coolly. She left him there alone. He sat silently and watched her leave, his head held erect by his hurt and pride. What if after a few days she wouldn’t have him back?
She has to, he thought. I love her. Then why couldn’t he stop smoking? He had asked himself the question a hundred times, berating his lack of willpower. I should be able to do it for her, if not for myself.
A long time later he emerged from the room, struggling with the chair and feeling suddenly more sick than he had let on to either Karissa or the doctor. He could have called a nurse for help but was determined to find his own way back to his room. Doubtless both the nurse who had brought him and Dr. Fairfax had believed that Karissa would take care of h
im. Malcolm almost snorted. He wouldn’t ask for her help, not after what he’d done. Ultimately the whole bear episode had been his fault, and he knew it. But he couldn’t change things now.
“Mr. Mathees, let me do that.” A young nurse with blonde curls came up behind him. “I’m sorry I wasn’t back earlier. I got a phone call.” Her pretty face turned pink. “From my fiancé, you know. He’s flying in from Anchorage tomorrow.”
“Will you be leaving Kodiak?” Malcolm asked, glad to think of something else.
“What?”
“When you get married, will you be leaving the island?”
“Oh, yes!” she said emphatically. “I can’t wait to be out of here! Kodiak is so tiny, and there are so few opportunities here. Fish, fish, fish, and that’s it. I’m sick of it all.”
The vehemence in her voice took him back in time to when he had left the island. He, too, had been in awe of the real world. Yet in the end the cities held nothing for him, and he had returned to the island, vowing never to leave again, no matter what. Of course, he had to leave temporarily from time to time to wherever his work would lead, but he’d become adept at arranging things to spend as much time as possible on Kodiak.
“I feel so trapped here,” the young nurse continued. “There’s just nothing to do, and sometimes I feel like my own thoughts are all that exist.” She laughed self-consciously. “I think that may sound stupid.”
But it made some kind of sense. “I like my thoughts,” he said. “I have a clear conscience.” Usually.
“Yeah, but you’re old. I mean older than me. You’re married, and—” She shrugged. “Maybe someday I’ll return.”
Malcolm doubted she ever would. Unless her husband was in the fishing business, it was unlikely he’d agree to confine himself to a small island that held no place and certainly no love in his childhood memories.
“Well, here we are,” the nurse said. “Do you want help getting into bed?”
“No. I’ll be leaving soon, one way or the other.” This last was a mild threat, but she appeared not to notice. She left hurriedly, her thoughts already as far away from Kodiak as her heart wanted to be.
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