by Ka Hancock
Mickey bent down. “Lu? Honey, we’re going to be late.” He tugged on my arm and I looked up at him.
“I can’t do this.”
“Lucy, c’mon. It’ll be over before you know it.”
He was lying, but I didn’t dare argue. I got out of the car.
The clinic’s waiting area was dark and plush with leather sofas, and lots of current magazines. I sat down while Mickey signed me in. The only other person waiting was a young girl reading a People magazine who popped her gum as she turned the pages. She was wearing cute shoes and never once looked at me.
I looked over at Mickey, who was signing insurance forms, hunkered over the reception desk, reading intently. He looked substantial, like he could carry me across the state and not even break a sweat. His wonderful hair was still damp from his shower, and he was freshly shaved. He was wearing a blue, button-down shirt, dress pants, and a tie. I think the tie inspired an element of trust in me. Mickey always dressed with style, but when he had something challenging to face, he wore a tie.
When he finished, he sat down next to me. We didn’t look at each other. We just stared straight ahead into the saddest day of our life together until a nurse called my name. Then I stood up. Mickey stood up, too, and gave me a hug. I could feel his heart pound against my face. “It’ll be okay, Lu. I love you.”
I nodded and followed the nurse into Procedure Room number three. An instrument tray was covered with a white towel, a suction hose, and a large bowl. An enormous light was positioned directly above the place where I would lie with my legs spread open. A nurse with a pleasant smile handed me a paper gown. “Don’t be nervous, Mrs. Chandler. It’s really not so bad.” She patted my shoulder, and her expression said she’d uttered those words a million times. “Get into this gown and climb up onto the table. Everything off but your bra. Dr. Hale will be ready in just a minute. You okay, hon?”
I nodded, not much in the mood for conversation.
I struggled out of my T-shirt, careful of my bandaged breast, and stepped out of my sandals. The paper gown was stiff and scratchy and I couldn’t believe I was actually wearing it—that I was actually perched on the end of this custom-made abortion table, that the baby that had grown to be the most significant thing in my life would soon be gone. Suctioned into a stainless steel bowl, examined to be sure they’d gotten all of her, and dumped down the stainless steel sink.
Every image of her that I had conjured up over these past weeks flashed into my mind’s eye. I could see her big dark eyes. I knew the touch of her silky hair. I could feel her soft, warm skin on my cheek.
After a light knock on the door, a white-haired man poked his head in and asked if I was decent. I nodded dumbly.
“I’m Dr. Hale.” He offered me his hand with a smile. “And you’re Lucy?”
I nodded again.
“So, let’s see here, it says you’re about twenty weeks, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“And, I understand we’re doing a therapeutic abortion due to a recent diagnosis of cancer. I’m sure sorry to hear that.”
“Thank you.”
“Well,” he said, sitting down. “Do you have any questions for me?”
“I’ve never done this before. I don’t know what to ask.”
Dr. Hale smiled again. He was a bit too chipper for my taste. “Well, let’s start at the beginning here.” He cleared his throat and asked me to lie down.
His hands were cold as he measured and palpated and frowned, muttering concern about the substantial growth of my fetus. “This could take a while.” Then he explained the procedure as if he were reciting the weather report—I wasn’t paying attention, I was counting the ceiling panels. When he was done, he opened my chart. “Your doctor sent over your lab values so we don’t need to repeat those,” he said, pleased.
I nodded.
“I’ll get our technician in here to start an IV, and then we’ll begin.” Dr. Hale stood up and clapped his hands together. “I’ll check on you soon,” he said, then walked out.
A minute later a short man in a white lab coat hurried in with an IV bottle and what looked like yards of clear tubing. “Sorry to keep you waiting, hon,” he said in a high voice. “We’re just a bit short today.” He pulled my arm taut as he thumped around looking for a cooperative vein. I started to cry.
“I’m sorry that hurt. It’s in now, hon,” he said, misreading my sudden tears. He was securing the needle under my skin with about a foot of tape and babbling off something to do with dilatation. I wasn’t listening; I was begging to wake up from this nightmare. He patted my shoulder and said the nurse would be right in with the medication that would start the process, and then he left.
I looked at the wall as I felt my baby move. She’d been very active these last few days, and I wondered why. I cried out, I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t stand it! I knew this horrible abortion made sense, even if it was far from a guarantee, but every breath I took was agony because she was moving inside me. Today would be the day Mickey might have been able to feel her. She was strong, and every moment she was getting stronger and becoming more and more my daughter. Our daughter. I knew I had to stop thinking about her. I had to wrap my head around the fight. My fight. I had to fight. For Mickey. And then maybe later . . .
I closed my mind against this thought and tried to rein in my hopelessness. Dr. Matthews had told the lie best: perhaps a baby can come later. I didn’t believe him then and I didn’t believe his words now as they echoed in my head. I squeezed my eyes shut and pushed my hands into my hair and sobbed. Everything I’d buried beneath my numbness came gushing furiously to the surface. The way I felt about this baby. The fear of being sick again. What I absolutely knew about myself. And I knew, despite everything that had brought me here, that after today I was never going to be the same. I would leave this horrible place damaged beyond repair. “I can’t do this,” I wept. “I can’t.”
As I lay in this clutch of agony, something fluttered against my eyelids and I gasped. Against the throb of my emotions it was no more than a sigh, as uncanny and untraceable as sound against skin. It was her. And for just a breath, I let go of my angst, or it let go of me. But then her being there made terrible sense. Of course, a baby was dying! Of course Death would show up! My baby was dying.
But my reasoning was quickly reproached as clearly as if I’d been spoken to. What? It took me a moment to trust the sensation, but then undeniable certainty filled me. My baby was not supposed to die. I was not supposed to do this. I did not have to abort her.
I stopped crying and my frenzied heart calmed. For a moment I just basked in a spirit of complete assurance, complete relief. But . . . if she wasn’t here for my daughter, why then was this apparition holding me like a gentle parent calming a nightmare?
And then I knew.
If I opened my eyes, I would see the same being that had looked at my five-year-old self, but had seen into my grown soul, into this soul. So I opened them. And the gentlest, kindest, softest impression looked into me and filled me with pure knowledge. It was as though the whole world, the entire unabridged design, was explained to me in a microsecond, and I not only understood, but I had the vague sensation of having always known it. And I knew then that none of this would matter. None of everything that was anticipated to save my life would actually save my life. Not this time. As emotion threatened to engulf me, my father’s wisdom surfaced to keep it at bay. Death is not the end, Lulu, and if you’re not afraid, you can watch for it and be ready. . . .
Watch and be ready.
I sat up and looked around this terrible room, barely able to breathe. I wasn’t supposed to be here. I wasn’t supposed to do this. I felt her reassurance and broke down, again. And as she held me, I looked my small future straight in the eye and didn’t blink.
I was going to die. I was going to die.
Me.
Not my daughter.
There was no reason I should be pregnant. A tubal ligation ye
ars ago. A knot that could miraculously be swum through after all this time? She was a baby that was never supposed to be. And yet . . . for some reason we’ve been granted this miracle, and we’re just going to trust it.
Trust it. Trust the miracle.
I didn’t hesitate another moment. I tore at the tape plastered along my forearm and winced as I pulled the needle from my vein.
eighteen
AUGUST 17, 2011
How could she do this! How could Lucy refuse to have the abortion? How could she refuse treatment—any treatment that might save her life—until after the baby was born? Where were her promises! How had it come to this? I screamed this betrayal at the sky as I ran, speeding my pace, lengthening my stride. I ran to the end of my strength, but the rage was stronger than me. I had no power to subdue it. I’d been running for nearly an hour and my heart was an iron barbell clanging inside my chest and still I was fueled by this clot of unbearable emotion.
It was nearly dawn and I had run down the country road that separated Brinley from Ivoryton, my breath ragged and harsh. I slowed my pace and gulped in the air as the color in my head faded. I breathed slow and deep and felt it pour through me—the real stuff that was beneath the rage, the stuff that hurt like hell.
That’s how it works; sometimes I can outrun rage, but I can never outrun fear.
Mickey went off the deep end in the wee hours of the morning. He was furious with me, and nothing I could say made him feel any better, so I gave up. I stopped trying to explain. I stopped trying to reassure. I stopped promising him that I would subject myself totally to whatever the experts recommended after the baby was born. I don’t think he believed I would last that long. That was the bright fear I saw in his eyes.
He’d left before dawn, supposedly to work out. I never slept. Every time I shut my eyes, all I saw was one of two images: the horrible gray hose, or Mickey’s expression when I told him what I’d done—hadn’t done.
This morning, my eyes felt coated with sandpaper and I knew I looked like shit. I didn’t care. Today I wasn’t getting out of bed. I was just going to lie here, finish my senior-class outline, and gestate. At that thought, my eyes started to sting again and I tossed my papers on the floor and pulled the sheet over my head. I was thus ensconced when I heard the furious pounding on my front door. I didn’t care. Whoever it was would eventually give up and leave. They’d have to, I wasn’t moving.
Not so. The rapping was rude and insistent and seemingly endless. It had to be one of my sisters. I burrowed farther into my bedding, but pretty soon Priscilla was under my bedroom window yelling at me to let her in. She punctuated this demand by throwing handfuls of sand against the glass.
I endured her boorishness as long as I could, then stomped downstairs and angrily threw open the front door. Then I flung myself onto the sofa in a huff, arms crossed against my chest, a bitchy scowl on my face. It was only Priscilla and there would be no obligatory courtesy for her.
My sister slammed the door and came to stand before me, her hands clamped tightly on her hips, her toe tapping. Tapping!
“Stop that, Priscilla!” I shouted. “You are not going to barge into my home and stand there tapping your foot at me! What do you want?”
“What are you doing, Lucy? Why didn’t you have the abortion?”
I groaned. “Do I not have one private matter in my whole life?”
“If you do, it’s not this baby. And if you ever did, it was before you married Mickey.”
I looked at my sister. Priss had an infuriating way of glistening like a new penny, no matter the time, no matter the occasion. It was early—well, eleven—and she was utterly complete. Hair, makeup, skinny jeans, polished toenails peeking out from her sandals. It was nauseating. “When did you talk to Mickey?”
“He called at the crack of dawn, thank you very much, and begged me to talk to him.”
This was a stretch for both of them since they could barely stomach each other. For my sake, they lived a tacit truce and grudgingly agreed not to kill each other in my presence. Yet Mickey had called her? I ran my hands through my tangled hair. I looked at Priss, my bark evaporating, her toe now still. “What did he want?”
“What do you think? He wants me to talk you into going back to that clinic. What are you trying to do to him, Lucy? The man’s insanely afraid of losing you. And you’re refusing to save your own life because of this baby? You’re killing him. You know that, don’t you?”
“I couldn’t do it, Priss,” I croaked. I closed my eyes and saw Dr. Hale’s insincere smile, felt the crunch of the paper gown—disposable for easy cleanup. “I couldn’t do it.”
“Of course you can do it! It’s not that hard. It’s a simple procedure.”
I gaped at my sister. “It’s a baby, Priscilla. It’s my baby.”
“It’s a gob of cells, Lucille. It’s not a baby. Grow up. Your own life is on the line here. What on earth are you thinking?” Priscilla looked at me incredulously, and I’m sure I mirrored the same. “Now get in the shower,” she said, instructing me slowly as if I were a child. “I’m driving you back to the clinic. Oh, stop looking at me like that. You’ll get it done and we’ll go to lunch. Easy, end of story.”
Emotion hardened in me. “How easy, Priss?”
My beautiful sister narrowed her gaze at me. “I don’t like that tone, Lucille.”
“Exactly how easy is it to have an abortion, Priscilla? I need to know. Mentor me through this process. Shaaaare,” I sang, my words dripping with sarcasm.
A telling flush made its way up Priss’s jaw, and I watched a tic start near her eye. But she quickly subdued the color and commanded the tic. “Watch your tone, Lucille. Stop turning this around. You should be focusing on your husband. I swear, for the first time ever, even I feel sorry for him. He’s going to self-destruct when you get sick again. I hope you’re ready for that.”
Rage exploded through me. “This is none of your business!”
“No? You need to face the facts. It is selfish to keep this baby under these circumstances.” Priss sat down hard in the armchair facing me. “I want to know what’s changed. What happened to the attitude you had before you got pregnant? The wonderful legacy Mom left us in her DNA. Did you forget that’s why you never planned to get pregnant in the first place? Have you lost your mind because now you have this . . . this . . .”
“It’s called a baby, Priss.”
“Lucy! It is nothing more than a parasite!”
“Oh, Priscilla,” I sighed, incapable of making her understand. “Just go home.”
“It’s okay to get rid of it, Lucy,” Priscilla said with sudden softness. “You didn’t want it there in the first place. Remember? Lucy, use your head. It’s not worth your life.”
“I can’t do it.”
“You could die.”
“I know. But for every moment that I lived, I’d never forgive myself.”
“Lucy, do you have any idea how childish you sound?”
I gawked at my sister. “Did these arguments work for you? Because you’re sounding awfully experienced, Priscilla.” I could see from the look on her face that I had hit a nerve. Lily and I had always speculated that our sister had gotten into trouble with Trent Rosenberg back in high school. It had been the reason for the terrible gulf between her and Mom. But of course neither of us ever had the courage to broach it with either of them. All we knew was that whatever happened back then ruined their relationship. Then Priscilla was gone.
“We’re not talking about me, Lucy. What I have or have not done has nothing to do with this.”
“Excuse me?”
“I mean it. You could lose your life, Lucy. You could die!”
“I’m not doing it, so go home, Priscilla.”
“Lucy, are you crazy?”
“I’m sure that will be debated long after I’m gone.”
“Then use your head, I’m begging you. Call that clinic back. I’ll take you myself.”
“Priscilla, stop it
. I’m having this baby.” I ran both hands over my sweaty face and pulled my hair tight.
“Why? Give me one good reason, Lucy.”
I doubled over not wanting to cry. The tears showed up anyway so I pushed my palms into the sockets of my eyes.
“You don’t have one, do you? There is no earthly reason not to do this.”
“I’ve seen her,” I shouted.
Finally she was quiet.
I looked at my sister. “I’ve seen her. She’s a beautiful dark-haired, dark-eyed little girl.” I sat up and my hands instinctively went to my stomach. “And I’ve felt her.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I know exactly what she looks like. And you’re right, Priss, at this moment my daughter only loosely resembles a baby. But she is as real to me as you are. Her heart is beating inside me. She moves inside me. She gets the hiccups inside me. Aborting her now is no different in my mind than waiting until she’s born and smothering her with a pillow, or throwing her in the lake on her third birthday, or shooting her in the head when she’s twelve.”
Priscilla slumped. “Oh, Lucy.”
“It doesn’t matter what you say, Priscilla, this baby is real to me. I can’t make her unreal now because I have the right to, or because the timing is off. I can’t do it. I won’t. And even if I could, Priss, there’s a part of me that knows I would never be able to face—”
“God?” Priscilla cut me off. “Is that where this is going, Lucy?” She spit the word God out as if a bug had landed on her tongue.
“I was going to say Mom and Dad, but God works, too.”