Friends from Home

by Lauryn Chamberlain

  My gynecologist, Dr. Khanna, came into my exam room only ten minutes after I arrived. The scratchy, open-backed gown they had given me made me as physically exposed as I felt emotionally, but she came and stood next to me and put me at ease. She smiled at me in exactly the right way. It came more from her warm brown eyes than from her lips, which she turned up only slightly at the corners. The smile seemed to say that she knew I felt awkward and unnerved but that I didn’t have to be. It was compassionate, serious, light, all in one go. Honestly, that alone was worth my copay.

  She glanced at my chart, which I knew contained the results from the pregnancy test the nurse had run during my preliminary height-weight-urine-sample exam. “I see here that the test Lita ran is positive, but the blood she took will be used to confirm that. You told me that this was not a planned pregnancy, correct?”

  “The literal opposite of that.”

  “Sense of humor intact, I see, Ms. O’Brien. I know this might be overwhelming, but you’re in good hands. We can discuss any and all options you’d like. This is about taking care of you.”

  I listened as Dr. Khanna told me that I was probably about five weeks along based on the date I listed for my last period, and that the blood test could confirm this as well. I tried to listen, but I heard a persistent ringing in my ears, growing louder and louder, my face flushed and hot, until I finally just blurted out what I had really known all long: “I need to end the pregnancy.”

  “I absolutely trust that you know what’s best for your needs, Jules,” Dr. Khanna said warmly. “We don’t perform abortions here, but there’s a clinic I’ve connected several patients to that’s quite close by. Would you like me to refer you? I can go over the basics here, and they’ll be able to talk to you more about your feelings, procedure options, and scheduling. You’re very early on, so you may have to wait a week or two, but we can get everything set up now to give you some peace of mind. Sound okay?”

  I nodded, trying to process everything. She made a few notes, and then I found my voice at last. “Thank you. Also, I just feel like I should say that I . . . I don’t know if I ever want to have kids.”

  I didn’t know why I told her. Maybe it seemed important because I hadn’t been able to admit it concretely before. Somehow, as soon as I heard it come out of my mouth, I knew it was the truest thing I had ever said. And if I was truly honest with myself, I had always had an inkling.

  As I sat on the stiff, starchy paper on Dr. Khanna’s table, I remembered this one particular day. Seventeen years before, right before we had moved to Langham, my youngest aunt had just given birth to her first daughter, Jenna, and my mom drove me and a couple of my cousins over to the neighboring town to meet her. I was sullen on the car ride, wanting nothing to do with them, but I hoped things might look up once we got there.

  My cousins went crazy when they saw Jenna. Oohing and aahing over this screaming, red-faced bundle swaddled and wrapped up as tightly as a sprained ankle in an Ace bandage. Her skin looked splotchy, and though that is, of course, normal for a week-old infant, I thought she looked hurt or ill, or both.

  The whole scene struck me as painful, loud, and distasteful. I knew I shouldn’t feel that way. Babies were supposed to be a blessing, and apparently we were all supposed to be happy, and I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I did know, in some naïve and abstract way, that a baby seemed like something that changed life for the worse, something from which its parents might never fully recover. My exhausted aunt Liza, unable to hide her relief at handing the baby over to my mom, stepping into the next room to get a few moments of peace, didn’t help the picture.

  I wouldn’t hold her. I didn’t say anything about why, or insinuate that she wasn’t cute or perfect or precious. I already knew not to do that, even if I wasn’t old enough to understand any of what I was feeling. Ultimately, I think, I found a book and sat in the next room, letting everyone else marvel at the miracle of life.

  Liza later looked back on that day as wonderful. Surrounded as she was by her family and her new daughter, the love she felt was enough to make up for her exhaustion ten times over, or so she said.

  But I just don’t want to have a baby, I thought to myself again. I never wanted a baby. I don’t have to be sorry for that.

  “So that’s . . . okay? If I don’t?” I finally asked Dr. Khanna. I didn’t know what I was asking her for. Forgiveness? A benediction? Something that would counter the times I had been told growing up that women were meant to be mothers? But I knew I was asking her on behalf of both me today and me at eight, my two selves bridged by this unavoidable fact of who I had always been.

  “That is absolutely fine, Jules. And when you come in for a follow-up appointment, we can discuss longer-term birth control options for you, like the IUD,” she said, offering a kind smile.

  I nodded, and then as I stood to leave and gather my things, something remarkable happened. Dr. Khanna placed a hand on my shoulder and stepped toward me. “One more thing,” she said softly. “In case no one has ever told you, this is something that is completely up to you. Whatever choice you make for yourself is the right one.”

  Her words warmed me in a strange way. It started somewhere deep in the core of my body, and then a feeling, one of both peace and certitude, seemed to radiate out from there. But certainty in my decision didn’t solve everything. I still had to figure out a way to tell Mark.

  * * *

  • • •

  When I couldn’t fall asleep that night, I distracted myself by attempting to finish up plans for Michelle’s Nashville bachelorette extravaganza. The e-mail thread among the bridesmaids, begun in earnest right after Christmas, contained plenty of gems of southern women’s diplomacy. To any suggestion I made, there was always a but: “But I think that we need balloons that spell out Mrs. Oster instead of just regular balloons” or “But I think we’d all prefer Grey Goose over Absolut, right, ladies?” or “I’m fine with anything, but why don’t we keep discussing?”

  In spite of that, things continued chugging ahead. I had booked a couple of rooms at a downtown hotel even in my haze over Christmas, and everyone had actually cooperated in the end, reimbursing me for their share of the cost by check or Venmo before I had even flown back to New York. Now we were just stuck on whether to book a traditional group exercise class or to actually take a burlesque lesson. The previous e-mail thread responses to this question made this sound like a life-or-death issue. Darcy had responded to a suggestion of neon penis straws with a stern, straight-faced “I cannot and will not be associated with that.”

  As I checked the thread again, I saw that Michelle had spoken: “Lighten up, y’all,” she commanded. “We’re doing it.” I guessed that meant it was time for me to place a phone call to the burlesque studio.

  As I tried to cope with the mental picture of Sylvie straddling a feather boa and Darcy correcting my dance moves, that was the moment I realized it: Given that Dr. Khanna had warned me the clinic would not be able to schedule my appointment until the last week of January, I would have to go to Michelle’s bachelorette party pregnant. It seemed like a scene from a B-list comedy, in a context that felt completely unfunny.

  Should I even be doing burlesque? I wondered, before realizing that was an idiotic line of thinking. But what if I felt sick? I hadn’t had any morning sickness at all, but I couldn’t imagine what I would do if it struck on the trip. I made a mental note to look up how common it was and how early in a pregnancy it hit. Deep down, though, I wasn’t really afraid of how I was going to feel physically. It was emotional. What would I say? How could I hide this from Michelle?

  I had resolutely decided not to tell her about the pregnancy if I wasn’t going to go through with it: not now, not ever. I could mentally defend this decision by telling myself that I didn’t want to ruin the lead-up to her wedding. Another part of it was the distance growing between us. We had been talking even less than usual ex
cept when it came to bachelorette party details, so why should I confide in her anyway? Dana and Ritchie were my best friends in every practical sense, and even they didn’t know yet. Thinking about the weeks leading up to Christmas, I couldn’t remember the last time Michelle had called me on the phone to discuss anything other than wedding logistics.

  But I knew the real reason I didn’t want to talk to her ran deeper than that.

  Strangely enough, in a roundabout way, I had actually learned about the concept of abortion because of Michelle. We were in elementary school at the time of the 2004 election. Woefully politically uninformed, we only noticed the candidates one afternoon when we mistakenly switched the channel to the local news rather than Nickelodeon. A solemn expression crossed Michelle’s face as Kerry crossed the stage, and she leaned over to whisper in my ear, “My mama says he says it’s okay to kill babies. Isn’t that horrible? That’s why we can’t vote for him.”

  Aghast, I ran home that evening to tell my mother what I’d heard. She was measured and diplomatic for once in her life: I remembered her response as she told me that, no, he wasn’t out murdering children. She explained the concept of abortion in very general terms and said, “There’s a lot that can happen between conception and a baby being born; that’s why folks argue about it. Some say it’s a life all along, where I’d say it’s a little more complicated than that. I’d say it can be hard to tell when a baby’s life is worth more than a mother’s, and it’s true the other way around, too.”

  Her response shocked me. I wondered, from what she said, if she had ever had one. Then I shook my head frantically as if to dislodge the thought. Were people really allowed to do this? I asked.

  “It’s legal with certain constraints, yes,” she told me. “But this is a delicate issue and people feel what they feel, so no running around town talking everyone’s ear off about it. Mind your own business.” It was probably the first and last time I ever heard my mother say that.

  We never discussed it again. Over time, my views fell in line with her words that day: It’s a little more complicated than that. I carried that with me. But I imagined that Marcia had explained her views to Michelle in the same way, stroking her hair and using her honeyed voice, the same one she used with me when I had a nightmare during a sleepover. I could see how Michelle would have heard that abortion was always wrong and left it at that.

  I knew that most of her family’s Methodist congregation agreed. The summer after our freshman year of college, they had led a fund-raiser for Choose Life Alabama. I told Michelle I was glad she seemed excited about volunteering and that I was proud of her, and then I politely made up an excuse for why I couldn’t help. I volunteered elsewhere, finishing my National Honor Society hours at the local food bank. At the time, I had thought that polite deference—mind your own business—would be the only option. Now I thought about it differently, but I still found the idea of saying anything to Michelle or her family absolutely impossible.

  It wasn’t their business; that was part of it. I had the right to make my choice, and I would make it. But why the knot of fear tied down somewhere inside me that I couldn’t access? Was I afraid that Michelle would judge me? I had spent so much of my life growing up trying to avoid that judgment, trying to wear the right things, to say the right things, to fit in with our—her—group of friends. That need for acceptance was not an easy habit to shake. But maybe I was also afraid she would try to convince me to change my mind.

  Dreading the possibility of that conversation, I could feel myself already moving to form a mental defense. I had done this at work in the morning, on the subway home, and as I parsed the aisles at the bodega—phrases turned in my mind all day after my doctor’s appointment. You don’t know what it was like with my mom trying to raise me on her own, I would repeat in my head. I can’t go through that. I won’t put someone else through that. Or, I’m not equipped. I don’t have enough money, and I live in a walk-up, and I don’t know when or if that will ever change. Or, I would need help. I don’t want to go back to Alabama. These were very valid reasons. They just weren’t the real one. The truth was actually pretty simple.

  I just don’t want to have a baby. I never wanted to have a baby.

  Still, something nagged at me. A feeling like I had told a lie or broken a confidence, but it was too late to take anything back. The only thing under my control was this decision.

  CHAPTER 17

  I felt relieved as soon as I scheduled the appointment at the clinic. The receptionist had spoken to me with pragmatic kindness, calling me “hon” before shifting back to efficient questioning about my work schedule and my healthcare coverage. She reminded me of Dr. Khanna. But the moment I got off the phone I realized it was the first irreversible decision I’d ever made. Suddenly, something like nausea was rising in the back of my throat.

  I had faced a multitude of choices, so many they could not possibly be cataloged. The tiny ones: Crest or Colgate toothpaste? Wine or beer? Then there were the bigger ones, the ones that changed my life: to attend Cornell, to move to New York. But every decision I had ever made before could have been undone, could be altered or adjusted or peeled back just far enough that any avenue of life might still be open to me. Jobs can be quit, schools reenrolled in, purchases returned. I had never stared at a fork in the road where neither path came with a receipt.

  As much as I knew I could not, did not, want to be a mother, I felt in my bones that this would be a different kind of decision. The kind where five, ten, fifty years in the future, I would not forget, and I would see as clearly as watching a film screen how my life could have been different. Does a presentiment of loss change you?

  I had to trust that I really knew what I was willing to lose, I realized. But I also knew that this decision impacted someone else.

  * * *

  • • •

  I had decided early on to wait to tell Mark the news in person as soon as he got back to New York after Christmas. Against every impulse I had, I ignored one of his calls the night of my visit to Dr. Khanna, feigning sleep. I couldn’t tell him over the phone. Yet texting with him had been bad enough; talking to him when he was sober, actually hearing his voice, without acknowledging what had happened felt like a lie. It was true that Mark hadn’t always been adept at picking up nuances via text, but he had clearly sensed something. He had asked if I was okay twice in the two days I had been back in New York. Both times I had lied and said yes.

  I let myself into his apartment with the key he had given me, and then I spent an hour waiting for him to get home, standing up and pacing the whole time. I wasn’t afraid of his reaction; it was more that the whole experience so far had been both intimate and surreal. Talking about it with Mark meant that it was ours instead of mine. My decision still, but two people forever changed by it.

  As soon as he opened the door, I leapt up from the couch. I didn’t even wait for him to put his duffel bag down before I started talking.

  “I have something to tell you and I’m just going to say it,” I blurted. “I’m pregnant.” In TV shows and movies, characters always stop talking right there. It’s a test: They say “I’m pregnant,” and then they dare the recipient of the news to display the correct reaction with no context clues. I didn’t want to do that, so I kept going. “But don’t worry, I have an appointment scheduled. I’m not going through with it. Obviously.”

  Mark dropped his bag as his face blanched. He crossed the room to me. “Seriously? This is for real? Oh my God, Jules.” He sank to the couch and put his head in his hands, his shoulders slumped. I tried to read what he was feeling; perhaps it was the same sense of disbelief, a feeling of being separate from one’s body, that I had experienced all the way back in the airport. I should have called him right then.

  “I don’t know how it happened; I’ve been on the pill,” I continued uneasily. I still couldn’t make myself look directly at him. “But I do know it’s goin
g to be fine.”

  Silence. I knew he was in shock, but I wanted him to be the one to tell me it would all be okay. To be the one offering reassurance. I looked at him, and he stared straight ahead at the wall, and I wondered if I should say something else.

  Finally, he spoke. “I— Shit, I need some time to process this.”

  “Of course, I totally understand.”

  “Yeah.” He paused. “Like, maybe it could be all right in a different way? I don’t know.”

  “What?”

  “What I mean, Jules, is that I love you. I know we’re not really there yet, and I know that we weren’t planning on something like this at all, but let’s not . . . let’s not do anything rash, huh?”

  “Rash?” I turned away from him and fixed my gaze out the window. I hadn’t thought beyond telling him my decision; I hadn’t imagined he would be anything but relieved. It felt like we weren’t even in the same room, a separation between us palpable even as my knee brushed against his. “Mark, I’m sorry. I know you’re just finding out about this. I’ve had more time. But, trust me, my decision is anything but rash.”

  “And you never thought about how I’d feel about your decision?”

  “I thought you’d be relieved! God, do you want to be a dad? At twenty-six? In a walk-up apartment? With some girl you’re dating?”

  “Some girl? I want to be with you!” He slammed a fist on the coffee table. “Don’t make me sound like an asshole for that.” I jerked away, visibly taken aback by the outburst, so out of character for him. He lowered his voice and took my hands, turning me toward him. “Sorry. I’m sorry. No, I don’t want to have a kid right now. I travel all week, I have no time, I don’t even want— Yeah, no. That would be insane. That’s not what I’m saying. Obviously.”