Angel's Choice

by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

  There is only one choice for me to make.

  In fact, I have been so sure this is the only choice I can make, that before calling Tim I called the abortion clinic, told them I was pregnant, got an appointment and the price.

  I tell Tim the price now.

  “Holy shit!” he says. “How much do you have?”

  I have already decided about this, too. Sucking in a big breath first, I say, “You need to pay for all of it.”

  “What?”

  “My savings account is held jointly with my parents. They’re okay with me spending some on myself each week, but they want me to be responsible with it. It’s supposed to be for expenses at college. They’ll know if I take that big of an amount out. They’ll ask questions. I can’t have that. I don’t ever want them to know about this. I’m the one who’s going to have to go through this, it’s my body that’s going to have to go through this—the least you could do is pay.”

  I stop talking. This is the most I’ve said to him at once during this conversation, and I am suddenly exhausted as though I’ve just finished giving an oral presentation in our Law in Society class.

  “Okay,” he sighs finally. “Okay. I’ll get the money. I don’t have it myself, so I’ll have to get it from my dad.”

  “You’re not going to tell him what it’s for, are you?” I ask, panicked.

  “Of course not. What do you think I am—stupid?”

  Then he makes an arrangement to come by my house later that night.

  My mother looks excited at dinner when I tell her Tim will be coming by. It has been a long time since I went out on a date, and I can tell she’s hoping this night with Tim will turn things around.

  But when Tim comes by at around eight p.m., he beeps the horn from the driveway. I come tearing down the stairs, still wearing the same clothes I had on that day.

  “Aren’t you going to change?” my mother asks. “Isn’t Tim coming in?”

  I give her an exasperated look that I hope conveys “I love you, but now we do things differently from the way you did them when you were my age.”

  “I already told you this isn’t a date,” I say over my shoulder, hand on the doorknob. “He just wants to ask me some questions about, um, another girl.”

  “So couldn’t he do that over the phone?” I hear, but I’m already closing the door behind me, flying down the stairs.

  This time I have to open the passenger-side door of Tim’s father’s car for myself, and I collapse on the front seat, breathless.

  “Here.” He hands me a thick envelope. Not even a “hello”; just “here.”

  I take the envelope.

  “Aren’t you going to even open it?” he asks. “Count it?”

  “No,” I say. “I’m sure it’s fine.” And I am.

  “Look.” Tim coughs to clear his throat. “I’m going to go with you. When you go to have the … thing done, I want to be there.”

  This is so surprising, and I have been so much more emotional lately about, well, everything , that no sooner do I hear his words than tears come to my eyes. So far all we’ve talked about is the business, the mechanics of things. I thought it was only me going through the other part, the confused and emotional part, but now I see that Tim is going through this too. It all involves him, too.

  “That’s okay,” I say, touched by his concern. “Karin is going to take me. It’ll be fine. I’ll be fine.”

  And it is true that Karin will take me. Of course Karin will take me. She is my best friend in the whole world and she has been through this all herself, six months ago. She is, in fact, the blueprint for what I am doing now. Who else would take me?

  Tim looks straight ahead out the front window. I follow his gaze, but whatever he’s seeing out there, I can’t see it.

  He coughs to clear his throat one last time, still not looking at me.

  “Then I’ll need a receipt,” he says.

  “Excuse me?”

  “For my dad,” he says, still not meeting my eyes.

  “What? You said you weren’t going to tell him. You said that would be, and I quote, ‘stupid.’”

  “I couldn’t help it,” he says, squirming. “He wouldn’t give me the money until I said what it was for. Anyway, he won’t believe it really happened unless I go with you or unless you can get me, um, a receipt.”

  And then it hits me: Tim doesn’t care about what happens to me, about what I am going through. He only wants to make sure that this little bit of… business gets taken care of, and his dad wants a receipt so he can be sure I’m not ripping them off.

  I am so disgusted, so thoroughly nauseated by this, and I feel so unclean, that I get out of the car without saying a word, slam the passenger door behind me.

  Tim rolls down the window, yells, “Angel!”

  I spin around. “Don’t worry,” I say. “You’ll get your receipt.”

  Then I walk back into my parents’ house, the thick envelope with the cash in it stuck into the back of my jeans like a revolver.

  “That was fast,” my mother says, looking disappointed. “Did you answer all of Tim’s questions at least?”

  “Oh, yeah,” I say.

  Week of November 19/Week 12

  Karin pulls her car into a space on the street outside the abortion clinic, feeds coins into the parking meter. We have a plan: She has driven me here today, she will wait for me in the waiting room during the procedure, she will drive me home afterward to her house, so that if I’m not feeling well, I can just sack out on her bed until I recover, until I feel strong enough to go back to my own home. She will tell no one afterward about what we have gone through together today. She will keep my secret forever. It is a good plan, and one that is tried and true. We did the exact same plan, or at least the mirror image of it, when she was pregnant six months before.

  Because I have been through this before with Karin, I know the layout, know what to expect. Because I have been through this before with Karin, I know to expect the protesters outside the clinic, know that there will be a gauntlet of right-to-lifers that I will have to run before going inside the doors. Even though the law ensures they stay a certain amount of feet away from the clinic doors, you can still read the words on their signs, still hear their shouts, still hear as the young man carrying the large Catholic cross prays loudly. Yes, I have seen all this before, heard all this before. But being a witness to someone else’s life is different from having that experience become your own, different from living that life yourself. Maybe , I think, it is the difference between being a bridesmaid and being a bride. There’s a big difference when you know that when someone yells, “That’s a baby you’re carrying inside of you! Please don’t kill it!” they are yelling those words at you. I didn’t take it personally when it was Karin they were yelling those things at, even though there was no way then nor is there any way now for the protesters to tell which of us is going in for the procedure, but I take it personally now.

  Abortion is a perfectly legal medical procedure in this country, and the right to protest is a protected right in this country, but I know that if I were going to the dentist to get a tooth pulled, I would not be greeted this way.

  Six months ago it was me holding on to Karin’s elbow, steering her path, offering her support. Now it is her hand on my elbow. So perhaps the protesters can tell who is doing what here after all.

  When we check in at the front desk, a part of me expects the woman seated there to deny my right to do what I have come here to do. Maybe she will say I am too young, that I need my parents’ consent, maybe she will judge me. I do not know what I will do if this happens. But we do not live in a state that demands parental consent, and there is no judgment in her expression as she does her paperwork; if anything, there is a form of mild sympathy, like I might see on my mom’s face after receiving an unfair mark from a teacher.

  Of course, first they want to do their own pregnancy test, just in case I did something stupid when I did it at home, like maybe I co
uld have made a mistake about those two pink lines. But of course the results are the same. It would be nice , I was thinking while waiting for them to examine my urine sample, if someone were to come in right now and tell me I’m wrong, if someone would take this cup away from me. But of course the results are the same. They ask when my last period was, and I tell them. I am not just a little bit pregnant, they tell me; I am very pregnant.

  “Another week or so,” says the nurse with a smile that is not unkind, “and we wouldn’t be able to take care of this so easily for you. Another week or so, and you’d be past the first trimester.”

  “Trimester.” What an odd word to hear in this context. It sounds like something having to do with school. And “first trimester”: that sounds like something for which there must be a “second trimester” and a “third trimester.”

  “I guess it’s just my lucky day,” I say, trying to force a smile that just won’t come.

  The nurse sends me back to the woman behind the front desk, so that I can pay for the procedure in advance. I hand over my money—Tim’s money—and ask for a receipt.

  “Most people don’t usually want one for this,” she says.

  “I need one,” I say as she pulls out a pad, puts numbers on it.

  Then she tells me to take a seat in the waiting room, where Karin is.

  Even though it is first thing in the morning, the waiting room is already full. The women are all ages. Some look sad, some look nervous or scared, some flip through magazines as though waiting for nothing more important than a routine cleaning at the dentist.

  Karin takes my hand briefly, smiles at me for strength, and I remember from being here with her before what will happen next: Soon, someone will come and divide us into groups. They will take us to rooms where they will explain exactly what’s going to happen, give us a chance to talk about what we are going to do, make sure this is what we really want.

  “It’s not as bad as it sounds,” Karin told me after she went through it. “It’s not like they try to talk you out of it or anything. They just want to make sure you know what they’re going to be doing before they start, and that it’s what you want.”

  You have a choice between a general anesthetic that puts you totally out and a local anesthetic, where you’re just numb from the hips down. I have chosen a local anesthetic because (1) it is not my money I am spending, (2) it takes longer afterward to wake up and recover from a general anesthetic, and (3) I have always been good with pain. If there is a little pain, or even a lot, I can stand it.

  I know, from what Karin has already told me, that after the procedure we will be taken to a recovery room where there are beds but also lounge chairs not unlike the one my father has in front of the TV, the chair my mother hates, for us to lie and sit on while we recover. The nurse will give us orange juice to get our energy back, and they will let us stay as long as we like until we feel strong enough and able to go home.

  I wonder if anyone has ever tried to stay the night afterward, if there has ever been anyone who, afterward, simply couldn’t go home.

  My group is called, and about six of us are led to a small room where exactly what Karin has described happens. As I listen to the nurse describe the upcoming procedure, I am surprised at the range of ages around me. Some are even younger than I am, and there is one woman in her twenties who looks like she is about to burst into tears any minute. At one point she turns to me. “You’re so brave,” she says. I do not feel brave, but I want to make her feel better. “It’ll be okay,” I say to her. “You’re going to be fine.” There is even a woman who looks like my mom’s age, maybe a bit older.

  Everyone has her own story.

  The girls younger than me have the same story, my story: They made a mistake, want to correct it.

  The teary-eyed woman says it’s her boyfriend who wants her to do it. “He says we’ll get married someday,” she says, “but that we’re just not ready for this”

  The woman who looks to be my mom’s age or older is the calmest of all. “I already have five kids,” she says. “I love them, but I just cannot have one more.”

  I do not tell my story.

  Now that we have been talked to, now that we have been given the chance to ask any questions we still might have, we are shown to changing rooms—little cubicles with only a curtain to pull across the top—and told to remove our clothes, put on the hospital gown with the opening in front. Then we are to wait our turns.

  It seems like I have been waiting forever when the nurse finally comes to get me. And what have I been thinking of while I have been waiting? Nothing. My mind is blank. It is a room I have shut the door on, not wanting anything to get in or out.

  The nurse leads me down the hall to a room, has me climb up on the table, place my feet in the stirrups. She is very nice, even squeezes my shoulder once between her bustling around.

  The doctor comes in, and he is a very friendly man who looks a lot like my grandfather Hansen, who is only sixty-two. It makes me wonder what Grandfather Hansen would think if he could see me now, but I shut the door on that thought too.

  “And how are you feeling today, Angel?” he says jovially, scrubbing his hands, snapping on gloves.

  “Okay,” I say.

  “Let’s take a look here,” he says, squatting down on a chair between my legs.

  I am about as embarrassed as I have ever been in my life, and I stare up at the ceiling, counting the tiles.

  “This should be no problem at all,” he says finally. “Before you know it, we’ll have you out of here and back to your life.”

  I see the nurse come at me from the side, a long needle in her hand.

  And then suddenly that door I’ve shut in my mind cracks open, then swings open wide to a flood of images.

  I see myself at Ricky D’Amico’s party, back in August, reacting to Danny going off with Ricky by getting drunk, I see myself reacting to Tim’s invitation to get out of there by going off with him. I see myself reacting upon learning that I am pregnant, by mindlessly doing exactly what Karin has done before me, blindly following the trail she has blazed. Even when I called Tim about it, when I got upset by the harshness of his words—“You’re going to get rid of it, of course!”—I reacted to his words by telling myself that, awful as the way he put it was, it was the only choice I had. Reacting, reacting, reacting. Everywhere I look in my memory, I see myself reacting to what is happening to me, rather than making a deliberate choice. And I see now, for the first time, that there is not just one path, that there are other choices.

  “No,” I say, trying to rise.

  “It’s all right,” the nurse soothes. “A lot of strong people are scared of needles.”

  “No,” I say again, with more force this time, successfully struggling up to a sitting position, removing my feet from the stirrups. “I’ve changed my mind.”

  I have gotten to where I am without really thinking, but I cannot do this without thinking. It’s just not good enough to do this because other people do it, it’s not good enough to do it because it’s the easiest thing to do. I can’t just do this without knowing if it’s what I really want.

  I know that if I go through with this now, this abortion, I will regret it later; there will be no taking it back, no do-overs.

  I regret so many things already: being with Tim, letting myself get so drunk I don’t even remember being with Tim.

  This is not going to be one more thing I will regret later.

  Whatever else may happen after this moment, and I’m not even sure what I want to have happen after this moment, I know that this is not what I want.

  I know it will be hard, but it is my choice. So many things that have gone before were not my choice. But this is my choice now. It is what I choose to do.

  Week of November 26/Week 13

  I help my mom prepare for Thanksgiving dinner, fighting against the waves of nausea that the smell of cooking food now provokes. I have still not told my parents that I am pregnant, nor
have I decided yet whether or not I will keep the baby. Mostly, when I think about it, I think that I will probably give it up for adoption. I have not decided yet. It is something I need to think about some more.

  So far I have managed to avoid telling Tim anything. I called him when I got home from the clinic, told him I wanted to get through the holiday first, that afterward I’d meet him to give him his receipt.

  Of course, I have a receipt, but I didn’t do what the receipt is for.

  Nor do I have his money.

  When I changed my mind that day at the clinic and went back to the lady at the front desk, she told me I couldn’t have the money back.

  “But I didn’t have anything done,” I said.

  “But you made the appointment,” she said, “and showed up. If you hadn’t, we could have given the appointment to someone else.”

  I suppose I could have argued with her some more, but I figured she was right. Maybe this was just like any other service profession, like when you make an appointment with the dentist and then if you don’t cancel it at least twenty-four hours before, you still get billed. Anyway, at that point I just wanted to get out of there.

  “Have you done the potatoes yet?” my mom asks.

  “I’m just about to,” I say, plugging in the hand mixer. Before I turn it on, I hear the sounds from the living room: my dad talking to my grandfather and grandmother Hansen, to Nana and Papa, my mother’s parents. I hear my three aunts and two uncles, my cousins, all against the backdrop of the football game playing on the TV.

  It is the same every Thanksgiving, every Christmas: Everyone comes here because, even though my mother works so hard at her job and complains about the extra work of hosting the gatherings, Mom is the only one in the family blessed with the Martha Stewart gene. Even though she complains every holiday, I can always see her satisfaction when she looks up from her seat at the foot of the table and sees her pretty centerpiece, sees everyone’s plates filled, everyone talking and laughing.