by Maggie Wells
“He wasn’t my father,” Flo said. “My father died when I was ten. Then, when I found out that I was pregnant, I ran away.”
“Me too!” I exclaimed.
“The nuns took him away from me,” she said in between sips of her whiskey. “I never even saw my baby.” She took another drag on her cigarette. “Wait. Did you say ‘me too’?”
I paused the camera. “I think I’m pregnant,” I said. “I mean I took a test and it was positive so I guess I am pregnant.”
Flo put down her drink and looked at me hard.
“Were you raped?” she asked. “Does your father know about this?”
“No!” I cried. “And no, Dad doesn’t know. Yet. Please don’t tell him. I need to figure out what to do.”
“Well, at least you can get an abortion,” she said. “That wasn’t an option for me.”
“I would need parental consent,” I said. “I would have to tell Dad. And probably Mom. Oh, God, she will never speak to me again.”
“Your mom is kind of a bitch,” Flo said. “She thinks she is too good for everyone else, especially your dad. She is just like your Uncle John. Too good for the rest of us.”
“What should I do?” I asked.
“Who is the father?” she asked.
“I honestly don’t know,” I said. “Please, please, please don’t tell Dad any of this.”
“Well, isn’t this a pickle?” she said. Aunt Flo put her arm around me. “You don’t have to sleep with them you know. Just because a boy is nice to you.”
I covered my face with my hands and dug my fingernails into my cheeks. I knew I was leaving welts. “You don’t understand what it’s like. How it feels,” I said.
“I think I do,” Aunt Flo said.
“I can’t explain,” I said. “It’s just when I’m with them, I feel . . . like they care about me. They make me feel special, wanted—not just my body. But me, the real me. Like they could love me. But of course, I am always wrong. No one wants me. No one will ever love me.”
“Flo,” the bartender called out. “Your ride is here.”
A cab was idling outside the front door.
“Thanks, Marco,” Flo said. She downed her drink. “Come on Luci, let’s continue this on the porch.”
After her divorce, Aunt Flo had made the lake house her permanent residence. I made a video of the speedboats and water skiers racing by, leaving their wake to spill over the dock. Then I panned the camera around the room. The walls of the house were covered with framed photographs of Flo in her heyday. She had been quite a beauty and had spent some time in Hollywood as a young starlet. There were pictures of her with Arnold Schwarzenegger and other celebrities.
While Aunt Flo was busy in the kitchen I opened my Facebook app. Aleecia had gone to the abortion clinic and I needed to know what had happened next.
Aleecia: My momma said I can keep the baby.
Me: Did you go to Orlando?
Aleecia: Yeah, we drove up yesterday. There were protesters and everything.
Candy: I told my parents!
Isabella: And? Girl, don’t keep us in suspense!
Candy: My mother is going to call her gyno to schedule an abortion.
Aleecia: They can’t make you do that!
Me: I have to get an abortion. It’s OK. I can’t take care of a baby. And besides, I don’t even know who the father is.
Candy: I know. How am I supposed to have a baby and go to college?
Jasmine: People do it.
Aleecia: Kyle is going to college. We’ll be OK.
Aunt Flo returned with a tumbler of bourbon and a glass of lemonade for me. She settled into a wicker rocker facing the lake view.
“When were you in California?” I asked.
“I told you that I ran away,” she said. She looked at her drink.
That started me thinking. What if I ran away? Or what if I just stayed with Aunt Flo and never went back to Cedar Rapids or Pittsburgh?
“How far along are you?” she asked.
I stared at my hands with contempt, watching them twisting themselves into knots in my lap. To make them stop, I crossed my arms and buried my hands in my armpits.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said. “I just want it to be over. I—I want you to take me. Will you take me?”
“Of course, I will,” Aunt Flo said. “But you have to tell your parents first.”
I started to cry and buried my face in my hands.
“What will I tell them?” I asked.
“Just what you told me,” Aunt Flo said. “And because of your age, we will need to establish paternity. You should make a list of every boy that you have been with—at least since March or April. You can’t be more than a few weeks pregnant.”
“What does my age have to do with it?” I asked, stupidly.
“You are fourteen,” Aunt Flo said. “It’s called statutory rape. The boy should go to jail. My stepfather never went to jail. But he should have.”
“Jail?” I cried. “No, no, no, no. That can’t happen. I will never be able to show my face at school again. I won’t be popular any more. Can’t we just make this go away?”
Aunt Flo got up and came over to sit next to me on the loveseat. She put her arms around me and held me as though I were her own daughter. I sobbed into her shoulder, inhaling the scent of stale whiskey, cigarettes, and rose perfume.
NINE
I HAD TO SIT AND WAIT FOR MY PUNISHMENT. I COULD HEAR Dad in the living room on the phone with Mom conferring. Dad’s voice was low and calm, and Mom’s occasionally audible, was peaking and plummeting.
I passed the time on Facebook.
Me: I just told my parents. They are fighting about it on the phone.
Jasmine: That sucks. We are here for you!
Aleecia: Kyle left for college.
Me: You will finish high school?
Aleecia: That is my plan. What’s it like being pregnant in high school?
Isabella: You won’t be the only one. You can form a club. An extra-curricular activity you can put on your resume!
Candy: Very funny!
Me: You can get a handicap permit.
Aleecia: I don’t have a car.
Shawna: OMG! You’ll ride your bike to school? Pregnant? Send selfies!
After an hour or so, Dad came into the kitchen, stood in front of me with his arms crossed against his chest, and laid down the law.
“Your mother and I have discussed it,” he began, “and we have decided that you need to write down the name of every boy you have slept with this year. We’ll order paternity tests on every one of them. And in the meantime, you will have to get an abortion.”
I was watching his face, how it transformed when he was angry. Like I said, Dad never raised his voice or shouted at me. But his face was distorted, looking all the more severe, the angles of his cheekbones hollowed out. He looked like a different person.
“How could this happen, Luciana?” he asked turning his face away from me. “How?” he said again, almost in a whisper. “You have always been such a good girl.”
I heard their words in my head: “You are so beautiful.”
“Aunt Flo said she would take me,” I protested. “Can’t she come with me?”
“That’s nonsense,” he said. “Flo lives four hours away—and she is never sober enough to drive. I will take you.”
He tipped his face downward toward the sink. I bet he wished there were some dishes to do but he always made me wash the dishes as soon as I had cleared the table.
“Dad?” He still wouldn’t turn around. “I’m sorry.”
I waited for him to come to me and hold me and tell me that I would be okay. That I would always be his little girl. That he was sorry he let me go out to parties at night and didn’t warn me about boys—that they would say anything. Even lie.
I waited for him to yell at me. To shake me and tell me what I fool I was. I waited for him to do something. Anything. Please.
But he
stood by the sink with his back to me.
Not even my father could love me.
The waiting room was crowded when we got to the clinic. I tried not to look at the other women and girls waiting their turns. Only one of the girls was there with her boyfriend. They sat across from me, holding hands. The boyfriend rubbed his thumb back and forth across the top of the girl’s hand in a calm, rhythmic way. She rested her head on his shoulder. He stared straight ahead. Dad was the only adult male in the room.
I checked out Facebook while I was waiting.
Aleecia: My baby daddy brought his little brother to come live with us.
Isabella: Who is us?
Aleecia: OMG! I forgot to tell you that Kyle moved in with me. We’re living in my mom’s garage.
Jasmine: You are living in the garage?
Aleecia: Kyle is a carpenter. He’s putting in walls and everything. We live in Florida, so it’s not like it ever gets that cold.
Me: So what’s with the little brother? How old?
Aleecia: Dwayne is eight. Kyle’s mom’s boyfriend threw the boys out of the house. Can you believe that?
Shawna: I believe it. My mom is threatening to throw me out!
Candace: Jesus. And I thought my mom was a bitch!
They called my name and in a trance, I followed the nurse through the inner door. I didn’t look back at Dad. The nurse was speaking in a weird monotone—like she was reading from a teleprompter.
“Here is the locker room,” the nurse said. “Over there is the waiting room. Inside the locker room you will find a locker for your clothes. The locker does not lock. Do not leave any valuables there. Inside the locker you will find a paper gown and slippers. Put on the gown and slippers and wait in the waiting room for your name to be called. Do not bring anything into the waiting room with you.”
This is a lot of information to absorb, I thought. What if I get it wrong? “What do I do with my purse?” I asked.
“What’s that? What do you do with your valuables? You should never bring valuables to the clinic.”
Well, wait. That doesn’t make any sense!
“Here is your intake form. Fill this out and bring it with you to the waiting room. Check off the procedure that you are having. The procedure that you are having is called Manual Vacuum Aspiration or you can just tick the box for Medical Abortion. Tick a box for General or Local Anesthesia. The clinic does not offer General Anesthesia.”
So, why is there a box for it?
She stopped and looked at me. “Do you need to collect a tissue sample to establish paternity?”
I nodded.
“Tick that off on the form too.”
She turned and continued walking and pointing, pointing and walking. I followed her, numb inside.
“When you get to the waiting room, hand your form to the receptionist. She is a temp and she may not know what to do with it. The ladies room is over there. If you need to use the restroom, take your intake form with you. Do not leave anything in the waiting room. Just find a seat and wait for your name to be called. If your name is not called, do not ask the receptionist. She will have no clue why your name has not been called. Just sit and wait for your name to be called.”
“When your name is called, follow Nurse Regina into the procedure room. The procedure rooms are to the left. Nurse Regina has an eight-year old son, Jacob, who she calls her miracle baby because he was born after her previous abortion was botched and left her scarred for life. Doctor Gellhorn will be performing your procedure. Doctor Gellhorn is in love with Nurse Regina. He talks dirty to her while he is performing procedures. She finds it mildly amusing. Jacob is not his son.”
Did she just say that or am I now hallucinating?
“After Doctor Gellhorn has performed your procedure, Nurse Regina will issue you a jumbo Kotex and direct you to the recovery room. The recovery room is to the right. Nurse Apollo is in charge of the recovery room. She will assign you a cot on which to recover. Nurse Apollo is in love with Doctor Gellhorn. He accepts her invitations to dinner but never picks up the check and then demands unprotected sex from her. She means nothing to him.”
Where is my video camera when I need it? This would go viral!
“There will be much moaning and crying in the recovery room but you should ignore anything you hear or see. If you moan or cry too much Nurse Apollo may have to ask you to leave. We do not want to upset anyone.”
We don’t want to upset anyone? What about me?
“Nurse Apollo will let you know when it’s time to leave. You will proceed to the locker room and change back into your street clothes. Deposit the gown and slippers in the trash. Don’t remove your jumbo Kotex. Your ride should meet you at the curb. Cell phones are not allowed in the clinic.”
TEN
IT HURT LIKE HELL BUT IT WAS OVER FAST. I DON’T THINK Dr. Gellhorn made any dirty jokes—but then again I was only thinking of the pain. I don’t remember much of anything until I heard Nurse Regina say to me, “It’s time to get up; you will have time to grieve in the recovery room.”
Then I found myself lying on a hard cot in the recovery room, weeping silently and thinking: this is my time to grieve. How much time will they give me? I thought about Aunt Sofia’s funeral and the deafening silence of her family and the deadness in everyone’s eyes. So this is grief.
None of the girls lying on the other cots made eye contact, each desperately wanting this horror show to be over and to never speak of it again.
I still felt pregnant, all bloated and nauseous but now with terrible cramps as well. I felt like my entire insides were spilling out onto the jumbo Kotex.
Nurse Apollo came by every so often to change the Kotex and finally pronounced me fit to depart. I climbed back into my cutoffs and T-shirt and shuffled out to the lobby where Dad was reading a newspaper. He looked up. I think it was the first time he had looked at me since he had found out.
My father looked so much younger than any of my friends’ fathers. Everyone always commented on how handsome he was—and how smart and successful. I felt proud when I heard people say that. I felt proud to have a father like him. That is why hurting my father was one of the worst things about getting pregnant. It made me sick to think about what I had done. I knew I had broken his heart.
“Ready to go?” he asked.
I nodded, silently, and followed him out to the car. As I walked out of that abortion clinic, I felt truly unforgivable, and that I was living an unforgivable life. I was a wretched, horrid person. Who could ever love or forgive someone like me? My life would forever remain in a state of undeniable pain, condemnation, and shame. I wanted to die.
Neither of us said a word all the way home. Dad concentrated on the road and I looked out the window, unable to focus on anything whizzing by.
When I got home I logged onto Facebook.
Aleecia: I got thrown out of the church choir. Apparently pregnant girls aren’t fit to sing the Lord’s praises.
Candy: Hypocritical bastards!
Aleecia: Now, I’m supposed to go for pastoral counseling with Father Rick.
Jasmine: Who is that?
Aleecia: He’s a new junior minister. Just moved here from California. I heard that he is really hot.
Shawna: A hot minister? This could get interesting! Post photos.
Izzy: Check out this amazing video—In the womb.
Me: I can’t look at that. I just had my abortion.
Shawna: How was it?
Me: Awful! The people working at the clinic were weird and creepy.
Shawna: I just found out that my mom had an abortion when she was seventeen. She said she thinks about the baby every day.
Dad told Mr. Rupczynski that I had a bad cold, and for the rest of the week, I spent a lot of time in the hammock, thinking. I lay there every day, staring at the fluffy clouds, thinking about Aunt Sofia walking into the river, wondering if my grandfather had raped Aunt Flo, and feeling sad for the baby that she had given up and the one that I h
ad just killed.
I turned the camera on myself and started talking. “Abortion is a terrible thing, I have decided. It’s not like just taking a dump and feeling better. You still have all those hormones and your breasts are sore and even though you knew you couldn’t keep the baby, you still feel really sad and mournful. I only wish that people could see that abortion does not only hurt the little ones who get aborted but that it hurts us also in a very real, serious, and lasting way. I wish that people could see that with abortion in our lives we lose a kind of innate God-given blessedness, a life full of innocence and tenderness.”
That video got four million views.
Nothing could erase the reality that I had been complicit in taking the life of my own baby. Rather than feeling relieved that the burden of my unborn child was eliminated, I felt twisted and changed. I felt haunted. Too much death and loss for one summer, I thought.
As requested, I had written up a list of the all boys I had sex with, in reverse chronological order starting with Chip, and gave it to Dad. My phone started to buzz with regularity as each boy received the summons to appear and provide a DNA sample. I imagined their parents’ shock and anger as they dragged their sons one by one to the lab for the blood test—I knew their anger was directed toward me. The messages were just one-word texts: SLUT, CUNT, BITCH, WHORE. Nothing too original.
The next week I returned to my babysitting gig as though nothing had changed. But everything had changed.
“Rox,” I said. “Let me see your profile.”
“Will you help me with it?” she asked.
“Don’t you think it’s weird how dating profiles emphasize listings of your favorite TV shows, movies, and books?” I asked. “It’s as if you are supposed to define yourself by how you distract yourself. It’s like impersonating a person—this is what I do instead of being a person, instead of engaging with other people.”
