A Leg to Stand On

by Colleen Haggerty

  I got out of the car and walked quickly to the water’s edge. The wind blew over me like a spring shower. The seagulls hung suspended in the air like kites. I kept wiping away the tears for what felt like an eternity, until finally they slowed down. I didn’t have any tissues and cursed my nose for running so much. I had to wipe it on my sleeve. I sat down on the rocky shore and had my cigarette. With each drag, I settled into my body a little more. With each puff, my breathing evened out, and though I was completely unconscious of it at the time, I made a vow to get through the end of my quarter and throw myself back into life the best I could.

  12

  ANOTHER CHOICE

  My older sister Mary Beth had her first child a year after Brendon was born, the second grandchild in the family. I was so happy for her yet so unhappy for myself. In the “normal” lives of my siblings, who were getting married and starting families, I saw exactly what was elusive to me. Rob hadn’t loved me enough to marry me, I told myself, and I had terminated a pregnancy rather than celebrated my child’s birth. I just felt like I couldn’t do life right. Not for the first time—or even for the millionth time—I wondered if having one leg simply made me too flawed to carry on a normal life. But carry on I did, to the best of my ability.

  The reason I’d gone back to school in the first place was that, during my three-year hiatus from college, and through my experiences connecting with other disabled folks, I’d discovered the healing power of recreation. And so, I’d returned to college to earn a degree in Therapeutic Recreation. And it was through my educational pursuits up in Bellingham that I met Eric.

  My second year back at school, I enrolled in an experiential outdoor education program that focused on nature-based learning. With fifteen other students, I went rock climbing, created an educational nature curriculum for fifth graders, and taught the fifth graders about different habitats during a weeklong immersion camp. I snow-camped on Mt. Baker, and took a two-week backpacking trip in the Pasayten Wilderness, three days of which were a solo experience for each of us. All of this was exciting and gratifying.

  And hovering in the background of my adventures was Eric, one of my classmates and a regular among those I hung out with. He was the mountain man of the group. He was six foot five and skinny as a rail, with a rugged face and a scruff of auburn hair. His smile was quick and huge, revealing big white teeth. He was only twenty-five, but the wrinkles around his eyes were those of a man who had spent years living outdoors, squinting into the sun. Eric was a hunter, fisherman, and nature lover. On our backpacking trip into the Pasayten, he not only identified every birdcall, but also imitated each call to near perfection. And then he would inform us of the bird’s mating habits and migratory patterns. Always good for a laugh, Eric would recount these facts in a British accent while rubbing his chin with exaggerated thoughtfulness. He made me laugh with all his accents and crude remarks, though he often also made me cringe with his thoughtlessly rude comments. I didn’t want to admit to myself that I was attracted to Eric, but I caught myself watching him out of the corner of my eye.

  The end of the quarter marked the beginning of summer. Most everyone had left town, but I attempted to have an end-of-the-year potluck for the few stragglers of the group who’d remained. In a funny—if not awkward—twist, my timing was off, and the only person who ended up coming was Eric. After a half hour of drinking beer and waiting for the others to show up, we realized we would be eating alone. Eric and I had never spent time alone together, and my hidden infatuation was poking out its timid head.

  “Well, Red, looks like it’s just you and me eatin’ this grub,” he said in his cowboy accent. He took a puff of his hand-rolled cigarette, squinting to avoid the smoke. My heart dropped to my knees. I was speechless, but I giggled.

  After dinner, we decided to take a walk on a nearby beach. I learned more about him and his upbringing, and he finally broke the privacy barrier and asked how I’d lost my leg.

  “When I first saw you walking into the classroom, I thought it was such a shame that a pretty young thing like you was limping,” he said, which was the kind of thoughtless, rude comment that made me want to slap him. And yet it was honest enough that I also appreciated it.

  “What!” I screamed, and I slapped him on the shoulder with a smile.

  He laughed. “I’m sorry, I just think it’s too bad this happened to someone as lovely as you, my dear.” The kind, elderly British gentleman was back.

  “Well, I’m learning a lot from this,” I said, trying to remain philosophical for the sake of our conversation. “Being an amputee has taught me a lot about myself and about other people.” This was true, of course, though not the whole story.

  Eric squinted into the setting sun, and I could see him take in my comment. I let the silence linger. He had his own brand of uniqueness, and whether he knew it or not, I thought he could relate to what I was talking about. I found that to be true for a lot of people. They admired me for how I’d handled my situation, forgetting to admire themselves for how they had managed their own hardships. I was far enough into my journey to know that suffering touched everyone in one way or another.

  That evening didn’t end. We went back to my house and spent the rest of the night exploring each other in completely new ways.

  Two days later, Eric left to go fishing in Alaska for the summer. I was confused about how to say good-bye. Did we have a one-night fling? Did we just cement our relationship? Eric was another solo traveler, like Rob, so I decided on a casual good-bye. He followed suit. “Of all the gin joints in all the world, I had to find you in this one,” he said in his Humphrey Bogart accent. He gave me a big hug punctuated by a low dip in his strong right arm. “I’ll be seeing you, in all the old familiar places,” he crooned, and then he headed out the door.

  What did that mean? What the hell did I just do? I didn’t know where to put this relationship or how to categorize it. Clearly he wasn’t my boyfriend, and the concept of “friends with benefits” had only recently been introduced to me. I didn’t think I wanted that. But he was gone for the summer, and I was left working at my internship, confused and hopeful for fall.

  In early September, I received a phone call.

  “Hello?”

  “Yes, hello,” said the deep voice of what sounded like a radio pitchman. “Is this Red? Because if it is, have I got a deal for you. You’ve just been awarded a dinner out to Bellingham’s finest restaurant.” My face flushed as I realized it was Eric.

  “Hi, Eric,” I managed to blurt out, feeling suddenly self-conscious. “How was fishing?”

  “Ah, hell,” he said in his grumbly cowboy voice. “You know, ya win some, ya lose some. But I did make enough to take a purty young lady to dinner. Waddaya say, Missy?” He ended his speech in a full John Wayne.

  “Great! When?”

  “How about six?”

  “Tonight?”

  “Yep, tonight.”

  I had enough time to bathe, shave my leg, and wash my hair. All the while the butterflies of excitement fluttered in my stomach. I didn’t want to admit to myself all summer how much I was hoping he’d call, and now that he had, I was overjoyed.

  When he came to the door, Eric greeted me with a long, slow kiss. I just about melted to the floor. “Good to see you, Red,” he said softly in my ear in his own voice.

  “Good to see you, too,” I whispered back.

  Eric was good for me. He made sure I kept hiking, even though school was now back in the classroom. We took beautiful fall walks on old logging roads. He took me target shooting, and I even tried my hand at grouse hunting. I didn’t like the guns, but I loved hearing his endless knowledge of nature: birds, animals, plants, trees. I was a sponge, and he was a flowing river of information.

  The first week of December, I realized my period was late. My dread mounted every time I went to the bathroom and searched for the blood spot on my underwear that should have been there by now. One evening, as I was in the bathroom and Eric was in th
e living room, I became light-headed. The sound of rushing blood filled my ears. Though my eyes were open, my world turned black. I was being lifted out of my body and up into the cosmos. All I could see were stars, millions and millions of stars. I crumpled to the bathroom floor. I heard Eric’s feet taking one, two, only three steps from the living room to the bathroom.

  “What the … ?” Arms enveloped me. My head was too heavy to hold up, so I rested it against his chest. My eyelids were too heavy to keep open, so I closed them. A rush of warmth circled my face, and I felt the distantly familiar need to throw up. Right now. I heaved myself off of Eric’s chest and threw myself over the tub, letting it all out, not even embarrassed that Eric was right there.

  “Hey, you all right? What’s going on?” he said, his voice his own but concerned.

  “Oh, Eric, I think I’m pregnant.” The knot of guilt was back in my stomach. Tears filled my eyes. Cold pressure filled my chest as I realized what was happening to my body again.

  “Well, shit.”

  I didn’t expect Eric to be happy, but that wasn’t the support I was looking for.

  “Well, before you get all freaked out, let’s find out for sure,” I said, miffed. I still didn’t want to admit it. I just wanted a nice evening making dinner, but Eric needed to know. He made sure I was tucked into bed and then went to the store to buy a home pregnancy test.

  Eric was still sleeping when I took the test the next morning. A big plus sign was staring me in the face.

  How could I have let this happen again? How could I be so stupid? I had been using my diaphragm, but not religiously. My negligence was coming back to haunt me. I was filled with dread. Dread for the immediacy of needing to make a decision. Dread for my future if I made the decision to keep the baby. Dread when I thought about telling my family. I went back to bed, lay next to Eric, and sobbed in his arms, wishing he knew how to take care of this. Eric could build an ice cave, tie any kind of knot, and shoot a deer with a bow and arrow, but he was at a loss when confronted with this.

  “Colleen, you know I don’t want to have kids. Hell, woman, I don’t even want to get married. You know that. The decision is yours, and I’ll support you financially if you decide to keep the kid, but I can’t be a dad.”

  If there was one thing I appreciated about Eric, it was his honesty. I don’t think he even knew how to lie. That, mixed with his lack of tact, made him say a lot of insensitive things, but I appreciated hearing the God’s honest truth. If I was going to have this baby, I would be a single mother with a child-support check coming in the mail every month. What had my life become? Was I really going to end up a single mother at twenty-six years old?

  As I lay in bed ruminating, what really nagged at me was my body. I felt like I was at the top of my game—as healthy and strong as I’d ever been or was likely to ever be. I was a skier, a backpacker, and an explorer of many other sports and activities. I knew my body was capable of doing so many adventurous things, but I wasn’t convinced I could maintain my mobility if I went through a pregnancy.

  However, my most prevalent thought was that I should have made sure not to let myself get into this situation again. I already carried too much guilt from the first pregnancy to have another abortion. I should have been more responsible. I should have been more careful. I should have known better. Now I had to deal with the consequences.

  I thought back to my visit at Kevin and Molly’s house after Brendon was born. Holding him was unlike anything I’d experienced. I had seen the grandeur of a mountaintop, felt the exhilaration of skiing down a fast slope, and heard the melancholy cry of the bald eagle, but I had never felt such fragile, vulnerable strength in my life. How could I abort another baby now that I knew how precious babies were? He was so tiny and so perfect. I thought of the agony I felt holding Brendon; he represented the loss of my own baby. Could I expose myself to another loss?

  But I was not a fully formed adult yet myself. No one who carries a milestone of shame and guilt around their neck can reach her highest potential. A year prior, Father Dempsey had told me my abortion was unforgiveable. I was still conflicted and angry about that. I had a hard time accepting I was unforgiveable, but I was having an equally hard time believing a priest could be so wrong. And I certainly did not feel forgiven. I hadn’t forgiven myself, after all.

  That night was my friend Sandra’s rehearsal dinner; she was getting married the next day, and I was the maid of honor. I’d met Sandra in the Therapeutic Recreation program, and had been excited when she asked me to be in her wedding. I went to the dinner without Eric, feeling numb and shell-shocked. I did the best I could at the event, but watching her look at the man she loved with an intimate smile, knowing they were promising to be together forever and have children together, made me so sad for myself. I desperately wanted the life she was stepping into, what Mom and Dad had had. I wanted to find a soul mate, the love of my life—and have babies once the love was in place.

  The next day I got ready for the wedding, and Eric helped me prepare for the party I was throwing at my house after the reception. I wanted to stay present for Sandra—girlfriends for me were hard to come by, and I intended to do right by those friendships I’d developed in Bellingham. I knew from my first pregnancy that I had a week or two to figure this out. So I pretended I wasn’t pregnant and tucked my feelings aside for the day. At the party at my house after the reception, I got good and drunk and acted like I didn’t have a care in the world. But the knot of guilt grew bigger, even more so now that I was drinking with a baby inside me.

  My sister-in-law Molly was newly pregnant with Brendon’s sibling. How could I say no while Molly was saying yes? Even if I still couldn’t imagine myself as a mother, I could do the admirable thing and give the baby up for adoption.

  “Eric, I don’t think I can go through another abortion.” We had talked about my previous abortion over the past week. “The last one was so hard; I still don’t think I’m over it. So I’ve decided to give the baby up for adoption.”

  “Ah, geez, really? Have you thought about this? I mean, if I don’t have to be responsible for a little kid for the rest of my life, I would be so grateful, but I know your family is really important to you. Do you really think you can give the baby up?”

  “Hell, I’ve done a lot of hard things in my life. I’d rather give the baby up than not give it a chance at life. I think I need to do the responsible thing and at least bring this baby into the world.”

  “But I’m not convinced you won’t be torn up about it later on. You’re strong, but you’re not that strong.” He was just trying to convince me to abort the baby, which pissed me off.

  “Unless you’re going to be the father of this baby, you don’t really have any say in the matter. I’ll do what I want. And right now I just want to go to bed.”

  “Well, all right then, but don’t come crying to me every year on the kid’s birthday.”

  “You can be sure I won’t.”

  Eric had been clear from the get-go that he wasn’t the marrying kind. I didn’t mind; I didn’t want to marry him anyway. He drank too much, and he was crude and too rude for my taste, but I couldn’t help but love him. We’d made our relationship exclusive, but we knew it was temporary.

  Finals were the next week, so I focused my attention on them. I was a much better student after my three-year break from school, and I wanted to ace my tests. I’d found out about this pregnancy four weeks earlier than the last one and wasn’t suffering from constant nausea like before, but I had an incessant pounding headache.

  I did well on my tests. And once I had some breathing room in my schedule, I had time to think things through more clearly. I realized I hadn’t put all the pieces of my life together. If I was going to carry this baby to term, I’d be pregnant during my upcoming internship. After which, I’d still have two quarters of college left. Would I ever finish school if I was pregnant for the next nine months? In the quiet of my post-finals life, my commitment to see the preg
nancy through began to wane.

  In a fit of panic and loneliness, I visited my friend Luann, one of the outdoor crew I’d grown close to while backpacking earlier in the academic year. I was embarrassed to admit I was in this predicament, but I needed to talk to someone and get some advice. I practically ran into her arms when I saw her, so desperate was I for a hug. I felt so distressed that I started sobbing.

  “What is it, Colleen? What’s wrong?” Luann seemed to have a charmed life, and her voice was light and casual.

  “The worst thing ever,” I sobbed onto her shoulder. Boy, she doesn’t see this coming.

  “Your mom died?” She pulled me away by the shoulders and looked at me in concern. Oh my god, I thought, she’s right. It was good perspective to remember that something like my mom dying would be much worse than this.

  “No, I’m pregnant.” Not death, but new life.

  With a little laugh, she said, “Oh, is that all?”

  I shook my head in disbelief and sat down at the kitchen table. “Luann, this is a big deal. I’m thinking of giving the baby up for adoption.”

  “Oh.” She sat down with me. “Well, if that’s what you want.” Her brow furrowed. “Why don’t you just have an abortion?” I loved Luann. I respected her and her liberal, freestyle thinking. But even this was a little cavalier for me.

  “Luann, abortion is a sin.” I heard a plea in my voice as if trying to convince her.

  “Oh, you still believe that?” She looked at me wide-eyed. I didn’t want to believe in predetermined sin, but Catholic dogma was ingrained in me. I tried to look at my choices outside of that construct, but Father Dempsey’s judgment was like a claw in my back.

  Luann had grown up in an Italian Catholic family, so she knew what I was faced with. I admired how she had given up the Catholic faith so easily, with no looking back. Me? I’d given lip service to letting go of Catholicism when among my liberal friends, but I kept looking over my shoulder, watching it follow me, feeling it lurk behind every decision I made.