by Ruth Ozeki
An ancient gynecological examining table stands at the far end, its stirrups pointing toward the railway yard and the grimy amber daylight that filters in through the window. There’s a lit candle and a stick of incense in a flowerpot on the windowsill. The woman tells you to get undressed from the waist down, so you peel off your jeans and hop up on the table. Feet in the stirrups. You wonder if you should have taken off your socks. The woman makes you lift your bottom so she can slip a plastic tarp beneath. She covers your knees with a sheet, but the plastic makes you shiver.
“Cold?” she asks.
“Yeah.” Your teeth are chattering.
She pulls a small electric heater closer to the table, then throws an army-surplus blanket over the sheet. “Better?”
You nod. The woman looks kind, and you relax a little. She takes your hand. “You sure you want to do this? He didn’t pressure you?”
You shake your head.
“Then tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“Tell me it’s your choice. Tell me you don’t want this baby.”
“I don’t want this baby?” you say, but it comes out sounding like a question.
“Do you really want this abortion?”
“Yeah.” You shrug. “Sure.”
“Say it.”
You roll your eyes. “I really, really, really want this abortion.”
She looks at you hard, then pats your arm. “All right. Hang on tight. Here we go.” And she walks toward your feet and ducks behind the blanket.
You can see the window beyond the horizon of coarse, olive-drab wool that stretches between your knees, which are spread wide open to the world. Off in the marshaling yard you can hear the trains being built, their brakes grinding and squealing, metal against metal. Instead of dissonance, however, this creates a harmonic accident—eerie overtones, not of this earth. You want it to go on and on, infinitely resonating, but it terminates in the heavy clank of two-ton cars coupling.
You cringe at the insertion of cold metal.
The pain is like no other.
After it’s over, you lie there on the table while the woman cleans up. The door opens, and Cassie comes in. She chokes at the sight of the blood, but she recovers. She rubs your clammy forehead, pulls your long hair up off your neck, and blows gently against your skin, and this time her comforting works because you start to cry. She kisses your brow.
“You okay?” she whispers, and you nod.
“Let’s get milk shakes,” you whisper back, because you know she likes milk shakes, and she hugs you and helps you get dressed. The lady gives you a big sanitary pad, which you shove between your legs. You pull up your jeans. Then Elliot comes in, and he wants to carry you out in his arms.
Over the threshold, like a bride in reverse.
He puts his arms gently around you and you feel the last of your strength drain from your legs. You push him away.
“For chrissakes, Elliot,” you say, gripping the sticky banister and descending all on your own. “I’m not a fucking baby.”
After the milk shakes he drives you home. Cassie gets out at the end of the road by the mailboxes, but as you’re about to follow, he holds on to your arm. He needs to talk to you. Not for long. Ten minutes. Please. He drives down the road a way and pulls off to the side, next to a snow-covered potato field belonging to Lloyd. It’s cold in the Volkswagen, even with the engine running and the heater on.
“Yummy?” He tries to look into your eyes, but you keep your face turned away. “You okay, kid?”
It’s like having period cramps, only worse.
“You were really brave back there. You going to be all right?”
You don’t answer. You know this is not what he wants to talk about. “Listen . . .” He looks away, too, staring straight ahead though the foggy windshield. “I know it’s bad timing, but I’ve got a friend. Coming to visit. From San Francisco.”
“So what?” You don’t understand what this has to do with timing.
“What I mean is, while she’s here, I can’t, you know . . .”
You don’t want to hear any more. You want to stick your fingers in your ears and hum, but more words follow, faster now.
“Actually, I think it’s probably better this way, don’t you? If we take a break . . .”
You’re afraid you’ll start to cry if you say anything at all.
“For a while anyway.” He has the courtesy to face you then. “I’m sorry about all this. I didn’t mean for this to happen.” He exhales and engages the clutch. “I know you’ll understand.” He pulls on the wheel and makes a U-turn, leaving dark tracks in the snow.
At the mailboxes he reaches for your arm, but you slam the door in his face. It’s snowing again, and you listen to the sound of his small engine chugging away into the night. From the road you see the porch light shining through the poplars, and that’s when you hear it, a whimpering sound—noooo, nooooo—like a wounded animal makes, and the sound of a belt whistling through the air. You see Lloyd come out and stand in the lit doorway, and Momoko behind him.
You start to run toward the light.
They’re out by the woodpile—Carl Unger, his arm raised, belt in hand, and Cassie, just a shadowy black lump in the cold blanket of white. You hear your footsteps crunching, your voice yelling “Stop! You’re hurting her!” and then you’re on top of him, pounding at him with your fists.
He throws you off his back, and you land in the snow. He raises the belt against you, and that’s when Lloyd comes rattling down the steps. He grabs Unger’s arm, and for a moment they freeze, two cutouts in the moonlight, blowing big steam clouds at each other. But Lloyd is taller, and Carl’s knees start to buckle, and Lloyd keeps on pushing him down into the snowdrift like he’s planting him there. When Carl is on the ground, Lloyd lets go and turns to you.
“Where have you been?”
Cass speaks up then. “I didn’t tell them, Yummy! I didn’t say.”
“Shut your mouth, Cassandra.” Her daddy struggles to his feet and raises the belt.
“Leave her alone,” you say. “She didn’t do anything.”
“You were in Pocatello with that man,” Lloyd says. “You were seen there. I demand to know what you were doing.”
You get up slowly, brush off the snow, and look your father in the eye. “We were having milk shakes,” you say, which must have squared with his information, because for a minute, knowing that much to be true, everyone relaxes a little, wanting to believe that’s all there is to it, and now they can all go home.
“To celebrate my abortion.” You look from Lloyd to Cassie’s daddy, shrug at the two of them, and turn toward the porch.
Carl spits into the snow. “She’s a bad seed, Fuller. First thing in the morning I’m calling the sheriff. We’ll run that bastard out of town.”
But Lloyd says nothing, doesn’t even hear. He moves, catching up with you on the bottom step. Then he grabs your shoulder and spins you around, bringing his hand down hard across the side of your face. The blow snaps your head back. You hit the newel post and crumple. You fall at his feet. Staring up at him, you experience a great surge that feels like triumph at first, but it quickly subsides, and then it’s like life on earth as you know it has ended right there, and you’ve woken up dead or on Mars. When Lloyd finally speaks, his voice is shaking with rage.
“What gives you the right?” he asks. “What gives you the authority to take an innocent life?”
“It’s legal now!” you cry.
“That’s not a law, that’s a license to commit murder!” He squats down and grips you by the arms. His chest is heaving. “It’s a sin against God, Yumi! Don’t you see?”
You cringe and pull away from him. There’s blood coming from your nose, dripping onto the snow, and it is just too much blood for one day. “It’s not a sin,” you say, gulping for air. “It’s my body. It’s my fucking life. . . .”
He looks at you, and you see his revulsion. He stands. Steps over you and c
limbs. He has to hold on tight to the railing. At the top he turns, and his eyes are like ice, so cold and bright his gaze would have frozen the landscape if the winter hadn’t already. You’re scared then, truly, because you know you’ve gone too far, and so has he.
“God creates life,” he says. “Only He can choose to end it.” The screen door slams behind him.
Carl Unger snorts. He turns to Cass. “Your little friend here is gonna burn in hell. You going with her?”
Cass draws away and shakes her head.
Unger nods. “Thought so. Now, get on home. I’ll get your mother. I’m not done with you yet.”
You lie on the bloodstained steps.
“Yummy?” Cass whispers.
Her daddy lurches forward, belt in hand, half raised. “I said get! Now! I don’t want you speaking another word to this little whore.”
“Yummy?” She takes a baby step backward. Then another. Away from her daddy. From you. Away from your glowing house. You lift your face.
“Go, Cass.” Your voice is hoarse and old sounding, not like you at all.
Cass turns and runs into the darkness.
double-click
Careful not to wake him, to depress the mattress or tug on the sheet, Cass inched her weight over to her side of the bed and lowered her feet to the floor. Felt for her slippers and her robe. There were spots in the old floorboards that groaned underfoot, but she knew exactly where they were. She’d known them as a child, when she slept down the hallway, keeping an ear out for the creaks and grunts that escaped from her parents’ bedroom, and she knew them now, as an adult, ever since she and Will had moved into the master bedroom. Knowing them so well, it was easy to avoid them.
She wrapped the old robe tightly around her. She placed her weight carefully, timing her steps to Will’s breathing. Once in the hallway she could navigate more quickly. Once in the kitchen she could walk normally again. The bedroom was in the far corner of the house; she couldn’t bang pots, but she could relax and let Will slip from her mind. Poor man, she thought in passing. He worked so hard. She put on a kettle of water for tea.
Warm tea. Made from herbs. Like mint to soothe the stomach. Nettle to cleanse the liver. Sage to satisfy the soul. She carried her steaming cup to the office and logged on to the computer.
She typed in the URL, bypassed the home page, and went straight to the photo listings. She was working her way through Eastern Europe and had made it halfway through the Bulgarians. She’d done Africa and Asia already. She was saving Russia for last. She quickly scanned the list: Boris, Georgi, Ignat, Mitko, Vasil. These were the boys, and she would start with them, because Will needed a son to help out on the farm. But then she would move on to the girls: Ana, Donka, Kamelia, Nadka, Veselinka. She would be overjoyed with any child, but in her heart of hearts she wanted a daughter.
Kamelia. What a pretty name. You wouldn’t even need to do much, just change a few letters. But Donka! The kids at school would have a field day with that. Donka would need an American name for sure. Cass double-clicked on Donka, to take a quick peek. The description was disappointingly brief, but the thumbnail photograph showed a delicate girl, with black eyes that seemed to get bigger and deeper the longer Cass looked at her. She bookmarked the child and added her to the favorites folder.
This precious little girl—the descriptions all began like that: this charming toddler, this lovable baby boy—followed by a few notes describing the particular child’s condition: Donka was born a bit prematurely. She is able to form a few words, and she can sing to herself, but her speech is not perfectly clear. She has no other apparent disabilities. She enjoys watching TV.
Many of the children were disabled, and there was even a space in the search-request form where you could specify the degree of disability you could tolerate in your adopted child: none, mild, moderate, severe. But regardless of the cleft palates, the anomalous spines, the limps and stutters and damaged brains, all the descriptions ended like Donka’s: This child is searching for a loving home.
What words can she form? Cass wondered as she gazed into Donka’s dark, pixelated eyes. If you were an orphaned Bulgarian baby, what would you want to communicate to the world? It didn’t matter if Donka couldn’t speak so clearly. Words were overrated anyway. Certainly Will didn’t have much use for them. He’d be a good daddy to a wordless child, and it was nice that the girl liked to sing. They could all sing and watch TV together. They could call her Donna.
Will had once expressed interest in a Vietnamese child, but when they’d looked at a site together and he’d seen the birth defects and the land-mine injuries, he shook his head and turned away.
“I can’t,” he said. “I’d want to take them all.”
Later that night he had a nightmare. She woke him and held him as he rocked back and forth. “Oh, God, Cass,” he said. “It’s like we defoliated all the babies, too.”
Now, thinking about Will, she felt guilty. He hated what she was doing—window shopping for children, he called it—and he saved articles from the newspaper for her about people with Internet addictions. He didn’t come out and say it was like pornography, but she knew that’s what he thought. It was unwholesome, a sad fantasy, and she always felt lousy and hungover the next morning. It was useless, too, since even if she and Will made the decision to adopt, by the time the paperwork was done and the home studies were concluded, these particular kids would be gone or grown. But even knowing this, she still couldn’t resist her folder of favorites, poring over their pictures in the middle of the night. From time to time she was tempted to delete the lot of them, but that felt wrong, too. Having chosen them, she could not simply drag them into the trash.
Double-click and the child is yours. Double-click and the baby is aborted. But it wasn’t so easy. For Yummy, perhaps, but not for Cass. It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t fair.
She was sick of watching the haphazard way Yummy parented her children, hauling them around, the way she talked to them and the language she used. It was so clear they were unhappy. Phoenix was still getting bullied in school. The kids were calling him names—Jap, faggot—although after the Thai-boxing incident they kept their distance. Yummy just shrugged and told him to work it out.
“You’re in Idaho, Phoenix. What do you expect?”
Ocean had come home every day for an entire week in tears because a classmate was calling her a love child.
“Love child!” Yummy said. “How sweet!” She grabbed Ocean and gave her a loud, smacking kiss, then cuddled her roughly. “Ooh, my love child. My little love puddle.”
Cass looked down at her lap. It was embarrassing to watch.
Ocean wrenched herself away from her mother’s embrace. “Stop it!” she yelled. “Don’t call me that! It means I don’t have any father!”
Yummy sat back, pulling her long hair off her face and letting it fall. “Well, you tell your friend that’s a biological impossibility,” she said. There was an edge to her voice now. “Come on. Say it. ‘Biological impossibility.’ ”
“I can’t!” Ocean cried.
“Say it!”
“Bilogi—”
“Bi-o-logical.”
“Bilological . . .”
And now Elliot Rhodes goes and shows up, and there was Yummy, acting like a complete idiot around him, like she was ready to jump right back into bed with him. They’d already been up to something when she and the kids had walked in on them. They’d stepped apart, and he had looked at her coolly.
“You’re—” he said, then waited for someone to help him out, and of course Yummy obliged. Cass would have been perfectly happy to let him wait forever.
“Cass,” Yummy said. “Cass Unger.”
“Quinn,” Cass said, but nobody heard her.
“Of course,” Elliot said. “Yummy’s friend.” He smiled at her, like a parent trying to be gracious. His eyes were flicking back and forth between Poo’s dark little face and hers, comparing.
“Cute baby,” he said. “Is he—”
“He’s mine,” Yummy said.
Elliot raised his eyebrows and glanced past Cass at Phoenix and Ocean, who were standing half hidden, as though he were expecting more children to pop out.
“Just the three,” Yummy said. “That’s it. No more.”
Cass felt her face redden with shame, but even that didn’t belong to her entirely. Yummy’s babies, Yummy’s shame. She felt Ocean beside her, clutching her pant leg. Poo squirmed in her arms. Behind her, Phoenix slammed the door and headed back out into the wind. Something small and hot burst inside her chest. Poo sensed it and started to cry. Yummy held her arms out for him, and he went to her gladly.
Elliot was putting on his coat. “So,” he was saying to Yummy. “Are you free for lunch? Tomorrow?”
Yummy nodded.
Stripped of the baby, her reason for being there, Cass turned and walked toward the door.
But it wasn’t over. Not quite. Not yet.
“Cass?” Yummy said. “Could you take Poo again tomorrow afternoon?”
Cass couldn’t bear it. “Will wants to start planting as soon as this wind lets up.” Her brain felt squeezed and useless.
“Just for a few hours . . .”
Old habit won out. “All right.”
Outside, Phoenix was throwing stones against the side of the barn, but he was far enough away so that the wind carried off the sound of impact. Silent rock against old wood. He looked so small under the towering poplars bending stiffly in the wind. Beyond him stretched the empty fields, overhung with a pale cloud of swirling dust.
Cass headed toward home. Halfway there she realized she was holding on to her stomach. Just thinking of Yummy together with Rhodes made her sick, as though the sight itself carried a taint. For the rest of the evening she tried to keep the images from her mind, but it was too late. That night she dreamed about the horrible brown room at the top of the stairs, and the train yard beyond, and the mournful, eerie overtones of steel straining against steel. Waking, she realized it was just the wind creaking in the poplars, and she relaxed. A few minutes later the cramps started.
