Utah: A Lucy Ripken Mystery (The Lucy Ripken Mysteries Book 7)

by J. J. Henderson

  Sometimes sneaking out with Frannie in a couple of weeks to take care of it sounded like a perfect plan, as Ellen contemplated the future, her future, now that she had been forced back into school. She wanted to go to film school in California. She wanted to make movies like the ones she saw in her head. Tell this story like it needed to be told. But then she saw herself with a tiny baby in her arms, all warm and snuggly, and that picture, too, tantalized, hypnotized. Except in the dream when the baby had her father’s head on its shoulders, and she woke in a cold sweat wishing the whole last four years of her life was a bad dream she was just now waking from.

  She went into the visitors’ area, and there at a table sat Mommy. She looked different. The guard walked her over to the table. Her mom stood. “Um, hi Mom.” She wasn’t sure if she should hug her, or what. Dorothy stood, and held out her arms.

  “Oh, baby, “ she said, and enfolded Ellen in a hug. “Oh, my poor, poor baby.” Before she knew it, Ellen was crying along with her mom.

  In an suburb east of San Diego, in a brand new gated neighborhood of million dollar homes wrapped around 36 holes of world-class golf, on that same Sunday morning 147 well-dressed, well-off evangelicals gathered in a two story beige church with a distant view of the ocean and a near view of the eleventh green. Brother Jeffrey Graves rose solemnly and walked to the front of the gathering. “Friends and neighbors,” he intoned. “Brothers and sisters in Jesus...I have come forth to ask your assistance in prayer, that together we might guide back to the path of righteousness my wife, who has been led astray.” People shiftily eyed Loretta, who kneeled between two of her kids with her eyes on the floor. The only thing that kept her from rising and running with a scream from the room was the steady pressure of Candy’s hand in hers. Candy was with her all the way. “She has questioned my role as the leader and decision-maker in our house; and she has questioned the authority of the church in one of the gravest matters that we live with in the world today. She has dared to wonder out loud about permitting an abortion. Not here but in Utah, where our Mormon brethren live. She has found cause to believe that abortion is not always and forever the work of the damned and the devil! I will not trouble your souls with any of the details. Suffice it to say that she has shaken the foundations of our house and home, and caused much pain. But she is not beyond redemption, for no matter how lost no true Christian ever strays that far. And so let us join hands, brothers and sisters, and pray for her almighty soul.” Loretta kept her eyes on the floor, her hand in Candy’s hand, and scarcely breathed through the silence of the prayer they were making for her. She wondered, as she had every day since coming home, how all these simple pieties had seemed so acceptable in the past. She wondered if there would ever be space in her heart again for Jeffrey. She didn’t think so, for she had become full of love, love for Jesus more pure than anything she had every imagined possible, for Jesus the forgiving one, Jesus the understanding one, Jesus the lover of children and the innocent. She had let her imagination wander into places it would never have gone, before her trip, and she knew now that Brother Davis, the assistant pastor, Jeffrey’s golf partner, would be all over her Candy in a minute if he had the chance. She could see it in his smarmy little eyes, roving over her young body with the shifty looks of a practiced lecher. How had she blinded herself to the hypocrisy in this place? And if Davis should get Candy pregnant, would she, Loretta, want their child brought into this world? Better to stop such a thing before it even started. Better to catch it fast, and...and end it. She wondered if Ellen had chosen to abort. She hoped so, she hoped not.

  For Ellen and Lucy she prayed through the hypocritical hiss of the prayer for her. The rolling murmur surrounding her faded; and she felt nothing but the pressure of her daughter’s hand in her own hand, massaging her anguished heart.

  In another time zone, another daughter held her mother’s hand. “You know, baby,” said Dorothy. “I...I knew, but...’

  “Don’t say it, Mom. There’s no need to explain.” There really wasn’t. Ellen had quickly discovered that her mother had changed. She had been meek, cowed, quietly drunk, pretending she didn’t know. Now she seemed clearer, more present. Ellen knew why. He was gone and she was stone cold sober, seeing the world without him in it.

  “But you have...I want you to know what happened. Why...I didn’t. I wasn’t hardly older than you are now, honey, when Arthur...when your father and I...when we met. Next thing I knew I was living here in Utah.”

  Ellen did not want to talk about this stuff. “I know what happened.”

  “No, you don’t. You don’t know how trapped I felt. How I wanted something more for myself...and for you, before the boys came along. Your father was...”

  “Please, Mom, let’s not talk about the past. About him. It’s...over now, and...”

  “Ellen, it’s not ever going to be over. You carry it with you always. You can’t ever escape...” She realized what she’d said. “Oh, honey, I didn’t mean...”

  “So you think I should...get rid of my baby?” Ellen said softly. Dorothy could see she verged on tears again.

  “I think you have to choose for yourself, honey. Just know that...I’m behind you if you decide to...”

  “Get rid of it? How am I supposed to do that, locked up in here?”

  “I don’t know, El. I just...don’t want you to live a life of regret.” As they talked on for the balance of an hour, the unsaid thing between them was that the worst was over. There was no need to say it again or any other way, for they could see it in each other’s eyes, and in the way they sat at the table facing each other fearlessly, knowing there would never again come a moment when he would appear in the room, and the dark knowledge the three of them shared would possess them, drive them into silence. Ellen had killed him and made them free.

  “Hi, Lucy, you there? It’s me. Ellen. I’m sorry I haven’t called or written, but...I’ve been, I don’t know, just thinking about everything, and...hey, my Mom came up and we had a good talk last week. Anyways everything’s OK here I guess. I mean, there’s some girls here who’ve done stuff even...worse than me. But seems like everybody has their reasons, like me. Its weird how many times...how many girls here...there’s like, I don’t know, fifteen girls that are pregnant, and like half of them it was their...you know, their big brother or their dad or...God, there’s so many creeps out there! But I just wanted to talk to you about...about something important. Listen, I’ll call you back tomorrow night, same time, OK?”

  Actually the next night she called back almost half an hour later. Lucy had arrived next to the phone half an hour early just in case, so she sat there for an hour, watching bad tv shows until the phone rang. She snatched it up. “Ellen, is that you?”

  “Yeah. Hi Lucy. It’s me.”

  “God, it’s good to hear your...I got your message. Sounds like things are...”

  “Yeah, its OK here. Like I said. But I’m starting to...well, you know, the baby’s getting kind of...my stomach’s starting to show more, and I...man, Lucy, I don’t know. I mean I’m really into school now, and I feel like things are getting better. I never thought I’d feel like there was anything for me in the future before, except bad stuff, and then when I got pregnant I was... I really want to...wanted to have the baby, but...my Mom says I should do what I want, like you said. I don’t know, I found a way to...you know...”

  “You mean the...the place you’re staying offers...family planning services?” Lucy felt her stomach knotting up. She found it suddenly difficult to say the word.

  “No, it’s not like that. This is Utah, Lucy, they don’t do that stuff here. At least not...you know, legally. But I met this girl who found out how we can...well, there’s a guard who’s like, sympathetic, and she’s set up this...” her voice dropped. “You sneak out the service gate at like two in the morning and go to this house that’s not too far away. There’s a doctor, and...”

  “Wait a minute, El. Are you sure this is what you...is this man a real doctor?”


  “I don’t know, Lucy. But my friend Frannie here’s going to do it tomorrow night, and...I’m thinking of doing it too. Then when I get out of there I won’t have to...you know, take care of a baby. It’s like you said, Lucy. I have to think of what’s best for me!”

  “I know, El, but...you don’t know if...you have to have a real doctor, and a...clinical situation. Otherwise it’s too...it’s dangerous, Ellen. It’s a medical procedure, and...”

  “Look, there’s about six girls waiting to use the phone. I can’t talk. I’ll call you in a couple of days.”

  “Ellen wait,” Lucy said. She could hear Ellen breathing, waiting. “El, if you decide not to have the...procedure...I just want you to know that if you decide to have the baby that if you can’t ...that if you want...Jesus, I’m sorry, Honey, I’ll stop bullshitting you know. I will take care of your baby! That’s all I wanted to say! I will adopt it, or keep it until you want it, or whatever. You don’t have to worry about what’s going to happen to him. Or her. OK?”

  “OK, Lucy,” Ellen said after a moment. “I’ll try to remember that, when I’m remembering all the other things you said to me about this baby. Bye now.”

  “Please call me back, El. Please. I’m sorry. Goodbye.” Lucy hung up the phone and burst into tears, and then fell to softly crying for the children she’d never had, never would have, crying for her lost chance at motherhood, crying for Ellen, whose first chance at motherhood came in these circumstances. She knew she’d just made it even harder for Ellen to know what to do.

  And she feared that the plan Ellen had made might be a throwback to pre-Roe V. Wade, scared sneaking teenage girls forced into a dingy backroom, then being ministered to by some charlatan with scuzzy medical equipment and spotty knowledge, a fly-by-night old style operator who wouldn’t have a clue if things got complicated. Lucy was powerless to change the situation, whatever it was, and this, too, made her cry.

  The next night a soft knock on the door woke Ellen. She looked at her clock. One-fifteen a.m. Time to go. She looked over at Elaine, asleep with headphones on. Or eyes closed anyway. Ellen knew Elaine wouldn’t talk, whatever happened. She slipped out of bed, pulled off her nightgown and put her loosest jeans and a sweatshirt on. While she tied her tennies she tried to know what she would do, once she got there, but she didn’t know. Her stomach, soft and slightly rounded outside, was churning and heaving inside. She went out the unlocked door and found Frannie in the hall.

  Together they walked silently down the dimly-lit, linoleum-floored passage and around a couple of corners until they reached the work entrance to the kitchen. They slipped in quickly, made their way through the dark metallic gauntlet of the cooking lines, and headed to the service entrance at the back. There, they found another unlocked door. They stepped out into the cool night air. There was no moon on this deep, quiet night. In light spilling across the yard from a security lamp they spotted a truck parked by a service ramp, amidst trash cans and dumpsters. They walked over and quickly found the woman they were looking for, an off-duty assistant in the administration building. She pointed at a truck and they climbed into the back, half-full of black garbage bags. Someone whispered “Good luck” and then closed a metal lid over them. The darkness deepened.. “Eeyuck, it stinks in here,” Frannie said.

  “Ssshhh!” Ellen hissed. “We’re about to get going.” The truck started up and they were on their way. A momentary pause at the gate, murmuring voices, the sound of the gate swinging open. They passed through. Crouched among the black slick garbage bags, they rode quietly for five or ten minutes, and then, as instructed, when the truck pulled over Ellen quickly pushed the lid open and the two of them jumped out. They found themselves at the side of a small paved road, in absolute darkness as the truck drove off. A car blinked its headlights off to the side ahead. They ran up the road in the dark as the car moved forward to meet them. It pulled onto the pavement and the passenger door swung open.

  “Get in front,” the driver said. They did, Ellen in the middle, Frannie on the right. “Hi. I’m Martha. We’ll be on the road for maybe fifteen minutes. You get out without being noticed?”

  “Yeah, sure,” said Ellen. “It was easy. You guys set everything up perfectly.”

  “So where we going?” said Frannie.

  “To a house,” Martha said. “In a secret location. The practitioner is a nurse. She’s...look, there’s nothing to worry about, OK? We’ve done this quite a few times now, and nothing’s ever gone wrong. We already have copies of all your medical records from the med center, so everything is all set up and taken care of.”

  The girls were quiet then. Ellen was thinking about how Lucy had asked if there would be a doctor, and if it was in a clinic. And then she remembered the last things Lucy had said about the baby, and what it might mean if Lucy adopted her baby. She knew Lucy would be a good mom. But if she did have the baby would she be able to give it up? She pictured herself holding a baby, and felt a surge of love that was like nothing she’d ever felt before.

  Driving backroads without signs, they arrived on the outskirts of what seemed like a small town, and after making a few turns pulled into a gravel driveway by a tidy little house with the curtains drawn and no light evident inside or out. Martha cautioned them to be quiet and they got out of the car and walked in silence to the back door. Martha knocked softly twice, then paused, then knocked three more times, and the door opened. A woman said “Hi, come in,” in a low voice, and they entered the house. Once the door was closed she turned on the light. They stood in a kitchen. “Hi again,” she said. “I’m Rose. Sorry about the sneakiness but what we do isn’t too popular around here. Or wouldn’t be if anyone found out.”

  “We move the clinic to a different town every couple of months,” Martha said. “So far, it’s worked really well. But that’s not your problem. Let me guess—you’re Fran.” She pointed at Ellen. “And you’re Ellen.” She pointed at Fran.

  “Oh for two, Rose,” said Martha.

  “Whoops. OK. Sorry. Fran...and Ellen. Well, why don’t we sit down here and talk about what you’re here for.”

  “We know...I know what I’m here for,” said Frannie. “An abortion. Can we just...can’t I just get it over with and...”

  “Whoa, whoa, Fran,” said Rose. “This is a big...”

  “I know, I know,” Fran said. “But I’ve already done all my thinking and I don’t want to think about it any more. Are you the doctor? Do you do the...procedure?”

  “No, I’m not the doctor. But yes I do the procedure. There is no doctor. I’m a trained nurse and I’ve done this at least a hundred times in the last three years, and I know what I’m doing. If...Ellen, did you want to ask any questions or...”

  “No. Me and Frannie agreed that she would go first, that’s all. So I guess she...well, you guys just...go ahead, I guess.”

  “I’ll be here with you, Ellen,” said Martha.

  “OK, Fran,” said Rose. “We need to go into the other room now, if you just want to go ahead.”

  “Let’s go.” She got up. “See ya in a while, El,” she said, then pushed open a door and left the room.

  Rose followed her, stopping at the door. She looked at her watch. “It’s two-ten. This shouldn’t take more than half an hour.” She went through the door after Frannie.

  “Do you want a...muscle relaxer or anything, Ellen?” Martha asked. “I’ll be giving you codeine for the pain afterwards, but sometimes the procedure’s easier with...”

  “No, that’s OK. I’m all right. I haven’t...oh, never mind. I just don’t want to take any drugs right now.” She felt an urgent need to be absolutely clear-headed at this moment, in this strange little kitchen at two o’clock in the morning with her whole future on the line. She rarely felt so clear and calm about things, but something about the clandestine nature of the night, sneaking out, riding through the dark canyons in the car to reach this place, had crystallized everything for her; now she waited for a sign that would tell her
what to do. Underneath the humming of her conscious mind and the flickering kitchen light and the murmur of voices from the next room she was praying to her nameless gods, praying for guidance.

  Thirty-seven minutes later, Rose led Frannie back into the kitchen. Frank held her hands in front of herself protectively. Ellen looked at Frannie’s face—drawn, pale, reflecting inward pain. “Well, I’m glad that’s over with,” Frannie said. Her voice sounded tight, strained. She looked at Ellen. “It wasn’t...so bad.”