My Name is Kate and I Just Killed My Baby
Page 10
picture that didn't quite add up. If Mom's reaction the other day had been a bit strange, there was no question this reaction from my Dad was strange also. This was as unlike him as if he'd suddenly decided to join the Mafia and become a hit man.
A sudden noise on the stairs behind us brought us back to our sobbing senses. It was Doc Jenkins coming down. He looked grave, but at the sight of me he cheered up considerably. "Kate!" he called. "How wonderful to see you! And I think you might be just the therapy Carol needs right now. At least I hope so. Come on up with me!"
He took me by the hand and pulled me up the stairs. "Is Mom ok?" I managed to mumble as I tried to bring my tear ducts back under control.
"Um, not bad," he responded vaguely. "She's resting comfortably, and I'm sure she'll be delighted to see you." He led me eagerly toward the bedroom at the end of the upstairs hall, Dad close on our heels. And then without any preliminary, he fairly pushed me in the door.
"You've got a visitor, Carol," he announced with a grand smile. "Look! It's Kate! She's come back!"
I stared blankly at Mom's pasty, white face on her pillow. Her blank eyes just looked at me curiously, as if I was a menu she was examining at a restaurant. Her hands lay limply on the sheet and she looked almost as if she was dead. Even her eyes held very little life, and certainly lacked the sparkle they always used to have.
"Kate," said my Mom in a hollow voice. "Kate. Is that really my Kate? Really and truly?"
"It sure is!" announced Doc Jenkins. A feeling of horror was starting to rise up from the pit of my stomach. She wasn't talking at all like her normal self. Did she even recognize me? What had happened to her?!
"My Kate," repeated Mom with a faint smile. "My little Katydid." My heart leaped at these words, since that's what Mom used to call me when I was a little girl. But even as this relief started to rise up within me, her next words shattered everything.
"I used to have a girl named Kate. Only she died. She died."
My eyes big as saucers, I stared at her, then at Doc Jenkins, then at Dad. The men both looked grave, and Doc Jenkins was shaking his head sadly. "I had hoped it would work," he mumbled softly.
"What's wrong with her?" I yelled suddenly. "What's happened? What did you hope would work?" Tears were coming into my eyes again, and a new wave of guilt threatened to reduce me to a blubbering mass of sobbing once more.
"Paul, I wonder if you could run down and get this prescription for me," said Doc Jenkins unexpectedly, pulling a piece of paper from his pocket. "That will give me a chance to talk to Kate for a few minutes alone."
Dad gave him a long look. "Are you sure?" he said for no good reason that I could understand. "I'm her father, so I should be the one--"
"No, no, I think this is best," said Doc Jenkins. "Just take your time with that prescription."
By now my eyes were so wide they threatened to pop out of my head. "What's going on?" I bellowed. "What are you going to talk to me about? And what's wrong with Mom?"
Before I could answer, Mom spoke up again. "Kate? Kate? Is that you?"
Turning I cried out, "Yes Mom! I'm here!"
She was looking right at me, but didn't seem to see me. "Kate! Oh, Kate! I didn't mean to do it! Really I didn't! Paul was so insistent though! And it didn't seem like I had any choice. I'm so sorry, Kate! So sorry!" There was pleading in her voice. Agonized pleading, as if she was begging me for forgiveness.
"I don't understand!" I yelled at her. "What are you saying?"
She looked at me with glazed eyes. Then she said, "I used to have a girl named Kate. Little Katydid. But she died. She went away. I never got to see her." Tears were welling up in her unseeing eyes.
Doc Jenkins pulled gently on my arm. "Come downstairs for a minute Kate. There are a few things I need to tell you."
I turned on him with fire in my eyes. "What have you done to Mom?" I shouted nonsensically. "What's happened to her?"
"Kate," said Dad, taking my other arm and steering me gently but firmly toward the door. "Let's leave Mom for a few minutes. I've got to fill this prescription. Doc Jenkins will explain everything."
Dumbly I allowed myself to be half pushed, half dragged down the stairs. I had a sudden urge to start screaming and ranting and raving, demanding to be told what was happening. The only reason I didn't was because I'd started shaking so bad I had to concentrate on the stairs, so I wouldn't stumble and then roll all the way to the bottom.
At the front door, Dad turned to look at me. There was a profound sense of sadness in his tired eyes. And then he said something that made no sense at all.
"Don't judge me too harshly, Kate. I've changed. I never want to lose you again."
I just stared at him, not comprehending. He sighed heavily, then went out the door.
"Come here into the living room Kate, and let me tell you a story," said Doc Jenkins, in a voice that I could tell was an attempt at being cheerful.
"I don't want to hear a story!" I yelled. "I want to know what's wrong with Mom!" I moved toward the stairs, heading back up to see her again.
"But this story IS about your mother," said Doc Jenkins. "And about your father too. It's a true story. I think it will help explain things, so you can have a better idea about what's going on."
I turned back toward the living room and stared at him. Then slowly I walked over and sat down. A deep sense of foreboding was starting to rise up in my chest. First the horror of what I had done to Jonathon, and now this! I didn't think I could take much more of this!
Doc Jenkins smiled at me. It was a rather lopsided smile, since it was obvious he didn't feel like smiling. I suddenly found myself wondering why HE was telling me this story, instead of Mom or Dad. None of this made any sense.
"A long time ago--around 19 years ago to be exact--there was a young doctor, just starting off his practice," he said dryly.
"You?" I asked.
He shrugged. "Let's just say it was a young doctor. He'd been in general practice for a few years. However, he decided to add a new specialty to his doctor services. It was an up-and-coming specialty for a doctor to take in that day, although it was a bit controversial. You see, this doctor decided he would start doing abortions."
My heart froze as if it had been stabbed by an icicle. Here we were back to hated abortions again. Why couldn't I ever escape from them?
"What are you talking about?" I blurted. "I thought we were talking about Mom and what's wrong with her! Why are you telling me some nonsense about a doctor who was stupid enough to start doing abortions?"
"I was about to explain that," he said unruffled. "You see, one day a young woman came to see him--came to have an abortion, actually. And this young woman's name was Carol Brown--soon to be changed to Carol Anderson, when she married your father."
May 1
I feel sick. Not just troubled sick or emotionally sick, but physically sick. I'd thought telling the disgusting details of my story so far would be bad--but not as bad as this! Somehow yesterday, when I started writing the above, I just felt positively ill. I even went to the bathroom to throw up, although it didn't come. Thinking about Mom and her story was what did it, of course. And having to write about it somehow makes it that much worse.
I've come up with a new way to destroy this journal. I think I'll soak it overnight in water. Then when it's good and soggy and pulpy, I'll put it down the disposal where it will be shredded to--
Shredded. No, I won't do that after all. I can't shred Jonathon again. I've already done it once. After all, this journal IS Jonathon now, at least in a bizarre sort of way. I can't destroy it. Why do I keep thinking I want to destroy it? I've already destroyed him once! Why would I do it again?
Because this journal is NOT Jonathon. It's time to stop lying to myself. This is just a stinking journal in which I'm writing about all the awful decisions I've made and terrible things I've done. And the worst o
f all was what I did to Jonathon.
Oh, Jonathon! I'm so sorry! I never meant to do it! That is, not really! I didn't know what I was doing! I was just a stupid, mixed up kid who let herself be persuaded by others that an abortion was somehow ok. But it WASN'T ok, Jonathon. I know that now. It wasn't some simple procedure. It was a killing, pure and simple. Oh, Jonathon, I'm so sorry. I wish more than life itself that there was some way to make it up to you. But there's not, since you're dead. You're dead because of what I did. Because of me, you're gone forever.
My hand is trembling as I write this, so I hope my words turn out legible. What I learned that day from Doc Jenkins about Mom and her abortion was horrible. And everything I've been thinking and saying and writing about Jonathon in this journal is what Mom was thinking and saying about me. ME! Because when she went to the doctor that day for her abortion, she was pregnant with me. And a week later she came back and had the abortion performed to terminate me.
That's right. Mom did to me what I did to Jonathon. The very same thing. She struggled and cried about it beforehand like I did, but just like me, she went ahead and did it. And one of the biggest reasons she did was because the boy who got her pregnant--Dad as it turns out--was urging her to do it. Just like Bob, he kept telling her it was the only way, that she had no choice, that she had to do it. And just like me, she let herself be persuaded and did it. And