Beth
It wasn’t as if this was something I had intentionally planned. Then again, who gets pregnant with the intent of having an abortion?
The air was freezing and despite it being winter I felt sweat cake across my body as I took those dreaded steps through the parking lot towards the clinic. I could not speak, overcome by the bitter taste of lost hope. It didn't help that outside the building, a small crowd of people stood waving ‘pro-life’ signs and chanting antagonizing phrases on how I was about to commit murder. Their faces were twisted. Frightening.
That’s the case for people morphed by a warped sense of humanity. The presence of a group mentality is an incredible thing to behold. They claim they speak of humanity, yet where was their own? Such people never speak, but roar.
Killer, Murderer? There was no other option, I wanted to yell out. Frantically grasping Rob’s hand, I tried my hardest to feel courage and actually make it inside. His clammy palm did not help.
Yes, I had wanted a child. We had wanted a child. I was thirty-eight after all, getting more anxious as each miscarriage birthed shame and disappointment. Rob and I had tried for years. Fourteen to be exact. We were halfway through the adoption process when we suddenly discovered I was several weeks pregnant. You could not begin to understand the joy that we felt. Now, three months later, that joy was sorrow. If we kept the child, I would not survive.
For two weeks I had refused to believe the doctors. A ‘justifiable abortion’? It had been too distressing for me to even consider willingly giving up my chance at motherhood. That refusal had held, that is, until earlier this morning. A horrid rush of pain had spread throughout my lower abdomen, causing me to drop to the floor in a state of pure agony. The loss of consciousness, that intense throbbing. And then there was the blood. My choices were abortion, complete removal of the uterus, or death. Frozen there, splayed across that checkered tile was when I knew, when my heart finally understood that this child was no longer mine.
We reached the sidewalk, and yet rather than looking towards the clinic, my eyes fixated on one individual in the crowd of rioters. A young boy, sitting with his legs crossed. He looked no older than eight, short with thick dark hair and blue eyes. My vision clouded as I imagined what my own child would have looked like. Perhaps with my dark hair, Rob’s blue eyes.
It would have been a boy.
His mom yanked him up, thrusting a sign into his small hands. The red square read ‘Face It—Abortion Kills’. I couldn’t help but let out a weary laugh. If only they truly knew. My abortion was intended to save a life. My life.
Glancing up at Rob, I realized just how precious that life was to me. He was my family. The automatic door opened, and we got nearer. For the first time that day, I straightened my back and walked with a sense of purpose rather than defeat.
An ending was about to begin.
Garrett
It’s way too cold to be outside. Then again, when did weather ever stop Ma from protesting?
Too pooped after standing in the same place without shade for four hours, he sat down to that frozen sidewalk and began to count the lines on his right hand. In his mind, he thought he’d probably count them all before Ma would decide they’d had enough and go home.
She was always doing this, forever yelling with the others at strangers. Usually the girls just passed by, avoiding eye contact or looking down as they walked. Sometimes one yelled back. Garrett wanted to know what it would be like, being one against the masses. Only once did he see someone fight back with their fists. Eddie Jenkins got a black eye and broken nose from the fight. But then again, Eddie Jenkins was a jerk.
That day only a couple of people had walked past into the clinic, mostly teenage girls. Some came with people, some walked alone. He liked to look at their faces, the way they walked, their reactions to the chants and signs. To Garrett, watching each girl’s walk from the parking lot to the doors of the building was like reading a story about herself.
“Louder, Garrett, louder! Don’t act like an idiot,” Ma kept screeching earlier. The second girl of the day was making her way past their group. He mouthed the words and turned his back to Ma. That wasn't the first time Garrett didn’t do what she had ordered. He didn’t see why they yelled when the girls always seemed to go in anyway.
Ma said they had to protest cause what the girls did was too cruel. Killing babies? It always seemed like a fib to him. But so many people said it was true. Even Preacher Robertson. Every rally Ma dragged him to, each march against the ‘baby slashers’, they met so many people that were angry about the use of ‘methotrexate and misoprostol’ and ‘dilation and curettage’. Whatever those meant, Garrett guessed people didn’t like it when it happened to babies.
Unexpectedly, Garrett heard the clicking sound of a car locking nearby in the lot. Looking up from the lines of his right hand, the number he had reached in his head disappeared. He couldn’t look away. A woman appeared, her belly rounded with a baby bump. She was beautiful. Not in the way the younger girls sometimes are, but the way he would picture an angel to look like. Like the angels in church. Her hair was long and dark, like small ocean waves rolling down her back. She had pale skin, like the milk you pour over a bowl of Cheerios. And yet, it was her face that had him staring. It seemed clouded with something more than shame, deeper than embarrassment. There was a sadness that surrounded her, a blend of pain and bitterness that the teens never seemed to carry. It was toxic beauty.
As she stood, a man ran around the side of the car. His skin was as dark as hers was light, his body as tall as hers was short. They were complete opposites, and yet somehow it seemed right to see them together. They began to walk, and he could see the woman was in a lot of pain, beginning each step in a slow and calculated move. The man was helping her with his hand on the small of her back, gently guiding her towards the clinic. For the first few seconds, there was blessed silence. And then the others saw them.
“Every child is a wanted child!”
“Lord forgive us and our nation!”
“Abortion kills children!”
“You are cold-hearted murderers!”
The voices rose like a feather that got caught up in a gust of wind. Ma really got into it, spit soaring from her mouth as she shouted the words. All together, the crowd sounded powerful, harmonious, righteous. Garrett would have joined in like Ma always told him to if not for the expression on the woman’s face. As soon as they began to shout, she looked over. The woman’s hand reached around her back, weaving her fingers into his. Her eyes were on Ma, and Garrett wanted to get up and tell Ma to stop yelling. Then those eyes caught Garrett’s, and his breath stopped. Her eyes were filled with longing, sorrow.
While looking at Garrett, she raised her hand above her rounded belly. Her left hand hovered for a second, a caress in the making. But right before she made contact with her belly, the arm went limp and fell to her side.
Rather than feel anger at her like the others, Garrett felt ashamed of himself. She kept her eyes on him, and Garrett thought he would have stared back at her forever if not for Ma grabbing his forearm and jerking him up to his feet. The act made the black bruise she had caused earlier that week flare up in protest. Her sweaty grasp left a stinging sensation, then returned to shove a sign into his hands. Glancing at the sign, he saw ‘Face It—Abortion Kills’ in bright red.
“What are you waiting for? Wave it!” she ordered, bits of spittle flying off her tongue that reminded Garrett of tiny shooting stars.
Garrett lifted it half-heartedly, looking back to the couple. The woman was no longer looking at him, and Garrett felt something he had never felt before. It was a weird sort of disappointment. Was she really a murderer? How could someone that looked like an angel kill babies?
It didn’t look like she was happy about it, he thought.
She had watched him with such gentleness. Garrett began to picture what life would be like if he just dropped the sign and ran to her. Maybe they’d go to the beach every weekend and play soccer on the sand. Or they’d drive to the forest and camp out and fish from a real river. What if he had a Dad that taught him baseball? Garrett closed his eyes and imagined it all. He smiled.What if every day someone looked at him with such compassion, such care? His hand lowered. He couldn’t help but feel sad. Garrett began to imagine the start of a new life, a life with a Ma who didn’t force him to shout mean things at strangers carrying obvious pain. The couple reached the entrance, and the automatic door slid open.
A start was about to end.
