Authors: Diane Chamberlain
Tags: #Family Life, #Fiction, #General, #Literary, #Mothers and Sons, #Psychological Fiction, #Arson, #Patients, #Family Relationships, #Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, #People With Mental Disabilities
me. “But I do know he’s handled criminal cases. His name’s
Dennis Shartell and I met him through a friend of a friend. He’s
all the way in Wilmington, though, but he might at least be a
starting point for you.”
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I stood up. “Thanks again,” I said.
Walking back through the hallway, I clutched the card in my
hand. I’d call this man, this Dennis Shartell. By the time I
reached my office, my hopes were pinned on him. He’d be the
one to stem the tide of suspicion that was rising against my son.
I’d made mistakes in my life. Failing Andy a second time would
not be one of them.
1991–1992
WITH THE REALIZATION OF MY PREGNANCY came the
sucking, sticky grip of a depression that made the black mood
I’d experienced since Maggie’s birth seem like little more than
a rainy afternoon. A voice in my head repeated incessantly
You’re
a liar,an adulterer,a hideous mother.
I hated myself.I withdrew from
everyone, including Marcus, never going to Talos, although he
still came to The Sea Tender a few nights a week to drink and
watch TV. He probably attributed the change in me to my desire
to avoid the hot tub and a repeat of that night in his guest room.
I missed him. He was my best friend. My only real friend.
I was afraid, though, that spending too much time with Marcus
would lead me to tell him what I didn’t want him to know.
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I knew I couldn’t have this baby, the child of my husband’s
brother, another child I would ruin with my lack of maternal
instinct. A child I certainly didn’t deserve and who didn’t
deserve to be born with me as his or her mother. But getting
an abortion required picking up the phone, making an appointment, driving myself alone to the clinic in Wilmington
as well as back home again, and every time I thought of all I
needed to do to make the abortion happen, I crawled into bed
and cried until I fell asleep.
I was lying in bed one afternoon when I felt the flutter of
bird wings between my navel and my hipbone. Just a quick
little ripple, but it scared me. Could I possibly be that far
along? The sensation finally motivated me to get out of bed
and call the women’s clinic.
“When was your last period?” the woman asked me on the
phone.
I glanced at the calendar on the wall of the kitchen. It was
still turned to the page for May, although I knew we had to be
well into June.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Probably two, or maybe three,
months ago.”
She gave me an appointment for the following day.
There were protestors, maybe twelve or thirteen of them,
on the sidewalk in front of the clinic. They carried signs I
avoided reading as I parked my car.
I have to do this,
I told
myself.
I felt the hungry eyes of the protestors on me as they waited
for me to get out of my car. I opened the door, shut it quietly
behind me and started walking in the direction of the clinic door.
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“Don’t kill your baby!” they chanted as I passed them.“Don’t
kill your baby!”
One woman thrust her sign in front of my head so that I had
to dart to the left to avoid running into it.
A young woman greeted me on the walkway to the clinic.
“I’m your escort.” She smiled, and I let her take my arm and
guide me inside. I walked into a waiting room, where a receptionist sat behind a glassed-in desk. I wondered if the glass was
bulletproof. Maybe today would be the day the clinic was
bombed. The idea didn’t distress me. I wouldn’t mind, as long
as I was the only person killed. Spare the greeter and the staff
and the other patients, I thought. Just take me.
The receptionist gave me a clipboard covered with brochures to read and forms to fill out. I took a seat and set to
work on them. Once I’d filled out the forms, I let my attention wander to the people sitting around me. Who was here
for birth control? Who was here for an abortion? One
teenager caught me looking at her and gave me a snarly, scary
look that made me study my hands. I didn’t lift my gaze again
until a nurse brought me a paper cup and pointed to the water
cooler in the corner of the waiting room.
“You need to drink water for the sonogram.”
I stood up. “A sonogram?” I whispered to her. “I’m here for
an abortion.”
“We need to know how far along you are so you can have
the correct procedure,” she said.
I drank the water, cup after cup, until I was certain my
bladder would burst. Finally, I was led into a dressing room
where I changed into a thin yellow gown, gritting my teeth
against the need to urinate. Once I was on the examining
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table, I became aware for the first time that my belly was
round—a smooth, gently sloping hillock above the rest of my
body. I felt the flutter of wings again.
“Hey, there.” The technician, a woman with short, spiky
dark hair, swept into the room carrying the clipboard and my
forms. “How are you today?”
“Okay,” I said.
She wasted no time, reaching for the tube of gel, smearing
it across my stomach. The sonogram screen was turned toward
her as she pressed the transducer on my belly.
“Hmm,” she said. “About eighteen weeks. Do you want to
see?”
“Eighteen
weeks?
” I asked in disbelief. Could it possibly have
been that long since that night with Marcus? “What date is it
now?”
Her gaze darted from the screen to me. “What do you
mean?” she asked.
“Today. What date is today.”
“Oh. July twenty-first. Would you like to see the sonogram?” she asked again.
I shook my head. No. I was still stuck on the fact that we
were well into July when I thought we were still in June. I
pressed my hand to my forehead, rubbing hard, as if I could
stuff the cotton back into my brain. “I’m so confused,” I said,
unaware that I was speaking out loud.
“Well—” the technician turned off the ultrasound machine
and wiped the gel from my stomach with tissues “—pregnancy
can
be pretty confusing sometimes. That’s why we have counselors to help you think things through.” She offered me a hand
to help me sit up.“You can empty your bladder in the bathroom
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across the hall. Then get dressed and go to the first room on
the left and the counselor will talk to you about the abortion.
It’s a two-day procedure at eighteen weeks. And you will absolutely have to have a support person with you to drive you home
each day.”
In the bathroom, I sobbed as I urinated. I felt completely
alone. I knew a second-trimester abortion was a two-day procedure. I was a nurse; I knew what it entailed. In my alcohol-
and-depression-fogged brain, I’d hoped I wasn’t that far along,
that an abortion would be easy. But it wasn’t the complexity
of the abortion or my inability to supply a “support person”
that upset me. It was that I could remember Maggie’s eighteen-
week sonogram with perfect clarity. She’d sucked her thumb.
Rolled a somersault. Waved at Jamie and me. The technician
that day had told us she was probably a girl. She’d been so real.
So perfect. A tender little bundle of potential, into which
we’d poured our hopes and dreams and love.
In the counseling office, I sat across from a woman with
short-cropped gray hair, thick white eyebrows and a deep
leathery tan.
“Are you cold?” She looked at me with real worry and I
realized my entire body was shaking.
“Just nervous,” I said. I clenched my teeth to keep them from
chattering.
She pulled her chair close to mine until our knees were
almost touching.
“The technician doing your sonogram said you seemed surprised to learn how far along you were,” she said.
I nodded. “I’m not going to have the abortion,” I said, “so I
guess I really don’t need to talk to you.”
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“It’s your decision,” she said. “What made you change your
mind?”
I knotted my hands together in my lap. “Because I remember my daughter’s sonogram at that…at eighteen
weeks, and I can’t…it would feel wrong to me, with the baby
being this developed.”
“Ah,” she said. “I understand.You must have very conflicted
feelings about this pregnancy to have waited so long.”
I nodded, thinking of the little market I’d passed on my way
into Wilmington. I could stop there to get a wine cooler on
my way home.
“Do you have some support at home?” She glanced at my
ring finger. “Your husband? Did he want you to have the
abortion?”
“He doesn’t know I’m pregnant,” I admitted.
“Is it his?” she asked gently.
None of your business,
I thought, but I shook my head.
“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
She looked at the clipboard on her lap, flipping through the
forms. “You live on Topsail Island? I can refer you to a therapist in Hampstead,” she said. “You have some hard decisions to
make and I think you’ll need some help.”
I nodded again, although I knew I wouldn’t go. I was still
afraid of seeing a therapist, afraid I might end up in a psych
ward if I opened up too much.
The counselor checked a Rolodex file, then wrote a name
and number on a card and handed it to me.
“If you’re sure you don’t want an abortion, please see an obstetrician right away to get started with prenatal care,” she said.
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“I will.”
“And one other thing.” She leaned forward, studying me
from beneath her white eyebrows. “The escort told me she
thought you’d been drinking this morning.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but didn’t have the
strength. I looked down at my hands where they clutched
the card she’d given me.
“Alcohol is toxic for your baby,” she said.
“I only drink wine coolers.”
“They have as much alcoholic content as a beer.”
I shook my head. “No, they don’t,” I said. “The label on the
beer says you shouldn’t drink it while you’re pregnant, but the
wine cooler label says nothing about it.”
“It should. Right now the law doesn’t require that they do,
but trust me, they contain the same amount of alcohol as a
beer.”
I thought she was wrong, or maybe making it up to scare
me. Probably, I thought, the brand of wine coolers I liked
simply didn’t have enough alcohol in them to merit the
warning.
“Okay,” I said to stop the lecture.
“Would you like me to find an AA meeting near your
home?” she offered.
“I don’t need an AA meeting.” I felt my cheeks flush.
I was shaken by her words, though. Shaken enough to drive
the hour home without stopping for a wine cooler, and once
at The Sea Tender, I found the remainder of the prenatal
vitamins I’d taken while pregnant with Maggie and popped one
in my mouth. When I opened the refrigerator door to look
for something to wash it down with, though, my choice was
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between the three-week-old carton of orange juice and the six-
pack of wine coolers I’d purchased the day before, which was
really like having no choice at all.
For another two weeks, I sat with my secret. I tried and
failed to cut back on the wine coolers, but I forced myself to
eat better and take the vitamins. I didn’t see a doctor. I asked
Jamie not to bring Maggie over, telling him I didn’t feel well,
which was certainly the truth.
Sara was so wrapped up with baby Keith that she rarely
stopped by anymore, and that was a relief. Marcus still came
over, and I wore loose beach dresses and was boring company,
my dilemma the only thing occupying my mind. I knew I’d give
birth to this baby, but I wondered if I should keep it. Maybe I
could go away someplace where I could have the baby and
place it for adoption with no one any the wiser.
One evening in my twenty-first week, Marcus was over
and we drank too much and ate pizza as we watched
Seinfeld.
He carried our empty plates into the kitchen and I followed a
moment later with our empty bottles.
“You look like you’re pregnant in that dress,” he teased me.
I was too taken by surprise to speak, and our eyes suddenly
locked.
He reached over to touch my belly, then jerked his hand
away. “Jesus!”
“It’s Jamie’s,” I said quickly.
“Jamie’s?”
he asked, as though shocked I’d slept with Jamie
during our separation.
“It was the week he and Maggie stayed here,” I said.
“Remember? When Sara had her baby.”
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“Does he know?”
I shook my head. “I haven’t decided what to do.”
“Looks like you’ve already decided to me. Why didn’t you
have an abortion?”
I rubbed my eyes, suddenly very tired. “Don’t ask hard
questions,” I said as I walked back into the living room and sat