I Ain't Me No More (18 page)

Dino wasn't a monster, but I couldn't see myself having his baby, either. I was able to get an appointment the very next day after Dino's and my talk, during my lunch hour. The visit went nothing like I'd expected. I wanted to get the abortion over with quick, fast, and in a hurry. I couldn't have been any further than about four weeks along, but I'd been as sick as a dog.

After my appointment, I was so upset, I couldn't even think straight. They'd told me that because I was only four weeks along, they couldn't perform the abortion. They said I had to wait until I was six weeks because there was a risk that if they performed the procedure any earlier, they'd miss the baby entirely and I'd remain pregnant, ultimately perhaps giving birth to a deformed baby.

I didn't care, though; I needed this sickness out of me. One thing they did mention at the clinic was that my insurance might pay for a portion of the abortion bill, so once I got back to work, I called up my insurance company and asked them about it. The insurance company was willing to pay fifty dollars toward the procedure at the clinic I wanted to have it at and $280 toward the procedure if it was done by an in-plan doctor. After doing my research, I learned that the closest in-plan doctor was located all the way in Cincinnati, which was a two-hour drive from Columbus. So a week later, on a Friday afternoon, after I had decided I'd push the date of my missing period back a week so that this place wouldn't make such a big fuss about me not being six weeks, Dino and I were on the road to Cincinnati, where once again, I'd violate Him, who was in me.

When Dino and I arrived at the Cincinnati clinic, the protestors were out in full force. Their harmonious chants invaded the stillness that had taken on the role of a backseat passenger for the past two hours. Dino and I succeeded in making our way through the multitude of like-minded individuals who were carrying signs that had gruesome pictures of abortions gone bad. We signed in at the front desk and then waited in the waiting area. Several ladies' names were called, and they were escorted back to the prep room.

“Amy, Susan, Helen, Felicia, and Tabatha, you can come on back,” the receptionist called out.

It was like a webisode of a bootleg
The Price Is Right,
where the contestants were told to “Come on down!” Only, there would never be a right price for what was about to take place. And nobody was going to take the grand prize home.

I stood upon hearing my name being called. I was not sure how long it took me to take that first step. I wasn't having doubts about getting an abortion, just thoughts about keeping the baby. Love in my heart was scarce. I felt as if there was barely enough to go around as it was. It wouldn't be fair to bring a child into this world if I was able to nourish it with cow's milk but would starve it of a mother's love. I took that first step.

This was the part where I had to separate from Dino. I wished he could come back there with me to hold my hand, but I was a big girl, making big girl decisions after making big girl mistakes, something I was terribly perfect at.

The nurse led me and some other women into a room that was as cold as an icebox. I didn't mind the numbing cold. In fact, I was grateful for the counterfeit anesthetic, praying it would sedate my soul.

In the prep room, the other women and I changed into hospital gowns and sat in a subdivision of identical chairs. Once again, we waited for our names to be called, this time so that we could go into the room where the procedure was going to be performed. The quiet atmosphere was undisturbed until one of the girls next to me molested it with her voice.

“I can't believe just a few months ago I was one of them,” she said to no one in particular.

“One of who?” I decided to ask. I needed voices to drown out the persistent one in my head that was trying to pick apart and invalidate my reasons for being at the clinic. So I wanted to keep the conversation going.

“Them.” The girl nodded toward the window that kept us estranged from the protestors. “I actually marched in a pro-life rally. I was chanting the same stuff they are chanting against abortion and carrying some of those same signs. Can you believe it?” She chuckled a nervous chuckle. “Funny how different the shoes look when
you're
wearing them, and not that girl next to you.”

A woman across the room chimed in. “My husband used to always speak against abortion too.”

All the other ladies wore the same countenance that I did when we looked over at the woman and then down at the wedding ring hugging her finger. For some reason, I just never pictured a married couple choosing to abort their child. I thought it was just mixed-up, unwed chicks like me who subjected their bodies to this act akin to butchering.

“What changed his mind?” I was too curious not to ask.

“The fact that after so many years we are just now able to get our heads above water. I mean, it seems like we had been struggling forever. Just when things are going good, I find out I'm pregnant.” She rubbed her belly. “My husband and I both agree that having this baby will only put us back in the poorhouse.” She looked down at her belly. “God will give us back this same baby someday, when we are ready to have one.”

“You'll never be ready,” said a heavyset woman, jumping in. She was so big that she could have already been nine months pregnant, for all we knew. “If God sat around waiting until man was ready, we'd never get anywhere.”

No one either concurred or challenged the big girl's claim. The mere fact that God was being mentioned made everyone stir and feel even more conviction than the protestors had already deposited in us.

Silence revisited and plagued the room as we all sat lined up, waiting to be called into the procedure room one by one, as if we were in a meat factory and were cows waiting to be slaughtered. Finally, the turn was mine.

“Helen Lannden,” the nurse called out.

“Right here,” I replied as I got up. I followed her into a room that was the size of a closet. I looked around the room with my nose turned up. I didn't know what I was expecting, but I guess it just wasn't this. I knew it sounded tasteless and callous to be comparing abortion clinics, but the last one was a nice size room. Everything in it was white and nice and clean. This room was dark and dingy, and instead of lying on a table, which I would climb up on, I would have the procedure done while sitting in the kind of chair you might find at the dentist's.

I nervously mounted the chair, wondering what, if anything, could make this daunting process more comfortable. It wasn't supposed to be comfortable. This wasn't a day at the park, where I was about to fly a kite. This was more like a funeral, a death.

The doctor knocked on the door and then entered the room. After fiddling with some instruments, he said, “I'm going to need you to relax while I inject this into you. It's going to numb your cervix walls.”

I cringed as I looked up and saw the colossal needle dribbling fluid from its tip. I became infuriated with this medical professional for having the audacity to command me to relax.

I recalled this part of the procedure—being injected with the needle—from my last abortion. It hurt. I braced myself for the injection, but before the doctor could inject me, there was a thud on the door and a nurse peeked her head in.

Both the doctor and I gave her a look that said, “Couldn't this wait until we've finished up here?”

“Uh, there is a very angry gentleman out here who insists on seeing the patient,” she told the doctor and then looked at me. “You don't have to see him.”

In other words, she was telling me I could go ahead and get this abortion done so that they could get their money before the jerk outside tried to talk me out of it.

“I'll talk to him,” I said, not because I cared that Dino was outside the door, demanding to see me, but because I dreaded having that medical spear pierce me between my legs and I wanted to stall for time.

I got up out of the chair and walked out of the room, wearing nothing but a paper gown. The nurse stayed right there in the doorway, with a look on her face that told Dino that if he tried any mess, she was either going to call 911 or go for the gun she kept under her desk for any pro-life psychos who tried something crazy.

“What's up?” I asked him, as if we were two teenagers posted up in the school hallway.

“I don't want you to do this,” he said flat out. “I can't let you kill my baby.”

What was going on here? On the drive up, Dino had been fine. I figured that even though he hadn't voiced it, he had finally agreed with me that bringing a child into the world wasn't the best of ideas, considering I was living with Nana and he was about to be living on the streets. I thought I could rightfully assume this since Dino hadn't even once tried to talk me out of my decision on the drive to the clinic.

I looked down at his hands to find him holding a couple of brochures. My question had been answered. It was now clear that the protestors had infected him with their beliefs. They'd wrapped their pro-life doctrines firmly around his conscience, and here he was, trying to contaminate my made-up mind. Just that fast, Dino's emotional weather forecast had gone from a cool summer breeze to Hurricane Sandy. But I was not about to allow him to enforce his evacuation plan on me.

“Look, Dino, I don't know what them crazies out there said to you, but I'm not keeping this baby.”

“Look at this!” he screamed at me, holding up one of those brochures in my face. “Look at this dead baby that was sucked out of a woman during an abortion procedure! I'm not going to let you do this to our baby.”

I refused to look at the mutilated baby, keeping my eyes locked with Dino's instead. “This is my body. You can't tell me what I am and am not going to do. I am not having a baby by you, or anybody else, for that matter. I'm not about to be some breeding machine for broke men who can't even afford to keep a roof over their own heads, let alone a baby. Where are we going to get money for milk, diapers, baby clothes, and baby food?”

“You can get on WIC or welfare or something,” he replied.

“Fool, are you crazy? What woman in her right mind has a deliberate welfare baby? Why would anyone want to have a baby that Uncle Sam has to take care of and not the daddy? That's stupid and selfish, and I'm neither.” I turned away to go back into the room.

“So you'd rather kill the baby than have it and be on welfare? And you don't think that's stupid and selfish?” Dino said as he snatched me by my arm and yanked me back to face him.

“Is everything okay?” the nurse asked me, giving me the look. I felt like she had my back like one of the chicks in the movie
Set It Off.

“Yes, everything is fine,” I assured her as I jerked away from Dino and turned back to the door.

“My legacy,” he cried. “It's going to be destroyed.”

I tried to drown out his exclamations the same way I'd done triumphantly with the protestors who welcomed me in the abortion clinic's parking lot earlier.

“Sorry, Dino, but my mind is made up.” I looked around. “I mean, we're here now, for God's sakes. Let me just get this over with already.”

I left a heartbroken Dino outside the door while I went back in the room. The jaunt back to the chair was punctuated with weeping, and it wasn't coming from me. Through the door I could hear Dino tipping the scale of devastation, defeat. He was just a plain ole hot mess. One would think he was the one who was about to go through the procedure. Once again, I positioned myself in the chair.

“Ready?” the doctor asked.

I took a long deep breath. “Ready,” I replied as I closed my eyes and put a voluntary end to my pregnancy.

It had only been a week since the abortion, and prior to it I had been staying with Nana on a more regular basis, after discovering the eviction notice on Dino's door. I'd made up my mind that I was through with Dino, but just like all the times I'd said I was through with Dub, something just kept pulling me back in. I'd felt abandoned and alone so much in my life that maybe I honestly didn't want to be alone . . . with myself. Perhaps being with myself was the worst of two evils, so I opted to be with a man instead, any man willing to keep me company just so I wouldn't have to keep myself company.

Nana knew nothing about the fact that I'd had an abortion. She and I were close, but that was not something I wanted to sit and talk to her about over a game of Scrabble. I honestly couldn't say that I felt a boatload of remorse or shame about the abortion. I hated to admit it, but I truly felt relieved. Men changed. Dub had, and just in case Dino did, I didn't want to have any ties to him, especially not a child.

Even though prior to the trip to Cincinnati I had stayed with Nana, for the past week, ever since returning from the abortion clinic, I'd stayed at Dino's every night. The day we drove back to Columbus from the clinic, I ended up staying the night at Dino's. I had made arrangements for Ms. Daniels to pick up Baby D from school, and since it was Friday, she just agreed to allow him to stay over the entire weekend. I was glad that both I and Baby D had a place to lay our head besides Nana's. For one, I didn't want Nana asking me a whole bunch of questions about why I was so drained and dreary, or catching me taking my meds and then questioning why I was on medication. It was just easier that way.

Another reason why I stayed at Dino's was for his sake. I mean, he was a complete mess on the drive back home. I feared that if I didn't stay by his side and allow him to continue spilling his emotions out on me, he'd get to calling up all his friends and family and putting our business out there. I did not want my name or business in the streets of Columbus.

Even though he was hurt and upset with me, a couple hours after arriving back home, he managed to pull himself together enough to be the gentleman that he was and cater to me. He put himself and his feelings aside and treated me how he would have wanted to be treated had the tables been turned. He treated me as though I'd just given birth to his child instead of aborting it. He never let anyone or any situation alter his character. Not even me . . . not yet, anyway.

Dub was right; I had forgotten about him. For the past five months I'd been consumed with Dino's and my relationship. Then there was the pregnancy issue, which, ironically, ended up bringing Dino and me even closer.

The night we got back to Columbus from Cincinnati, we'd lain back and talked. I'd apologized for putting him through everything.

“I can't explain why I am the way I am sometimes,” I had admitted to Dino. Maybe it was the painkillers I was on, but I was truly opening up to Dino. “Half the time I don't even think I'm mad at the person I'm lashing out at more so than I'm mad at myself.”

“But why? I don't get it,” Dino had said as he lay next to me in bed and stroked my hair.

I thought for a moment before answering, searching for the right words to describe feelings that I could hardly explain to myself. “Sometimes I just hate myself. I hate the world, even. I feel like I just got dumped off in a life that I didn't ask for . . . and I'm mad.” I went as far as slamming my fist down on the bed.

My mind went back to my childhood, and I shared with Dino the lie my family had lived as far as my true paternity was concerned. I thought about how my biological father hadn't stayed around and fought for me, fought to have me in his life. I thought about how much, growing up, I had hated my skin because it was so different from everyone else's in my family. I thought about how I had got teased because of it. I thought about how I had settled for crazy instead of love in the form of Dub because I didn't feel as if I deserved any better than that. Even worse, that maybe I didn't want better than that. Perhaps I just wanted someone to want me, someone to fit me into their life willingly, and if that came with a few kicks, punches, and scratches, then so be it. There was so much stagnant pain there, so much stagnant hurt.

“Sometimes I just don't want to be the only one hurting,” I admitted to Dino, tears spilling from my eyes by now.

“It's okay,” Dino said to me, his eyes watering. “I'm not here to hurt you. I'm here to love you unconditionally, for exactly who you are.” He then kissed me on the forehead and said, “Things will get better. I promise.”

For the first time since we'd met, we confessed our love for one another. My heart was filled 100 percent with love for Dino, or at least what I thought was love. He didn't give me butterflies in my stomach or anything like that. But our relationship was fairly new. There was time for the butterflies to free themselves from their cocoons.

We said that someday we would get married and everything would be all right.

“I talked my landlord into giving me more time,” Dino said. “I promise everything is going to work out.”

“I know it is,” I said to Dino, wanting so desperately to believe that myself. I even managed to convince him that God would give us our baby back once we were married and ready to take care of it, just like the woman in the clinic had believed. But if Dub had anything to do with it, the only thing Dino and I would be doing together was getting buried.

After reading Dub's letter, which had been waiting for me at Nana's house after work, I allowed it to fall from my hands and onto the floor. I had to admit I was in shock. How could I have so easily forgotten about Dub's threats? And, even worse, how could I have gotten Dino all mixed up in this mess? Now, though he didn't know it, his life was in danger. So was my entire family's.

“Helen?” Nana said as she entered my bedroom. Her voice tore my mind from my dismal thoughts.

I jumped and grabbed my chest.

“What is it?” Nana asked as she walked toward me, noticing the letter on the floor. She asked with her eyes if she could read it as she knelt and picked it up. With my eyes and a nod of my head, I replied in the affirmative.

The room was dead silent while Nana read the letter. I watched the expression on her face do a dance of confusion, disgust, and even fear, although she tried to hide the last of her emotions. Nana was scared for me, for Baby D, and, more than likely, even for herself.

I didn't know what I expected Nana's reaction to be, but I guess I didn't expect what came out of her mouth next. “Come on. Grab Baby D and let's go,” she ordered me as she exited the room to retrieve her coat, purse, and keys.

“Where we going, Nana?” I asked, ready to follow her to the moon if it meant Dub would not be able to get to us.

“To the police.”