Not Looking for Love: Episode 3 Page 3

  But I head up toward Penn station anyway, because it's the right thing to do. If Scott hasn't called me for a month then he's over me, and that's how it should be, and how it should stay. For good this time.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  "You're pregnant," my gynecologist says on Wednesday.

  Tears well up from my eyes, fall in thick rivers across my cheeks. I'm perfectly still, I don't whimper and I don't sob. I don't know why I'm surprised, I already knew Sarah is growing in my belly.

  She looks up from my chart and sighs. "Come now, Miss Henderson."

  I wipe the tears away with my sleeve, but more flow out almost immediately.

  "I could schedule you for an ultra sound later this week," she says, consulting the calendar. "Or maybe next week would be better."

  "What's the point?" I ask, my voice firm like tears aren't spilling from my eyes.

  "Well, it would be to see that the fetus is developing as it—," she says.

  "I don't want to see her," I interrupt, shaking my head.

  "Oh, I see," she leans back and folds her hands in her lap. "Have you thought it through?"

  No, I want to say, because I never wanted to make this decision.

  "Yes," I lie instead. I can't be a mom, ever.

  "And the father?"

  "I'm on my own," I say, and the pain that rips through my heart makes me want to scream.

  "You're still very young, I suppose." She opens a drawer and rummages through it.

  After a few moments that pass like hours, she finally hands me a card. "This is a good place. I will call them and let them know you're coming. When are you planning on going?"

  "Soon," I choke out.

  "Make sure you can take a few days of rest afterwards. A Friday would be best," she says, and makes a note on a pad.

  "To abort a baby is a difficult choice to make. Talk it over with someone you trust first," she continues, peering at me over her glasses. "If you have any questions, you can always call me."

  "Does it hurt?" I blurt out, because she's the only one who will ever know, apart from the people at the clinic. It's a dumb question. Of course it hurts, it will hurt forever, because Sarah will never be now.

  "It is an unpleasant procedure, and you can expect some bleeding and cramping afterwards," she says.

  I rise and drape my purse over my shoulder, still clutching the card. The logo of the clinic is a box, with a sun bursting through it and I can't figure out why they chose that. Maybe it symbolizes all the blood that will gush out of me when they kill Sarah.

  "Make an appointment for a check up afterwards," the doctor says.

  I nod not trusting my voice to come, if I try to speak.

  I call the clinic in the parking lot, shaking so hard I have to repeat myself three times before the lady finally understands what I'm saying. They have an opening tomorrow afternoon and I take it, because if it has to happen, it's better sooner. I drive by the clinic to collect the instructions, and some pills they say will make it go easier, but it's not really me doing it. It's another Gail, the one that's so insubstantial she's nearly transparent. And she feels nothing.

  For the rest of the night, my mind is racing at a million miles per second, thoughts rushing past so fast I can't hold on to a single one. I doze off a few times, but jerk awake almost immediately, my heart racing each time from a different horror. Sometimes it's a smiling, golden haired girl, laughing, swallowed up by the raging black sea. Other times it's my mom, her skin blue in death, staring at me with unseeing eyes. Then it's Janine, her face contorted, her nails clawing at my eyes. And Scott, but he's just sitting on a dark beach, facing away from me.

  By the time the cab arrives to take me to the clinic at two the next afternoon, I'm so exhausted I'm seeing double.

  The woman who admits me is no older than me, and she smiles widely, as she hands me the gown, and leads me to a white-lit, cramped room. She tells me to change and lie on the table. There's a scary looking machine with arms like a vacuum cleaner next to it.

  "Can I be sedated?" I ask, but she's already gone.

  The room is spinning and I almost fall over as I'm taking off my yoga pants. I stick my head through the armhole of the gown twice, so I'm not even dressed when the doctor, or whoever, comes in, let alone lying down.

  "I'll give you a few more minutes," she says and turns to walk back out.

  "No, wait," I yell, finally managing to pull the gown down over myself. If I wait one more moment, I will run out of here and never come back. Only I can't be a mom, and so Sarah can never be a daughter.

  I lie down and stare up at the black and grey speckled tiles of the ceiling.

  The doctor is preparing the machine. A nurse comes in and forces my legs into stirrups. The doctor is explaining what will happen and I hear her, but her words have no meaning. I nod along anyway.

  The ceiling opens onto a sunlit beach, and Sarah is running along it, all clumsy and wobbly, because she's only very little and can't walk that well. Sun gleams off the little plastic pots and shovels we just used to build a sand castle.

  Something very cold and hard slithers into me.

  Menacing black clouds gather in the sky above the beach, the sun gone. Sarah is playing too close to the water, and the surf is churning, rising with the approaching storm.

  A sharp pain racks my stomach and I cry out.

  A wave rises up and crashes down on the beach, covers Sarah, her arms outstretched towards me, crying "Mommy," only I'm too far to reach her. When the wave recedes, Sarah is gone.

  Tears are streaming down my face, and I'm biting down on my knuckles, tasting blood.

  They let me lie there for awhile, then the nurse helps me dress. I pay the bill at reception.

  "Do you have someone to pick you up?" the nurse asks..

  "I'll take a cab," I mutter.

  She's looking at me like that's not the best idea, but I don't really see her.

  I'm not here. I'm still on the beach, staring at the rolling black waves, waiting for Sarah to return. But she never will, because I killed her.

  There's a shiny white bench near the street where the cab dropped me off. A sharp pain pierces my belly as I sit down too hard, and hot blood rushes out.

  I'm clutching my phone. I should call the cab, go home and sleep through this. Only I won't sleep, I know I won't. I'll just be alone on the dark beach, standing in the surf, waiting for Sarah to return. And I'll probably stay there forever.

  My fingers make the call on their own, I can't control them.

  It rings for a long time, like maybe no one will pick up. And then I'll be all alone for real. Which I already am, so I should just hang up.

  "Gail?" Scott finally says. "What do you want?"

  I wish he'd sound excited or at least angry, but his voice is just very distant and cold.

  "Can you come pick me up?" I blurt out. I should just hang up, and go face all of this on my own.

  "Why?"

  "Please." It's all I can say before my voice cracks. Lightning is shooting across the sky at the dark beach, and in the distance I can see Sarah's white, dead body borne away on the raging waves. And I'm still just standing there in the surf, still waiting and hoping.

  There's a long pause, like maybe he's already hung up.

  "Isn't there anyone else you can call?" he asks finally, and there's an edge in his voice now, or maybe I just want it to be there.

  "No."

  There's another long pause, but this time I can hear him breathing on the other side.

  "Where?"

  I smooth out the receipt and read off the address of the clinic.

  "Fine, I can be there in like an hour," he says.

  "OK, I'll wait."

  He waits like he wants me to hang up first but I can't do that, and I won't. Finally he sighs and the line goes dead.

  The winds are picking up and cramps are starting in my belly, like I'm about to have the worst period of my life. A woman in a long, black coat walks past me,
her eyes to the ground. She turns into the parking lot in front of the clinic. Soon she'll come out again, just like I did.

  "Murderer!" a woman yells, and I twist in my seat to look behind me, sure the word was meant for me. Two kids' voices take up the call too.

  But it's not for me. It's for the woman running into the clinic now. And the accuser is a middle aged woman and her two kids, who are no older than ten or eleven. They're standing in front of the clinic, holding up banners with pro-life slogans printed over pictures of dead babies.

  In my mind, Sarah is being tossed around on the raging waves of the sea. Tears stream down my face as I take my phone out again and press call.

  "What? Did you change your mind already?" Scott asks, and he sounds a little like he did on that night that never should have happened, but not quite.

  "Can you hurry?" I ask, tears finding their way into my mouth when I open them.

  "I don't know what to tell you, Gail. It's rush hour," he says. "And I think there was an accident up ahead."

  "Please hurry." I don't know how much longer I can sit here and watch Sarah drown. Maybe by the time he arrives I'll just be stuck in the vision of the terrible dark beach forever.

  "I'll try," he says and he doesn't sound so harsh anymore. "But if I get a ticket, you're paying for it."

  "Yes," I say and wait for him to hang up.

  Cramps are coming in waves, like the sea rolling in, bringing constant, excruciating pain.

  "Murderer, do you know what you did?" the protester shrieks behind me. The woman in the black coat hobbles past me, trying to run, but unable to, probably because of the pain. I catch her eye as she rushes past, and for a moment we're joined in our pain and our guilt. But then she's gone, and I'm all alone again, the sky turning dark above me.

  A silver sedan parks in the street in front of the bench I'm sitting on. Then Scott's standing above me, and I can't look up.

  "Are you coming?" he asks. He's wearing the same old Chucks he did on the day he saved me from Brandon at the mall, and his hands are stuck in the pockets of his baggy jeans.

  I get up slowly, the cramping preventing me from straightening up all the way. Scott's staring past me at the woman protester and her alive children. I climb into the car and he gets in a few moments later, but doesn't start it.

  "What am I doing here?" he asks.

  I'm staring at my hands wondering, if I should even speak. I can't answer his question without revealing the terrible thing I did.

  "Is this your new car?" I ask instead.

  "No, it's my brother's."

  "Michael's?" I ask, wanting to keep the conversation going along this safe path.

  "No, this is my brother Andrew's car."

  He sounds like he's about to keep talking, ask me more questions that I can't answer, but I'm quicker. "Must be nice to have so many brothers. Do you have any sisters too?"

  "No, I just have three brothers."

  "Three, wow, I'm an only child." A motherless only child.

  "Gail, why am I picking you up in front of an abortion clinic?" he asks straight out. He's staring at me, I can feel it, but I'm still just looking at my laced fingers.

  "Can we just go?"

  "Go where?" he asks, and finally sticks the key into the ignition.

  "Your place?"

  "Why?"

  I shrug, and tears threaten to spill from my eyes again. My hands are already a blur. "I…I…" but I can't finish the sentence.

  "Was it mine?" he asks, and from the way his voice sounds, I know he's not looking at me anymore.

  "Yes," I whisper.

  "And what do you want from me now? You want me to pay for it?"

  "No. I just want you to take me home," I finally look at him from the corner of my eyes. But he's staring out through the windshield, and I have no idea what he's thinking. His eyes are black in this light, and his face is completely still.

  "Where do you live?"

  "Can we go to your place?" I ask. He can't say no, I wouldn't survive that.

  "I don't know," he says.

  "Please." I'm whispering, like I'm afraid of my own voice, of what will come next.

  "This is some really heavy shit, Gail," he says, still not looking at me.

  He's so far away from me, like I don't even know him, and I know I shouldn't have called him, but I had no choice, not really, only he'll probably never understand that because I can't explain it, and I've been so awful to him he doesn't even have to try.

  "I know," I say, tears streaming down my face now. "Because Sarah will never learn to walk now, never build sandcastles on the beach, and I'll never hold her hand, or read to her…."

  I'm shaking in silent sobs, rocking back and forth, tears gushing form my eyes, fighting back the scream.

  Scott's staring at me again, his face all distorted by my tears. "Who's Sarah?"

  "My baby," I wail, and then I'm crying for real and I'll probably never stop.

  "You named it?" he asks, his voice twisted in disbelief. "Why do you do that to yourself?"

  He wraps his arm around me, and I'm crying into his chest, clutching his shirt in my fist. He smells so clean, like a bed with freshly laundered sheets and his arm is so firm around me, I need never move.

  The beach is transforming in my mind, like my tears are rain washing the clouds away, until the sun can come out again. The sea is calm now, no drowning baby anywhere. A woman laughs in the distance, and it could be my mom, but when I turn I see no one.

  "We should go," Scott says after my sobs lessen to shuddering whimpers.

  "Your house?"

  "If that's what you really want."

  I peel away from him and wipe my tears on my sleeve. "I do."

  I want to tell him it's alright, that he doesn't have to take me to his house, if he doesn't want to, because clearly he doesn't. But the thoughts don't form into words and we're already driving, getting on the freeway, and maybe he does want me just a little bit still.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The scenery flashing by is a blur of yellow, red and black, and the cramps coming now don't really let up. Each one just builds on the previous, until I feel like I might pass out at any moment.

  "Why didn't you tell me?" Scott asks after awhile.

  I keep my eyes fixed on the road in front of us. "I don't know."

  "I think you do," he says, and turns to look at me, red lights of the car in front of us reflecting in his eyes.

  "It was because you never wanted to see me again," he concludes for me. Only I wouldn't put it so bluntly, never could. And it took this, Sarah's murder, for me to finally stop fighting, to see it clearly.

  "I didn't want you to have to deal with it," I say, but my words are coming out wrong, flat and uncaring because of the mounting pain in my belly. I didn't want him to be a murderer too. It was my mistake, my burden, my secret to carry.

  "So, why did you call me now?"

  "I needed you," I say, because it's the truth.

  "What? To pick you up?"

  "To help me." I double over as a vicious cramp shoots through me.

  "Are you in a lot of pain?"

  "Can we talk later?" I ask through gritted teeth. I will talk to him, tell him everything, apologize, make it all better, I will, but I can't right now. Not with his accusatory tone making the dark clouds gather over the beach again. I killed my child, our child, and he needn't ever had to know, if I weren't such a weak mess.

  I close my eyes and when I open them we're in the quiet street where he lives above the bakery.

  He carries my purse for me, but doesn't hold me as I hobble down the dark alleyway. The lock is still broken on the front door, but at least the hall light is fixed.

  "Shouldn't you fix the door?" I ask, suddenly scared of hooded robbers in the dark.

  "Mike broke it, so he should fix it," he mutters, and climbs up the stairs, taking two at a time. Each step I take sends a throbbing pain through my belly.

  He leaves the door to his apartm
ent open, but doesn't wait for me to reach it. When I do, he's already drinking a beer in the kitchen. His apartment is still littered with cardboard boxes.

  I stumble over to the bed and sit, the wobbling of the air mattress sending a sharp stab through my stomach. It's only eight thirty, but all I want to do is sleep.

  "Do you mind if I just lie down?" I ask, sliding off my shoes. I should probably take a shower and change, but I brought no clothes and I doubt I could stay standing up for a minute longer.

  The cramps lessen once I lie down, and I close my eyes, wishing I had my sleeping pills with me.

  When I wake up, it's pitch black outside and the room is filled with a citrusy perfume.

  "I still can't believe you brought her here," Janine says, and I realize it was her raised voice that woke me. "What is this? Marissa all over again?"

  "Keep your voice down," Scott whispers, but I can hear him perfectly, because I'm wide awake now. My belly feels like someone beat me up.

  "Seriously, Scott," Janine continues more quietly. "You should forget about this girl. She's weird."

  I hope he doesn't believe her, won't listen to her.

  "She's just really upset," Scott says, making me want to rush over there and hug him.

  "Unstable's more like it. Like completely crazy," Janine counters.

  "I don't know," Scott says.

  "What don't you know?" Janine's voice rises in pitch again. "She aborted your child without telling you. Lied to you about where she was, didn't return your calls. And when does she call you? When she needs something, that's when. What don't you know, Scott?"

  Dead silence follows her words, until I'm sure he'll come over any second to kick me out. I'm holding my breath waiting.

  "I treated her like shit too," Scott finally says. But he didn't, not really, and I can't believe he still feels bad about it. "Fucking autumn, seriously."

  "Well, you're just asking for it this time," Janine says. "I don't know what you expect from this girl. She'll just do the same she always does, and walk away once she feels better. If she wanted you to help her, she would have called you before, not after."