After the Flag Has Been Folded (25 page)

Nobody went to school pregnant at Columbus High in 1974. At least not visibly so. There were no school programs for pregnant teens. Girls who got pregnant always disappeared for six months or better.

Smitty considered the situation before advising me further.

Uncomfortable with the silence hanging between us, I blurted out, “I just don't know what's the right thing to do.”

“Well, Karen,” Smitty said thoughtfully, “in situations like these, I'm not sure there is a right thing to do. You've made a terrible mistake. When we invite sin into our lives, we are left with the consequences of our choices. The question before you is what's the best thing you can do now that the wrong choice has been made. You have a list of consequences to choose from. I can't tell you which one to pick. That's a decision that you will have to make. But I know
whatever you decide, your church family is here for you. We care a great deal for you. We want to help in any way we can.”

I didn't question for one moment Pastor Smitty's concern for me. I knew he cared immensely about all people.

 

M
AMA WROTE A NOTE
for a preexcused absence that I had to take around to all my teachers at Columbus High. She could've written a note that said I was going out of town for a few days because somebody in the family had died unexpectedly. She could've told them I was going to be visiting college campuses. But Mama's note said I was going into the hospital to have a D&C. A couple of my teachers looked at me quizzically after reading it.

“Everything okay?” Mr. Dietrich, my music teacher, asked. He often held Bible and prayer-group sessions in his classroom before school. He'd been my teacher for all four years at Columbus High. I missed several of his classes during December because he was my first class of the day and about that time I was usually holding sessions with the porcelain throne.

“Yes, sir,” I said. “Everything's fine. I'm just having some female trouble, that's all.”

He signed his name to the note and told me not to worry about missing class.

Marjorie Sewell was the next teacher to express concern. She read the note and studied it for a moment or two before looking at me. “You're going into the hospital?” she asked.

“Yes, ma'am,” I replied. I was praying that she wouldn't ask me why. I didn't think I could lie to her.

She pressed her hand over the note, ironing it out. Three or four other kids crowded around us. She signed her name.

“Karen,” she said.

“Yes, ma'am?”

“I hope everything turns out. If you need anything…” Her voice trailed off but her eyes were locked on mine.

“I'm fine, ma'am. Really, I'm fine.” I could feel blood rush to my neck and cheeks as I grabbed the note, folded it up, and stuffed it into a book. Kids poured into the room as the late bell rang. I sat down and avoided all further eye contact with my teacher. I was afraid she knew the truth, and that shamed me.

I was admitted to the maternity ward of Columbus Medical Center on January 29, 1974. My roommate was a black woman who was older than Mama. She already had a litter of kids and didn't want no more, she told me. Mama had stayed only long enough to sign the paperwork and make sure I was situated. She said she'd stop by during her shift that night and check on me.

I unpacked the overnight bag she'd given me for Christmas. Then I sat down on the edge of the bed and continued reading Richard Llewellyn's classic,
How Green Was My Valley.
I needed to finish reading it so I could write a book report. It seemed fitting to be reading a book about how gossip destroyed a minister's career.

Pastor Smitty had asked me how I was going to deal with all the gossip that would surely circulate among the youth group at Rose Hill.

“I'm not going to worry about it,” I said. “The friends who really love me will come and talk to me about it. The others? Well, they're going to talk about somebody—might as well be me.”

I wasn't quite so cheeky when the orderly showed up in the doorway and took me by wheelchair to get a lung X ray. The technician was Debbie Baker, a good friend of Patsy's.

Debbie handed me a hospital gown and told me she needed to take a chest X ray. I never asked why and she didn't say. We acted as if we barely knew each other as she hid behind a glass pane flipping a switch and I was exposed in a gown as thin as cheap toilet paper, knowing that somewhere on my medical file was the word
abortion
. I felt like somebody had stamped a big red
A
across my chest. Debbie flashed me her best smile and thanked me. The orderly waited for me to get dressed before wheeling me back to my room.

Sometime that afternoon the doctor stopped by. Somebody had
told Mama that Dr. Dennis Whitfield was the only doctor in Columbus who performed abortions.
Roe v. Wade
had legalized abortion only a year before. There weren't big protest groups marching around holding up placards of bloody fetuses, but there weren't that many physicians practicing suction abortions either, especially not in the South, where life is considered a holy sacrament.

But I'd heard that Dr. Whitfield was not a native son. He was from Montana or Wyoming or some other place out West where hippies lived in communes and had group sex. Dr. Whitfield sure didn't look like any other doctor I'd ever known. He had reddish blond hair that hung around the nape of his neck. He walked in that same moseying fashion that stoners used, rather than the clip style of the military doctors at Martin Army. He spoke to me as if I was an adult, much the same way Pastor Smitty did.

I followed him to an exam room at the end of the hallway and propped myself up on the end of the exam table while he pulled up a chair and grabbed a clipboard. “Karen, I want to explain some things,” he said. “Today, I'm going to insert a substance made from seaweed that will help dilate your cervix.” Then, taking the clipboard, he drew a picture of a tiny hole and then a bigger one. “It shouldn't hurt or cause you any discomfort. We'll leave that in overnight. You can't have anything to eat tonight. That's because we're going to give you anesthesia in the morning, and we don't want you to have an upset stomach. I will use a tool like this.” Dr. Whitfield showed me a shiny long instrument that looked like an enlarged version of the thing the dentist used to clean my teeth. “With it I will scrape out the inside of your uterus. Then we'll use a machine that's sort of like the hose on a vacuum cleaner to remove any other fetal tissue. It won't take long. And you won't remember a thing. Any questions?”

I shook my head no. I didn't have the heart to tell him I understood very little of what he said. The mechanisms of my womanhood
were as foreign to me as Latin verbs. I'd heard them all before, but I just didn't know what they meant. The part that really troubled me was that seaweed substance in my privates. That was just plain nasty.

Wes and his buddy Tom were sitting on my bed when I got back to the room. I could tell they'd been smoking pot. They smelled like field hands who'd come in from the noonday sun, and they were giggling like a couple of preschoolers who'd just discovered Barbie's pointy breasts. I was annoyed as hell. “Get off that bed,” I said.

“Hey, whoa!” Wes said. “We stop by to pay our respects, and you're bitching at us.” He and Tom jumped up off the bed.

“I don't really want you here,” I replied.

“Okay, okay, that's cool,” he said, smiling. “I'm just trying to do my fatherly duty.” He and Tom laughed. I didn't.

The old woman in the bed next to mine snorted, apparently put out by their behavior, too.

“Listen, go away and don't come up here no more,” I said. “Especially don't come up here when you're loaded.”

Wes and Tom laughed. Bad boys nailed again. They seemed to relish the thought.

“Hey, we're going,” Wes said. “But remember I tried.”

“Yeah, sure,” I said. “Where would I be without you?”

“Probably someplace else,” he said.

“That's for darn sure,” I quipped.

I was so mad at Wes I could spit nails. About a week before I went into the hospital, I'd found out that he had told his mother I was going in the hospital for a root canal. She'd asked me about it one day when I called up to his place. “Wesley tells me you've got to go to the hospital for a couple of days,” Mrs. Skibbey said.

“He told you that?” I asked. I was surprised he'd mentioned anything at all about it to his mama.

“Yes. He said you're going in for a root canal. But that's not why, is it, Karen?”

No, ma'am.”

“I didn't think so. People don't usually go in the hospital for dental care. What's the matter, honey?”

I didn't know how to answer her. I was furious at Wes for lying to his mama, but I didn't want to be the one to tell her I was pregnant and her son was the sperm donor. So I didn't say anything. “Karen, are you pregnant?” she asked.

“Yes, ma'am.”

“I thought so. Are you having an abortion?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“It's the right thing to do,” she said. “I had one too, you know.”

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Pauline Skibbey had an abortion?

“When I was a young girl, living in Italy. They weren't legal then. But I found a doctor who did it. This is better. You'll be okay.”

Why did everybody keep telling me that? I wasn't at all sure my life would ever be okay again.

“Mrs. Skibbey, please don't tell Wesley I told you,” I replied.

“Don't worry. I'm not going to say anything about our visit. You deserve better than my son, Karen. Forget about him. He needs to grow up.”

“Yes, ma'am,” I said.

When I hung up I realized that in all the years we'd known each other that was the longest conversation Mrs. Skibbey and I had ever had.

Several more visitors dropped in on me, including the new youth pastor at Rose Hill. His visit just made me feel more ashamed. He didn't know what to say and neither did I. Thankfully, he stayed only a few minutes.

Beth McCombs came and brought me some magazines and a Snickers bar. I'd told her about the abortion shortly after I'd discussed it with Lynn. I was shocked when Karen Mendenhall and her mother, Donna, paid me a visit. Karen thought I was in the hospital
to have my tonsils removed. She and her mother hadn't a clue why I was really there.

I hadn't told Karen anything about the abortion because her friendship was too valuable to me. I figured if her mama knew the mess I'd gotten myself into, she'd forbid Karen from ever hanging out with me again. Donna Mendenhall was a stern mother. She had a conniption fit when she learned that several of us kids in the youth group had been caught toilet-papering Pastor Smitty's yard. Smitty and Betty didn't seem to care; in fact, they had invited us all in for a cola, after we'd cleaned out the trees, of course. But Donna gave Karen and me such a lecture you would've thought we'd stolen a car or held up a 7-Eleven store.

Karen told me she found out about the abortion later, from Beth. She also told me that her mother was angry to arrive at the hospital and discover that I'd been stuck on the maternity ward. Donna, who'd quickly figured out why I was really in the hospital, worried about the emotional impact that would have on me.

She didn't come bearing flowers or candies, but Donna brought me a treasure that night that has lasted me a lifetime—the gift of grace. Her concern for me was only slightly veiled behind her dark eyes. She didn't mention the word
abortion.
And she didn't scold me for my folly the way she had the night I'd helped trash Pastor Smitty's yard. Instead, she reached out her tiny hand and patted mine. “We love you, Karen,” she said.

And I knew that she did. I was never afraid of Donna Mendenhall after that visit. I knew that while her expectations for her daughter—for all us kids—were high, ultimately she wanted only what was best for us. Her wanting that for me made me want it for myself.

Linda didn't come by the hospital. I hadn't expected her to, really. We never talked about the abortion. Not then and not now. I was a big disappointment to my sister. Linda was the lone child that Mama and Daddy really could be proud of. Although the youngest when Daddy died, Linda has handled the loss better than the rest of us.
I suspect that's because she learned from her siblings' mistakes. But maybe it's because she was born with a stronger heart. One that didn't tear so easily. I've always envied her that.

Mama did check on me during the night, but we didn't have much to say to each other. I knew she was wishing I would change my mind. I felt guilty for putting her in a situation where she had to give me her permission to do something she didn't want me to do. But I was still convinced that letting her raise my child was a bad idea. Pastor Smitty was right. There were no easy answers, just a list of wrong choices from which to pick. I'd made my choice, and Mama was forced to agree to it. Seemed like the only thing we had in common anymore was our mutual resentment of each other.

I woke up early Wednesday morning. Surgery was scheduled sometime before noon. I was not allowed to eat or drink anything. I was terribly thirsty. Mama stopped by after her shift ended. I was lying in bed, reading. There was a lot of activity in the hallways as nurses carted hungry, squalling newborns to their mothers. Any other time I'd have been tempted to sneak off and get glimpses of the babies, but not on this day. “How'd you sleep?” Mama asked.

“Fine,” I replied.

Mama looked tired. I could barely see her brown eyes behind their heavy lids.

“I'm really thirsty,” I said.

“I'm sure you are,” Mama said. “But don't drink anything, otherwise that anesthesia will make you sick. Has the doctor been in yet?”

“No, ma'am, not this morning,” I said. “I saw him yesterday.”