Those Girls (17 page)

“Where did you get that?”

“Stole it.”

“You have to stop doing that—you’re going to get caught.”

“It was twenty dollars.”

“You could have gone to a doctor and they’d test you for free.”

I couldn’t believe she was giving me shit. Then I realized she was just freaked out.

“I didn’t know that,” I said.

“Have you taken it yet?”

“No. I’m scared.”

“Maybe with the stress you’re just late.”

I didn’t like the desperate, hopeful look on her face. The same expression I saw reflected back at me when I glanced in the mirror.

“Maybe.”

But the little line turned blue.

*   *   *

When Courtney came home that night, we told her. She sat down hard on the couch and looked up at us with a stunned expression.

“This is so fucked up. What are we going to do?”

Dani was sitting on the other couch, her feet under her knees. I was curled into its corner, my hand on my stomach, pressing down as though I could just squeeze the baby out of my body, feeling embarrassed, ashamed, like I had let us all down.

“Is it too late for an abortion?” Dani said.

“I don’t know,” Courtney said. “Don’t some places do it later?”

I didn’t like how they were talking about me as though I weren’t there, not even asking what I wanted to do. I studied my bare feet—small, like my mother’s, the baby toe with hardly any nail. I felt a sharp ache, wished I could speak to her.

“Maybe we should talk to someone,” I said.

*   *   *

We went to the free clinic the next day. A doctor examined me, took a blood test, and confirmed the pregnancy. I was sixteen weeks along, due the third week of April. I hated his hands on my body, the way he coldly asked about my period and the last time I had sex, most of all hated telling him it was a boy I’d met in the summer. I was glad Dani was in the exam room with me. She asked him about abortion, and I knew the deal by the warning tone of his first sentence, “Past the first trimester…” He handed Dani a bunch of brochures. We left.

At home I locked myself in my room and read the brochures cover to cover. Courtney and Dani were in the kitchen. I could hear them talking in low voices and knew that they were waiting for me to come out so we could make a plan. We’d barely spoken on the bus ride home. I couldn’t even look at them, hating the anxious look in their eyes, feeling their thoughts.

I walked into the kitchen, a blanket wrapped around me, and huddled at the table.

“Do you want something to eat?” Dani said. “Maybe some soup or tea?”

“No, thanks,” I said.

She sat down across from me. “That doctor was just a jerk. You’re still allowed to have an abortion. Courtney can ask her friend—”

“It’s the size of an avocado,” I said. “It can
hear
me.”

“What do you want to do, then?” Dani wasn’t freaking out, but I could feel her panic.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“We can’t
keep
it,” Courtney said. “We can barely afford ourselves. Patrick and Karen might throw us out.” Her voice rose, fear making it breathy. “What if it looks like
him
?”

“I need time to think,” I said.

“You don’t have much time,” Dani said. “You’re already sixteen weeks.”

“I
know
! I just need to
think.
” Doors were closing on me, slamming one after another.

“Jess, you can’t—”

“Leave me alone.” I got up from the table and went back to my room.

*   *   *

We didn’t talk about it for the next few days, but I could feel them waiting for my answer even when we weren’t in the same room. I avoided them as much as possible, sat alone for hours, looking at the calendar, feeling time slipping away. I read all the brochures again and again, stared at the photos of the fetus, the tiny hands. I went back to the clinic by myself, talked to another doctor, who explained about the complications of late-term abortions, the risks. I had to decide soon, but I was paralyzed with fear.

I’d wake up in the middle of the night, pressure bearing down on my chest, so heavy I couldn’t breathe. I’d think about my dad. I’d already killed someone—if I had an abortion, was I killing another person? But what would it be like to give birth? Could I stand the pain? What would happen to the baby? What would happen to me?

Finally, after a week, I came out one morning while Dani and Courtney were having breakfast. They looked up at me expectantly as I took a seat at the table.

“It’s too late now.”

Dani looked furious. “If you’d dealt with it a week ago, you—”

“It was already too late,” I said. “I’ll give it away. It’ll go to someone else, someone who
wants
a baby. They’d never know, and the baby wouldn’t know.”

“Are you
sure
you want to do that?” Dani said. “You want to go through all of that and then give it away? It’s nine months—then you have to give birth.” Her voice hammered into me, dominating, talking to me like I was a child.

“I know what it means, Dani. I’m pregnant, not stupid—and it’s forty weeks, not nine months.”

She looked surprised by my anger, by my newfound knowledge. She was used to being in charge, leading us into and out of battle. But this was
my
body.

“I’m going to give it away,” I said.

“You have to tell them,” Dani said, still clinging to her authority, making me be the one to tell Karen and Patrick, punishing me for going my own way, making my own decision. I felt another surge of anger. Blame whispering at the back of my brain.
If she’d listened to me before, we wouldn’t have been in that town.
I pushed away the thoughts. It wasn’t her fault.

The next day we told Patrick and Karen.

Karen looked flustered. “Do you … do you know what you want to do?”

“I’m going to give it away.”

“The father…”

I shook my head. Courtney started to cry.

Patrick looked at her, then back at me. “Whatever you want to do, kid. We’ll help you out.”

“We can stay?” I said.

“Of course!” they said at the same time.

They looked stunned that we had worried about anything else. I felt a weight lift off my shoulders, but then an ache deep inside. It had been decided.

I was going to have a baby.

*   *   *

I was terrified of giving birth and couldn’t read certain sections of the book Karen had bought me without my chest getting tight and panicky, overwhelmed by the feeling that I was hurtling toward something I couldn’t stop—and it was going to hurt a whole lot. I already felt like my body wasn’t my own anymore, like an alien or a parasite had moved in and taken over.

We hadn’t told anyone at the gym yet, but I felt like everyone could see just by looking at me, and I couldn’t meet their eyes. At the clinic I studied the other pregnant women in the waiting room, the rings on their fingers, the happy glow on their faces, the way they would curve an arm protectively around their stomachs. I wasn’t showing yet and wondered what they’d think if they knew, if they’d think I was a slut, a bad girl. I wondered if I was doing the right thing.

By the fifth month I was starting to show a round little belly and had to wear baggy shirts and tie my jeans with an elastic band or wear sweatpants. Karen made sure I was eating right and taking vitamins. I found a new doctor. She knew I planned on giving the baby up but was nice about it, her hands gentle when she examined me, waiting for my body to relax. I would watch, detached, during the ultrasound as she talked about what stage the baby was at, pointing out the feet and hands. I tried not to think of the baby as mine, or
his,
but like I was carrying it for someone else and it was just my job to take care of it.

I’d met with an adoption agency but hadn’t picked anyone yet. No one seemed good enough. I didn’t want the baby but I didn’t like thinking of someone being mean to it, of its getting a dad like ours. It deserved a chance.

Courtney had started sleeping on the couch. She said it was because she didn’t want to disturb me when she came home late, but I was pretty sure she was angry. She never looked at my belly. Dani was okay, sometimes she was even a little nicer, making me herbal tea or bringing me an extra blanket. But I’d see her give me worried looks, the fear on her face if she glanced at my stomach.

My belly was getting huge and I’d stand in front of the mirror after a bath, staring at my bigger breasts, my disappearing belly button. The baby had started moving by then and I’d watch it roll around. In bed I could feel it kicking and stretching, sometimes clawing at my insides like it was trying to break out.

I was scared to think about what the baby might look like—
who
it might look like. The doctor had asked if I wanted to know if it was a boy or a girl but I’d said no. Sometimes when I closed my eyes I’d see Brian’s face and wonder if the baby looked like him. I felt sad for the baby—it hadn’t asked for this, an evil dad, a mom who didn’t want it. My sisters never even talked about it, though one time Dani did mention something we might do “after we give the baby away.”

I was hungry all the time but Dani never complained about our food bill. Patrick found me a job, doing laundry in one of the hotels—he’d helped the man’s kid out. As my belly got bigger, my hips and legs ached and I walked in a swagger, but I refused to let it slow me down.

Sometimes when the baby moved I’d put my hand there, feeling a foot or a hand. I felt guilty the first time and pulled my hand away but then put it back a few minutes later, sitting quiet in the dark. We had an old TV by then, and I started telling the baby what I was watching, sometimes resting a plate of food on top of my belly. I never did it when my sisters were around, never told them when I felt the baby kick or roll, my whole belly moving as though it were doing acrobatics.

When I got really scared at night, imagining what childbirth was going to feel like, I tried to imagine how happy some couple was going to be, how they’d been waiting for years and years. I’d imagine their house, how they’d decorated a special room, the nice things they’d do for the baby, how much they’d love it.

Karen tried to talk to me about our past once, sort of feeling around about our parents.

“Were things hard for you at home?” she said.

“Yeah,” I said. “We don’t like talking about it.” I hoped that would stop the questions.

“If you ever do want to talk to someone about what happened…” She held my eyes for a second. “I’m a good listener, and there are some great programs in the community, support groups—”

“We’re fine.”

She nodded. “Of course you are. But if you change your mind and think maybe there’s something you want to talk about, just let me know.”

“Okay, thanks.” I knew we’d never change our minds.

She was right, though. She was a good listener. She often sat and talked to the teenagers who came into the gym about their problems at home and school. I’d listen in sometimes and wondered why she and Patrick didn’t have children of their own.

“Did you want kids?” I asked.

She smiled. “I did, but I couldn’t have them. Patrick’s son was from his first marriage.” They didn’t talk about their past much, but a few times when we were alone together, she told me a couple of things. I figured it was because she felt bad for me or something. She said Patrick’s son had gotten into drugs while Patrick was in jail and had gotten killed by some dealers—shot in the head.

“It was hard on Patrick, really hard.”

“That’s why he helps other kids?” I said.

“And that’s why you’re all my babies.” Her eyes drifted to my belly, then looked away. “I better get back to work.”

*   *   *

Dani and Courtney stayed out of the apartment a lot. Dani was usually at the gym, and Courtney was working or partying. Sometimes I wondered if maybe they didn’t want to be home with me, like they were still upset that I didn’t get rid of the baby. One night Courtney came home drunk and stared at my belly.

“Why didn’t you say anything for so long?” she said.

“I didn’t know.”

She laughed bitterly. “Come on. You knew.”

“Leave her alone,” Dani said.

I hid in my room, crying, thinking about what Courtney had said. Had I known? Had I just not wanted to face it? I thought back to those first months of my pregnancy but I wasn’t sure, couldn’t remember feeling anything but fear.

Dani loved boxing and training with the other teens. She even taught a class for some little kids. I just helped Patrick in his office or worked at the hotel. When I wasn’t working I studied for my GED. Courtney didn’t get sad quite as often but she still partied too much. She and Dani would get in big fights. She also hung out with some of the boys from the gym who were former dealers and gang members. When Dani told her they were trouble, she just laughed at her.

“What else bad can happen?”

*   *   *

The months passed and I got my GED. I met with the adoption agency a couple of times, flipped through their photos of families, but I’d stare at the men’s faces, wondering if they drank, if they were mean. Dani got on my case about it a lot, said I had to pick a family soon. I told her I would, but the weeks drifted past.

Late in my last trimester, I still worked every day at the hotel, and sometimes an evening shift if someone needed me to cover. One night, in the middle of April, I felt a little rush of fluid like I’d peed myself but knew I hadn’t. I checked in the bathroom. My underwear was wet. I rolled it up into a ball and stuffed it in the trash. I was walking downstairs to find the manager when I felt more water trickle out between my legs. I used the pay phone to call Dani, who took me to the hospital in Patrick’s van. Courtney was out.

I was terrified, the first contractions worse than anything I’d imagined, the physical exam horrible, the doctor’s hands reaching up high into my body. They gave me drugs for the pain but it still hurt. I couldn’t find any position to escape it, could only moan and cry. I walked the hall, soaked in the bath, nothing helped.

My body labored all night and into the morning. Nurses stared at the monitor, making notes, adjusting the strap around my belly, murmuring that I should try to rest between contractions. But by early afternoon they were too close together for that—and coming harder and harder. My throat burned with each gasp, my lips dry and chapped. Dani spooned ice chips into my mouth, her face pale. She stroked my hair back from my forehead, put cool cloths on me.