Sing You Home

“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “I’m going to raise a child to be loved and to show love; to be self-respecting and open-minded and tolerant of everyone. If I can find the right religious group to support that, then maybe we will join it.”

“Ms. Baxter, are you familiar with the case of Burrows v. Brady?”

“Objection!” Angela says. “Counsel is referencing a custody case, and this is a property issue.”

“Overruled,” Judge O’Neill says. “Where are you going with this, Mr. Preston?”

“In Burrows v. Brady, the Rhode Island Supreme Court ruled that, when parents are divorced, each parent who has custody has the right to raise the child in the faith they think is in the child’s best interests. Moreover, Pettinato v. Pettinato said that the moral character of each potential custodial parent must be considered-”

“Is counsel trying to tell the court how to do its job,” Angela asks, “or does he actually have a question for my client?”

“Yes,” Wade replies. “I do have a question. You testified, Ms. Baxter, that you went through several in vitro procedures, all of which resulted in disaster?”

“Objection-”

“I’ll rephrase. You did not actually carry a baby to term, did you?”

“No,” I say.

“In fact you had two miscarriages?”

“Yes.”

“And then a stillbirth?”

I look into my lap. “Yes.”

“It’s your testimony today that you’ve always wanted a child, correct?”

“That’s right.”

“Your Honor.” Angela sighs. “All this has been asked and answered.”

“Why then, Ms. Baxter, did you murder your own child in 1989?”

“What?” I say, stunned. “I have no idea what you’re talking about-”

But I do. And his next words confirm it: “Did you or did you not have a voluntary abortion when you were nineteen years old?”

“Objection!” Angela is out of her seat immediately. “This is irrelevant and occurred prior to my client’s marriage, and I move that it be stricken immediately from the record-”

“It’s completely relevant. It informs her desire to have a baby now. She’s trying to make up for past sins.”

“Objection!”

My hands have gone numb.

A woman stands up in the gallery. “Baby killer!” she yells, and that is the hairline crack it takes to break the dam. There is shouting-by the Westboro contingent and by the Eternal Glory congregants. The judge calls for order, and about twenty observers are hauled through the double doors of the courtroom. I imagine Vanessa watching on the other side. I wonder what she’s thinking.

“Mr. Preston, you may continue your line of questioning, but without the editorial comments,” Judge O’Neill says. “And as for the gallery, if there is one more disruption, I will turn this into a closed session.”

Yes, I tell him. I had an abortion. I was nineteen, in college. It wasn’t the right time to have a baby. I thought- stupidly-that I’d have many more chances.

When I finish, I am gutted. I have only spoken once of the procedure since it happened, and that was at the fertility clinic, when I had to be completely honest about my reproductive history or compromise my chances of conceiving. It has been twenty-two years, but suddenly I feel the same way I felt back then: Shaky. Embarrassed.

And angry.

The clinic could not legally have released that information to Wade Preston. Which means that it must have come from the only other person who was at the clinic the day I gave my medical history.

Max.

“Is there a reason you were hiding this information from the court?”

“I wasn’t hiding-”

“Could it be because you thought, correctly, it might make you seem a little disingenuous when you start sobbing about how much you want a baby?”

“Objection!”

“Have you ever considered,” Wade Preston presses, “that the fact that you haven’t been able to have another child was God’s judgment on you for killing your first?”

Angela is furious. She goes after Wade with a verbal streak of fire. But even once he has withdrawn his question, it hangs in the air like the letters of a neon sign after you close your eyes.

And even if I don’t have to reply out loud, I may just have already answered silently.

I don’t want to believe in a God who’d punish me for having an abortion.

But that doesn’t mean I haven’t wondered if it’s true.

“You want to tell me what the hell that was all about?” Angela asks the minute the judge says that we are adjourning for the day. “How did he get your medical files?”

“He didn’t have to,” I say flatly. “Max must have told him.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me? It would have been much less damaging if we’d been able to bring it up on direct instead of cross!”

Like Max’s alcoholism. Everyone likes a reformed sinner. If we’d been the ones to bring up his drinking, it would have looked like he had something to hide.

Which is exactly how Wade Preston has painted me today.

Preston has finished packing up his briefcase; he smiles politely as he walks by. “Sorry you didn’t know about the skeleton in your client’s closet. The literal one, that is.”

Angela ignores him. “Is there anything else I need to know about? Because I really do not like surprises.”

I shake my head, still numb, and follow her out of the courtroom. Vanessa is waiting with my mother-both of them still sequestered. “What happened in there?” Vanessa asks. “How come the judge threw out half the gallery?”

“Can we talk about it in the car? I really just want to go home.”

But the moment we open the front door of the courthouse and step outside, there is a hail and volley of questions.

I’m expecting this. Just not the ones they ask.

How far along were you when you had the abortion?

Who was the baby daddy?

Do you still keep in touch with him?

A woman walks up to me. From her yellow T-shirt I realize she is from Westboro Baptist Church. She’s holding a recyclable plastic bottle filled with some kind of fruit punch, but it looks like blood from here.

I know she’s going to throw it at me the moment before she actually does. “Some choices are wrong,” she cries.

I step back, shielding myself, so that the liquid only lands on my right foot. I completely forget about Vanessa until I hear her voice beside me. “You never told me.”

“I never told anyone.”

Vanessa’s eyes are cold. She glances at Max, walking between his attorneys. “Somehow,” she says, “I don’t believe you.”

My mother wants to go after Wade Preston for dragging up my history; it takes Angela’s interference and the magic word (grandchild) before she agrees to go home without putting up a fight. She tells me she will call me later to make sure I’m all right, but it’s pretty clear to her that I don’t want to talk right now. To anyone except Vanessa, that is. The whole ride home, I try to explain what happened during my testimony. She doesn’t say a word. When I mention my abortion, she flinches.

Finally, by the time we park the car, I can’t stand it. “Are you going to give me the silent treatment forever?” I yell, slamming the car door and following Vanessa into the house. I strip off my panty hose, which are still sticky.