Annie
I blink in surprise as Madge shifts her car into park and yanks the key from the ignition. We can’t possibly be here already.
I look out the window at the squat gray building that looks absolutely nothing like I thought it would, and then let my head fall back against the seat.
Madge sighs, and I can feel her eyes burning their disapproval into me. I don’t want to get out of the car, but I don’t want to stay in here, either. The seat belt is too tight and Madge is sitting too close and I feel like this giant SUV is crumpling in on itself, trapping me inside. I suddenly realize that I’ve never sat in the front seat of Madge’s car before. We’ve never done anything together that’s just the two of us. Our first stepmother-stepdaughter bonding day, and it’s a trip to the abortion clinic.
Why isn’t she getting out of the car? I shift in my seat and reach for the door handle, desperate to escape.
“Wait a minute, Anne,” Madge says. I freeze, my fingers hovering inches from the handle. There’s a little flutter of something in my chest. Is she having second thoughts?
My eyes flick to her face, and I watch as her gaze travels past me to the building outside. She looks as conflicted and unhappy as I am. I feel a smile creeping up from somewhere in my body, but before it makes it to my lips, she says, “I hope today is a lesson to you. I don’t want to ever have to bring you back here again.” Then she climbs out of the car and marches to the sidewalk, where she waits for me with arms crossed.
I want to refuse to get out of the car. I want to hole myself up in the back and scream that I won’t go through with this. I want to take out my cell phone and call my dad and confess everything and beg him to make Madge stop. But I don’t. I see the look on her face and I imagine the way Dad would look at me. I think about the kids at school who used to be my friends and how they see me as a dirty slut because I had sex with Scott. And I imagine nine months of walking the halls with a growing belly.
And the weak part of me wins. That sniveling, pathetic, scared part of me that always wins. I’m not cut out to be a mother, I think as I follow Madge into the building. A mother wouldn’t be this cowardly.
I hang back while Madge checks in with the receptionist. She can do all the talking, I decide. Let her bear the weight of this decision. I’ll get through this by just following along and doing as I’m told.
But then there’s a social worker leading me to an office and telling Madge to sit outside in the waiting room, and all my plans go up in smoke.
“I’m Janet,” she tells me, gesturing at a chair. “Please, have a seat.”
She perches a pair of half-moon glasses on her nose before flipping through a clipboard full of notes. “Your mother faxed over your background health information for us, but I’d like you to take a look at the forms and verify that everything is correct.”
I want to tell her that Madge isn’t my mother, but I can’t seem to find my voice. I hold out a shaking hand for the clipboard and pretend to read the forms while Janet watches.
“Part of my job today is to make sure you understand all the options available to you, and that you’re confident in your choice to have an abortion.”
The word just rolls off her tongue, and I look up in surprise. I’ve heard abortion so many times lately, but it’s always been whispered or hissed or shouted. I’ve never heard it said like a regular word before.
I pass her back the clipboard and nod, suddenly grateful that Madge isn’t here. Janet’s eyes crinkle when she smiles at me, and the lines around them look like kindness. I flex my fingers and imagine drawing her face.
I have to fight to focus on the words she’s saying. She talks about adoption and giving birth and all the things I’ve already thought about and debated for an eternity. I want to press fast-forward on this speech, because I’m so done thinking about it.
“Annie?”
I sit up straight and nod as if I’ve been listening attentively.
“I’m not telling you anything new here, am I?”
“No,” I admit. “I’ve thought about all those things. A lot.”
She nods and adds a few notations to the form in front of her. “Let me ask you a more difficult question, then,” she says. “Is this your decision or your mother’s?”
A chunk of ice cracks off my heart, and I see two paths ahead of me. On one, I open up to Janet and tell her everything—all about Madge and my father . . . and even my mother. She’d help me; I can see that. I could tell her about Scott and the girls at school. About how scared I am and how I’m not sure that I’m making the right decision. She’d smile at me and refuse to let me go through with this abortion. Then she’d bring in Madge and lay into her about ruining young girls’ lives and taking away their choices.
On the other path, I’d tell her that I’ve made up my mind and that I’m confident in my decision. That way, I could be free of all of this. I wouldn’t have to take on the responsibility of being a teenage mother, throwing away college and my future. I wouldn’t have to endure the stares and the whispers and the jokes. And I wouldn’t have to explain to my child why her father never visits and why I’m so young compared with the other girls’ mothers.
I must have been sitting there
