Keeper (2 page)

I took Alison’s hand. We went through the door and down a long hall, past a lounge and several examination rooms and offices. We passed a doctor in the hall and he gave us the same smile the nurse had.

Alison wanted to take the stairs. “I’ll get to see the elevator after,” she said. She let go of my hand when we reached the second floor, stepping into another waiting room, almost identical to the one on the ground floor but with nicer furnishings. More couches and chairs, magazine racks, coffee tables, a coffeemaker, a television. The walls were painted light blue, with white detailing at the trim.

At the opposite side of the room from the stairway was a glass partition where more nurses were controlling intake. There was a door beside the partition, and I figured it led to the procedure and recovery rooms. Another door on the wall to the right of that had a sign on it reading “Education and Services.”

Alison told me to sit down, then went to the partition and checked in. We filled out her paperwork together, and I had to sign a waiver and a release form, not unlike the forms you fill out before getting your wisdom teeth pulled. Alison returned the completed paperwork, and we sat together for another forty-five minutes before the nurse called her name. I gave her a kiss on the cheek before she rose.

“This is the right thing,” Alison said.

“I know.”

She returned my kiss with dry lips, then went with the nurse. She didn’t look back.

Three hours later, and I was still sitting on the same couch, skimming magazines and watching people. Five women were filling out forms, two with men beside them. One of the men was absolutely silent, barely aware of his companion. Another six people were waiting, pretending to read or watch television. Most were Latino or black, but one of the couples filling out forms was white and I suspected they had come from Columbia University. Occasionally a nurse would open the door beside the partition and announce a name, then escort the chosen through the door after checking her clipboard. Many more people had come and gone. They left with paper bags full of educational literature, dental dams, condoms, and tubes of No-noxynal-9.

Turnaround with the sex-ed crowd was a lot faster, it seemed.

I stood and stretched, crossed to the window overlooking Amsterdam, trying to ease my nerves. This window had a grille over it, and I wondered why they didn’t use them on the ground floor, too. It’s harder to throw a brick through a grille, after all.

Nearly forty people milled around across the street, held behind a police barricade line by NYPD uniforms. The Federal Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1994 had been designed to solve this problem, but so far it hadn’t worked all that well. The law is considered by many to be unconstitutional, specifically in violation of the First Amendment, and challenges to it occur on a regular basis. As it was, protesters had positioned themselves at every approach to the clinic, and while they did not block access physically, they certainly created a daunting psychological gauntlet for a woman to run. There was no way to avoid them, as we had discovered the hard way. From the window, I saw placards and a couple of poles with dolls impaled on them. The dolls were naked and spattered with red paint. Several people held signs depicting a large cross draped in bloody barbed wire: “SOS” was painted in red in the upper right comer. Keeping well away from this group were other pro-lifers, more moderate contingents passing out pamphlets and singing hymns, their signs citing scripture, or stating, simply, “Stop Abortion Now.”

Alison had chosen the clinic on recommendation from her OB/GYN. One of the deciding factors had been the assurance that the Women’s LifeCare Clinic rarely had trouble with demonstrators. When we had called the clinic that morning, before coming in, the person we spoke to said that there was a “minor” protest in progress, but that shouldn’t discourage us. It hadn’t sounded too bad.

I had been willing to turn back when we saw the crowd, more concerned with Alison’s peace of mind than anything else. But she had gotten angry.

“Hell with them,” she had said. “I’m not going to be scared off by these assholes.” Then she patted my arm and said, “Besides, I’ve got my bodyguard with me.”

Her bodyguard, and the father of her child, I thought.

Getting out was going to be worse than going in, because now they knew we had been inside, and for how long. We would come out to more of the same, perhaps worse, and knowing that Alison would be on the far side of a particularly painful operation didn’t help my mood. She had made her decision; she was the only person with the right to question it.

I saw a sign with “Abortion is Murder” on it, and swore under my breath.

“You’re swearing and that’s not nice. Don’t swear.”

The voice came out of a short, chubby woman, with light brown skin and a face shaped by Down’s syndrome. She wore turquoise sweatpants stretched tight over her middle, tiny pink tennis shoes, and a hot-pink sweatshirt on which white cats chased each other around her body. She held a Walkman, but the headphones were off her head, and she was looking at me sternly.

“Don’t swear.”

“I apologize,” I said.

She looked down at her pink tennis shoes and muttered something, then looked back to me and said, “It’s all right, you’re all right. My name is Katie.”

“I’m Atticus.”

“Atticus who?” She said it tentatively, pushing hard on the consonants.

“Kodiak.”

Katie repeated my last name, tripping it over her tongue. She had a lot of trouble with it, and finally said, “Can’t say it. Say it K, ’Cus K.”

“That’s right,” I said. “Atticus K.” Over her shoulder I tried to spot a parent or someone associated with her. No one was paying us any attention. Katie smiled and said carefully, “I’m very pleased to meet you, ’Cus.” She stuck out her hand and I took it. Her hand was small, warm, and moist. Her fingers barely made it out of my palm, but Katie shook my hand vigorously, then tugged me toward an empty couch.

“Got to sit down, got to sit down and stay out of the way,” Katie said, but she didn’t say it to me; she said it to herself. Then she dropped her voice further and said, “Yes, you do, Katie. You know that.”

We sat on the couch and Katie fumbled with her Walkman for a moment, but the headphone wires were tangled and she couldn’t straighten the cord.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

Katie thought about that, weighing the decision, then said, “Here, fix them.” She thrust both the Walkman and the headphones into my lap. The Walkman was a cheap model, functional and without frills, as were the headphones. Both had been dinged about, and the pads on the headphones were ripped, exposing the speakers. I untangled the cabling and plugged the jack into the player. A Madonna tape rested inside.

I handed the player back to Katie and she put the headphones around her neck, then stared at me. Softly she said, “He has brown eyes,” and then, louder, “Thanks, thank you.”    '

“You’re welcome. You like Madonna, Katie?”

“I like her a lot, ’Cus. She’s sexy. Do you like Madonna?”

“Not particularly.”

She laughed and pointed a finger at my chest and said, “You’re silly. You like Madonna.” She was smiling again, but this smile seemed more honest than the one she had used to introduce herself, broad and even. Her teeth were small and yellowed.

“All right. I like Madonna.”

“I know! I know that. He’s silly. You’re silly.”

“I think you’re silly.”

“I am not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“I am not. Stop it. I am not silly.”

“Okay, I’m sorry, you’re not silly.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay, ’Cus.” Katie played with the Walkman for a moment, opening and closing the cassette door, then said to herself, “Ask him. Ask him.”

“Ask me what?”

She jerked her head around to look at me, surprised, and said, “Uh-oh, he heard us.” She looked back down to her lap and poked the cassette player with her fingers for a few seconds. Then Katie said, “ ’Cus, do you have a, uh, a girlfriend?”

I grinned. “Yes,” I told her. “Her name is Alison.” 

“Oh.” She toyed with the Walkman again, then said, “I have a boyfriend. His name is David and he’s strong and protects me. But when he gets angry he loses his temper and he gets very mad. He turns into a monster and he doesn’t like it, but he gets angry and can’t con-con-control himself.” She studied me and said, “David loves me a lot, though, he does. Is your girlfriend, is she here?”

“Yes, she is.”

“I knew that, I know.”

From the street came a roar, voices rising together with glee. I went back to the window. Most of the crowd had converged around a white Cadillac parked on the opposite side of the street, their SOS signs waving.

Katie peeked around my elbow, looking out the window. “Uh-oh,” she said. “Uh-oh.”

“Do you know who that is?” I asked her.

“Who is it? I don’t know who it is.”

The Caddy’s front passenger door opened and a man got out, blond and short, though the angle made it hard to determine more than that. He began waving the crowd back. Then he opened one of the rear doors and another man emerged, this one a head taller, dressed in a neat summer suit. His hair was black, and he held a megaphone. Katie and I watched as the man in the suit climbed to the roof of his car.

For a moment, he stood there on the roof of the big white Cadillac, surveying the crowd. Even from the window, I could see he was smiling.

“Oh, no! It’s the Loud Man,” Katie told me. “He’s the Loud Man.”

“Yeah?” I said.

“Very loud he’s very very loud, ’Cus. Mommy doesn’t like him.”

I was about to ask where her mother was, when the Loud Man raised his megaphone and began to speak.

“I speak to you of murder,” he said.

The crowd murmured.

“Murder again and bloody murder more,” the man said. “Bodies upon bodies, broken and tom, filling their trash cans, their Dumpsters, their sinks. Cold metal, sharp metal, the coldest, sharpest things they have ever felt, their second feeling, pulling them from their mothers, from their safety, and warmth, and home.”

He stopped, watching the mob soak up his words. In the summer heat, he only made them hotter. When he spoke, his pauses were perfectly placed for emphasis, the whole speech well rehearsed.

He pointed up at our window and bellowed, “Felice Romero, queen butcher of this abortuary, are you listening to me? Every murder is on your hands, every death is on your head, every soul is anchored to yours, and they weigh you, dragging you down to the Pit. Fire, Dr. Romero. Pain, the same pain you inflict on those helpless souls you tear screaming from their mothers’ wombs every day!”

He stopped again, bowing his head and dropping the accusatory finger. Softly, nearly in tears, he added, “I give you Ezekiel 16:21, Dr. Romero: ‘Is this of thy whoredoms a small matter, that thou hast slain my children, and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire for them?’ ”

His head came up again and the crowd made more noise, apparently pleased with his scriptural choice.

“Your daughter, your own daughter. She is precisely the kind of child you would destroy. You dare call yourself a mother? Dr. Romero, your hypocrisy knows no bounds.

“We remember,” he said. “We are witness to your crimes, to every murder committed behind your walls. For the mothers are guilty, surely, that they let you kill in them what the Lord himself has placed. But you prey on that, and your bodies continue to mount.

“We remember each and every unborn child you murder, Dr. Romero. We remember each and every life you destroy. We are the Lord’s eyes in this, and we know what you do. We will be the Lord’s hands, and we will seek justice.

“We know what you do. And we will have justice!”

I turned away from the window, went back to the couch. Some of the others in the waiting room had gone to the window as well, and they continued to watch. Several looked shaken, and the nurses moved from person to person, speaking softly. If they were trying to reassure, it didn’t look like they were doing a good job.

Katie sat back down beside me.

“He’s very loud,” she told me.

“Yes, he is,” I agreed. “Is your mommy Dr. Romero?”

Katie smiled proudly. “My mommy is a doctor and she helps people. My mommy’s smart.” Then she put the headphones over her ears and pressed the “play” button, and it was as if nothing was happening outside of her at all. She sang along with whatever tune was being piped into her brain. She sang badly, toneless and inarticulate, but without self-consciousness, and when people in the room glanced at her, Katie ignored them, swaying on the couch. While singing, she took my hand and placed it between hers, patting it.

The door beside the partition opened and a young black woman called, “Mr. Kodiak?”

I stood up, slipping my hand out of Katie’s. She didn’t seem to notice, and continued to sing. I said, “Yes?”

“Dr. Romero would like to speak to you. Would you follow me?”

I started cataloging all the traumas that could have occurred, and in the seconds it took me to move from Katie to the door I compiled a pretty impressive list. The waiver and release forms were in my back pocket, and 1 found that my recall of all the potential complications was very clear. Alison was in trouble. Alison was in shock. Alison was being taken to the hospital. Alison’s uterus had been punctured. Alison hadn’t been completely evacuated. Alison was hemorrhaging. Alison had a heart attack. Alison had an aneurysm, a stroke, a seizure.

“This way,” the woman said, and I followed her through the door, my heart seriously starting to knock about in my chest. The door swung shut behind us and the nurse led me down the corridor.

“What’s happened?”

“Dr. Romero would like to speak with you,” she repeated. She wore a cream-colored name tag over her left breast, “Delfleur, R.N.” printed on it in blue letters.

The fact that my question had gone unanswered did nothing for my growing anxiety.

The hall ended with doors to my right and left. The right door was marked “Bathroom.” The left door was marked “Dr. F. Romero, Administrator.” The nurse knocked on the door then said, “Go on in.” She turned and headed back to the waiting room.