Authors: Elizabeth Brundage
The Doctor's Wife (13 page)
13
THE FREE WOMEN’S HEALTH and Wellness Center inhabited a nondescript brick building with a glass double door. To Michael’s surprise, a small crowd of protestors, maybe twenty in all, had already convened out front, picketing behind police barricades. They held up signs: STOP THE MURDER, and GENOCIDE, and IT’S A CHILD NOT A CHOICE. A sense of dread filled his heart as he pulled into the parking lot and took the space next to Celina’s old red Blazer, the back of which was affixed with pro-choice bumper stickers. As he parked, two of the protestors came out of nowhere holding large wooden crosses and tried to swarm his car, but a police officer grabbed them and held them back. They were chanting at him, “Murderer! Murderer!” It was the first time he regretted having MD plates. He got out of the car, shielding his head with his canvas bag as if, any minute, something heavy would fall out of the sky and hit him. Once inside the building, it was business as usual. “Well, now, that was a festive welcome,” he said to the receptionist.
“You’ll get used to it,” she answered in broken Russian. “I’m Anya. You need something you just ask, okay?”
“Thanks, Anya.”
“We have pastry here.” She nudged him with a plate of cheese Danish. “You want?”
“Maybe later.”
“You’ll feel better if you eat,” she told him with certainty.
“Maybe you’re right.” He took a bite and smiled his thanks.
“Good morning, Michael.” Celina appeared in her pink scrubs, happy to see him. “We are so grateful that you’re here. Come on, I’ll give you the fifty-cent tour.” She took his hand and led him down the hall, introducing him to various members of staff they encountered on their way. They were an earthy bunch of women in scrubs and white clogs and long silver earrings. The demonstration outside the windows didn’t seem to faze them. Celina showed him her office, a tiny room crammed with plants. The walls had been painted yellow and were covered with photographs of women: her grandmother, several patients and friends, and a host of women she admired, some of whom he recognized—Emma Goldman, Rosa Parks, Bella Abzug, Simone de Beauvoir, Ella Fitzgerald—and many more that he did not. A large Calderesque mobile hung from the ceiling. She sat him down and gave him a cup of coffee. “You’ll need to sign that W2 form. You get paid once a month. It’s not a lot; it’s the best we can do.”
“It’s not like I’m doing it for the money.” The truth was, he’d do it for free.
“I know.” She handed him the form and he filled it out. “I want to show you something.” She turned on the VCR. The video had been distributed by the group outside the windows, Life Force, and supplied inaccurate pictures and descriptions of the abortion procedure. First, there were images of motherhood under the very best of circumstances. Pretty pregnant women contemplating their bellies, pretty women holding newborn infants. Little black and white children in parochial school outfits, frolicking in the autumn leaves. The narrator was an older man with a kind, caring voice. “Believe in yourself,” he said at the end. “Choose life.”
“I’d like to reshoot that film in my old neighborhood. All those ruined little thirteen-year-old girls with big bellies, living in rooms with torn-up ceilings and stuffed-up toilets and their mamas getting raped in the stair-wells. You know sometimes these little girls come in here with their eyes full of pride. Like being pregnant is this big accomplishment. Something they’ve done on their own, you know? They don’t even have the sense to
think
they got better things to do. ’Cause life isn’t this beautiful miracle in there, it’s more like an affliction. A deep dark hole and you can’t climb out.”
think
they got better things to do. ’Cause life isn’t this beautiful miracle in there, it’s more like an affliction. A deep dark hole and you can’t climb out.”
Celina had grown up in one of those tenements; she’d been lucky to get out. Michael thought of Annie, who’d grown up on an estate in Bed-ford and had gone to a fancy boarding school. She’d spent her summers at home at the country club, where she became an avid tennis player. She’d told him once that she used to screw the club’s tennis coach in the clubhouse basement after her lessons; didn’t even bother to take off her skirt. The idea of it filled him with dismay, because if Annie had done that, so might Rosie one day. “How about all those pretty Loudonville girls getting laid on their canopy beds,” he said.
“Oh, yes,” Celina sighed. “We had a ninth grader in here last week. From Sacred Heart. Guess her mother wasn’t ready to be a grandma yet.”
A nurse poked her head into Celina’s office. “Your first patient is here, Dr. Knowles.”
“Okay. I’ll be right there.”
“Michael.” Celina touched his shoulder. “Thanks again for doing this.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, and his heart turned with emotion. He was glad to be here, glad to be part of this place, this refuge. He didn’t know if it was right or wrong. He only knew it was necessary.
He would never forget the first time he’d caressed the radiant mound of a pregnant woman’s belly, the extraordinary heat of life under his hands. And the elation he felt with each delivery. There was nothing like it, nothing at all. No matter how many times he did it. Encountering the warm skull of the infant as it twisted into his hands often filled him with a momentary rush of madness.
But today he was here to end life, not help it begin, and it made him feel strange and weak, even though, intellectually, he could easily justify it. Annie had been pregnant once before they were married and they’d agreed to terminate the pregnancy; he was a resident, she was in graduate school. They simply weren’t ready for the demands of a family. He didn’t know if that was a viable excuse, and at the time he hadn’t cared.
It was a difficult subject, he thought. And difficult subjects had no definitive answers. They were the stuff of controversy. He thought of the protestors outside and could sympathize with their side of things. It all depended on how you looked at it.
He didn’t know how the world had gotten so big and ugly. Maybe it had always been big and ugly. He didn’t know
the meaning of life
—if there was one. He had been raised to make the best of his situation; he tried to do that. If he could do something to help others, then he would do it. He’d spent ten years of his life becoming a doctor because he wanted to help people, to make them better. It was a simple motive, and not very glamorous, but it was the truth.
the meaning of life
—if there was one. He had been raised to make the best of his situation; he tried to do that. If he could do something to help others, then he would do it. He’d spent ten years of his life becoming a doctor because he wanted to help people, to make them better. It was a simple motive, and not very glamorous, but it was the truth.
The nurse showed him into one of the rooms and introduced him to Dana, the assisting nurse, a woman besieged with freckles. The patient was a woman in her forties; she already had three children. To Michael it was a procedure that he would perform to the best of his ability. But for his patient, regardless of her decision, it was an emotional upheaval. He noticed the tears running down her cheeks. “We can’t afford another child,” she whispered, trying to justify what she was doing.
“You don’t owe me an explanation.”
She looked at him gratefully.
He pulled on his gloves and eased her back onto the table. “Let’s get this over with.”
Dana placed the woman’s feet on the stirrups. Within minutes the procedure would be over with and the woman would return home to her husband and children and get on with her life.
It was dusk when he stepped into the empty parking lot with Celina James. He walked her to her car. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “I’m good.” They stood there together under the buzzing street lamp. “Thanks for coming today, Michael.”
“You’re welcome.”
She got into her car and started the engine.
“Where do you live?”
“Near here. Couple of blocks.”
What was he waiting for? Did he want her to ask him over? The quiet suddenly felt awkward and he couldn’t seem to get beyond their past, the fact that he’d known her flesh as well as his own wife’s, yet now she was a stranger to him. It left him cold.
“Well, you take care.”
“You too, Michael.”
He watched her drive off. It was nearly dark now and the street was empty. A police cruiser was parked in front of the clinic. All the protestors had gone home long ago. The cop was just sitting there, with his lights on. Michael waved, but the cop, who seemed to be looking right at him, did not wave back.
He got into his car and put on his lights. That’s when he saw her. She was only a girl, maybe fourteen or fifteen, and she was standing in the shadows across the street, watching him. His headlights had startled her, and she began to run down the sidewalk. He pulled out of the parking lot and drove slowly past her. She was running at a good clip, her two black braids like the reins of a runaway horse. Her red windbreaker had two white wings on the back, over which her name was printed in large white letters: SAWYER. A high school student, he ascertained, a girl on the track team. He supposed she’d been running and had stopped to rest. He didn’t approve of girls running alone at night, especially in this neighborhood. It was a stupid thing to do.
The girl turned down a side street and he lost sight of her. He hoped she was near her home. At the corner he stopped at the light. It began to rain. Still thinking about the girl, he switched on his wipers and turned onto Delaware Avenue, suddenly anxious to get home. A car came up behind him with its high beams on. Michael squinted in his rearview mirror. The car behind him was a black sedan and the light from its own beams illuminated the driver’s face, which, despite the weather and the hour, hid behind a pair of mirrored sunglasses.
What the fuck do you want?
Michael thought. He sped up and took a right turn toward the expressway, hoping the man wouldn’t follow, but the black car pursued him aggressively and bore down on his tail. This was no typical case of road rage, he thought. The man in the black car seemed to know who he was, and had every intention of scaring the shit out of him. The rain fell harder as he came to the bottom of the hill, where just a few yards away stood the entrance to the expressway. Michael blew past the stop sign and sped onto the entrance ramp, blaring his horn at the sluggish station wagon in front of him. He looped around the wagon and accelerated rapidly, hoping to lose the black sedan in the thickening traffic. But the driver of the sedan had no trouble catching up, and before long they were driving bumper to bumper at over ninety miles an hour. Other cars cleared the fast lane, desperate to get out of the way. Michael cut off a Mack truck, hoping to evade the Cutlass, but just at the moment he was certain he’d succeeded, the Cutlass cut over and was behind him once again. The Mack truck cranked its horn and pulled into the middle lane, sending a van zigzagging off the road. The Cutlass shoved his bumper, causing Michael to swerve. Again he felt the bumper’s kiss, and again he swerved and nearly ran off into the median. Sweat poured off him, the wheel slippery in his hands, and he cut across two lanes of traffic to the slow lane. He was breathing audibly, sucking the air in terror. He searched his rearview mirror for the Cutlass, but it was completely dark now and he could not be certain where it was. Several yards behind him came the flashing lights of a police cruiser. Michael braced himself for what would come next, imagining that he would be pulled over and given a stiff ticket, but the cop ignored him completely and sped right by.
What the fuck do you want?
Michael thought. He sped up and took a right turn toward the expressway, hoping the man wouldn’t follow, but the black car pursued him aggressively and bore down on his tail. This was no typical case of road rage, he thought. The man in the black car seemed to know who he was, and had every intention of scaring the shit out of him. The rain fell harder as he came to the bottom of the hill, where just a few yards away stood the entrance to the expressway. Michael blew past the stop sign and sped onto the entrance ramp, blaring his horn at the sluggish station wagon in front of him. He looped around the wagon and accelerated rapidly, hoping to lose the black sedan in the thickening traffic. But the driver of the sedan had no trouble catching up, and before long they were driving bumper to bumper at over ninety miles an hour. Other cars cleared the fast lane, desperate to get out of the way. Michael cut off a Mack truck, hoping to evade the Cutlass, but just at the moment he was certain he’d succeeded, the Cutlass cut over and was behind him once again. The Mack truck cranked its horn and pulled into the middle lane, sending a van zigzagging off the road. The Cutlass shoved his bumper, causing Michael to swerve. Again he felt the bumper’s kiss, and again he swerved and nearly ran off into the median. Sweat poured off him, the wheel slippery in his hands, and he cut across two lanes of traffic to the slow lane. He was breathing audibly, sucking the air in terror. He searched his rearview mirror for the Cutlass, but it was completely dark now and he could not be certain where it was. Several yards behind him came the flashing lights of a police cruiser. Michael braced himself for what would come next, imagining that he would be pulled over and given a stiff ticket, but the cop ignored him completely and sped right by.
Breathless, Michael got off at the next exit, praying he would not be followed. After a few miles, when he was sure that he was alone, he pulled over and vomited in the grass.
14
LYDIA’S HUSBAND was not a religious man. “Worker bees, that’s what those people are,” he had told her once. Lydia had been raised a strict Catholic and still longed for its sacred rituals, but there was no Catholic church in High Meadow. The new church on Mill Road interested her. People said its minister, Reverend Tim, had jumped out of heaven’s palm. Women thought him wildly handsome, his eyes like the clear blue water of the creek. They liked his crisp oxford shirts and corduroy blazers, his renegade country club look. Men liked his straight-shooter style. He had a way of talking to people, of getting them to think things through. He spoke their language.
One Sunday, when her husband was still asleep, Lydia drove down Mill Road to attend the morning service. Even from outside the small clapboard building she could hear everyone singing. There was a piano and a guitar, too. Lydia slipped inside and sat down on the old pew. The church smelled like coffee and cinnamon doughnuts and there were people from town in casual clothes, with their children on their laps or on the floor at their feet, coloring in pages from coloring books. Coloring in Jesus.
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