creatures by donna wilson
Ned and I were in the middle of dinner. We were at Handlebar, a vegetarian restaurant we used to go to a lot. He probably ordered 3 sides: vegan mashed potatoes, smoked Gouda mac and cheese and collard greens. I probably got the “green meanie” a sandwich with sprouts and avocado. Plantains on the side. We would drink tall glasses of beer that made us feel a little too drunk before dinner. This place isn’t very romantic but in this memory, we are laughing and his face is warm, as though bathed by candlelight.
At a nearby table, a visibly young girl held a baby. We made eye contact with the baby. We made silly faces. “Can you imagine?” I asked. He shook his head. “I mean you…could’ve had one” I said, my jaw feeling loose.
That night Ned dreamt that he and I were on a date. The ceiling peeled back like a sunroof and we dined under a huge starry sky. Later in the dream there was a pickup truck and two kids tried to hitch a ride. The driver purposefully crashed into an industrial flatbed. He says: “see, that’s what it feels like.” This scene loops two more times.
I was spread like a starfish on my bed. Heidi flipped through a magazine. “Well I haven’t got my period completely, but I’m spotting”" she said after a few moments. She was a couple weeks late. I looked at her, calm. “Okay. I am buying you a pregnancy test and you are taking it.”
I drove to WalMart. I took back roads so I didn’t have to go through town. It was a small town, the kind where the thing to do on a Friday night is drive around in a loop, windows down, then park and stand in front of your car. I zoned out, Heidi talked about him. He was her teacher from the previous year, when we were in high school. It was a one night stand and she was obsessed with him. She always seemed to be obsessed with someone.
“First Response, you get two for one price.” I grabbed a test from the shelf. Heidi bit her thumbnail then faced me, “Should we get some snacks?“ she asked, her face serious.
Ned and I were in the car when he told me. It was a summer night and we were exploring North Chicago, under a clear suburban sky. He told me that he recently had an abortion. The girl he was seeing before me. They weren’t serious. But when she got pregnant they became closer. Ned said “I always trust women to know if they are ready or not, they just intuitively know.” I think of the animals who eat their newborns when there isn’t enough food for them to survive.
Heidi read the instructions while I sat on the sink, legs dangling. She squatted over the toilet, hair hanging in her face as she peed on the stick. “Let’s not wait in the bathroom.” We went to my bedroom and felt better. We waited probably 20 minutes. “You check it” Heidi’s eyes were large with water. As I walked to the bathroom I thought when I picked up the test there would only be one pink line, not two. I picked up the test “Two lines“, “Pregnant.” Heidi’s face looked waxy, then pink as she burst into laughter. I started sobbing.
It was rainy and cold. It was Mother’s Day. The protesters were pumped. “It’s Mothers Day! You’re a mother! How could you do this?!” But I knew that Heidi made the right choice. I got why she did it. And it was out of respect for life, reverence for children.
When Ned told me, he was distant from it. When she had the abortion, he was in Puerto Rico for work, where he didn’t speak the language. He was visiting the Ortho Tri Cyclen factory. The concrete city was swamp-hot. Outside of his hotel window he could see a cock-fighting pit. Just beyond was a jungle.
Sometime after we got engaged, I found him in bed, early in the evening. He gripped a pillow, curled in fetal position, the overhead lighting dimmed. I stoked his hair. “I’m grieving.”
We were in the car when we made the decision. It was bright and snowy. “I think we need to make the decision ahead of time” said Ned. “Because if you get pregnant, with new hormones and emotions it’s hard. Now that we’re married it will be even harder.” I winced.
“So we’ll make this decision once a year, whatever we decide sticks all year, no matter what.” It was harder. But I knew I wasn’t ready. And if you think you are not ready, it can’t be right to bring a human being into the world. “We’d get an abortion” I said, thinking of where I’d want to be and am not. Because I value human life way too much.
8 Comments
This reads like a Hemingway short story, so beautiful, so difficult. Thank you, thank you. This needed written.
Beautiful, Rachel. Beautiful and sad and brave. I admire you so much–for everything you do–but especially for this.
Stunningly beautiful and painful touching. You are amazingly talented and this piece related to me in more ways that I think I even know.
As always I am in awe as to how you can write about such a difficult topic with such beauty. Wow. <3
I had an abortion after I was raped. I had such a normal period the next month I thought I’d received one small mercy from the universe. Later realized it wasn’t the stomach flu and the blue line said everything. There were protestors outside the clinic too, but really old, I remember being surprised by that. But really hateful. The procedure itself was easy, just like the decision. I probably would have killed myself if forced to keep it. I’m not proud of myself for saying this, but I’m pretty sure I could’ve been the type to hide the pregnancy and kill the newborn without options or Safe Haven laws.
Nowadays, I don’t even have a dog because I can’t afford it. I can’t imagine what sort of terrible upbringing my kid might’ve had. I have a mild heart condition but wonder if I would’ve been in the one-third of women who experience serious complications. My family’s had a lot of close calls (and emergency c-sections). I still think about everything wrong in my case and if it happens to an astronomy nerd from a middle class family in Ohio, who else has this happened to?
I’ve since seen the stupid “less than 3% of all pregnancies are due to rape.” 1 in 3 women will be sexually assaulted during their lifetime. You cannot determine that statistic from medical reports anyway, but I find it hard to believe it could be something so low with sexual violence so pervasive. I’ve also read stupid people arguing about how the “baby” is “innocent” and shouldn’t be held responsible for the sins of the rapist. Oh, but I’m not innocent, I’m responsible for my violation? Who cares if they don’t think my situation happens that often – those exceptions in their mind do not deserve such treatment just to make a statement about how little you value life over potential.
You’re really beautiful. Thank you.
gosh.
i made the decision earlier this year.
i never got to, though. i miscarried.
this is beautiful and refreshing.
thank you.
thank you.
thank you.
I know I’m late to reply, but this moved me to tears. I wound up pregnant last year. It was my freshmen year of college and I just felt it, almost a week before my period – I walked around with my hands on my stomach for no good reason, among other odd things. At first the possibility of actually being pregnant was a nervous joke between my roommate and I. I waited until five days after I was supposed to get my period to take a test.. I knew I was, but at the same time I didn’t want it to be true. My boyfriend and I had gone through one of our many ‘break-ups’ since I’d left for college, but he was there for me the minute I found out. We both wanted to keep it, but financially and emotionally we just weren’t ready.
The clinic was horrible and I was such an emotional wreck from the hormones. I guess I was more naive than I’d thought or I just didn’t bother to think of the hateful things that would be said to me on the way in. I stopped on the way up the stairs and just started crying and asking my boyfriend “why”, why people can judge your life on one action. We wound up there for four hours. I was thankful that I was too early to even have anything show up on the sonogram – I don’t think I would have been able to go through with it. I was able to take the pill, and while the pain was agonizing at some points, it was nothing compared to the dreams that followed.
I’d have dreams where a small girl would follow me, no older than five years. The most vivid, and most upsetting, was the reoccurring one. I was standing on a beautiful green yard, in front of a large house, and she was running through a sprinkler on the lawn. I had of course fantasized about how things would be if I kept my child while pregnant. I’d think of names, how he or she would look.. of course this was all in a ‘perfect world’, in my head, where I was older and financially stable. We’d play and laugh in the dream, but the sky in the distance was always cluttered with storm clouds. Right before the dream ended I’d keep telling her not to leave the lawn, and I’d call her by a name I had “picked out”. Then I’d wake up.
I know I made the right choice, but there’s days that I still feel guilt.
I had no one to talk to at the time. Just reading someone’s story, no matter how short or long, makes me feel better.
This is beautiful, thank you.
I read almost all of your article i found it very serius and deeply true,,all i can say is plan first before you do a thing because you never know you will regret it sooner.
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