“It’s—it was a boy,” Joy murmured.
Janine sank down beside her. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
Joy knew this wasn’t true; that Janine had a dozen responses, all of which were variants of the fact that Joy had made her choice; that she didn’t deserve to grieve. She wanted to tell Janine that yes, she had gotten what she wanted, but she also felt the pain of loss, and they were not mutually exclusive.
“Maybe neither of us should say anything,” Joy suggested.
Janine covered Joy’s hand with her own. She didn’t respond.
She didn’t have to.
She just had to be here, one woman holding up another.
—
ALMOST THREE HOURS NORTH OFthe hostage standoff, in Oxford, Mississippi, a teenage girl curled on her side in bed at Baptist Memorial Hospital, wondering how she could feel so incredibly alone in a world so crowded with people. Beth rolled over when the door opened—her heart swelling with hope that maybe her father had come back to say that he was sorry, that he forgave her, that she could have a second chance. But it was only her court-appointed lawyer.
Beth glanced at the police guard at the door, and then at Mandy DuVille. “Did you find my dad?” she asked.
Mandy shook her head, but that wasn’t really an answer. Beth knew (because Mandy had told her) that she couldn’t and wouldn’t talk to her client while the policeman was present because there was no client-attorney confidentiality. Which was really just as well, because Beth didn’t need any more bad news. The charges weren’t going to be dropped. The prosecutor wanted to ride Beth’s sad little story all the way to Election Day. Beth was only collateral damage.
And what was her crime, exactly? She was a seventeen-year-old girl who didn’t want to be a mother, and because of that, she was going to lose what was left of her childhood. She had tried to get a judicial waiver because she knew her father would never sign the consent papers—even though by the time she had the baby, she’d be over eighteen. But her court date had been postponed for two weeks, and by then it would have been too late for her to have an abortion in the state of Mississippi. She’d been forced to take desperate measures.
Maybe if there were fewer laws, Beth thought, she wouldn’t have had to break them. Given how hard it was for her to get a legal abortion, why should she be punished for having an illegal one?
Suddenly reality knocked the breath out of her. It felt like the one time her father had taken her to see the ocean on the Georgia coast. Beth had been a kid. She had run toward the waves with her arms wide, only to find herself tumbled head over heels and nearly drowned. Her father had plucked her out of the surf before she could be washed away.
Who was going to rescue her now?
“I’m going to jail,” Beth said, her voice small. She was starting to see that nothing she had done, nothing Mandy DuVille could do, was going to untangle her from this mess. It was like when you tried to erase a mistake, and wound up ripping the paper instead. “I’m really going to jail.”
Mandy looked at the officer, who had turned around to face them. She raised a finger to her lips, reminding Beth not to speak in front of the cop.
Beth started to cry.
She curled her knees up to her chest, feeling empty inside. She was a husk, a shell, a rind. This was how badly she had fucked up. She had gotten rid of the baby, true, but she had also somehow excised her ability to feel. Maybe taking away the latter was the only way she could have taken away the former. Or maybe this was fate: if the only love you had ever known was conditional, so was the absence of it. She would rot away behind bars, missed by no one. Even if her father came back, it wouldn’t be to apologize. It would be to tell Beth how disappointed he was in her.
After a moment, she felt arms folding her close. Mandy was soft and smelled of peaches. Her braids tickled Beth’s cheek.This is what it could have been like,Beth thought.
After a few minutes, her sobs became hiccups. Beth lay down on the pillow, her fingers still threaded with Mandy’s. “You should get some rest,” her lawyer said.
Beth wanted to fall asleep. She wanted to pretend that today had not happened. Well, no. She wanted to pretend that today had gone differently. “Can you stay here?” Beth asked. “I don’t have—I don’t have anyone else.”
Mandy met her gaze. “You have me,” she said.
—
ASHUGH STARTED WALKING TOthe front door of the clinic, he thought of the day that Wren was born. He and Annabelle had been at home watching a Harry Potter marathon when her contractions started. They were getting closer and closer, but Annabelle refused to leave untilThe Chamber of Secretswas over. Her water broke during the credits. Hugh drove like a maniac to the hospital, leaving the car in a loading zone, and got his wife settled on the delivery ward. She was already dilated 93⁄4centimeters, which Annabelle saw as a sign.
I’m not naming her Hermione,Hugh had said, after the birth.
I’m not naming her after your mother,Annabelle had countered.
(Even back then, they had fought.)
The nurse, who had been following this conversation, opened a window.Maybe we all need a little fresh air,she suggested, just as a bird darted through. It fluttered to the lip of the bassinet where the baby was sleeping. The bird turned its head, fixed a bright eye on her.
Now,that’sa sign,Hugh said.
