“I guess my life wasn’t being threatened,” Beth said. “Not the way they thought, anyhow. The lady who called me from the judge’s office said the quickest she could get me in was in two weeks. But I couldn’t wait that long.”
“Because the Center only does abortions up to sixteen weeks of pregnancy,” the lawyer said.
Beth nodded. “I had to do something. I read online about a girl who said she got ulcer pills from her bodega that could cause a miscarriage. I didn’t have a bodega anywhere near me, though. So I posted on a message board online.”
She remembered what she had typed:How do I get rid of a pregnancy without my parents finding out?
The responses had been horrible:
Throw yourself down the stairs.
Broomstick.
Good old-fashioned hanger.
You sick bitch, kill urself not ur baby.
But buried somewhere in the responses saying she was a sinner who should have kept her legs together was a girl who told her she could purchase abortion pills online.
“They came from China with instructions,” Beth said. “It only took five days to come in the mail.”
She’d thought it would be easy. Like taking Imodium when you had the runs, and then they magically were gone. She did everything the way she was supposed to, tucking the first set of pills high into her cheeks like a chipmunk, and she sat down on the toilet and waited. She threw the packaging into the trash. When the cramps started, she was so happy, she burst into tears. But soon they were so strong she had to run the water in the sink to drown out her moans. She staggered off the toilet and sank into a squat to try to make the pain go away and that’s when it happened.
“I wrapped it up,” Beth sobbed, “and I put it in the garbage. I didn’t know what else to do.”
She needed someone to tell her that she wasn’t a terrible person; that she hadn’t done the unthinkable. She wiped her eyes on the blanket and looked at her lawyer for the absolution she feared she would never have.
“Miz Duville,” she whispered. “It wasn’t a baby yet, was it?”
—
LILGODDARD HAD EITHER VANISHEDoff the face of the earth or had never existed. In spite of the pastor’s description of her, and George’s own comments about his daughter, no one had been able to turn up any information about the girl.
Hugh was multitasking—still trying to win George’s trust on the phone while scanning the notes and the reports that were being fed to him by detectives. Lil Goddard wasn’t at her home. She had never gotten a traffic ticket and didn’t have a vehicle registered to her name. The only hit a Google search retrieved was from ten years ago, when she played an angel in a Christmas pageant at her church and had a captioned photo in the local paper. It wasn’t uncommon for minors to leave very faint trails, but Lil had also never been enrolled in any public school in the state of Mississippi. Then again, many kids of evangelicals were home-schooled. And all Hugh really knew about Lil was that she had, at some point, had an abortion at this clinic—but the records were not accessible online, so it could have been yesterday or a month ago.
Hell, for all Hugh knew, George Goddard had killed Lil in a fit of rage and buried her in the backyard.
But if they could find her, maybe she could convince George to end this.
“I could get a message to your daughter.” Hugh hesitated. “I could be an intermediary. I’m sure you want to explain to her what’s happening.”
“I can’t,” George said, his voice cracking.
Because she wouldn’t listen?Hugh thought.Because she’s dead?
“Man, I hear you. Seems like me and my daughter can’t even agree that the sky is blue sometimes.”
Hugh had a sudden vision of him lying on his back on a field, with Wren’s nine-year-old head pillowed on his belly, as she pointed at the clouds in the sky.That one looks like a condom,she’d said. He had barely controlled himself from bolting upright.How do you know what a condom is?Wren had rolled her eyes.Dad. I’m not a baby.
“I could help you,” Hugh suggested. “Maybe I could even get her to come here and talk in person…if you were willing to give me something in return.”
“Like what?”
“I want all the hostages safe, George. But this isn’t about me. It’s about you. And your daughter. She’s the reason you came here, today. Clearly, she’s pretty special to you.”
“You ever wish you could turn back the clock?” George said softly. “It’s like yesterday, she was begging me to braid her hair. And now…now…”
“Now what?”
