Even though you sense something is essentially off about the situation, you feel relieved, the way you did on the phone. You try to relax, to let their reassurances wash over you. They are here to take care of you. When was the last time someone offered to get you a drink? Not since your mother.
“Tell us a little about what brought you here,” Tammy says, tilting her head.
When you speak, the words come out so quietly that they are nothing more than a whisper. “I just want it to be over. I just want to go back to how it was. I want—I want my life back.”
The women exchange looks again. Let your words hang in the air for a long time, long enough that you start to wonder if you are allowed to want those things. But if they don’t agree with you, why would they say they can help you in the first place?
Fran puts a hand on your knee. “Anna, there are things in life that we can’t take back. I know it doesn’t seem right. But we can’t go back in time. We can’t turn our backs on blessings we are given. Even if those blessings come to us in ways we aren’t expecting. And it would be a shame to waste those blessings. To think of them as burdens.”
Brenda takes up next, not long after Fran, as though she is impatient to speak her part. “It is part of being a woman, Anna. We have certain responsibilities, but if you can come to think of them as special, as a privilege, then you will be on your way to living an enlightened and happy life.”
Tammy leans in. “My children, Anna, are the best thing that ever happened to me. And my goodness, seeing their faces for the first time? These gifts from God, that kind of pure love? It might seem scary now, but I promise you, you will fall in love with this child.”
Child, that word like an anvil being struck inside of you.
“Is the father in the picture?” Brenda asks.
You stumble over the wordfather. First you wonder if they are asking about your father. It is only after you shake your head that you realize they mean the Coyote. The Coyote who knows nothing of any of this. Who is still meeting your sister, who comes home with bruises on her wrists, hickeys splotching her neck.
“Raising a child is the best thing a woman can do with her life, Anna.”
You would do anything, anything, to not hear anyone use the wordchildagain. A child is what you just were. You just put your dolls in their boxes a few years ago. Maybe they need convincing. This is a test to make sure you are going to be okay with the decision. With going back to some secret room filled with all the right instruments and tools and medicine, or whatever it is they need, to undo what has been done to you. You need to make them see that you are serious, that you know your mind, that the decision is right.
“I can pay,” you say, taking the money out from your purse.
They pause. The mention of money works for a moment, makes them quiet. Makes them stop using those words like blessing and baby. Like this is all something you can do, something you can allow to happen.
You fan the cash out so they can see how much it is. Everything. Everything you have. The women are still silent, and you think they must be deciding something. Whether or not you are worthy. The cat meows from deep inside the house, a needy warble.
Fran reaches for the money and before you can say anything else, folds the bills and sinks them into her sweatpants pockets. “We’ll take this and hold on to it. Because you need more time to think about this decision. I think you may end up seeing what we mean. And in that case, I would hate for you to squander this money. You will need things, after all, and we can help with that. Diapers and bottles, clothes and blankets. All of these things require support.”
She disappears into the next room and you object. “I would like that back. I still want to get the thing done.”
Fran clears her throat, her tone different. Not as honeyed as before. “Anna, when was your last period?”
You close your eyes. “June.” You are still trying to go back to that last moment, wonder what you could have said to convince them that you were worth the kind of help you wanted.
“Even if we were to help you in that way, which to be clear, is a sin, it is far too late for that. There are some people who think nothing of snuffing out an unborn life at any point, for any reason, but we are not those women.” Next to Fran, Tammy nods in agreement, closes her eyes as if the thoughts cause her pain. “We are saving you, Anna. It might not feel like it right now. But we are saving something more important than your plans for the next few years—going to the mall with your friends, weekends at the Shore, all these things that don’t actually matter. What we are saving is your very soul.”
“Hell is a brutal place, you know. And you’ve committed one sin already, Anna, by joining with a man who was not your husband. Don’t make the mistake of committing a second, more grievous sin by murdering the fruit of that union.”
“And murder, Anna, isn’t just a sin. It is illegal in the eyes of God and in the law,” Tammy says. “It is the cruelest, most base thing you can do to another human. Do you want to be a murderer? Is that what you think will solve everything?”
That word,murder, sets off an alarm bell inside of you. All of the sudden the potpourri is overpowering, a choking sweetness and spice that irritates the back of your throat. The cat that you haven’t gotten a glimpse of is making your eyes water. These women are still staring intently at you, strangers speaking of your soul. You want to argue with them. It isn’t fair.I can’t do this. You feel this thing thumping and kicking inside of you, thrusting up toward your lungs, crowding out the air.My father will kill me. My sister… Sweat forms under your arms, along your back, in all the places where your flesh touches other flesh.
“No one will help me,” you say. Your words just little mouse squeaks. It is not a question, but the women take it as one. Tammy leans over and grasps your hand in hers.
“Of course that’s not true. We’re here to help you. You found us. You’ve already taken the first step.” You pull your hand away.
“I want to go home.” There are tears leaking from your eyes even though you have tried so hard to keep them away. Of all the people you could cry in front of, you do not want to cry in front of these women, and realizing that, you realize that you knew—knew the second that Tammy pulled up in the driveway, or maybe before, when the hope was too sweet and pure to be true, that no one can help you anymore.
On the drive home Tammy makes a comment here and there about songs that come on the radio, about shows she watches when her kids go to bed. You don’t say anything, just feel the emptiness of your bag in your lap without the weight of your savings inside and watch the swing of the cross from the rearview, listen to it clack against the plastic beads of the lanyard.
CALLIE
She’s playing with Opal in her bedroom, an invented game that involves a princess and a troll and the crossing of a river, lines of dialogue that get assigned to Callie then revised, rules that seem to change by the second.
“What kind of money should I use to pay the toll?” Callie asks. Opal frowns, then lights up.
