*
We didn’t talk about it for the next few days, but I could feel them waiting for my answer even when we weren’t in the same room. I avoided them as much as possible, sat alone for hours, looking at the calendar, feeling time slipping away. I read all the brochures again and again, stared at the photos of the fetus, the tiny hands. I went back to the clinic by myself, talked to another doctor, who explained about the complications of late-term abortions, the risks. I had to decide soon, but I was paralyzed with fear.
I’d wake up in the middle of the night, pressure bearing down on my chest, so heavy I couldn’t breathe. I’d think about my dad. I’d already killed someone—if I had an abortion, was I killing another person? But what would it be like to give birth? Could I stand the pain? What would happen to the baby? What would happen to me?
Finally, after a week, I came out one morning while Dani and Courtney were having breakfast. They looked up at me expectantly as I took a seat at the table.
“It’s too late now.”
Dani looked furious. “If you’d dealt with it a week ago, you—”
“It was already too late,” I said. “I’ll give it away. It’ll go to someone else, someone who wants a baby. They’d never know, and the baby wouldn’t know.”
“Are you sure you want to do that?” Dani said. “You want to go through all of that and then give it away? It’s nine months—then you have to give birth.” Her voice hammered into me, dominating, talking to me like I was a child.
“I know what it means, Dani. I’m pregnant, not stupid—and it’s forty weeks, not nine months.”
She looked surprised by my anger, by my newfound knowledge. She was used to being in charge, leading us into and out of battle. But this was my body.
“I’m going to give it away,” I said.
“You have to tell them,” Dani said, still clinging to her authority, making me be the one to tell Karen and Patrick, punishing me for going my own way, making my own decision. I felt another surge of anger. Blame whispering at the back of my brain. If she’d listened to me before, we wouldn’t have been in that town. I pushed away the thoughts. It wasn’t her fault.
The next day we told Patrick and Karen.
Karen looked flustered. “Do you … do you know what you want to do?”
“I’m going to give it away.”
“The father…”
I shook my head. Courtney started to cry.
Patrick looked at her, then back at me. “Whatever you want to do, kid. We’ll help you out.”
“We can stay?” I said.
“Of course!” they said at the same time.
They looked stunned that we had worried about anything else. I felt a weight lift off my shoulders, but then an ache deep inside. It had been decided.
I was going to have a baby.
*
I was terrified of giving birth and couldn’t read certain sections of the book Karen had bought me without my chest getting tight and panicky, overwhelmed by the feeling that I was hurtling toward something I couldn’t stop—and it was going to hurt a whole lot. I already felt like my body wasn’t my own anymore, like an alien or a parasite had moved in and taken over.
We hadn’t told anyone at the gym yet, but I felt like everyone could see just by looking at me, and I couldn’t meet their eyes. At the clinic I studied the other pregnant women in the waiting room, the rings on their fingers, the happy glow on their faces, the way they would curve an arm protectively around their stomachs. I wasn’t showing yet and wondered what they’d think if they knew, if they’d think I was a slut, a bad girl. I wondered if I was doing the right thing.
By the fifth month I was starting to show a round little belly and had to wear baggy shirts and tie my jeans with an elastic band or wear sweatpants. Karen made sure I was eating right and taking vitamins. I found a new doctor. She knew I planned on giving the baby up but was nice about it, her hands gentle when she examined me, waiting for my body to relax. I would watch, detached, during the ultrasound as she talked about what stage the baby was at, pointing out the feet and hands. I tried not to think of the baby as mine, or his, but like I was carrying it for someone else and it was just my job to take care of it.
I’d met with an adoption agency but hadn’t picked anyone yet. No one seemed good enough. I didn’t want the baby but I didn’t like thinking of someone being mean to it, of its getting a dad like ours. It deserved a chance.