“Rachel, listen,” Hugh said. “You got us onto the scene fast. And thanks to you, now I know that the shooter isn’t in there because he’s on a philosophical crusade. This is personal, which will help me connect with him.” He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “You’re lucky you got out.”
The tears started falling harder. “I’m not lucky.” She sucked in the truth like she was breathing through a straw. “I saw him, through the one-way glass. And he was wearing a coat. I noticed it, because who wears a coat when it’s eighty-five degrees? But I didn’t stop to think about it. I just buzzed him in.” She folded into herself, an origami of grief. “What if I was the one who could have stopped it from happening?”
“This is not your fault,” Hugh said, but it wasn’t just Rachel he was trying to convince.
—
THEY HAD SHOWN JOY INTO a recovery room after her abortion, where she had changed back into her sweatpants and baggy T-shirt, and sat down to rest. As she reclined in a leather chair, she dozed, dreaming of when she used to babysit for a toddler named Samara, who lived next door to her foster family. Samara had the roundest cheeks and tiny Bantu knots and little white raptor teeth. She would do the hand motions to “Itsy Bitsy Spider” if you sang it to her, and she didn’t like crusts on her sandwiches. Her mama went out twice a week to night school, which was when Joy would come over, feed Samara dinner, and put her to bed.
Samara’s mama, Glorietta, took a half hour to say goodbye to her daughter. She would smother her face with kisses and act like she was going to be gone for a year, not three hours. When she got home, she would go check on Samara and inevitably wake her up with her touches and hugs, even when Joy had worked hard to get her to go down. Sometimes, Glorietta would come home in the middle of her class, saying she missed her baby too much and needed to be with her. She always paid Joy for the full amount of babysitting time, so it was a win-win, but Joy thought it was kind of strange all the same.
One night Joy came home from practice to find six police cars on her street, and an ambulance pulled up in front of Glorietta’s house. Samara was dead. Glorietta had smothered her in her sleep. She told the police it was so that her daughter would stay an angel forever.
You never knew what went on behind closed doors, as any foster kid could tell you. Joy hadn’t thought about Samara in years. But now she wondered: If a child died, in the afterlife, did they keep growing up? Would Samara be there with Joy’s child now? Would she babysit him?
A scream woke Joy up. The sad woman was gone from the waiting room and the playlist had ended. Just then, she heard a crash, the sound of glass shattering. “Hello?” she called, but there was no answer.
She slowly inched to her feet. She felt the pad in her underwear shift as she stood, and the hot rush of blood that came with being upright.
Then came gunshots.
She couldn’t move fast enough. Her limbs weren’t working properly; it was as if she were swimming underwater.
She struggled down the hallway with jerky, furtive movements. Her pulse was so loud, like a timpani keeping count, as she tried to remember the way out of the clinic, but the sound of footsteps approaching had her grabbing for the nearest doorknob and ducking into a room. She closed the door and locked it and rested her forehead against the cool metal.
Please, she prayed. Please let me live.
—
GEORGE GLANCED DOWN AT THE redheaded nurse, who flinched.
He would have killed her. He could have killed her, to get to the doctor. Except, if he killed her, he would also be killing her baby.
Which would make him no better than the asshole bleeding out on the floor.
Frustrated, he looked away and took note for the first time of his surroundings. The procedure room. Had this been where Lil was? Had she been scared? Crying?
Had it hurt?
He had only met one woman who had ever gotten an abortion. Alice belonged to their church and she and her husband had just found out that they were going to have a baby when she learned she had lymphoma. The congregation had prayed hard, but that hadn’t stopped the advanced cancer diagnosis and the medical necessity to have surgery and start chemo. Pastor Mike had told her that God would understand if she terminated the pregnancy, and it was proven true a year later when she was cancer free and pregnant again.
George remembered how once, he had come into the church early one morning during the week to find Alice, now healthy and eight months pregnant, sitting in a pew and sobbing her heart out. He had never been one for crying women, so he passed her his handkerchief and shifted uncomfortably. “Can I get the pastor for you?” he’d asked.
She’d shaken her head. “Maybe just sit with me?”
It was the last thing George wanted to do, but he lowered himself into the pew. He glanced at her belly. “Guess it won’t be long now.”
Alice started to cry, and he fell all over himself to apologize. “I know it’s a blessing,” she sobbed, “but it’s not a replacement.”
Two, George realized now.
He knew two women who had had abortions.
—
IZZY COWERED AS THE GUNMAN turned to her, abruptly, and dragged her to her feet. A bolt of pain shot through her arm. “Who else is here? he demanded, his breath hot on her face. “How many people?”
“I-I don’t know,” Izzy stammered.
He gave her a hard shake. “Think, dammit!”
“I don’t know!” She felt like she was made of sawdust.
“Answer me!” he ordered, waving his gun in her face.
He wrenched her arm again, and tears came to her eyes. “This is everyone!” she burst out.
Just like that, he let go of her. She stumbled, managing at the last moment to not fall on top of the doctor’s wounded leg. She lay on her side, her eyes shut tight, waiting to wake up from this nightmare. Any minute now, she would. Parker would be shaking her shoulder, telling her she’d been making sounds in her sleep, and she would sit up and say, I had the most horrible dream.
The shooter sank to his knees. He rubbed the barrel of his gun against his temple as if he had an itch, and this was an extension of his finger. Then he lowered the pistol and stared at it as if he was wondering how the hell it got into his hands.
Could she rush him, right now? Could she grab the gun, and hold it against him?
As if he could hear her thoughts, he leveled the gun at her again. “How can you be pregnant and work here every day and be okay with what happens?”
“Please, you don’t understand—”
“Shut up. Just shut up. I can’t think.” He got up and started to move in a small circle, muttering to himself.
Izzy inched toward the doctor. She could tell from the trickle of blood at his leg that he needed a better tourniquet. She felt his neck for a pulse.
“What are you doing?”
“My job,” Izzy said.
“No.”
She looked up at him. “I’ll do whatever you want. But let me help these people before it’s too late.”
The shooter glanced down at her. “First, you round up everyone else, and get them all into one place. The front area. With the couch.”
The waiting room. Izzy winced as the shooter dragged her down the hall. They stopped in front of a bathroom. “Open it,” he demanded, and when Izzy hesitated his fingers bit deeper into her flesh. “Open it!”
Please be empty, she thought.
With a shaking hand, she pushed open the door, and revealed a squat toilet, a pristine sink. No one.
“Come on,” the shooter said. He pulled her from the bathroom to the changing room—empty, the recovery room—empty, and the consultation room, where the sonograms were done. There, another woman was sprawled on the floor—the social worker at the Center. Izzy didn’t have to get any closer to know she was dead.