She heard a click, the buzz of a lock being released, like Wren had seen in movies about New York apartments. “Can I help you?” Vonita said.
About a year ago, Wren and her father had been driving a deserted road near Chunky, Mississippi, when suddenly all the hair stood up on the back of her neck. The next minute, a doe had bolted from the woods and slammed into the car. They had been hit hard enough for the airbags to deploy and for the windshield to shatter. It was the one truly prescient moment of her life.
Until now.
Wren felt a shiver of electricity, the brush of an invisible icy finger. “What did you do to my baby?” the man said, and then the air around her cracked into pieces.
She fell to the floor, covering her ears. It was as if her body had reacted on instinct, while her brain was still struggling to catch up. She couldn’t see Vonita anymore, but there was a pool of blood spreading where the reception desk met the floor.
Wren tried to will herself to move, but she was frozen in ice, she was trapped in tar.
“Wren,” Aunt Bex cried, reaching out her hand.
To pull her up? To drag her out the door? To embrace her?
Wren didn’t know. Because then her aunt’s eyes went wide, and she was struck with a bullet. She tumbled to the floor as Wren scrambled closer, screaming, her hands shaking as they hovered over the bright blood on her aunt’s blouse.
Aunt Bex’s eyes were wide. Her mouth was open, but Wren couldn’t hear any sound coming out.
She read her aunt’s lips. Wren. Wren. Wren.
Then she realized what her aunt was actually saying.
Run.
—
THE OTHER CLINIC HAD BEEN nothing like this one, Janine thought. It had been in a different state, in a different life, in a part of town full of drunks and Vietnam vets fighting PTSD. There had been someone smoking a bowl in the alley next to the building, and the lobby had smelled like Chinese food. But none of the differences could make Janine shake the fact that she had willingly—once again—entered an abortion factory.
Janine sat on the ultrasound table, her phone tucked in a pocket of her dress, where it was taping the entire conversation between her and the social worker.
Her name was Graciela, and she had the most beautiful black hair Janine had ever seen. It reached her waist. By contrast, the cheap wig that Allen had given her for camouflage was itchy and brassy. Janine scratched her temple. “Still … you think I should get an abortion, right?”
The social worker smiled a little. “I can’t answer that for you. You’ll know in your gut what to do.”
“But I don’t.”
“Well,” Graciela suggested, “you’re early, right? Only seven weeks? Take a walk. Go outside. Clear your mind. Sleep on it. Sleep on it again if you have to. Write down what you’re feeling to sort through your emotions. Scream into your pillow. Cry. Let it out. Talk to friends or family. Ultimately, the decision is all yours, Fiona.”
Fiona? Janine frowned, and then remembered that was the name on the fake ID she had used at the reception desk.
Graciela reached for her hand and squeezed. She was being so kind that it made Janine feel sick inside. Why wasn’t she saying something incriminating?
Why hadn’t there been someone like Graciela when she had …
“It’s not about making the right choice,” Graciela said. “It’s about making the right choice for you.”
“But I’m really scared,” Janine said. She needed evidence. She needed to collect proof that they coerced people into killing babies.
“Every woman who’s ever been in your shoes has been scared,” Graciela assured her. “You’re not alone.”
“My family would be so disappointed in me.” Janine felt tears burn in her eyes. Not because she was such a stellar actress, though. Because it was the truth.
“It’s going to be okay,” Graciela promised. “I know it doesn’t feel that way right now, but I promise you—no matter what your decision is, it’s going to be the right one.” She drew back, holding Janine at arm’s length, and gestured in the direction of the ultrasound machine. “We don’t have to do this today.”
Janine paused, trying to figure out what to do next. She couldn’t have the ultrasound without revealing that she wasn’t pregnant. But she didn’t want to go back to Allen empty-handed.
In the silence there was a sound, like books dropping. Then a shriek and a crash. Graciela frowned. “Will you excuse me?” She opened the door to the consultation room as Janine reached into her pocket to check the recording. Suddenly, Janine was knocked flat on her back. Dropping the phone, she struggled upright, pinned by the social worker, tangled in her river of hair. She finally freed herself as Graciela fell to the floor, landing on her belly. “Graciela?” Janine said, crouching down. She reached for the woman’s shoulder and shook, and when Graciela didn’t respond, she turned her over.
Graciela had been shot in the face.
Janine screamed, noticing for the first time the blood on her hands and her clothing. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. With a whimper, Janine scrambled to her feet, stepped over the body, and ran.
—
WHEN SHE WAS DRIVING with Wren once, Bex had slammed on the brakes and instinctively had thrown out her right arm to protect the precious cargo in the passenger seat. The Mom Arm, Wren had called it. Even if her actual mom had not been especially devoted.
Today, as soon as the man came in, Bex’s body moved of its own accord. Something was not right, she had seen it in his body language, sweat beaded on his forehead and matting down his hair. She had known on some visceral, cellular level; and just as when her car spun on the ice, without any conscious thought, Bex had reached toward her niece.
She saw the blink of the silver pistol as he drew it from the folds of his coat. She even saw the burst of lightning from the barrel of the gun, which ripped a hole in the fabric of the room, and sucked all the sound out of it. She was aware that she was watching a pantomime, that her eardrums were full of pressure and a pulsing silence, but somehow she was an actor in this show and she had a line. Bex felt the scream stream from her throat, and even though she couldn’t hear it, the man must have. He pivoted, and Bex felt herself shoved backward before she even realized that the bullet had struck.
Don’t shoot don’t shoot don’t shoot, she said over and over, even though he already had. But Bex really meant, Don’t shoot Wren.
Then Wren was leaning down over her. “Aunt B-bex, get up …” Her eyes were like Hugh’s.
Her hair, though, that came from her mother. It brushed Bex’s cheek, like a fall of silk, a curtain that closed them off from the world.
Last year Bex had opened an art installation in the center of Smith Park. From the limb of a tree she hung a tiny striped circus tent, just big enough for one. If you slipped inside, you saw an easel with a white canvas, and a scatter of colored Sharpies. BEFORE I DIE, Bex had painted across the top, I WANT TO …
Over the course of two weeks, people who came to the park to eat lunch or skateboard or read a book had wandered inside out of curiosity, and had contributed their own answers.
… swim in all five oceans.
… run a marathon.
… fall in love.
… learn Mandarin.
When Bex took down the installation she had, at the very bottom of the canvas, finished her own open sentence, painting the word
Live.
She stared up at Wren and imagined a parallel universe where she could still breathe, where she could still move. Where she put her palm against the cheek of her beautiful girl. Where she got to turn back the clock, and do it over.
—