“I won’t be needing that,” she said.
The doctor looked confused. “I’d feel better if you took it,” he said. “Maybe I should walk you through the procedure—it’s not just a Pap smear, you know.”
“I have a high threshold,” she said, wishing she could run out on all of this. The pressure of this decision, of pleasing Manny, the fear of what he would do if she didn’t comply. The fantasy that he would want to raise a child with her, that they could be like that station-wagon family at the gas station all those years ago. All of it was clogged up in her throat. She began to sweat. She needed more time to think. If only she could feel the pain. She deserved to suffer for this.
Squick, creee.
The doctor tried to tourniquet her arm. She pushed him off.
“Look,” she said and pulled a scalpel from the towel-lined tray he’d laid out. She jabbed the scalpel into the round muscle of her shoulder. There was pressure, but no pain. “See?” she said. The doctor gasped and pulled the scalpel away; the purple slit oozed blood that ran in a neat rivulet to the underside of her arm and fell with a tap tap on the waxy paper.
“What the shit, are you high?” The doctor dropped the blade in the sink with a clatter.
“I just don’t want any fucking meds, okay?” she said.
The doctor’s eyes stayed pinned wide open. He lifted his hands up like she held a gun at him.
“Okay, easy there,” he said and slowly lowered his hands, still holding them out so she could see them. “I believe you. Look, I have to stitch up that wound, okay?” He glugged some alcohol over a cotton ball and swabbed the gaping cut, his hand shaking a little. Then he tore open a packet of sterile dressing and had her clamp it down with her thumb to stem the bleeding.
“You made your point, lady. You don’t need meds. But it would make me feel better if you had some.”
Kit shook her head.
“You’re gonna have to explain why or I’m not doing anything.”
Kit looked in her lap and sighed as she calmed a bit. “I just like to keep my wits about me.”
The doctor dropped his shoulders and his head tipped back, like he couldn’t believe what he was about to do. “All right, I get that,” he said. “But if you want me to do this thing, you gotta settle down and keep your hands off my shit. Understood? Don’t touch my surgical instruments.”
Kit nodded.
A knock at the door made them both jump.
“What’s going on in there, you two?” Manny said, his voice warped through the metal door. “I heard raised voices. Y’all trying to make me jealous?”
The doctor slid open the lock and cracked the door. “Just a few nerves, happens all the time. If you could just wait on the bench, we’ll be done in about forty-five minutes.”
Manny peered over the doctor’s shoulder at Kit, who waved him off. He shrugged and the doctor closed the door. The doctor sewed up the wound in silence, and quickly. Then he taped the stitches and covered them with an innocuous beige Band-Aid. When he was done, he handed her a folded gown.
“Here,” he said, his voice thin and wary. “I’m gonna steal away for a minute before we begin.” The doctor went into the bathroom while she changed. She took off her clothes in the cramped living room, balled them up and shoved them in her backpack, then slipped her arms into the flimsy white smock.
She sat back on the cot and pulled her knees to her chest to still the violent beating of her heart. Of course she had to get rid of this baby. What kind of fucked-up mother would stab herself just to make a point? Maybe her own mother had been crazy, too, maybe it was a virus in the blood. Had her mother made it this far, to the verge of ending her? Had she wanted to be a mother and suddenly, when it was too late, changed her mind? Or maybe she had never wanted a baby in the first place but couldn’t pay for the abortion. How many times had Kit wished she’d never been born and cursed her mother’s foolishness? It wasn’t fair that she had been burdened with the ability to create life, and to end it.
She remembered the last creatures she had killed, those squirmy little coyotes huddled in a ditch. The long, dark walk; the weight of the gun. With a few more months, they could have learned to hunt, fend for themselves, but they were too young and hadn’t any sense. Hadn’t any sense at all. Her heart ached to see them there, warm and sleepy, and she wished she could have scooped them all up under her shirt and let them live there like possum joeys until they were ready for the world. It had been so obvious at the time, why she had to kill them. It had felt like mercy. But then she remembered the mother coyote, how even as she lay crippled and dying on the asphalt, she had looked for her babies and cautioned them to safety. Then she imagined her little something asleep and tucked away between the layers on layers of her body, peaceful, protected. The image was so vivid, so comforting, the whole room seemed to warm and soften, the light turning peachy. And as clear as if it were written on her skin, she knew what she had to do. There would be no mercy kill.
The doctor knocked and cracked the door.
“You ready?” he asked.
Kit tucked the gown under her thighs. She glanced through a part in the curtains and saw Manny in profile on the glider. The creaking had stopped. He was eavesdropping.
“Listen here,” she said, quiet but firm. “I want you to cut me, but leave the baby alone.”
He looked at her like she’d just started speaking in tongues.
“Now what are you talking about?” he said.
“Quiet down,” she hissed and grabbed him by the arm. “He’s listening. Please, please be quiet and just hear me out. I want to keep the baby, but that guy can’t know. Cut me and he’ll see the bleeding. Nick me just inside, not too far.”
He shook his head. “Lady, this ain’t worth it. You don’t want to go through with it, fine. But don’t bring me into it. Your friend out there is scary as hell.”
She squeezed his arm tighter, and he yanked it back. “But that’s what I’m trying to say, if you don’t do what he paid you to do, he’ll beat both our asses. We gotta make it look like I had the thing done until I can figure out a plan. I need more time. You can give that to me, okay? Please.”
Then he sighed a heavy sigh. After a minute or so, he said, “All right, look, I’ll do it.”
“Thank you,” she said and pulled a fifty from her backpack. She slapped it in his hand. “That’s all I got.”
He looked at the bill in his palm and back at Kit, bewildered. He sighed again and gave the money back. “Keep it,” he said, and turned to wash his hands.
She leaned back, then fit her heels in the stirrups and closed her eyes. She felt like she and her baby were hunkering down in a house in the middle of a hurricane. Outside, all hell had been unleashed, but inside they were cozy and safe together. Safe, at least, for now.
Chapter Fifteen