But if I don’t tell the truth, how can she get the correct medical care? What if she dies?
This is a strange, strange situation, the sort of thing I’ve only seen in movies. I’m not a natural criminal. Nor am I a natural nurse, I’m not good with pain, especially other people’s.
What if I do get caught? What if I am sent to prison? Because it happens. A woman in Northern Ireland was sent to jail for three years for procuring pills for her daughter.
There might be a public outcry, but I don’t want to be the poster-girl for a cause. I just want Sofie to be all right.
Then I remember the dream I’d had, where I’d been carrying all the babies. Most of them had been Sofie, and the baby I’d dropped and picked up by the ear had been a tiny, tiny version of her.
I must have suspected she was pregnant, subliminally catalogued that she was paler than usual, eating even less than normal, hadn’t had a period in a while … My subconscious had been trying to break the surface when I wasn’t ready to face the truth.
Well, I’m facing it now. I order the pills. The site is a friendly one but the whole business feels furtive and frightening.
75
Thursday, 24 November, day seventy-three
At four p.m. I stand up and say, ‘Right, Tim, sorry to abandon ship.’
I’m taking Sofie to the doctor, I’ve stipulated a woman but I don’t know which one we’ll get. I really hope it’s not Dr Frawley, the very young one, who’d told me I should reduce my stress and my weight, as if that could magically happen just because they’re desirable. Back then she’d told me to take up walking.
‘I do walk.’
She seemed surprised. ‘Great. Where?’
‘Aaaah … Glendalough.’ Well, I did that one time. Was it New Year’s Day? Or it might have been the previous New Year’s Day …
‘How many K would you typically do?’
‘Up to the waterfall.’
‘That’s quite a climb.’ Then she became suspicious. ‘Unless you mean the first waterfall? The little one.’
Of course I’d meant the first waterfall. Which was about four minutes’ stroll from the car park.
But who has time to exercise? In fairness, I did my best – on Tuesdays and Wednesdays I was in airports where I walked miles and every Sunday I cleaned my house.
‘Get a Fitbit,’ she’d said.
I’d kept my mouth shut. I had a Fitbit. I border-line hated it. I almost never reached the daily ten-thousand-step target. It was just one more way to feel like I’m failing life.
Mercifully, today it’s Dr Conlon, who is probably in her forties and has always struck me as sensible.
Sofie is weeping, and wants me in the room as she submits to the examination. Even though she knows, when Dr Conlon says, ‘You’re pregnant all right,’ she cries harder.
‘How far along?’ I ask.
‘Without knowing when her last period was, I can’t say for certain, but eight, maybe nine weeks.’
‘Not that long.’ Sofie is adamant.
‘We count from the date of your last period,’ Dr Conlon says. ‘Not since conception.’
This throws me totally. Is it already too late for Sofie to do the pills? Shock makes me careless. ‘Sofie isn’t going ahead with the pregnancy. But is it too late for the pills?’
‘Abortifacients can be used safely up to ten weeks.’
‘You’d say she’s definitely under ten weeks?’
‘She needs an ultrasound to say for sure. But probably.’
I decide to take a chance. ‘Is there any way you can prescribe the pills?’
She shakes her head. ‘I’d lose my licence. Worst-case scenario, I’d go to jail.’
‘Sorry!’ I’m mortified for even asking.
‘Why is it so illegal?’ Sofie asks.
Dr Conlon sighs. ‘Now there’s a question.’ She looks at us and there’s definitely compassion there. ‘Book the ultrasound as fast as possible.’ She picks up some pages and gives them to me. ‘Details of a few organizations who can give information, addresses in the UK, et cetera. A word of advice, if you use abortifacients bought online and someone reports it, you’re liable for fourteen years in jail each.’
‘That’s crazy,’ Sofie exclaims, all indignation and disbelief. ‘They should mind their own beeswax! This is my thing, my decision.’ This is what you get when a politically clueless seventeen-year-old finds her needs crashing against the limitations of the legal system.
‘Also, Sofie,’ the doctor says, ‘see a counsellor. Talk things through. It’s a decision you don’t want to regret.’
‘I won’t regret it!’ Sofie curls in on herself. ‘I can’t bring a person like me into the world. I’m so scared.’ She collapses into a wild storm of sobs. ‘I looked it up. Only two per cent of girls regret abortions and I won’t be one of them.’
‘Still.’ Dr Conlon is firm. ‘It can’t do any harm.’
In the car, I phone for a scan, and the earliest appointment at the hospital is next Monday. This is a worry, time is tight, but what can I do? I dearly wish we’d sprung for the spendier health insurance that would have allowed us to waltz in any time of the day or night (or so the ads would have you believe) and get any procedure we wanted.
Then I square my shoulders. ‘Sofie, you do know there are alternatives. Like you could have the baby and let it be adopted.’
‘Amy!’ She’s shrill with fear. ‘That would be worse than having it and keeping it, because I’d be worrying that it would be like me but I wouldn’t know.’ She begins to cry again. ‘You don’t know what it’s like to be this scared.’
It’s true that I’ve never been in her exact circumstances, but this sort of fear is familiar – the day-in-day-out dread when Richie left and there was no money to take care of Neeve. That was gruelling. Then the week-long attack of terror when I discovered I was pregnant with Kiara. Hugh and I had been together for such a short time, less than four months. Could you blame me for thinking, This is way too soon – it’ll finish us?
But I’d been eleven years older than Sofie is now. I’d accumulated coping skills and was, fundamentally, a different kind of person, steadier.
I say, ‘Why don’t you wait until you’ve seen a counsellor before you decide for sure?’
‘I won’t change my mind, Amy, I want to go to college, I want to be a scientist and research cures for things, I want a future.’
This is the first time she’s ever expressed any ambition. In other circumstances, I’d be thrilled.
‘I’m sorry, Amy. For all of this. I shouldn’t have been having sex.’
‘You’re a human. It’s how we’ve survived this long.’
‘But seventeen is a bit young.’
Is it, though? In the eyes of the law she’s old enough. But my heart feels differently – my girls would always seem too young. If I could I’d coddle them in cotton wool for all time. Mind you … ‘When I was your age, I couldn’t get enough of it.’
‘Serious? No!’
I’m mildly insulted by her horror and this close to telling her the story I’d told Alastair, about making Richie steal the boat from Greystones harbour. Only that she needs solid role models makes me keep my mouth shut.
But it really is true that every generation thinks they’re the first to invent sex.
‘At least Jackson and me used contraception,’ Sofie says. ‘Even if it didn’t work. I mean, at least I’m not a total flake.’
‘In my day,’ I say, and then I pause. I can’t believe I’ve just said, ‘in my day’. I force myself to carry on. ‘We’d no access to contraceptives, not even condoms, and we had to –’
‘Use crisp bags. I know. It’s barbaric.’
Sweet Jesus. Crisp bags? ‘Not crisp bags. I was going to say we had to pull out in time.’
‘That’s nearly as barbaric.’
I sigh. ‘Now we’re going to tell your dad.’
‘No. Please, Amy. Not today. Why don’t we go for food?’ Sofie is playing dirty – usually I’d be so happy to see her eat that I’d abandon all other plans, but this has to be done.
‘Then we’re going to talk to Jackson and his folks.’
‘No, Amy!’
‘Yes, Sofie.’ I’m not exactly enjoying this either.