“Don’t you have errands to run?” he asked. “A manicure? Pedicure? Something?”
I’m opposed to abortion. To me, it’s murder. That’s a child inside Mia, no matter what kind of madman helped create it. A child with a heartbeat and budding arms and legs, with blood that runs through its tiny body, through my grandchild’s body.
James wouldn’t leave me alone with Mia. He kept her confined to the bedroom for most of the weekend, filling her mind with literature on the pro-choice movement: pamphlets he’d picked up from clinics in the city and articles he’d printed from the internet. He knows my opinion on abortion. We’re generally both conservative in our views, but now that there’s an illegitimate child inside our daughter’s womb, he tossed all rational thinking aside. There’s only one thing that matters: getting rid of the child. He promised to pay for the abortion. He told me that much, or at least muttered it under his breath as if he was talking to himself. He said he’d pay for it because he didn’t want the bills submitted to the insurance company for coverage; he wanted no record that this had ever happened.
“You can’t make her do this, James,” I said Sunday night. Mia wasn’t feeling well. James had brought crackers into the bedroom. He’d never paid her this much attention in her entire life. She didn’t join us for dinner. It was no coincidence. I was certain James had locked her in the bedroom so she couldn’t be influenced by me.
“She wants to do it.”
“Because you told her she has to.”
“She’s a child, Eve, who doesn’t have the slightest memory of creating the bastard. She’s sick—she’s been through enough. She’s not capable of making this decision right now.”
“Then we’ll wait,” I suggested, “until she is ready. There’s time.”
There is time. We could wait weeks, even more. But James doesn’t think so. He wants this done now.
“Damn it, Eve,” he snapped, skidding his chair out from the kitchen table and standing up. He walked out of the room. He hadn’t finished his soup.
This morning he had Mia up and out of bed before I’d finished a cup of coffee. I’m sitting at the kitchen table when he all but pulls her down the stairs. She dressed in a mismatching outfit I’m certain James has ripped from her closet and forced her to put on.
“What are you doing?” I demand as he yanks her coat from the front closet and insists she get it on. I hurry into the foyer, my coffee cup slipping from the edge of the table and shattering into a thousand pieces on the hardwood floor.
“We’ve talked about this,” he says. “We’re in agreement. All of us.” He stares at me, compelling me to agree.
He had called his judge friend and asked that the man’s wife, Dr. Wakhrukov, do him a favor. I heard him on the phone early this morning, before 7:00 a.m., and the word disbarred stopped me outside his office door midstride. Abortions are done at clinics throughout the city, not reputable obstetricians’ offices. Dr. Wakhrukov is in the practice of bringing babies into this world, not taking them out. But the last thing James needs is for someone to catch him walking into an abortion clinic with his daughter in tow.
They will sedate Mia until she’s so calm and content, she can’t say no if she wants to. They’ll dilate her cervix and reach in to suction the baby out of its mother’s womb, like a vacuum.
“Mia, honey,” I say, reaching out for her hand. It’s as cold as ice. She’s in a fog, not yet awake from sleep, not yet herself. She hasn’t been herself since before her disappearance. The Mia I know is outspoken and forthright and strong in her convictions. She knows what she wants and she gets what she wants. She never listens to her father because she finds him cold and reprehensible. But she’s numb and emotionless and he has used this to his advantage. He has her entranced. She’s under his spell. She cannot be allowed to make this decision. This decision will remain with her the rest of her life. “I’m coming,” I say.
James backs me against a wall. With a finger pointed at me, he orders, “You’re not.”
I push him away and reach for my coat. “I am.”
But he won’t let me get in the way.
He rips the coat from my hands and throws it to the floor. He’s clinging to Mia with one hand, dragging her through the front door. The Chicago wind rushes into the foyer and grips my bare arms and legs, twirling my nightgown around me. I try to pick up the coat, calling out, “You don’t have to do this. Mia, you don’t have to do this,” but he’s holding me back and when I don’t stop, he pushes me hard enough that I fall to the ground. He slams the front door closed before I can catch my breath and rise to my feet. I get the strength to stand and peer out the window as the car pulls out of the drive. “You don’t have to do this, Mia,” I still say, though I know she can no longer hear me.
My eyes drift to the cast-iron key holder to see that my keys are missing, that James has taken them in an attempt to keep me at bay.
Colin