Now, Gina leaned forward to instruct the taxi driver. “I think you make a right here,” she said. We turned off the street with the Christmas decorations onto a narrow road lined with dark, three-story brick buildings. Apartments, maybe? Offices? I had no idea. I tried not to notice their ramshackle condition. The sagging shutters. The trash in the street.
“Stop here,” Gina said suddenly. “That must be him.”
A man stood on the corner near a black sedan. He reminded me of the pictures I’d seen of my grandfather. Iron-gray hair. Rotund build beneath a heavy black coat. The slightest hint of a hunchback. He wore thick glasses in wire-rimmed frames. I knew what would happen now. Kathy had given Gina the details. The man would drive us to the house where the abortion would take place. “His sister does it,” Gina had told me. “Kathy said she’s really nice.”
“Is his sister a doctor?” I’d asked.
“I don’t think so, but she has more experience than most doctors,” Gina’d reassured me.
I paid the taxi driver, slipped on my gloves, and we got out, shivering in the chill, damp air as we approached the man.
“Which one of you is the girl?” he asked. “Only the girl can come with me.”
I grabbed Gina’s arm, my grip tight through her coat.
“I have to come with her,” Gina said calmly. She patted my gloved hand. “I promised.”
“I only have the one blindfold, so only one of you can come,” he said.
“Blindfold?” I looked at Gina. I wished our taxi hadn’t already driven off. I wanted to get back into it and ride away from this neighborhood.
“It’s all right,” Gina reassured me, but there was a shiver in her voice. “We can use something as a blindfold for me,” she said to the man. “My scarf?” She started to unknot the scarf at her throat.
“No, no.” He waved an arm through the air. “Only the girl can come.”
I looked at Gina in a panic. “She has to come with me!” I said.
“Keep your voice down,” the man snarled, although we were the only people on this sad-looking street.
Gina took my arm. “Look at me,” she demanded, and I tried to focus on her blue eyes. “It’s going to be fine.” She glanced around us at the decrepit old buildings. “I’ll wait for you right here and we’ll find a cab to take us home.”
“You can’t wait here,” I said. “This is a terrible area.”
“Look.” The man’s eyes were buggy, magnified by his thick glasses. “Do you want to do this or not?”
“I’ll wait on this stoop.” Gina motioned toward the dirty gray granite stoop of the building behind us. “I have a book in my handbag to read. I’ll be fine. I’ll be right here when you get back.”
The man frowned at Gina, his bushy gray eyebrows knitting together. “Anyone ask you what you’re doing waiting here, you make something up, all right?”
“Of course.” She smiled, but the quivery tone was back in her voice and that scared me. I was completely dependent on Gina’s calm.
The man looked at me. “You got the money?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Get in, then.” He strode toward the sedan and opened the passenger door for me.
I mustered all my courage and slid into the seat. The car smelled of tobacco and something else. Some food smell I couldn’t place but that turned my stomach. He got into the driver’s seat and handed me a black blindfold. “Put this on,” he said, “but give me the money first.”
I fumbled in my handbag for the ten twenty-dollar bills, my fingers trembling, and handed them to him.
He counted them, folded the bills in half and stuck them in his inside coat pocket. He watched as I wordlessly put on the blindfold. I heard him start the car and we were off.
*
“Hello, dear.” An old woman greeted me with a smile as I took off the blindfold. I’d been led up a short flight of stairs and now saw that we were in the tiny foyer of a house or apartment building. I couldn’t be sure, since I hadn’t been able to see the building from the outside. All I knew was that my teeth were chattering and my knees trembled. The woman reached out to hold my gloved hands. “Tess, is it?” she asked.
I nodded. She looked like someone’s grandmother, her dull gray hair pulled back in a bun. Her legs were as thick as posts and her black shoes big and solid. She wore a bibbed pink floral apron over her blue dress as though she was about to bake a batch of cookies. I felt both reassured by her kind manner as well as anxious, because she looked like the last person on earth who could perform a medical procedure.
“I’ll be working in the shed,” the man said, and he disappeared down a long hallway carpeted with a ratty-looking brown rug.
“I’m Edna,” the woman said. I wondered if that was her real name. “Let me take your coat.”
I slipped off my coat and scarf, my gloves and hat. She took everything from me, laying it all on top of a large wooden chair in the corner.
“Let’s go in here.” She gestured toward a room off the foyer and I followed her in. A heavy wooden table stood in the middle of the room covered with a sheet. A pillow rested on one end of the table, and a kitchen chair was set on the floor at the opposite end. The carved wooden table legs exposed beneath the sheet looked somehow obscene. On a wheeled tray next to the table lay a basin, a speculum, a long, thin metal rod, and a few other items I didn’t recognize. I’d heard about botched abortions done with coat hangers and was relieved that none were in sight.
“Take off your panties,” Edna said. “You can just unhook your stockings.”
“No coat hanger.” I smiled nervously, gesturing toward the wheeled tray.
“Oh, good heavens, no,” she said. “I’ve found this works perfectly.” She picked up the metal rod. “A bicycle spoke,” she said. “Does the job every time.”
A bicycle spoke. Good Lord. Had it been sterilized since the last time it was used? Shivering, I slipped off my shoes and panties, and she helped me climb onto the table, rock hard beneath the sheet. I tried to ignore the small brown stain on the pillowcase as I lay back on the table. It was cool in the room and my body trembled almost spasmodically.
“This will be over in a jiffy,” Edna said. “Now open your legs for me.” She sat down at the foot of the table as I bent my knees and spread my legs, my eyes on the stained plaster of the ceiling.
“There’s a good girl,” Edna said. “Now hold very still.”
I held my breath, waiting for the cramping to begin. On the plaster ceiling, as if by magic, I saw the image of my tiny, helpless, baby. He—I was certain it was a boy—was nestled inside my body—the body that was supposed to protect it and nurture it, not allow it to be pierced by a bicycle spoke. Gasping, I sat up quickly, pulling away from Edna and her tools. She was wide-eyed, her mouth a small, surprised O.
“I haven’t even touched you yet,” she said.
“I can’t do this,” I said, my hand on my flat belly. “I just can’t!” I was suddenly crying.