Chapter 21 Ruby
Ruby
I had to tell the counsellors in rehab that I needed to see a doctor.
I confided my fear of pregnancy to Sheila.
Despite my previous behaviour, she acted as if this stay was my first time.
She arranged an appointment for me. Dr Mitchell was kind and gentle.
She quickly confirmed my pregnancy with a urine test, but then the inevitable question: ‘When was your last period?’ I didn’t know if it was three or four months ago, possibly five.
Before she could ask, I told her, ‘I don’t know who the father is.’
‘Okay,’ she said as she washed her hands at the sink and I pulled up my too-tight trousers, ‘you still have options. Obviously, as you came here from Longhurst, I assume you have been leading a hectic lifestyle, yes?’
What a great euphemism. ‘You could say that.’ I nodded.
‘And how many weeks have you been sober now?’
‘Eleven weeks.’
‘Well done,’ she said, and that was the first time I ever felt like I had achieved something in life. ‘You’ve lived in Ireland long enough to know that terminations are illegal here?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m going to send you for an ultrasound to see exactly how pregnant you are, but I think you could still travel to the UK if you wanted to terminate the pregnancy. Adoption is also an option and then you might want to keep the baby. There are choices.’
I was going to have an abortion. How could I raise a baby on my own and cope with recovery at the same time? And I wanted to finish my degree. As I left, Dr Mitchell gave me a sheaf of leaflets, information on all the options.
‘You know, Ruby, whatever you decide will be the right decision. I wish you the best of luck.’
I was going to have an abortion and that was the right decision.
I had the ultrasound that afternoon. This time, a male doctor.
He didn’t flinch either when I told him I didn’t know when my last period was.
‘Right, let’s find out,’ he said as he ran a tube covered in gel across my stomach.
I heard the whomp-whomp of a heartbeat. It seemed fast to me.
Was that normal? ‘Would you like to see?’ he said.
I was confused for a moment until he added, ‘The foetus?’ Did I?
I shook my head. ‘This foetus looks about four months old to me,’ he said.
His use of language was deliberate, I think.
If I was going to abort, best not to use the B word.
I thought about the foetus a lot. It had been there when I jumped in the river.
It had survived despite me. I didn’t have any religious hang-ups about having an abortion.
In Dad’s church, he never mentioned it. Privately, he always said that a woman’s health was her own business, and though he was fixated on virginity, he meant it for girls and boys.
In fact, he was even stricter with boys because, apparently, they had urges more than girls.
I’m not sure if he was right about that.
It would be easy to fly to London and have an abortion, there was no identifiable father to argue with.
Dr Corbett confirmed that I was somewhere between sixteen and eighteen weeks pregnant.
I asked some questions, wondering if all my bad behaviour would have inflicted damage on this tiny creature.
By some miracle she was ‘progressing nicely’ despite all the abuse I had inflicted on my body and the baby’s.
Dr Corbett had confirmed that it was a girl when I told him I wanted to know.
The identity of my baby’s father bugged me.
I could rule out Darren, because he had given up exchanging coke for sex over a year ago.
There were two guys in college, but I had vague memories they’d used condoms. There was a long-haired guy at a party.
We had stand-up sex in the cloakroom. I didn’t remember his face or his name, and I didn’t remember whose party it was or even where the house was.
There were two men whose houses I went back to after a long night’s drinking.
I don’t remember if I slept with either of them, or both.
There were many times in those final weeks at the height of my addiction when I woke up in a stranger’s bed.
I had to let go of the task of trying to identify him.
Sheila was the only counsellor in Longhurst who knew I was pregnant, and she respected my confidentiality.
She reminded me that there would be extra doctors’ bills on the invoice my mother would receive, but that who I told was my own business.
I didn’t think Mom would look at the invoice closely.
She’d send it to Dad. But it was only a matter of time before it became obvious.
With renewed determination, I engaged in rehab, attended the meetings, listened to the other addicts, volunteered to help.
I stuck to the story of the incident with Amber.
There was nothing I could do about that.
Part of the Twelve Step programme was making amends.
You must go to everyone who you hurt through your addiction and apologize and thank the people who had tried to help you. Almost everyone had tried to help me.
The thing is, I never hurt Milo because of my addiction.
I hurt him because I was an immature child and he rejected me, and when I dug deep, I was trying to take something from Erin.
I had tried to come clean too late in the day.
Lives were destroyed and changed in ways that could never be reversed.
I had to let go of that guilt. In my therapy sessions, I told a different kind of rape story to Amber.
Some of it was true. I had tried to seduce Michael (I never called him Milo in my sessions).
I had dressed provocatively. I had pulled away and that’s what caused the rip in my shirt.
I had kissed him first. He protested but then, as I described it, ‘the mood changed’ and he turned aggressive.
This was the new version. I didn’t want to present myself any longer as this pure-of-thought virginal girl.
I apportioned some blame to myself, but Amber didn’t accept that.
‘What do you mean when you say the mood changed, Ruby?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it any further.
’ And I never did. I couldn’t go on talking about something that never happened nearly seven years previously.
I’d described it in detail back then, though I find it strange that they believed me.
It was because of who I was, whose daughter I was, because of who he was and where he came from, and – most importantly – because of the DNA.