Chapter Seventeen
“That doctor’s out of his mind,” Maisie pronounced at dinner.
“Way out,” Dot agreed at once.
Moth didn’t say anything, but at least he was there. He hadn’t knocked on my door so we could go down together. He hadn’t met my eyes when I arrived in the dining room. He wasn’t eating much. But he was there.
“Or maybe”—Maisie brandished her chicken on the end of her fork, where it oozed alarmingly—“he is in his mind, but his mind is an asshole.”
I wished I shared her certainty. Dr. Blankman did seem kind of pushy, cocksure, a know-it-all.
But maybe that was because he knew it all.
He was a doctor, after all, a head of gynecology no less.
You had to figure he knew more about abortion than I did.
You had to figure he knew more about abortion than Darcy and Alice too, not that you’d ever convince them of that.
I’m sure his mother was very proud of him.
“Is he seriously making the argument,” Dot continued, indignant, “that a first-term abortion is more dangerous than a pregnancy, let alone a pregnancy at our age?”
But Dr. Blankman believed in pregnancy. He had no doubt delivered a wide range of mothers of a wide range of babies. “He has a lot of experience,” I hedged.
“I have a lot of experience,” Maisie insisted. “I’ve lived longer than he has. I remember.”
“Remember what?” Moth said sullenly. I hadn’t thought he was even listening. He kept his eyes on his plate, where he was pushing food around without eating any.
“Me too.” Dot banged both fists on the table. It was more energy than we’d seen from her in weeks. “I had a friend in high school.”
“Me too,” Maisie echoed. “Junior year. She was scared out of her mind. Some friend of a friend of the boyfriend knew a place. The boyfriend was too chicken, though, speaking of chicken.”
I sniffed mine skeptically. “This isn’t really chicken.” It was scary, however, so appropriate for the holiday.
“I went with her to hold her hand,” Maisie said. “And, you know, just in case. It wasn’t even back-alley. It was back-back-alley. Maybe back-back-back. Tiny secret little room behind a tailor behind a laundromat. Not a clinic. Barely a closet.”
“Was she okay?” I asked.
Maisie made a face. “Eventually.”
“Mine wasn’t,” Dot said. “Same thing at first. Friend of a friend of someone knew a guy. Back-back-back of beyond. Also not a clinic. Not even clean. The procedure maybe went okay. It was hard to tell, because what did we know? But she did walk out of there. Of course that’s why we didn’t take her to the hospital right away. ” She stopped.
“And?” Moth said brusquely, which was unlike him.
“She died.” Dot closed her eyes for a moment. “She got … sepsis, I guess? And she died. She’d just been saying over and over that her parents would kill her if they found out, and they found out anyway.”
“And it killed her anyway,” I added.
“And those were the girls who got help, even if it was half-assed help.” Dot fisted her knife like she might stab someone. “I bet your so-called doctor’s never seen the ones who don’t.”
“Coat hanger,” Maisie said.
“Exactly.” Dot nodded once.
“I knew a girl who tried that,” I said. Diane D’Amato.
Naturally, we’d called her Double D. I hadn’t thought of her in sixty years.
She’d been so scared. And so determined anyway.
Desperate, I guess you’d call that. I’d stayed with her while she gripped one end of the hanger with white knuckles and held the other end in a pot of boiling water.
We hadn’t known how long it took to sterilize a hanger, so she’d stood there trembling till all the water boiled away.
Then she sent me away too. She didn’t want anyone to see.
“She also died?” Dot guessed, grim but not surprised. Yes, Dr. Blankman had degrees, education, expertise, but women of a certain age remembered well the real danger, and it was the kind of memory you never forgot, not even when you were of a certain age.
“She didn’t get that far.” I’d called later that night to make sure she was okay.
It was the last time I ever spoke to her.
“Her parents walked in while she was still figuring out how to do it. The next morning they sent her to a convent.” Which was Hamlet’s idea too.
Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?
This was his point with the sparrows after all.
Taking matters into your own hands is always easier said than done. To a nunnery. Go.
But suddenly, Moth was on his feet, seething. “You can’t do that.”
“A coat hanger?” Maisie said. “Of course not.”
“Or a back-alley abortion,” Dot added. “That’s our point. That and—”
“No.” Moth’s fists were balled at his sides. “You can’t do any of it. He said it’s not safe. He said you could die—”
Maisie blew out her lips. “He’s talking out of his ass.”
“Are you a doctor?” Moth asked her. Not really asked. Then he turned back to me. “You can’t. I can’t. I won’t let you.”
“You won’t let me?” Never mind I knew he was confused and afraid. Never mind I was as well. “Why would I need your permission? To do anything? I’m a grown woman.”
“Very grown,” Maisie said.
“This should be my decision. Maybe it’s not, but it should be. And it’s not about you letting me do anything.”
“You don’t understand,” Moth said.
“You don’t understand,” I corrected. For he was not a woman of a certain age either.
He threw his napkin on the table and stormed out of the dining room, though it took a while on his arthritic knees. Drizzled maybe. He drizzled out of the dining room.
I waited as long as I could—about five minutes—and then went looking for him.
I knocked on his door and checked in the lobby and the library and the snack bar and finally found him on a bench out in front of the building.
It was just evening, light still—dinner comes early at Vista View—so the sidewalk was full of moms and dads trailing tiny sugar-hopped monsters and superheroes, fairies and pumpkins, the older kids and teenagers not out yet.
“Sometimes I didn’t mind not having children,” Moth said without preamble, without looking at me even. “Or some days I didn’t think about it anyway. But some days were always difficult.”
“Halloween was the latter?” I figured that’s what we were talking about.
He nodded. “Halloween is hard. This parade of children comes right to your door all night long, adorable and joyous and thanking you through the hole that awaits their front teeth. You miss your own little ghost to follow around, nodding to the other dads, waving to your neighbors. It’s this catholic ritual only you are excluded from, and you’re not just missing it—your missing it stands right on the front step and rings your bell. ”
I wanted to tell him the kids were cute, briefly, but then they came home in torn costumes and melted makeup, out of their minds from sugar and being up too late, stomachs aching, legs weary from an hour’s worth of “Just one more house, pleeeease,” put out because Alice got an extra peanut butter cup and refused to trade it even though peanut butter cups weren’t even her favorite and she got extra last year too and it wasn’t fair.
But I knew he wouldn’t believe it. And I also knew it wasn’t the point.
“Is that why you left dinner?” I said. “To come watch trick-or-treaters?”
“I suppose.” His hair was pointier than usual, like he’d been pulling at it. Then he shook his head. “No, not really.”
“Look, I understand.” I sat down next to him and tried to do so. “This whole situation is overwhelming. And confusing. And bottomless. I get it.”
He didn’t say anything. Then he said, “Only some of it.”
“What do you mean?”
He sighed. “Of course this isn’t my decision.”
Which I appreciated.
So I replied, “Of course I’m grateful for your concern about my health and well-being.”
So he added, “Of course I’m concerned for your health and well-being.”
So I agreed, “Of course. And I for yours.”
“Of course,” he said.
“But?” I knew I wouldn’t sleep tonight until I heard what was coming, whatever it was. I might not sleep after I heard either, but at least I’d know.
He looked at me for a few too-long moments before he looked away again and said, very quietly, “Louisa was in that trial. Protocol 183? We were in it too.”
I felt the bench tip sideways.
“No. How is that …? No.”
“Yes.”
“Too much of a coincidence.” My mouth was so dry.
“That’s what I thought. That’s what I’ve been thinking for the past two days. But I guess …”
“What?”
“It’s not a coincidence. It’s the reason we came.
To the States. To be with that doctor. He was supposed to be the best. A genius.
Sparks, I think his name was? Louisa’s father was a Yank, so we could come, we could get her in.
She could be part of the trial.” He trailed off for a minute.
We watched a robot spill a plastic pumpkin and burst into tears.
“We did it for the same reasons as you, I’m sure.
Fear, desperation, being totally out of our depth.
That was their best guess. Their last best guess.
” The robot’s mom was scooping candy off the ground back into the pumpkin, blowing dirt off as she went.
“And then she died. And I was so lost I just … stayed. I couldn’t go home, not without her.
Not a coincidence. The reason I’m here.”
“Oh, Moth.” I was barely breathing. Or maybe breathing too much, panting, short and sharp.
“It didn’t work. For her. Obviously. But …”
“What?”