Chapter Thirty-Five #2
I got a used car, which was only slightly harder. It was cheap because it looked a mess, but, as you will soon discover, your mother is a gifted washer of cars, and soon it shone like … well, not like the sun but like a nearish star. On a partly cloudy night.
I got a car seat, which wasn’t easy at all.
Is it possible car seats are the hardest part of parenting?
Maybe it’s worse if bending down and stooping over are some days just a bridge too far, but I remembered the car seat frustration from the first three times as well.
It shouldn’t take fifteen minutes to get into and then out of and then back into the car three or four or eight times a day, and, unfortunately, car seats have gotten safer (i.e.
, more of a pain in the ass) since the last time I wrestled them.
Your father wanted to come along, but I said no.
Not this first time anyway. Maybe whoever I was ferrying needed female-only solidarity.
Maybe she had reason to fear men, even one as gentle as Moth.
Or maybe it was just that I had to make this drive, this journey, myself. I had to do this one alone.
Well, not quite alone.
I timed it so you fell asleep as soon as we got in the car.
Lola had worked whatever magic caused my phone to engage with my stereo, and I lowered the volume and played her abortion road trip playlist softly so I wouldn’t wake you.
I drive very cautiously these days. Now I’ve got my license back, I don’t want to have to give it up again.
And of course I am very careful of you. So the journey to the meeting spot Evangeline texted me was slow and guarded and entirely moderate.
Nonetheless, we were early when we pulled into the grocery store parking lot where we were to rendezvous, and it was dark still.
I found the elm tree with the split trunk Evangeline told me to look for and parked three spaces away, as directed.
There was a pickup parked underneath it, strangely familiar, but before I could work out how, the driver’s side door opened, and out popped Father Frank.
“Pepper!” He enveloped me in a giant hug. “You got your license back. Congrats!”
I was astonished to see him. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m your contact.”
“You’re the abortion fairy?”
“You’re the abortion fairy,” he corrected. “I’m just the go-between. They meet me at my church, and I give them whatever they need and drive them over to you. Then you drop them back to me afterward. I’ll also be your emergency contact throughout the trip, just in case.”
“But you’re …”
“What?”
“A priest!”
“An Episcopal priest. An Episcopal priest who believes in serving my community, helping those who need it, loving without judgment, and freedom of choice.”
While I was trying to get my head around that, the other door of his (filthy again) truck opened and from it emerged a white girl in a black hoodie who looked younger than Lola.
Younger than Sari, even. She hung her head so her hair fell over her face, but even curtained, even with only the light from the streetlamp, I could see that she was pale and sweaty, her lips and cuticles both gnawed to bleeding.
Father Frank escorted her to my car and peeked inside. “You brought Bob.” He frowned.
“And the map, the directions, the paperwork, the emergency numbers, the credit card, and the burner phone, as instructed. Plus water and Gatorade and snacks. And a hot-water bottle. And a sweater. And tissues.”
“And Bob,” said Father Frank. “This isn’t a great mission for a baby. We’re going for stealth. Think Underground Railroad. You watch Masterpiece, right? Think MI-5.”
“She’s very discreet.” You were saying “Ba ba ba ba ba” in the back seat, but quietly, only to yourself.
“Look, I don’t want to scare you, Pepper. We wouldn’t send you if we didn’t think you were safe. But there’s a shit ton of unpredictability here.”
“I know this.” Perhaps he had not been briefed. “It’s not my first time.”
“No, it’s your second.” So he had been. “And last time, you ended up in jail.”
“Bob’s not afraid,” I spoke for you. “She’s brave. She’s strong.”
“The people we’re dealing with here only care about life till it’s born, you know. Once it’s an actual baby, they could give a shit.”
“That’s why,” I said.
Because you were a soon-to-be woman and not just a soon-to-be woman but a soon-to-be-woman here, in this world, and in the world on its way.
You had to learn early how to live in it, when to seek help and when to offer it, when to accept what would be and when to fight the power. And when you were the power.
Father Frank sighed, took off his cowboy hat, ran his hand through his hair. Then he waved at the girl in the hoodie. “This is April.”
“Hi, April. I’m Pepper. This is Bob.”
The girl nodded but did not look up.
“April has everything she needs,” Father Frank said. “I’ve walked her through it. But yell if you hit any snags, and remember to text when you arrive and when you leave so we know when to come looking for you.”
I squared my shoulders. I’d been through the training.
I’d role-played worst-case scenarios, protestor confrontations, threats of violence versus actual violence, getting arrested, going to jail.
I had a binder of instructions and information.
I was ready. Father Frank gave me another hug goodbye and started toward his truck.
Then he turned back. “And, Pepper?”
“Yes?”
“I stopped short.”
“Of what?”
“On the road that day. Maybe you were driving a little too close, and maybe you didn’t react as quickly as you could have. But there were some geese in the median, and I was worried they were going to make a run for it, so I stopped short. I’m sorry I cut up your license.”
I thought of all that fender bender had set in motion, all that had happened that never would have if it hadn’t. “Thank you,” I said.
“You’re welcome. But still, three car-lengths following distance. Maybe four, just to be safe.”
April climbed into the front seat. For a moment, she just sat there. But then she turned back to you. “Hi, Bob,” she said softly.
“Ba da da,” you replied, all charm.
We pulled away into the dark morning and drove some miles without speaking. The sun came up. The sky turned blue or, I suppose, revealed its blue, the land its gold. April watched it out her window. You napped in the back.
“Do you need a break?” I could go farther now without a stop since I was no longer on bed rest nor needing to pee all the time, so I had to make sure to remember to ask.
But April shook her head without looking at me.
“Just say if you need a restroom. Or a stretch. Or a meal. We’ve got plenty of time.”
She smiled a little bit, but not because she was happy, just to acknowledge without speaking that she’d heard me.
So we kept on.
But some miles later she said, almost shy, “I like this playlist.”
I was relieved to hear her voice, relieved she’d decided to use it. “My granddaughter made it. She’s about your age.”
April nodded.
I wasn’t sure I was going to add more, but then I did. “She made it for this very trip, in fact. When I drove her to get an abortion. It’s her abortion road trip playlist.”
The girl looked at me for the first time. “I guess that’s why I like it,” she said.
“I’ll let her know. She’ll be glad to hear it.”
She was still looking at me though. “So your granddaughter … she’s …”
I waited.
April swallowed. “Okay?”
“More than okay. She’s great.”
“Was she okay … after? Like, right after?”
“After and right after and during,” I said. “She was okay the whole time. The only time she wasn’t okay was before we came.”
April nodded at that too and looked back out the window. She didn’t say anything else, but she seemed lighter beside me.
The clinic looked the same. I expected the rush of relief I’d had when I pulled in with Lola, but it didn’t come.
I expected a clutch in my gut, a flush in my face, a heart loud from the memory of all that happened after we left this place, but none of that came either.
We had a late appointment, maybe the last of the day, or maybe the clinic had changed its hours, realizing people need abortions after work or under cover of night, but the air was cooler than it had been last time, and, better still, the protestors had all gone home for the day.
No longer pregnant, I’d gone back to being invisible—famous and much photographed I may have been, but I was still an old woman, indistinguishable without a photo caption from all the others, even if you did look twice, which no one ever does—so I wouldn’t have attracted the same attention as last time anyway.
But no longer pregnant, I could also no longer part a sea of clamoring protestors with my body alone, so the fact that no one was there to object to us was extra blessing.
I texted Father Frank to let him know we had arrived safely.
I texted Moth the same.
He texted back an emoji of a boxing glove.
Me: No protesters this time actually.
Moth: That was not meant to suggest a fistfight. That was meant to suggest a fist raised in solidarity.
Me: Emojis are hard.
He replied with a wrapped piece of candy.
Me: Sweet?
Moth: Hard.
Then: In fact, both.
Then he sent a heart. No mistaking that one. I replied with the same.
I remembered my regret last time, sitting in this very spot, that I’d made him wait for us at the hotel, how even that five-minute drive still felt too far away from him.
I remembered how grateful I was, in the back of the police car, to be worried about every single thing in the world except whether Lola would be okay because I knew, far zikher, that he would keep her safe.