Chapter 9 If Everybody’s Special
That night I dream of something far more sinister than the persistent strangers I’ve met over the last few days. Dark and looming, the demon in my nightmare is but a shadow.
I will speak plainly. You have power but no need of it. If you give me your magic, I will repay you in the currency of your world.
I feel the sentiment echo around me and flinch away from the sound, but when the words touch my skin, they possess the soft caress of satin sheets.
“Who are you?” I ask.
A demon, of course. The shadow billows, its amorphous form constantly reshaping. I do not wish to add to your many burdens. I am offering to lighten your load. The power you carry weighs you down.
“That’s convenient.”
I intend to be honest with you. The process will be painful. But I can give you money, influence, whatever you would like as compensation for the brief moment of pain.
“Did you send that man to my door? Daniel something? And the ones around the clinic?”
Yes. Humans briefly under my spell. Generally useful, but I can see now that you are more sophisticated.
“Flattery will get you nowhere.”
It is simply the truth. I have no need to lie.
You will give me your powers because you are intelligent enough to understand that it is the right choice.
There will be pain, but you will bear it.
And then you will have what you want. If you do not willingly give it to me, then there will be more pain, lasting pain, and no reward. The choice is simple.
“This is a dream,” I say.
I will soon send you a sign. You will recognize the truth.
I step back in alarm. “How—”
If you do not give in, I will destroy you.
“So fucking what?” I mutter aloud to myself as my eyelids flutter open.
I’m surprised at my own vehemence. Some part of me believes that I should have died years ago, that nothing matters.
But the bit of me that still cares wills my heart to beat faster, my brain to flood with adrenaline, anything to snap out of the apathy.
Despite my apathy’s best efforts, I roll out of bed and go to work.
I get in early enough to arrive as Dr. Levy pulls up.
“We on for lunch?” Dr. Levy asks. We don’t usually have a lot of reason to interact, but we both work the skeleton shift on Mondays—a lot of clinic staff have the day off, since we’re open on Saturdays, but some of us alternate Saturdays to pick up Mondays.
Since neither of us has time to actually eat a real meal, we duck into the empty patient room whenever Dr. Levy has a brief moment to share granola bars and chat.
“Of course,” I tell her. “Anything I should be aware of?”
Dr. Levy shakes her head, then groans when a bus arrives in front of the clinic. She gestures me inside, and we both wave at Diane.
“There’s a protest bus out front,” I say as we pass by.
“Just what we needed.” Diane sighs.
Dr. Levy’s jaw jumps. “They’re targeting blue-state clinics now until they can get a national abortion ban passed.
They’ve already closed just about all the clinics in states where they can manage it.
They’re dangerous. Be safe out there, okay, Nisha?
You kids think you’re so invulnerable, but I’ve heard stories. ”
“Better me than a patient,” I say flippantly.
Dr. Levy’s hand grabs my wrist. “Better a patient gets turned away and you both leave with your lives.”
“Dr. Levy, what is it?”
“I don’t want to scare you, but I have a friend on the East Coast who said one of their escorts was threatened with a gun this morning. You don’t know what these people are willing to do. I know we all focus on the patients, but your life is important, too.”
Muya seemed to think I was in danger, and now a very sane, very good person is warning me of the same. Aaron walks in before I can respond, and I’m too embarrassed to say anything emotional in front of him, of all people.
“I’ll catch you at lunch?” I ask her instead.
Aaron opens his mouth as if to say something to me, but Dr. Levy raises her hand. His mouth snaps shut, and I can see the tension in his shoulders. Maybe they’ve been having conflict—maybe he’s showing his true colors.
“Sure. I should have extra time today with this one doing the charting.”
I can’t help but give Aaron a little victory glance as I leave. I adore Dr. Levy.
I don my vest and go stand outside in a patch of early morning sunlight to stay warm.
The protesters look a bit fuzzy for some reason, and I squint at them, forcing my vision to clarify.
Thank gods for sunglasses—I don’t want any of them thinking they have my attention.
After a moment, the blur resolves into something far odder: I can perceive a slight aura enveloping them, an unseen force that seems to make them just a little louder.
A little bigger. A little scarier. The protesters are already big and loud and scary, and they definitely do successfully deter a few patients without the help of magic.
But they haven’t managed to put the clinic out of business yet, and I won’t let some demon supercharge them into becoming a real threat.
I think of Chandini, of Muya, and wonder if I could lift the magic off them or neutralize it somehow with my own.
I envision the aura physically separating from the protesters’ bodies and dissipating into the air.
Nothing happens. Okay, fair enough. I focus on the protesters themselves, concentrating on sending them a message the way I did with the little boy.
You don’t know why you’re here. Forget your purpose.
I can feel the magic within me itching under my skin, building to an ache at the center of my forehead, but I can’t direct it.
It seemed to spill from Chandini with ease, but I guess I’m just incompetent.
Our first patient of the day approaches on foot, and I abandon my fanciful idea and rush to help her.
She winces at the noise. As a short Black woman hunched in on herself, she’s definitely an ideal target.
I dart forward, putting myself between her and the antis.
She gives me a grateful smile, which looks remarkably similar to a grimace, and I see that her eyes are watering.
“They’re going to dismember your baby!” someone shouts. “Do you want them to experiment on your baby’s parts?”
She flinches. “That’s not true, right?”
“Not at all,” I assure her.
“It’s just, I saw that video—”
“It was doctored footage,” I say. I’ve seen it too, back when it surprised me that the antis were willing to manipulate video footage and lie.
The woman is looking up at me, eyes wide, so I fall back on the facts.
“If the pregnancy is far enough along that there’s more there than just a clump of cells, the remains are properly disposed of in accordance with the law.
There are pretty strict guidelines about this, and even if there weren’t, we wouldn’t use anything we took from your body without your explicit consent.
A large proportion of late-term abortions are for wanted babies who didn’t survive.
In those cases, patients often want—and are allowed to have—funerals. ”
“Okay.” She takes a deep breath and keeps moving forward.
Another protester shouts about Black Lives Matter, and how we’re killing Black lives.
“I didn’t think I’d hear them say that,” she says, looking over her shoulder. She adds, in a whisper, “I heard that the people who started abortions wanted to eliminate Black people.”
“I’m happy to give you more information,” I tell her.
I’m not sure if she wants a lecture from me, but she nods, so I let myself sink into the history.
“Abortion has existed since ancient times. There have always been people who got pregnant and didn’t want to have a child, and midwives who knew how to end those pregnancies.
It’s true that abortion was banned after the Civil War by people who were worried that white people weren’t having enough babies compared to Black people and immigrants.
And it is also true that one of the women who helped found Planned Parenthood wanted to stop Black people from having children.
I think that horrible history is less about abortion and more about how this country has always treated Black people—and I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that. ”
“Yeah,” she says softly.
“The important thing is,” I continue after we’ve walked to the front door, far enough away from the antis that they aren’t so loud anymore, “you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
She curls an arm around her stomach. “My parents gave up everything so I could have a better life. I can’t throw it all away just because I got knocked up.”
“Okay,” I say. “Is that what you want?”
“I think I’d be a good mom,” she tells me. “I really want to be a mom.”
“You don’t have to decide anything today.” I nod my head toward the door but don’t open it. “We won’t charge you if you choose to leave instead and think about it. Or we can do a pregnancy checkup if you—”
“No. I can’t be a good mom right now. It’s hard, because, what if this is my only chance?
But I still want to do this. They just… got in my head.
” She pushes the door open and looks at me, a real smile on her face.
For a moment, as sometimes happens, I wonder what Aai’s life might have been like if she had made this choice. “Thank you.”
After that, the patients pass by in a blur.
One tells me, with a trembling apology, that she’s not here for an abortion but is miscarrying.
I want to tell her the distinction doesn’t matter to us, but I swallow it down.
Whatever she’s going through is more important than some stupid educational moment.
At one point, Aaron steps outside to offer me hand warmers.
“Are these bugged?” I ask, only half joking. He presses his lips into a line.
“I was just trying to be nice. Don’t take them, then.”
I snatch them out of his hands.
Around lunchtime, an older volunteer named Pamela arrives to cover the escorting just as Dr. Levy pokes out her head, looking for me. We go to our usual room, and I dig into my purse for some sweets I packed to offer Dr. Levy.
“An excellent lunch,” she says. “Now, what’s on your mind? You’ve seemed a little down recently.”
“I’ve been thinking about the bigger picture. I guess I’m wondering if you think things can get better. If there’s something we can do? What would you do if you had a magic wand?”
“Do you have a magic wand?” Dr. Levy asks with a laugh.
She pops an entire burfi into her mouth.
“I assume you’re asking because you’re thinking about law school again?
If so, good. Every clinic that stays open because a good lawyer is on their side means hundreds more women who’ll get to make their own choices about their bodies.
As for things getting better, that’s well above my pay grade.
Plenty of folks talk about state-by-state strategies, but I don’t know that there’s a Roe moment in our future unless we win back the federal government and the Supreme Court changes. But what do I know? I’m just a doctor.”
The more she speaks, the more my heart sinks. I was hoping that the silver lining to the chaos of the past few days would be using this power to live out my fantasies of changing the country.
“Sorry,” Dr. Levy says when she sees my expression.
She’s moved on to her L?rabar now. “I know that’s a depressing answer.
Everything is depressing recently. I heard that our new alderman has soured on the clinic.
Sees it as an eyesore and a nuisance. We’re going to have our hands full just keeping this place open. ”
Abortion clinics all operate by the grace of their surrounding communities.
There’s still stigma, and protesters, and danger, and traffic that come with them.
They’re not like restaurants or bars, either.
People get in and get out. So sure, we’re not the most popular business in the neighborhood, but we’ve never had serious issues with the alderman.
And every election, both alderman candidates have been pro-choice—it’s a nonissue in Chicago.
As if reading my thoughts, Dr. Levy continues, “Yeah. Of course he’s pro-choice, but in his own neighborhood?
” She scoffs. “Everyone’s an abortion NIMBY, especially with the anti groups making lucrative offers for abortion clinics’ property.
What will happen will happen, but you’ll be fine. You’re a bright woman.”
“It’s not me I’m worried about,” I say softly.
“I know,” she says. “Nobody here worries about themselves.” She tosses her wrapper in the trash and heads out, leaving me sitting on the edge of the exam table, head spinning.
I can’t think of a way to use Chandini’s approach right now. It’s not like I can convince every anti-choice protester that we’re actually doing good work. But maybe there’re others like Chandini, waiting to be found. Suddenly I can’t wait to get home so I can try again.
I begin the warm-up tatkar, slowly speeding up until my mind lets go of anxieties and thoughts in favor of reveling in the sensations.
I stretch my arms out at different angles and ground myself in the stamp of my feet.
My hands, and each of their fingers, extend and relax in time with the music, and I have never felt more connected to the world.
I see flashes of a tall, dark girl. Broad-shouldered and strong. The music switches to the next song in my playlist, a set of natwaris and paltas. My body is moving, and my mind—it sees.