What Friends Are For, page 6
But then it rolled back, like the clouds that filled the sky above. She knew the wind was nipping her cheeks, but she couldn’t move her hands to lift her scarf. She shuffled along, feeling desperately alone despite the dozens of people—her mother, sister, aunt, Jenny, Jenny’s mom, and others—surrounding her. When the others raised their voices and signs, she could barely keep her eyes forward and advance her feet.
“Leesa!” Jenny chided from behind. “Walk faster. Save the babies!” she hollered.
The events of the night before kept playing in Leesa’s mind. Mom had promised she’d be awake waiting, but as Anna had predicted, she was asleep on the couch when Leesa tumbled into the house, her heart palpitating. She was sure her mother would sense what had happened. How could she explain it? How could she defend herself?
There was Mom, curled up peacefully under the crocheted afghan, the television news flickering, the brochures she’d been reading lying in a jumble on top of the blanket, the sleeve of a baby sweater she was knitting still in her hand. Leesa stood there for a moment, wishing her mother would jolt awake, hold her tight, and tell her everything would be all right again.
Dejectedly, she shed her jacket and tiptoed to the bathroom, locking the door. She stood in front of the sink, looking to see if the shock and confusion she felt showed in the mirror. Her sweater, with its happy polka dots, mocked her. Her hair, which a few hours earlier she had brushed until it shone so Kevin would be attracted to it, hung like a straggly mop.
The bathroom door wiggled. “Lees, is that you?” Anna was on the other side. “It’s only ten. How come you’re home so early? I didn’t hear Jenny’s car.” Anna snickered, knowing Leesa would normally just make it into the door at the stroke of curfew. “Can I come in?” She jiggled the door handle again, back and forth.
“NO!” Leesa’s heart beat urgently. She turned on the faucet and rattled the toothbrushes to feign busyness. She hissed, “I’m tired. Someone else dropped me off. Go to sleep. Don’t wake Mom.” She kept the water running until she heard Anna pad back to her bedroom and close her door. Then she squeezed big gobs of toothpaste onto her brush and scrubbed her tongue and teeth until the inside of her mouth was raw. She couldn’t stop spitting. Over and over.
No one had noticed her leave Peter’s house. When she’d recovered enough to come down the stairs, she could hear a roar of laughter from the rec room, where everyone seemed to have congregated. Kevin had vanished. She’d snatched her jacket from the pile near the front door, jammed her feet in her boots and fled, pelting down the sidewalk as fast as she could. After a few blocks she stopped running and doubled over, wheezing so hard she almost retched. She held that position until she could breathe normally again. Her knees shook. She looked back, but no one had followed her. She was sweating, but she zipped her jacket and stuffed her hands in her mitts so her mother would think she was a good girl.
But that was a lie. She went over every second of what happened in her mind. Did she lead Kevin on? Why did she agree to go upstairs? Should she have known? Jenny’s remark that Tracey wouldn’t let anyone mention his name jumped to her consciousness. What had happened to Tracey? Dark thoughts formed in her mind.
“Baby killers!”
“Shame! Shame!”
“Save the babies!”
Anna poked her from behind. “What’s wrong with you today?” Leesa had almost slowed to a stop. “You were weird last night. When you wouldn’t get up this morning, Mom said she shouldn’t have let you go to the game.”
Leesa picked up her pace and joined half-heartedly in the chanting.
“No butchering babies!”
“Give babies a chance!”
“Choose life!”
She had no energy for this.
“No to the clinic!”
“Morgentaler—murderer!”
“Morgentaler—Hitler!”
Her mother had taken over calling out the slogans.
She felt dirty, contaminated, violated. She wanted to throw out her clothes, but they were new. Her mother would notice. So she’d shoved them, hard, down to the bottom of the hamper and taken a shower, soaping herself over and over, shampooing her hair, soaping, shampooing, rubbing, and rinsing until the hot water ran out and she began to tremble in the stream of cold water. She had turned off the faucet and stood there, shaking, choking, tears flowing down her face, mixing with the beads of water trailing from her hair.
She jumped again when an arm circled her shoulders. “What’s wrong, darling?” Auntie Syl squeezed her close, but Leesa stiffened. Her aunt gave her a quizzical look. “Hey—earth to Leesa, are you there?”
Leesa gasped for breath, then leaned against her aunt to show her appreciation for the affection. Auntie Syl was the best, always encouraging. “Two kids were enough for me,” she always claimed, “but if I were going to have more, I’d have you—and your crazy, dancing sister.”
“Are you okay?” Auntie Syl asked her again. She creased her brow, looking concerned.
“Yeah, sure,” Leesa said. “I’m just tired. I’m so busy!” She quickly began to babble about her schoolwork, the yearbook, and Debating Club. She told her about The Crucible, about how she hadn’t known about the witch hunts before or the fear of the Devil that existed. It hadn’t occurred to her that the Devil was anything more than an idea, but the Puritans had thought the Devil was real and could take possession of people’s minds and make them do things that would destroy their society.
Auntie Syl kicked her toe against a block of ice on the sidewalk. “Witch hunts happened in the 1950s, too,” she said.
“Seriously?” Leesa asked.
“Not those kind of witches, but anyone who thought differently in the 1950s was branded a ‘communist’—you were the devil’s spawn if you had an idea that was generous toward others. Really, that’s all it was. Arthur Miller challenged a lot of accepted notions when he wrote that play. It was very important to conform.” She gave Leesa a sidelong glance. “People lost jobs, friends abandoned them. There was a lot of fear—like in Salem. I always liked how Miller made a connection between what was happening at the time back to history and beliefs.”
“You’ve read it?” Leesa felt embarrassed the moment the words left her mouth. Auntie Syl and Mom exchanged books and talked about literature, plays, and movies all the time.
Auntie Syl nudged her. “Hey, I went to high school, too. The Crucible is all about control, isn’t it?” Auntie Syl said. “Controlling thoughts, controlling people. My favourite character is Goody Nurse.” Auntie Syl sighed and stubbed her toe, tripping slightly. She caught herself and adjusted her sign. “She and John Proctor—they challenged hypocrisy.” She sighed again.
“You okay, too?” Leesa looked into her aunt’s face.
Auntie Syl straightened up and her smile returned. “Perfect. Just a little tired. Too busy lately, just like you.”
Several picketers chanted together, “No to murder, no to Morgentaler!”
“What do you think, Auntie Syl?” she asked. “Will we be able to stop the clinic from opening? I get upset when I think about what happens in there.”
Her aunt gave her another hug. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe not everyone wants to be a mother, and some women get caught, so a baby is wrong for them at a certain time. But they should find a better solution than this,” she said, motioning to the clinic. “It’s not a decision you can reverse.” Her tone brightened and she smiled. “I have to speak with your mom. Planning for our weekend!”
“It’s only March,” Leesa said.
“A mere two months away,” Auntie Syl said. She patted Leesa’s shoulder and walked ahead, her picket sign resting on her shoulder.
“Save the unborn!”
“Mama—save me!”
“Murderers!”
Planning for fun, planning to laugh. How could Leesa plan anything, never mind laughter, when her world had stopped? Now she was alone, which was what she had wanted, but as soon as she was, her thoughts were flooded with her nightmare. Had she fought hard enough? She tried to scream, but did she? Had she been teasing him all year? Was that what she had wanted?
She knew it made no sense to do it, but she couldn’t help slowly slipping her right hand downward from the picket sign and pressing it against her jacket, pushing on her stomach. What if Jenny’s God had put a baby in her? What kind of a plan was that?
10
Sunday, April 10, 1983
“Girls, let’s try to get about twenty signs made this afternoon,” Arlene said from across the rec room. The floor in the basement was an organized mess—sheets of heavy poster paper, wooden posts, extra-thick felt pens, and a staple gun.
Jenny picked up the poster papers and distributed them into piles across the carpet. “Let’s get going, Lees.” She got down on her knees and began sketching slogans in big bubble letters from a list on a sheet of paper: Save the Unborn, Pray for the Babies, Abortion Kills Humans, Give Life a Chance, Who’s Next—Old People?
Leesa had tried to get out of going to Jenny’s so she could check for her period. She was sure it would come today. It had to. Usually, it announced itself like clockwork every four weeks, but now it was fully five days overdue. She’d spent nearly the entire March Break checking for it, going to the bathroom as often as she could without her mother questioning what was wrong. Nothing had shown up. Now she kept counting back the days, hoping she’d made an error, but the results were always the same. She was late. It was all she could think about, every minute.
When they’d gotten home from the protest the day before, she’d walked to the corner grocer, bought a large bag of black liquorice nibs, and eaten the entire package, hoping a good bout of diarrhea would drive out anything that shouldn’t be there and leave her completely clean and empty. Then she could pretend what had happened didn’t matter. But all she’d felt was slightly sick from all that sweet anise-flavoured candy she’d stuffed in her mouth. This morning, she’d drunk glass after glass of pulpy orange juice, also to no avail.
Her mother stood firm about the girls going with her. “I’m in charge of the picketing, and now that more people are coming out, we need more signs. This is good for both of you girls, and people should know we do this as a family.”
“Dad doesn’t go,” Anna pointed out.
“I’m sure he would be there if he could,” Mom said, although Leesa thought it was a half-hearted assertion. “He’s a policeman, Anna. He’s not supposed to show his beliefs. But you can, so let’s go, now!” she ordered her youngest, who had put her headphones on and was dancing around the kitchen, pretending she couldn’t hear. Mom repeated her mantra, “You’ll remember that you took part in a significant event in history. You’re saving lives. Let’s go.” She put on her jacket and held the door open, waiting, and the two girls followed.
Jenny’s house always seemed busy. Her mother was like an engineer, telling everyone what to do, always making food, folding laundry, or fixing something for her four kids. She never sat down. The kitchen was a perpetual mess, but everyone got fed. In spite of all she had to do, Arlene went to church every day and feverishly worked on their antiabortion committee. All her kids took part. All except Tara, who refused, saying she was “too busy studying for final exams.” Jenny said her mom and Tara argued “a lot.”
“Studying for exams in April?” Leesa asked. “Is Grade 12 that hard?”
Jenny’s rec room was nothing like the one at Peter’s house, but the notion of being in the same kind of space made Leesa feel ill at ease. She looked up the stairs, thinking of escape routes.
Jenny didn’t notice. She sat back on her heels and put a finger to her lips to indicate Leesa shouldn’t say any more about Tara.
Auntie Sylvia arrived separately. The adult women sat at a card table in the corner of the basement, planning their future protests. Arlene flipped open a file folder and took out a letter to the editor clipped from the newspaper.
“I think we should copy and distribute this to people we talk to,” she said. “The archbishop’s words will carry a lot of weight with people.” She read it out: A fetus has its own genetic makeup, it’s dynamic, and has its own growth process and functions. It’s just temporarily dependent on the mother. She tapped her pen on the table. “It’s right on point, isn’t it?” she asked Mom and Aunt Sylvia.
Leesa listened attentively. The abortion controversy had followed the kids to school, where the arguments were bandied about during lunch. Kim and Willow had brought the newspaper and read the archbishop’s letter out loud when they were hanging out in the hallway, as well as another article with a pro-abortion rights slant: When a woman becomes pregnant, she becomes a womb, an incubator . . .
“Yikes, what a way to put it,” one of the girls had complained.
Kim read on: However, outside the mother role, women are portrayed as irresponsible, immoral, and selfish. Where is the consideration of the woman, a living person with feelings and needs? The assumption is that a woman is not fit to make this decision.
“True,” another had brooded. “You’re caught in the middle if you’re a girl.”
Yet she is the best candidate to undertake the burden of pregnancy, the pain of childbirth, the many years of patience, caring, and self-sacrifice to raise a child.
The debate had gone back and forth. A few girls had been silent, a few others had said they’d heard enough and would everyone please shut up about it?
One girl had suggested, “I mean, you could go back to school when the kid is old enough, couldn’t you?”
“Maybe,” Willow had said. “If you have the money—and a babysitter.”
“She can give the baby away,” Leesa had said. “Seriously, I believe that’s a reasonable, realistic alternative.”
“Would you want to do that?” Meredith had questioned, folding the newspaper as the end of lunch period drew close. “Have you ever held a newborn baby? Would you ever be the same? It might be just as bad as having an abortion. My cousin just had a baby, and I melted when I held him. It would be so strange—to give a baby away.”
That had been the end of the conversation, with Leesa imagining a mother handing her child over to a nurse, never to see it again.
Now she sat back on her heels, the felt pen in her hand. Her mind swirled as she recalled the conversations she wanted to forget.
A noise from the stairway made her turn. Jenny’s dad thumped down the stairs, strode into the rec room and stopped, briefly noting the scene in front of him. Then he opened a cupboard on the wall, took out a bowling-ball bag and hefted it into his other hand. Ignoring everyone else, he nodded to his wife and said, “I have a game. See you later.” With that, he went back upstairs. A moment later, the back door slammed.
Arlene kept working, not acknowledging her husband had been there. Nor did Jenny. Leesa glanced at her mom and aunt, who gave each other a questioning look.
Anna broke the silence. “Does your dad go out to picket?” she asked Jenny. There was no answer. Arlene kept working. Finally, still drawing on her poster, Jenny shook her head quickly. Anna crunched her eyebrows at the strange response.
“Our goal is to get the police to charge Morgentaler and put him in jail, like they did in Montreal,” Arlene said, as if nothing awkward had happened. She flipped through some papers. “I can’t believe juries there acquitted him. Thank goodness the higher court reversed the decision! Any other doctor who thinks it’s okay to murder babies deserves punishment, too. But Morgentaler only served ten months in Montreal, which is an injustice in itself. Abortionists should get life in prison.” She pulled out a sheath of photographs. “Here, kids.” She motioned to Anna. “Tape these pictures to some of the posters.”
“What are they?” Anna angled her head and turned the pictures upside down. “They’re weird.” She frowned at the shadowy shapes—snapshots of see-through bodies with tiny limbs and bulbous heads. She turned them around and upside down again.
“They’re precious images, from ultrasounds. Little babies inside their mommies’ tummies,” Arlene cooed, gazing at the pictures. “That’s what a baby looks like as she grows, as he grows! These should make people think twice about killing their babies.”
“Weird,” Anna said again, then distributed them along with the posters. She dropped one down in front of Leesa. Black dots where eyes would grow stared vacantly at her. She grabbed the photograph and flipped it over.
Arlene turned back to Mom and Auntie Syl. “We’ve invited someone from the States to help give us more ideas. He’s famous down there for organizing big protests and prayer meetings. We’re meeting at our church tomorrow at 1:00. You both should come.”
“I’ll be at work,” Auntie Sylvia said, raising her hand to indicate “stop.” “And that type of person isn’t my thing, Arlene.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t like the idea of abortions, but, you know,” she said, shaking her head slightly, “it’s a moral thing for me, not religious.”
Mom glanced at Auntie Sylvia, taking a moment to respond. “Tomorrow? Uh—” The girls looked at their mom. “Uh, I have an appointment right at that time . . .” she said.
“An appointment? What kind of appointment?” Anna asked. “Are you sick?”
Their mother waited again to answer. Then, speaking quickly, she said, “I’ve applied for a job at the Health Sciences Centre.”
“What? You didn’t tell us!” Anna shrieked. “Way to go, Mom!” Leesa and Jenny exchanged glances of surprise. Auntie Sylvia smiled.
Mom cleared her throat. “It’s only an interview,” she said, more to Arlene and her best friend than her girls. “It’s just taking blood samples at the hospital, half-time, in the mornings. I have to take a course to upgrade my credentials if I want to go back to laboratory work, but if I get this job, I’ll see what’s going on in the field, and an employer will see I’m making an effort to get up to date.”
