And Then There was One

The phone rang at 1 am. I remember because I tripped over my alarm clock trying to answer it.
“Hello,” I said, lowering myself onto the corner of my bed.
“Amanda?”
It was Erin Henderson. I didn’t recognize her voice but noticed her name flash across the screen as I reached for the phone. I was surprised it was her for a lot of reasons. Most obviously because we weren’t really close friends, in fact we barely knew each other, and because she was calling so late. I knew her from English the year before; we had worked on a project together during a unit on Women in Literature. We exchanged phone numbers, programming one another into our cells, but we had only spoken a couple of times. I was never really good at tasks like organization or phone maintenance. I guess that is why Erin Henderson’s number was in my cell phone but I still had to look up my best friends from time to time.
“Look,” she had been talking for a while now, not saying much but I could still feel a growing sense of urgency despite her fading voice.
“I know you are probably wondering why I am calling, and well. . .just a second” There was a pause, followed by a muffled shuffle. I felt her put the phone down and after a few minutes I thought I heard a toilet flush in the background. I heard breathing again and then, “I have a question?”
“Um hmm. . .”
“Are you. . . I mean do you. . . do you still work at that place down on Park?”
“Sometimes, yeah,” I could tell she wasn’t really finished and I could tell what she was getting at. There was a knot at the base of my throat.
“Do you think you could like help me? Could you take me there?”
I paused, swallowing.
“Yeah,” I said, “yeah I guess I could.”

*
I started working there because of an ad I saw at a community service fair. I was just leaving the booth about the Dallas Food Bank with an armload of brochures about Feeding the Homeless, and Building a Better Tomorrow.
It was at a booth was for Women’s Services which represented a conglomeration of different organizations. Some were looking for people to organize clothing drives or to gather groups to serve in the shelters.
The paper on the table said Volunteers Needed to Walk Women to the Door and Provide Emotional Support. I remember thinking what an incredible request that was. But I knew, even before I had time to think about it that I wanted to be one of those people. I scribbled the number on the back of a glossy pamphlet for the SPCA.
It wasn’t easy either. It was crazy.
It made my heart race and my stomach flop. There were not always protesters, sometimes if we were lucky there were days when the journey to the door was not obstructed. That was one thing, sometimes those twenty feet felt like an eternity. Sometimes I felt like I was marching into battle, and sometimes it felt like we were on the trail of tears, and other times I wondered if maybe this road didn’t lead straight to hell.
The days when the protestors came were obviously the hardest. Some days there were small groups. Church women who brought picnic baskets of fried chicken and Bibles and carried stacks of pamphlets that showed a woman with her head in her hands and said Angie Will Never Have Revenge on her Baby’s Killer, but She has to Face her Every Time She looks in The Mirror and went on to list of places that could help you keep your baby. The women sat with their lawn chairs in a circle and worked on their knitting and said prayers with rosaries woven through their fingers.
Then there were the big protests, the kind that brought news vans and big haired reporters onto the lawn. We never knew when they were coming, well sometimes we did, but most of the time they just exploded. Swarms of people gathered in front of the doors. We pushed them back as best as we could with wooden barricades and big blocks of men with badges and names like “Steve” and “Big Rob”. The crowds moved constantly, fervently, like angry fire ants they scattered. There was always movement like the bubbles of boiling water. It was unbelievable.
It was loud and angry and it made me feel like I was gonna laugh and cry all at once. It was the sound mostly. It rose in your ears, up into your head until it felt like you might pass out, like the very air that gave you life would strangle you. Then things go quiet, slowed down to a gentle hum. Things moved with a great deal of inertia, flashes of people yelling and of angry bodies thrashing, bouncing off of one another. They carried signs and fake hatchets, plastered the walls with pictures of mutilated fetuses. They held tiny coffins filled with rubber babies and hurled words like ‘murderer’ and ‘Satan’ at us. They rained down fake blood and drenched us with it. And still we walked on. We wrapped our arms around these girls and women, we sheltered their trembling bodies, and waited for their tears. We prayed for their safety, for their breaking hearts. And once we were safe in the building, we let go.
No, it wasn’t easy. But, I don’t know, when I read that ad I felt like it was just right. I didn’t need a reason. I got to be there when these women made a decision that was more important and difficult than any other I could imagine. A decision I that couldn’t understand, that maybe I didn’t even want to understand. I got to watch life happen all around me, to stand in the middle of it, to see it happening all around me. It felt like that was a gift or a calling, I don’t even know what. But I did know that that was reason enough.


*
We decided to schedule the procedure for Saturday.
We meet Friday after 1st period just behind the door to the library. I drove us to the clinic and parked in the space beside the door while Erin ate McDonalds. The parking lot was almost empty.
We sat in my car with the windows rolled down and the doors cracked while a Kenny Chesney song floated gently through the car. Erin was eating a hamburger and the car smelled like ketchup and stale grease. She had her leg pulled up to her chest and her knee rested against the dash board. She was staring out at the road watching the cars go by. Her eyes were fixed on the road ahead of us but I couldn’t read them.
“What happens today?” she asked as she sipped from the cup of orange soda.
“Well, first they will give you a pregnancy test, just to be certain. . .”
She scoffed.
“Yeah, like I haven’t taken a hundred of those already,” She said turning her eyes towards mine.
“I took one a day for two weeks. I don’t know why I thought it would be different after the first one. I went to like 30 different drug stores drug stores. I even wore disguises,” she half laughed and half chocked on the words.
“I didn’t want anyone to know who I was. I wore big rimmed sunglasses and scarves, hats with heavy makeup. It felt good though, to be somebody else.” She said staring at her lap. “I guess it serves me right though for sleeping with him, or for forgetting to. . . to care or. . .”
Outside a car door slammed and I tensed up. The ice in the McDonalds cup was sloshing, making a clink, clink, clink noise. It was making my head hurt. I opened my mouth wishing I could ask the questions that were making my head spin and my stomach turn. “Who is he?” and “Did he love you/did you love him?” and “Is this what you really want?” They swam around in my mind, rolling one after another, but they never made it past my lips. They got caught on my teeth, tangled in my tonsils, they stuck to my tongue like peanut butter. I closed my mouth.
Her head turned to look out the window, her hair falling into her face. I couldn’t see her eyes anymore.
“Seems ridiculous though, that they would make you take another one, like seriously absurd. God knows nobody comes to a place like this if she had any doubt.”
She brushed the hair from her face quickly, leaning her head back against the window pane. She raised a fry to her mouth and paused, looking back in my direction.
“And then . . .?”
“Then they will probably do a physical and an ultrasound just to see how long you have been. . . how far along you are.”
“13 weeks,” she interjected, her hand disappearing again into the rumpled paper bag. Her fingers were greasy and she wiped her hands on her skirt.
“After that they will do some lab work, just to make sure everything is ok. Then you just have to fill out some consent forms and that is it.”
She nodded and reached for the door handle. “Just so you know, it’s my decision. I don’t want any counseling, I don’t want to talk about it, I don’t want to know my options. I just. . .I just want it to be over.” Her voice dropped to an almost whisper.
I shook my head and pushed the door closed following her into the clinic.
*
It would be a suction D and C. She was just a little too far along, thirteen weeks exactly, for the less involved procedure which required only a slow hand held pump rather than the vacuum apparatus that they would have to use on Erin.
It was scheduled for 10 in the morning. I was going to pick Erin up at 8 in front of school. We would go straight to the clinic and afterwards we would go home. They gave Erin sleeping pills, two, just in case she could sleep due to the pre-procedure nerves. When I dropped her off in front of her house she asked me if I would go in with her tomorrow. It wasn’t as profound a question coming out of her mouth as it should have been, but I said yes.
“They said it only takes twenty minutes,” she said, “twenty minutes at the most.”
I nodded. It felt strange to me that I was in this situation. I was always in these situations, me with my eighteen year old virgin lips and cheeks that colored when I thought about my body pressed against anyone’s. The closest I had ever come to a relationship was a brief engagement in pre-school. He left me though, seems he found another fiancé. . . his mom.
And even though I felt guilty for it, I felt a twinge of jealousy. . .well not really jealously but more like desire. I was sick of hearing about kissing, sick of going to bed each night hugging a journal to my chest, or scrawling lines of poetry. I hated being treated like a baby and getting left out of conversations because I didn’t know exactly what they were talking about. I didn’t want what she had, I just wanted something.
When she left the car I drove around for a while listening to country music and wondering how it felt to have something growing inside of you.

*
I pulled up to the school at around 7:45ish. She was already there, wearing sweat pants and a tee-shirt that said Sleepy across the frong. She hoped up into the seat, tossing a backpack onto the cluttered floorboard. She reached down into the backpack and pulled out a carton of cigarettes.
“Do you mind?” she asked, rolling the window down.
“No,” I said shaking my head.
The lighter made a whooshing sound as she flicked it on and I heard her inhale. Her mouth made a puffing sound as she breathed in and then exhaled. The smoke tickled my nose.
We rode in almost silence, the vibration of the air and the sounds of outside took the pressure off of us to talk. My hair was flying across my face the air outside felt thick, like it was holding a pending rain. Erin tossed her cigarette out the window and reached for another.
“Sorry,” she said, “it’s the stress.”
“It’s fine,” I said, turning right at the stoplight. We pulled into a parking space near the front. The lawn chair ladies were waiting for us ready for us, armed with bible verses and statistics. They knew just the right things to say. They looked up after they finished praying and stood joining hands. Amy, a fellow volunteer met us at the car.
“Hey, Mandy,” she said.
“Hey,” I greeted Amy as I shut off the engine, “this is Erin.”
“Nice to meet ya Erin,” Amy said poking her head into the car. “Y’all ready?”
I stepped out of the car and Amy offered her arm to Erin. We started towards the door, the circle moving towards us.
“What is your name dear?” The oldest one, Maggie, asked her. She was wearing a thick skirt with an elastic waist and a woven cardigan sweater that hung around her like a potato sack. Her gleamed in a shade of fuchsia, and her gray hair seemed to form a net around the curve of her head.
“Erin,” she answered tentatively, picking up speed.
“Now Erin,” Maggie spoke with a soft southern accent that vibrated just a little bit in the back of her throat. She spoke with the voice of everyone’s grandma, “you don’t wanna go in there. You don’t wanna go killing your baby. Just come sit down with us,” she said, “we know people who can help you, we know people who can help you work this out.”
“There isn’t anything to work out,” Erin said, grabbing my arm a little tighter.
“You got it?” Amy asked.
I nodded. She let go and Erin and I slipped inside.
We waited on cold blue chairs that felt plastic-y and smelled like the inside of a new duffle bag. Erin’s hands shook a little as she flipped through a magazine, her fingers sticking to the pages as she turned them methodically. She shifted back and forth in the seat, picking up several magazines and then putting each of them down.
When they called her name we walked down the hall and were led to a surgery room. I stood outside the door while Erin changed into the paper thin gown and socks. She had crawled up on the table and was propped up on her elbows when I came in, a sheet draped across her abdomen. It was standard to have a counselor in the room during the procedure but since I was there they said it would be ok not to.
A nurse her two medicines, one to prevent infection and one to reduce cramping. She Erin to relax and that the doctor would be right in.
We didn’t say much at first, she scooted up on the table and the paper drug across the leather making a crinkling sound. The room smelled sterile, like any other hospital or doctor’s office. There were your base smells, the alcohol and lab chemicals, the ones you could identify and then there were the more peculiar ones, the ones that made your stomach lurch a bit.
I hadn’t been back here that much. Mostly my job kept me in the front part of the clinic. I had actually never been present for a procedure. We watched a video once during training. I hadn’t really been sure why.
“I never liked the circus,” Erin said. It was a statment but her voice quivered when it escaped her lips.
I stared at her for a second perplexed. Her eyes seemed to be wandering over the walls. The colors, I thought suddenly, they were circus colors, primary yellow and green, blue and red. It did seem ironic colors given the situation. They were common for a pediatrician’s office, but seemed a little silly or even inappropriate in this context.
“Yeah,” I said, “neither did I,”
She half smiled and ran a hand over her head.
“Listen,” I said, “I know what you said, you know the other day in the car but I have to ask you again. Is this really what you want?”
“What I want?” she rolled the phrase around in her mouth. She seemed to be toying with this idea, “not any more than I wanted my Grandpa to die, not like I want to visit France, or I want the dress on pg. 5 of that magazine,” she said gesturing towards an issue of Vanity Fair beside her. “I guess it is not really a question of what I want, but more of just what is. It is just the way things are, I just knew it had to be done from the time I took that first test. Just like I know I’ll go to SMU and marry someone from Highland Park and work near Preston Village.”
“I don’t have to want it or not want it. It doesn’t matter. It just is.”
Before I could say anything the door opened. A woman with short dark hair and tennis shoes underneath her scrubs walked in.
“Hi Erin,” she said. “I’m Dr. Chandler.”
She sat down on one of the rolling stools and moved to the end of the bed.
“You doing alright today?”
Erin swallowed and gave her a tentative smile.
“Yeah, I know, a silly question.” She said filling in a space on Erin’s medical chart. “I know you are anxious to get this over with so we can get started whenever you are ready?”
“I’m ready,” Erin said tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
“Ok,” Dr. Chandler said, “I’m gonna tell you everything I’m doing as I do it. Ok, that way there will be no confusion.”
Erin nodded.
“I need you to scoot as far down as possible, until your butt is here,” Dr. Chandler patted the end of the bed. Her voice was slow and even and there was a hint of warmth that carried with it.
“Good,” she said when Erin was in the right spot. “Now, put you feet into the stirrups, and spread your legs apart as far as you can.”
Erin’s knees shook a little as she opened her legs.
“First I’m just going to wash the vagina out with an antiseptic to prevent infection and prep it for the procedure.” She said. As she worked she asked “Do you have any questions for me before we get started?”
“Um. . .how much is it going to hurt?”
“The pain is different with each individual. Most women describe the feeling as similar to period cramps. For others the pain is a little more severe but the medicines I gave you should help reduce the cramping as much as possible. Later on, after we are finished here we will talk about what happens afterwards and how to care for yourself. Ok?”
“Ok,” Erin said. She was lying down, her hand resting against her forehead.
The doctor removed one of her gloves and tossed it into the trash can replacing it with a fresh one from the box beside her.
“Have you ever had a pelvic exam before?” Dr. Chandler asked.
Erin propped herself up on her elbows, her head bobbed up and down quickly.
“Good, ok then this next part will be familiar to you. I’m going to insert a speculum now into the vagina and open it so I can see your cervix,” she said. I heard the speculum squeak click as it popped open. Erin face flinched a little but she remained still. Dr. Chandler reached for a syringe of clear liquid. “Now,” she said, “this may sting a bit,” her hand disappeared under the blanket. “I’m injecting a local anesthetic in the cervix to reduce discomfort during the procedure,” she pulled out the empty syringe and laid it back on the cart beside her.
Beside me Erin grimaced a little from the discomfort. Dr. Chandler patted Erin’s leg as she reached for the next tool.
“Before we can begin the suction we have to dilate your cervix, to do that I’m going to use a series of dilators and tools to measure the size of the uterus. That way we know how large the area of the uterus is when we go to empty it”
Erin nodded.
“Are you doing ok?” the doctor asked. A few moments passed in silence. I reached down and took Erin’s hand in mine. I could see Dr. Chandler reach for a clear plastic tube which she attached to the suction machine.
“Ok, Erin, I am going to start the suction to remove the contents of the uterus. This is often the most uncomfortable part of the procedure. Basically, this hollow tube, the cannula, is attached to what is essentially a vacuum. The cannula has a sharp edge that will break down the tissue as it sucks out the contents of the uterus.”
Dr. Chandler inserted the tube and looked up at Erin, “You doing ok?”
“Um hum,” Erin said.
“Ok, this machine is fairly loud. I think it is the sound that is most difficult for most people. It shouldn’t take very long but it might help if you talk to Amanda. Just do whatever makes you the most comfortable and I will do my best to make it as quick as possible. We are almost through”
Dr. Chandler turned on the machine and I noticed blood begin to travel through the clear tubing that led out of the cannula. She was right about the noise. I remembered it from the video we saw, it sounds like a vacuum only you can hear the flesh passing through the suction. It produces a very uneven sound, a kind of choppy humming.
Even worse though was that it made Erin’s body shake. The force of the suction and the tube moving around inside of her, it was only natural. And yet it seemed so unnatural, the noises, the movements, everything. It just seemed like it should be such a delicate thing, a quiet gentle moment that was aware, that recognized everything what it was taking away. A moment, an entity that understood everything she was giving up. It should happen with a certain amount of reverence, I thought, for all the life that it gave and took away, all of life that spun around the room.
The vacuum continued for what seemed like forever. The walls reverberated with a buzzing noise, a kind of scream that filled our ears. Erin squeezed my hand a little tighter and I squeezed back trying to give her all the strength I could.

*
And then it was over. Just like that the room grew silent and Dr. Chandler said it was done. Erin was moved to a recovery area where she was to rest for about 20-30 minutes.
A blonde nurse came in wearing pink scrubs and wheeling a cart. She took Erin’s vitals and then gave her a pill called Ergonovine. She said it would help her uterus contract back into it’s regular, non-pregnant size and would reduce bleeding. The nurse gave her some Ergonovine tablets to take home and some anti-biotics. She said Erin needed to come back in a few weeks.
We didn’t really talk until later on, not until we were parked outsider her house did we say anything to one another.
“Do you think what I just did is wrong?” she asked, staring at me with the expression of a small child, “Do you think I killed my baby?”
I paused. I didn’t know how to answer her.
“I don’t know,” I said, “I know what you just did is something I could never do, but I don’t know how it ranks in the eyes of God, or if it is wrong, or if you will be punished,” I said. “Sometimes when the protesters talk to me, when they ask me how I could help someone kill their baby I don’t know what to say to them except that I feel like it wasn’t really me that told me to do this. I don’t know if I should say it was God who called me, and I’m not saying I’m like a protector of lost souls or anything. God no, but I guess what I’m saying is that whatever kind of job I am doing good or bad I’m there because of something outside of myself. I don’t know how that fits into the picture but it at least makes me feel like if God must love us all a lot to be there for somehow for every moment of our lives, even when we are doing things that maybe aren’t right.” I paused, “How do you feel about it?”
She looked up, “I don’t know either,” she said, “mostly I’m just relieved. And most of me just thinks that it was no big thing. I mean it wasn’t anything really. . . a wad of tissue, just an eyelash” She said looking up at me, “a grain of rice.”
With that she reached for the door handle and stepped out on the pavement. She turned toward me and her eyes were a little glazed. It wasn’t as simple as all that but I think in someway to her it was. To her it was about something else entirely, an empty picture frame waiting in her room or a row of perfect purple pansies lining a red brick walkway. She leaned in the door and said ‘thank you’ and ‘see you on Monday’.
I watched her walk towards her door as she stuffed the paper sack of medicine into her backpack. I wondered what it must feel like now that it was over. Was it like relief or regret, like waking up from a bad dream or maybe like slipping into one, or like the way you feel after a flu shot, that overwhelming rush because it is over. Maybe it felt like saying goodbye to a part of your soul. For Erin I thought it was probably a little bit of all these. Mostly though, I thought she probably felt like nothing at all.