I've noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already
been born.
RONALD REAGAN
will hadn't expected a lot of conversation on the drive home, but the silence in the car nearly crushed him. He drove on, his knuckles white on the steering wheel, his mind racing as fast as the car engine but going nowhere except in circles.
Merit, meanwhile, pressed her nose to the side window as the scenery flashed by.
What was there to talk about? Besides the new baby, and the cancer treatments, and whether Merit would live another year, and what to tell the girls, and how, and when. Besides what would become of the resort, and how to tell people in Kokanee Cove.
Other than that, there was nothing to say, so he squinted at the road ahead, trying to keep silent tears from blinding his vision and their Land Rover from wandering into the oncoming lane.
Their dreams together, this new place, this new life…gone, gone, gone.
As they took the lake cutoff road, Will could taste blood, and he realized he was biting his lip. The visit to Dr. McCauley's had numbed all feelings, all pain.
Gravel sprayed as he hit the shoulder going around a curve.
“Will!” Merit warned him. “Slow down.”
“Or else what?” He straightened out the car, and they flashed past a road sign telling them Kokanee Cove lay nine miles ahead. What mattered anymore? After what they'd been told, what really mattered?
“Please.” She rested a hand on his knee.
He sighed and let the car coast down to the speed limit.
“You think I made the wrong decision?” she asked. “I'm sorry we didn't have a. chance to talk it through.”
“We didn't, did we.”
“I just wanted you to say something, and then there she was, with the pen and that form and everything. I guess it was just my gut reaction.”
“I know. I'm sorry I didn't…the words were just stuck, you know?”
She looked at him. “You think I should have signed the form, had the abortion, and started the treatment?”
He didn't answer right away, didn't even know if it was a serious question.
The highway widened in the flatlands above their lake, where an old barn stood sentinel at the edge of a hay field framed in green hills. The Idaho State Historical Society had erected a historical marker here about one of the gold rush-era towns that had lured settlers to the region.
He'd once thought it was a beautiful spot. Now he knew he'd better pull over there or risk running into oncoming traffic. For the briefest moment he considered it. Then just as suddenly, he stomped on the brakes and raked the roadside gravel in a sliding skid.
“Will!”
He stared at the dead, empty barn, a blurred picture of what his life had suddenly become.
“Answer me, Will. There was no choice in my mind. But do you think I made i:he wrong decision?”
He rubbed his temples and took a deep, jagged breath, holding on to the sobs as long as he could before giving in. Then he could only close his eyes and bury his head in her lap, shaking and sobbing like he hadn't since he was a little boy.
She held him close, adding tears of her own. He didn't know how long the waves would continue, and he didn't know if the little life inside her could hear, but he knew that with his ear against her stomach, he could almost feel the pulse his wife now shared.
He finally sat up, wiping his face. He still hadn't answered her question.
“I…I would give anything to trade places with you right now, Merit. If God had any sense of justice, He would let me die for you.”
The words sounded as cheesy coming from him as they did on daytime television, but he meant every pain-filled word.
Merit raised a hand to her cheek and shook her head. “Don't talk like that about God, Will. Please.”
“You asked me.” He shrugged. The pain swept over him again like a tide that had nowhere to go but back and forth over the same wound, and it stung more than brine ever could. “I can't make myself say that you're doing the right thing. I'm sorry. I just can't.”
“But the baby.” Once more the pleading in her eyes melted his spirit. “Dr. McCauley kept calling it a fetus, but I know better. It's our baby, Will. Maybe it's still tiny, but it's our baby, no matter what they try to call him. Or her.”
“I know it's our baby.” He cradled her glistening cheek in his hand. “I know you're doing what you think is right. What can I say? You've always been the better parent, the better Christian than me. Don't you think?”
He knew it was a question she could never really answer. Which one of them had a clearer connection to heaven? Who was more spiritual? Right now, though, he thought he knew the answer.
“I never thought that, Will.”
“I know you didn't. That's not what I mean.”
“What do you mean?”
He raised his hands. “I don't know. But how can I be your husband and not do everything I can to protect you? How can I just sit here and say, ‘Yeah, sure, you have an aggressive case of cancer that's going to kill you in a matter of months. But we don't have to do anything about it, we're not going to do anything about it, and I'm okay with it’? Well, I am not okay with it. I am not okay with this decision, Merit.”
They stared at the meadow as five minutes passed, then ten. With their arms around each other, they watched a fawn and it's mother tentatively step into the open and sniff the breeze. The doe looked suspiciously at the vehicle, then flicked her large white tail into the air and disappeared once more into the woods, youngster in tow.
Couldn't it be that simple? Just hide in the woods? If only.
Once in a while, Will kissed away Merit's tears, though he knew in the end it could make no difference—like trying to kiss away the raindrops before an oncoming thunderstorm. The flood had already come upon them, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Once his wife made a decision, she would dig in her heels and never turn back. It was one of the things he loved about her. And one of the things he now hated as well.
“You're not going to try to make me change my mind?” Merit asked, her voice wavering.
“Every day,” he snapped, but he knew he couldn't. He straightened and took the wheel once more. “I mean, no.”
She waited for him to explain.
“I might pray you'll change your mind,” he said, “but I'm not sure God is in the listening mood.”
“Will, don't—”
“I told the doctor it was your decision, and it is. You know how I feel about it, but…” He shook his head, searching for a way to explain.
“Promise me one thing?” Merit asked. She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue from her purse.
He shook his head. “I'm not sure I can promise anything anymore. I'm sorry. I'm just…out of promises.”
“Okay, but all I'm asking right now is that you don't tell the girls yet. We have to figure out a way to break it to them. And maybe we don't have all the facts yet, either.”
He groaned. “They're going to have to find out sooner or later. And later is—
“I know, I know. Just not now. Not today. They were so excited about having a little brother. They're not ready for this yet.”
“And you think we are?”
He wished he hadn't said it and tried to restart the car, then jumped when it made a horrible metal-grinding screech. The motor had already been running. He hadn't turned it off.
“It's not about us, Will.”
“But do you really want them to think everything's fine and dandy?” He pulled back onto the lake access road, then realized he hadn't checked for traffic. “Do you really want them to think everything's just like it always was? Because the more we wait, the harder it's going to be for everybody. You know that.”
It was her turn not to answer. Her look begged him—please—and he could only nod his feeble yes as they crested the ridge and neared Kokanee Cove. What else could he say to her? He knew it wouldn't matter much what he said or did not say. The kids would know, soon enough.
And then no amount of pretending would hold off the storm descending to sweep away the fragments of their once-perfect life.