CHAPTER 13 Angela 
FEBRUARY 2017
When she leaves the store, Angela takes the copy of The Jane Network with her for Tina. They spoke briefly on the phone when Angela first discovered it, and Tina asked for a closer inspection.
After dinner, they’re both delightfully full of fajitas and beer—Angela finally found a non-alcoholic one that she didn’t hate—and Angela digs the book out of her tote bag and hands it to Tina.
“Here,” Angela says to her wife, settling onto the couch with Grizzly. “I gave it a bit of a skim. I had no idea this piece of history existed.”
“The Jane Network,” Tina reads out. “Oh hey, this is Dr. Taylor’s book!”
Angela stares back, nonplussed. “Sorry?”
“No, I mean I know her. I’m sure it must be the same Evelyn Taylor. She teaches at the university.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, she gave my class a guest lecture, I don’t know… three years ago? It’s pretty well known among the faculty that she was part of an underground abortion group in the seventies and into the eighties, back before it was legalized.” Tina flips to the table of contents, her eyes sliding down the page beneath her reading glasses. “She studied under Morgentaler, eh? Wow.”
“I saw that. I’ve heard the name, but I don’t really know who he is,” Angela says.
“He’s the one who went to the Supreme Court to challenge the constitutionality of the abortion law in the eighties. He even went to jail a couple of times. He’s a pretty big deal.” Tina shakes her head. “I had no idea she learned the procedure from him. She still teaches it. I brought her in for one of our closed-door lectures to tell the students about her experience. They loved it. I think it sparked a bunch of rebels.”
Tina smiles and hands the book back to Angela, takes a sip of her beer. Candlelight from the coffee table glints off the brown glass.
“My book club was talking at our last meeting about how we should read some nonfiction this year,” Angela says, studying the black-and-white cover. “I’m thinking of suggesting this.”
“Do you think your book club girls would go for it?”
“Oh, for sure,” Angela says, nodding. “They’re a bunch of feminists; they’ll find it interesting. Might be a good one to use to ease us all into nonfiction.”
Tina’s gaze drops. Grizzly hops from Angela’s lap over to Tina’s.
“You okay, hun?” Angela asks.
Tina tilts her head from side to side like a metronome. “Yeah. I guess I just wonder if you should read it, like, right now.”
Angela frowns. “What do you mean?”
Tina sighs. “To be blunt, I just mean do you really want to read a book about abortion while you’re waiting to find out if you’re pregnant? Now’s probably not a great time to, you know…”
“Revisit that particular trauma?” Angela asks, meeting her wife’s eyes.
“Yes.”
Angela considers this for a moment. “Well, yeah. Maybe you’re right. I’ll hold off a bit. But on that note, I was actually thinking about doing a test. I know it’s a bit early, but…”
With every fertility procedure, she’s found it almost impossible to wait until after her expected period to take a pregnancy test. She knows she should wait, knows there likely isn’t enough hormone in her system to register on the at-home tests, and that she might get a false negative that will send her spiraling. She had an early positive test once, too, but still got her period a few days later. After that, she swore she wouldn’t test early, but her resolve hasn’t held.
“You’re just a couple of days off now, right?” Tina asks.
“Yeah.”
“All right.” She smiles. “Let’s do it.”
Fifteen minutes later, the two of them are squeezed into the tiny apartment bathroom with the pregnancy test resting on the counter. Angela lets her breath out in a guttural growl as Tina sets the timer on her phone for three minutes.
They wait in silence, Angela perched on the edge of the toilet, Tina leaning against the wall across from her. Both are fixated on the tile floor, trying to keep their eyes off the little window on the test that will determine what happens next.
Ten seconds to go.
“Remember, it’s still early,” Tina reminds her.
“I know.”
“We’ll test again in a few days.”
“I know.”
The buzzer goes off on Tina’s phone and they both startle. Angela snatches the test from the countertop, heart hammering.
And there it is: if she turns it into the light just the right way… the faintest blue line. But it’s there. It’s there.
“T,” Angela says, handing it to her wife with a shaky hand. “Look.”
Tina has to squint a little, but her face breaks into a grin.
“You see it, too? I’m not dreaming?”
Tina wraps her arms around Angela, plants a kiss on her forehead. They hold each other under the harsh light of the old halogen light bulbs, the ones Angela usually hates because they highlight every little wrinkle and age spot, cast the most unappealing version of her face. But today those normally unkind lights dug deep to reveal that faint blue line. The bulbs glow over their heads—perhaps not so unkind after all—as tears slip down their cheeks. They’ll cling to that little blue line of hope until they’re forced to let go.
A week later, Angela and Tina get off the subway and weave themselves in with the crush of other commuters climbing the slushy, slippery cement stairs up to the street level. They’re meeting with their ob-gyn today for the results of the blood test Angela took three days ago, which will—hopefully—confirm the pregnancy. Angela took Tina’s advice and held off on starting The Jane Network until they knew more.
They arrive at the clinic ten minutes early and check in with the receptionist in bubble-gum-pink scrubs at the front desk. “It’s been six months since you updated your emergency contact,” the receptionist says, eyes on her computer screen.
“Oh yeah, sure. It’s still my wife, Tina.”
“Same last name?” the receptionist asks.
“No, she’s Hobbs and I’m Creighton.”
“Okay, great, thank you. Just have a seat and the nurse will come get you in a moment.”
Tina hangs their coats up on a spindly wooden rack and they sit down on the scratchy gray fabric chairs in the packed waiting room. They’re called in twenty minutes later.
Their ob-gyn, Dr. Singh, breezes through the door of the exam room in her green scrubs.
“Hi, Angela, Tina.” She smiles. “How are you both doing today?”
“We’re a bit nervous,” Angela says.
“Like always,” Tina adds.
“Well, I’ll get straight to the point: I have some very good news for you. You are pregnant.”
Tina and Angela’s faces crack into grins.
“We got a decent reading on the HCG in your system, Angela. We have good reason to be optimistic. Now, your iron was a bit low, so I’m going to put you on a supplement to get those levels back up where I’d like them to be, but beyond that, as always, just take it really easy over the next while. No strenuous activity.”
Angela nods. “I know. Thanks.”
“I know this has been a long road for you both,” Dr. Singh says, looking at them each in turn. “It’s not easy, but I’m confident we’ll get there.”
A lump forms in Angela’s throat. “Thanks, Dr. Singh.”
“Before you go, I’ll just get you to give us a urine sample, Angela, and then you can head out. I’ll see you again in a few weeks for your checkup.”
They both nod and smile again as Dr. Singh hands Angela the plastic cup.
“And hey,” she adds, turning back to face them on her way out the door. “Congratulations, you two.”
Tina has planned an elaborate celebratory meal for them back at home, but they call their parents to relay the news as soon as they set foot in the door. Their families have ridden this damn roller coaster right along with them, so they keep their tone cautiously optimistic, but it’s a relief to be able to deliver some good news after their tragedy a couple of months ago.
As her parents’ only child, Angela is the only one who might be able to deliver them grandchildren. Her parents have never pushed the matter, but she knows they’re waiting on pins and needles just like she and Tina are. She called them first, and could hear the excitement in their voices, though they did their best to mirror Angela’s reserved optimism.
She also phoned Sheila, whom she has kept in the loop since the start of their fertility process. Sheila was just a teenager when she gave Angela up for adoption. She isn’t even sure who Angela’s biological father is; it could be one of two men, but neither Sheila or Angela has ever pursued them. Sheila never wanted to be a mom, and certainly not so young. She’s stayed single most of her adult life, preferring the flexibility afforded by fewer familial attachments. She was happy to reconnect with Angela, though, when Angela set out to find her. It was a little tricky to navigate at first, but they’ve developed a sisterly sort of relationship that works for them both without causing any tension between Angela and her mom. Angela hopes her birth mother will fill a role for her baby somewhere between an aunt and a grandma.
After they’ve made the calls, Tina good-naturedly orders Angela to lie down on the couch and rest while she cooks dinner.
“I certainly can’t argue with that,” Angela says, propping her feet up on the couch cushions and scooping Grizzly up into her lap. Tina kisses her for the twenty-seventh time that day. Once she drifts off into the kitchen, Angela pulls out her phone.
Same last name?
The receptionist’s words are niggling at Angela, and she feels stupid for the oversight. The past few weeks she’s been trying to find a woman named Nancy Mitchell, but it’s entirely possible she has a different last name now, if she ever married. Angela’s first thought is to search the classifieds in 1980s or ’90s editions of the major Toronto newspapers and see if she can find any marriage announcements for Nancy Mitchells.
Angela sips her drink and lets the white noise of sizzling garlic drift along underneath the excited current of her thoughts. She uses Tina’s credentials to log in to the university library’s archive system, then navigates to the newspaper records. They have everything from 1980 onward in electronic format. It’s unlikely Nancy was married before 1980, but it’s possible. This is a start, at any rate. She isolates the classifieds from 1980 to 1999 and types in Nancy and Mitchell.
There are four hits. Two are unrelated news articles containing those names. One is a birth announcement from 1981, celebrating a baby girl born to a couple named Mitchell and Nancy Reynolds. The other is a marriage announcement from February 1986.
Mr. and Mrs. William and Frances Mitchell are pleased to announce the marriage of their daughter Nancy Eleanor to Mr. Michael James Birch.
“Birch. Nancy Birch… And Frances Mitchell. Got you.” With a tingle of satisfaction, Angela immediately opens her Facebook app. She copies the same message she’s been sending to the Nancy Mitchells, then enters the name Nancy Birch into the search box. It comes back with several hits. Once again, she sends the message to all the women who look to be about the right age, then sits back in the squishy couch cushion and pulls Grizzly close. He purrs into her neck, and Angela buries her face in his silky, glossy fur, feeling happier than she has in months.