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By the time Calico Lady brings us in some tea, I’ve spilled out the entire story. How Jake and I conceived a baby out of wedlock. Grandma Lucy doesn’t look too shocked at that part. I didn’t leave out any of the details about the fight that led me to Spokane, and I told her exactly what happened there.
The only thing I don’t mention is the dream. The dream where she appeared to me and prayed over the child I was about to abort. I just explained that I got to the women’s clinic and changed my mind in the exam room, and that was all.
And over tea, I tell her the part that terrifies me the most. “I think that maybe if I hadn’t had them put that stuff in me to get me ready for the abortion, she wouldn’t have gotten sick.”
“What makes you say that?” Grandma Lucy isn’t smiling anymore. Part of me’s afraid she’s going to stand up at any minute and kick me out of this peaceful home because I nearly killed my own child.
I swallow. Whoever said that confession is good for the soul was an idiot. I feel horrific having the ugliness of what I’ve done stare me in the face. But somehow I can’t stay silent. I have to tell this woman everything. When I’m done, part of me thinks she’ll transform into a bird or something and fly away, and then I’ll wake up and realize it was only another dream.
“They put this stuff in me before they started the procedure,” I tell her. “It’s supposed to make it easier for them to take the baby out. Well, I left the clinic and removed it myself, but I think that’s maybe why Natalie had all the problems she did.”
There’s still a hint of a frown on Grandma Lucy’s face. I knew it. She’s going to kick me out, scream that I’m a baby murderer and that I don’t deserve to be a mother.
“Tell me about what problems you mean,” is all she says.
I tell her about the pre-term labor. It was a few months after my trip to Spokane, but I still wonder if it’s related. I didn’t tell anyone about those sticks, not the doctor at Orchard Grove County, not the people in the NICU. Grandma Lucy and I are the only two living beings in the world who know.
“I was on bedrest,” I say. “I had to stay in the hospital four weeks, and even then she still came a little early.”
“And that’s why she has health problems now?” Grandma Lucy asks.
“No,” I answer. “At least, I don’t think so. She was fine at first. Everything looked perfect. But it was a really long labor, and she had bleeding on her brain, and ...”
I stop myself. I’m perfectly capable of telling a woman I’ve just met about how I went in to have an abortion, changed my mind, and was too ashamed to consult a doctor or anything after I removed the dilator sticks myself. I can tell her about the research I did online, about how I’m convinced that’s why I went into preterm labor and got put on bedrest to begin with. But I can’t tell her what happened in the delivery room that morning. Not in any sort of detail.
“She stopped breathing and got transferred to Seattle right away.” My story ends there.
Grandma Lucy’s rocking slightly in her chair. Her body is so relaxed I wonder if she’s about to fall asleep. Then Calico Lady enters the room with a tray full of dainty snacks and two flowery mugs she fills from a petite lily-patterned teapot.
I wait for something magical to happen now. For Grandma Lucy to quote a Bible verse that will wash off all the stains of my past. For her to pray for my child and tell me I can go home now because Natalie’s perfectly healed.
Instead, she smiles and says, “Have a snack, my dear. You look hungry.”