Annie insisted we could sneak out of the house this morning and make it to the Parenthood Clinic downtown without our parents finding out. I didn’t have a better idea so here I am, rolling out of bed at 5:45 AM so we can get to the clinic when they open at 7:00 AM.
“Are you OK?” I whisper to Annie as we brush our teeth. We filled cups with water before bed so we wouldn’t have to run the sink for too long and alert Mom or Dad that we’re up and on the move.
Annie swishes water around her mouth, spits, and shrugs. Her grey pallor and darkly underlined eyes tell me she’s not.
I tiptoe downstairs and leave a note on the kitchen table saying Annie and I are “hanging out.” Mom should be so thrilled I got Annie out of the house that she won’t obsess about where we are. Hopefully.
A minute later Annie joins me in the kitchen. With a nod we unlock the patio door since it doesn’t squeak like the front one and sneak out to the backyard. I barely exhale until we’re safely around the corner and the #48 bus rumbles down the street. The bus spits exhaust into our faces as it breaks to a halt, and we climb on board, me behind Annie, the only ones at the bus stop in town.
We flop into a pair of hard seats. Annie stares out the window as the bus heads past the high school and out of town. Soon her head bobs and rests against my shoulder. I’m left to count the stops on my own to make sure we get off at the right place. Twenty minutes pass, maybe that many miles from home. The neighborhoods become drearier with more and more boarded up storefronts, and the number of people wandering the streets grows.
It’s not like I haven’t been to the city before, but it’s always been with Mom or Dad or Kasey’s family, and we’ve gone to places like the science museum or indie art gallery or concert hall. Places bright and open.
I wish we could’ve gone to the clinic in the nearby suburb, but it’s too close by. We can’t risk running into anyone we know and here in the city we won’t.
“Annie.” I nudge her awake at the next stop. “We’re almost there.”
Annie shudders when she lifts her head, like the whole expedition is overwhelming. I feel the same way; I just need to be the one to hold us together.
“Come on,” I say as the bus brakes. I lead the way down the aisle past other riders reading books, listening to music, or dozing, and wonder if they guess why we’re here. We step into the bright sunlight, right across from a brick building that looks like a converted post office.
Annie clutches her purse to her stomach like a shield between herself and the world.
We cross the street silently and wait beside the glass doors until a woman unlocks them precisely at seven o’clock.
“Welcome, ladies,” she says, holding the door open for us. Her bright pink lipstick is shocking against her dark skin, yet it matches her lively smile.
Annie enters first, gripping her purse so tightly that her knuckles are white. That’s when it hits me: I’ve never seen my sister so scared. Not when she was called names in elementary school, not when she gave a speech on international adoptions at a town board meeting, not when she told Mom she was pregnant.
The reception area is covered with a worn carpet. Polished wooden tables sit in the corners of the room. Besides a series of pamphlets with titles like, “If You’re Ready for Sex, Be Ready for What’s Next,” there are glossy magazines and well-loved picture books to kill the time. The room smells like paper and antiseptic, not that different from our dentist’s office.
Too bad I also hate the dentist.
I stand awkwardly by the reception window, slightly behind my sister, until the woman who unlocked the doors returns to the desk.
“Do you have an appointment?” she asks.
“No,” Annie says. It comes out a whisper.
“Do one or both of you need to see the doctor?”
“Just me,” Annie says, slightly louder.
“I’ll need you to fill out these forms.” The woman attaches three sheets of paper to a clipboard and pushes it under the slot in the window.
It’s as if Annie’s hands are melded to her purse.
“Annie?” I say.
She blinks at me.
I snatch the clipboard and thrust it into Annie’s hands. The pen swings from a string and taps Annie in the belly.
“Come on.”
She bites her lip and nods, finally moving to one of the chairs.
“The doctor will be with you shortly,” the woman says.
“Thanks,” I say, and from the fake smile the receptionist give me, it’s clear I’m out of my league here. No wonder Annie cut me out of her life.
Annie finally snaps out of her zombieness and perches on the edge of her chair with the clipboard on her lap and pen poised to write. I scan the form over her shoulder.
What is the purpose of your visit?
How many sexual partners have you had?
Are you the victim of sexual abuse?
If you are under 18, does your parent/guardian know why you are here?
Annie scratches in some answers, crosses her legs, uncrosses her legs, crosses her ankles, and shakes her foot back and forth.
“I feel like I’m going to throw up,” she says, her voice trembling like her foot.
I’m more than out of my league: I’m out of my solar system. “You’ll be all right. The bathroom’s right over there.”
“I don’t know if I can do it,” Annie whispers, staring at nothing.
A chill tickles down my spine, one that I don’t know how to handle except to wait it out.
“Annie?” a nurse calls.
Annie stands and disappears through a glass door, her small body looking smaller than ever despite the baby growing inside her.
Ten minutes pass.
I flip through Parenting magazine. It will be such a relief when Annie’s no longer pregnant. (Won’t it? Could Annie be a good mother? Could I be a great aunt?)
Twenty minutes pass.
A young mother with three little kids tries to get them all to sit still and listen to her read a picture book. I listen, too. She’s not very good at doing the characters’ voices.
Thirty minutes pass.
I use the bathroom. I can’t wait for the secrets to be done, to not have to lie to Devon, to not have to keep Annie and Harris from each other because there will be nothing to bond them anymore.
Forty minutes pass.
I check my cell phone. No calls from Mom, thank god. She’s probably attempting to give us some sisterly space.
At the forty-five minute mark, Annie appears. Gone are her worried eyes and puckered cheeks. She practically skips through the waiting room.
“Let’s go,” she says to me and flits out the door. Seriously, it’s like her feet are on air.
I rush to catch up. Any other time this would’ve been the normal Annie, the Annie of before. Now I ask her, “Are you OK?”
“I’m fine,” she says with a hint of “why wouldn’t I be?”
We cross the street and stand a few feet away from the bus stop bench where a man sleeps. Annie hugs me like he’s not even there.
“Thanks so much for coming with me,” she says.
I’m startled but hug her back. Awkwardly. This is the Annie of before before, but I’m so surprised I can’t be happy about it. When she backs away I ask, “What happened with the doctor?”
She does a little twirl and her skirt floats around her. “I’m going to have this baby.”
It feels like a brick whams me in the stomach. “What? Why?” I’m so loud the drunk guy mumbles in his sleep.
“I figured it out. It all makes sense now,” she says.
My ears must be smoking, like my brain is deep-frying in confusion.
“A counselor came into the examining room after the doctor. She asked if I wanted an abortion for my own reasons. No one else’s.” Annie’s words come out faster and faster. “I thought since Harris didn’t want anything to do with the baby, there was no reason for me to want it either. I thought he was all older and wiser and knew something I didn’t, which is total crap, you know?”
I could’ve told her that.
“The counselor said that just because a baby’s father might not want it, that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t care about it either. It means I’m free to make my own decision about what to do. Suddenly, it was so clear, Mel!” Annie grabs my arms.
Oh my god, I’m going to be an aunt.
Relief. Fear. Excitement. Resentment. They all spin through my body.
“I need to have this baby and let a couple adopt it. Like karma!”
“Karma?” I stutter. Like that, I’m not an aunt anymore. Annie’s not a mother.
Relief. Fear. Excitement. Resentment. They continue to spin through me, now for a different reason.
“Yes!” she says, not deterred by my inability to form a sentence. “My birth parents gave me up for adoption to make Mom and Dad happy, and now I’m meant to give this baby up for adoption to make another couple happy. It makes total sense!”
I literally shake my head to get it back in working order. “Wait, what about Justine and everyone at school? I thought they’d know about Harris and get him in trouble if it came out that you’re pregnant.”
“Justine won’t have any proof that it was Harris as long as no one says anything about him.” She sucks me into her gaze and doesn’t blink, even in the bright sun. “Make sure you keep him a secret. From everyone. We’ll be fine.”
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I have been.”
Annie tosses back her hair as the bus grunts down the street toward our stop. “Then we have nothing to worry about.”