The Abortionist's Daughter (28 page)

“You’ll be okay,” she told her.

“I know,” whispered Julia.

“It’s just hard right now, I know.”

Julia nodded.

Diana squeezed her hand. “I’m going to leave now. Mary will take good care of you. You rest. I have to run over to the hospital, but I’ll be back to check on you in an hour or so.”

The procedure finished, Diana didn’t bother changing out of her scrubs but hurried out to the waiting room, where Steven leaped to his feet. Diana told him to fill her in on the way over to the hospital. They hurried outside into the dizzying storm. The snow was light and fluffy, but the cold wind burrowed deeply into her chest, and she began to trot. Steven struggled to keep up.

“She did it herself,” Steven panted.

“Where?”

“In the bathroom.”

“What did she use?”

“Chopsticks. And a bicycle pump.”

Good god, thought Diana. “Was she conscious?”

“No,” he said. “I called nine-one-one. They took her to the hospital.”

“Do her parents know?”

“I called them,” said Steven.

“And Scott? Does Scott know?”

“No,” he cried. “Scott’s in school. Is she going to be all right?”

“I don’t know,” said Diana. She now questioned her judgment in making Steven wait while she took care of Julia. Faced with the man’s hysteria, she’d operated on the assumption that whatever the problem, the doctors on call could take care of Rose. Now, though, she flashed on a worst-case scenario. Not every doctor could sew up a perforated uterus, and a half hour could make all the difference in the world in a case such as this.

“I just don’t get it,” said Steven. “How could she do this?”

Diana glanced at him. He has no clue, she thought. She pictured Rose at the O’Connell house, waking up every morning to their happy expectant faces. Grace before meals. Prayers before bed. She imagined them feeding her, weighing her, measuring her belly as it grew. “She’s fifteen, Steven. She’s a sophomore in high school and scared to death.”

“She wouldn’t have had to raise it,” Steven said. “I would have adopted it myself.”

Diana stepped out into the street and stopped traffic with her hand. “It’s not an art project, Steven,” she told him as they crossed over to the hospital. “It’s not something you just make and then hand over, like an ashtray. Look,” she said when they reached the curb. “It takes a certain kind of person to give up a baby, and maybe Rose wasn’t one of them.”

“I consider that a character flaw, then,” Steven said.

She looked at the man standing beside her—another member of the human race but a different species altogether.

“For you, it’s really black and white and nothing in between, isn’t it?” she marveled.

“I call it clarity.”

“And you know what I call it? Personal fascism.” She didn’t care if her words were extreme; nothing was ever going to open this man’s eyes. She sorely regretted now that she hadn’t made more of an effort to talk to Rose and find out what was really going on in her mind; if she had, maybe she’d have been able to foresee Rose’s change of heart before Rose locked herself in the bathroom with a bicycle pump.

They entered through an unmarked door that led directly into the emergency room, where a group of medical staff were clustered around a central desk watching one of the doctors juggle a hacky-sack with his heel from behind. When he saw Diana and Steven, he sent the little embroidered ball flying high and caught it in his left hand.

“She’s up in Surgery,” he told Diana gravely.

“Howie’s taking care of her,” added one of the nurses.

Howie Weinstein was the hospital’s chief gynecologist, an arrogant man who didn’t like anyone second-guessing his decisions—which, since his decisions were usually right, often infuriated her. Frank’s take was that she didn’t get along with Howie because they were cut from the same cloth, two blunt and outspoken doctors with robust egos. (
Robust
being Frank’s word, carefully chosen not to offend his wife.)

“Is he a good doctor?” Steven asked as they rode the elevator to the second floor.

Diana sighed. “He’s a great doctor, Steven. If anyone could take care of Rose besides me, it’s Howie Weinstein.” She didn’t mention that Howie Weinstein was always faxing her articles on new developments in late-stage abortions, FYI, or that when his son was accepted to Yale, he handed out cigars to everyone at the hospital, including Diana, who’d just that morning mailed off the deposit for Megan’s space at the university. No, Howie was great.

The doors opened, and they hurried down the hall to Surgery—where they were met by Howie Weinstein himself, still in his scrubs, two little round marks on the bridge of his nose where his glasses had been.

“You’re too late,” he said, wearily putting his glasses back on.

“Don’t tell me,” Diana warned.

“I had no choice.”

Diana slammed her fist against the wall.

“It was like Jell-O, Diana,” he said. “There was no place to suture. It’s a miracle she even got pregnant, with a uterus like that.”

“Why didn’t you page me?”

“There wasn’t time.”

“I’m right across the street!”

“She would have bled to death. Besides, you couldn’t have done anything. Trust me, Diana. There was nothing else to do. What are you doing here?” he asked Steven.

“I’m the grandfather,” replied Steven in a shaken voice. “What does this mean?” he asked Diana.

“He took out her uterus,” Diana told him.

“Whose grandfather?” Howie asked. “Rose’s?”

“No,” said Steven. “I’m the baby’s grandfather.”

Diana could see Howie’s mind working, and in a way she could never have imagined, she found herself feeling protective of Steven O’Connell—as though he had every right to be there and call himself the grandfather of the child that never was. Alliances were shifting by the minute. She felt like Alice herself, stepping back and forth through the looking glass.

“Do Rose’s parents know?” she asked Howie.

“Yes,” said Howie.

“How’d they take it?”

“How do you think?”

“Where are they now?”

“They’re in with Rose,” he said. As though guessing what Steven was about to do, he added, “I wouldn’t go in there if I were you.”

Diana took Steven aside. “He’s right,” she said. “Let me go. There’s a room down the hall. Wait there.”

Steven gazed at her with a lack of comprehension that she knew all too well from her years as a doctor, when there was bad news to give.

“Rose is alive,” she reminded him. “That’s the important thing.”

Steven nodded hungrily.

“Go wait. I won’t be long,” she told him.

—————

In the dim light of the recovery room, Diana approached Rose’s bed, which was surrounded by a dizzying array of IV poles and tubes. Amid the electronic jungle stood Rose’s parents. Jack’s tie was loosened, his shirtsleeves rolled up. Elaine looked tired with no lipstick.

Rose lay sleeping under a white cotton blanket. Wisps of hair strayed from the edges of her blue surgical bonnet. As Diana approached, Jack glanced up; his face stiffened, and he turned back to Rose. Elaine covered her face with her hands.

Diana glanced at the green lines blipping on the monitor and scanned a roll of data coming from the printer.

“I think she’s waking up,” said Elaine. “Her eyes kind of opened. She’s so pale, though.”

“She lost a lot of blood,” said Diana.

“And every so often the line wiggles around,” Elaine said. “There. See?”

“That’s normal too,” said Diana. “Did Dr. Weinstein explain things to you?”

Elaine reached out and tucked a wisp of hair back into the bonnet. “She can’t have children,” she whispered.

“He tried very hard to save her uterus,” Diana said. “It just wasn’t possible. She’s lucky to be alive.”

“Lucky,” Jack murmured.

“But he did save her ovaries,” Elaine noted.

“Her ovaries are fine,” said Diana. “So technically she can still have children.”

Again Jack said something under his breath.

“Using a surrogate,” Elaine added.

Diana nodded. She took Rose’s wrist in her hand and just held it, feeling the pulse. “And you won’t have to be thinking about hormone replacement,” she went on. “Still, I’m so very sorry.”

Jack looked up. “
Lucky.
Not exactly the word I would have chosen. You should have listened to us back in October.”

“Jack,” said Elaine.

“All it would have taken was a few well-chosen words,” said Jack.

“Honey,” said Elaine, “don’t go there.”

“I’ll go wherever I want right now,” said Jack, leveling a grim look at Diana. “You should have listened to us. We knew what was best for her.”

The clarity of hindsight, Diana wanted to say. But she knew better than to argue with a father holding vigil at his daughter’s bedside.

“Are you going to give her the happy news when she wakes up?” Jack said. “Or shall we?”

“Jack, don’t. I’m sorry,” Elaine said to Diana. “He’s so upset. We both are.”

“What kind of an abortion doctor are you,” Jack asked, “that you would let a fifteen-year-old girl go ahead with a pregnancy?”

“I don’t counsel people to have an abortion if they don’t want it,” said Diana.

“But she did want it. She was brainwashed by that family. You should have known. I could sue the shit out of you,” he said.

Of all the hurdles she’d faced as an abortion doctor, none had been as difficult for Diana as cultivating restraint. After the fresh tar incident last year, for instance, she’d wanted nothing so much as to hurl her gooey-soled clogs at the protesters. But she didn’t; prudence and professionalism prevailed; she walked on by without a word. After twenty years in the business, she’d learned a few tricks that helped her maintain her composure—to turn the other cheek, even if it was against her nature.

But there was something in Jack’s voice that made her prickle and flush. The day had started off badly, and things were still headed downhill.

Chill, Ma, she heard Megan warn.

“And you think you’d prevail?” she said.

“I don’t care. Because I could certainly make your life very, very unpleasant,” he said. “I could ruin your practice.”

“Jack, honey,” said Elaine.

“Did he pay you or something?” Jack asked.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Steven O’Connell. Did he pay you not to encourage Rose?”

“Is that a joke?”

“Or maybe there’s something going on between the two of you?”

“Excuse me,” said Diana
(Ma! shut up!),
“but who goes around with his dick hanging out every year at the ABA conference?”

Jack sprang up and grabbed Diana by both arms and snapped her head back. “You should have
done
something!” he shouted. “You’re supposed to keep girls
safe
! Our daughter almost
died
!” And with that he kicked a nearby chair over and stormed out of the recovery room.

Diana stood there, shaking. After a few moments she straightened her shoulders and glanced at Elaine, who had begun to weep.

“I’m sorry,” Diana said. “That was out of line.”

“You must take a lot of pleasure in hurting people,” Elaine said. “Do you treat your own family this way? Making comments like that? I feel sorry for them,” she said.

“Look,” Diana began, “I think we’re all—”

“Here our daughter’s just had an emergency hysterectomy, and you dare to talk to my husband like that. Do you have any sense of humanity at all? Oh my god,” she said. “You are a monster.”

Diana swallowed. She had been accused of being a monster many times before, but only by the zealots on the other side of the issue. Again everything seemed topsy-turvy. Frank, Megan, Steven, Rose’s parents, herself—nobody was behaving the way they should behave. Was she losing her mind?

“You get out,” Elaine said. “I don’t want you in this room. Dr. Weinstein is taking care of Rose. We don’t need you here. You’re just making things worse.”

Diana backed away. The degree of truth in Elaine’s words stung. She
was
making things worse. And for a moment all she could focus on were her mistakes—not just as a doctor but as a wife, a mother, a person. She had failed to sense Rose’s change of heart. She had failed to be honest with Megan about Mexico. She had failed to nurture along a marriage that might have come alive again. Even her decision to have Ben fifteen years ago seemed now like a horrific failure.

“That’s right,” said Elaine. “You can leave now. You can go. You can disappear off the face of this earth, for all I care.”

It was at that moment that Howie Weinstein came in. He glanced at the monitor and looked at the chart and put his hand on Elaine’s shoulder. “Everything looks good. She should be waking up any minute now.”

“Get her out of here,” Elaine murmured, holding Rose’s hand.

“Who?” asked a confused Dr. Weinstein.

But Elaine didn’t have to explain, because Diana had already fled the room.

—————

She didn’t remember that she was supposed to have had lunch with Frank until she was already in the pool, by which point it was four o’clock. The light was dim, but many houses in the neighborhood were already ablaze with gargantuan Christmas displays. Each year they got more and more ostentatious, to the point where Diana felt their neighborhood had become a suburban Las Vegas. She herself hadn’t put up any lights this year and didn’t miss it. Sometimes she wished she were Jewish so they could just do away with the Christmas hoopla.

She tugged at the bottom of her dark green suit and lowered herself into the water, which was cool and foamy and sent a shiver up through her neck. A steel bar jutted out from the front; Diana took hold of it, braced her feet up against the edge, and bounced lightly, stretching as the jets pummeled her chest. Slowly she felt herself begin to relax. She had poured herself a couple of shots of scotch when she got home, knowing it wasn’t the wisest thing but figuring that after the day’s events, even a swim wouldn’t calm her nerves. She knew it was against all rules but didn’t care. She was forty-seven and she knew her capacity for alcohol and she wasn’t going to drink enough to drown.

After a few minutes she let go, and began to swim.