Narrative Essay On Abortion

She thought about it a lot, even almost a year after she had Landon. She’d look at his white milky skin, smooth like pudding or a snail’s slippery body, his blue eyes that gaped open at everything, a nearly invisible spider web dangling above her head, the red blinking light on the fire alarm in his bedroom, and she’d think about how she hadn't wanted this child. No matter how small and precious he had become. She had wished and prayed the fetus away. Most haunting, though, were her steps away from an abortion. This was the memory she had, looking at her blue-eyed child most mornings.
When her period was three weeks late, she left work early, bought a three-dollar pregnancy test at the local pharmacy and tried disguising herself as she stood before the cashier, a black baggy sweatshirt hanging over her still thin body, the fluffy hood up around her head. Lindsay knew she looked pale too, her skin a horrible, sickly tint. This could help, she thought, but the cashier, a
friend of her mother’s, smiled a tight lipped, fake smile, asked, Do you want a bag, Lindsay? and she almost barfed right there, spraying the service bell, the clean white counter and the woman's passive judgement. Her mother ran an at home day care and Lindsay slipped inside the house as the children played duck duck goose in the backyard.
It was almost spring. That warm weather a real pleasure after one of the coldest, but snowless winters in Pennsylvania. She couldn't see them, but could hear their squeals and her mother’s slow pronunciation of the words. Duucck, duuuuuck, duuuuuck, GOOSE! She sat on the toilet, closed her eyes, pissed on the stick, couldn't bring herself to look right away because she concentrated on the children outside. The irony they provided was distracting. Most of them were laughing, but someone was crying and she listened for her mother’s calming, chamomile voice as she tried to fix the sad one. And Lindsay didn’t even need to look then, she just knew. She knew what the test would inform her, her life and at times hopeful future falling into a pile at her feet, the remains sad segments of thick cement someone would sweep up and throw away. All she had hoped for now
invisible.
She thought of River, dead, but fucking him in his green beat-up Corolla, the bumper painted an orange rust. Bile swirled below, more taunting than in the pharmacy. She imagined him alive, hearing she was pregnant. Happiness would not be something he’d feel. She wondered if he had ever even felt this, in his lifetime, especially after he was home from Afghanistan. She blinked the thought away and looked at the plastic stick. Finally. That stupid pink circle smiled up at her and she pushed herself off the toilet, landed on the cool tile floor, her pants and underwear still around her ankles.
What the actual fuck, is what she thought and realized how pathetic it all was-- dramatically falling off the toilet-- waiting for what? For the fetus to grow, to come and ruin her life? No. She sat up. Stood, pulling her pants up. She walked outside and stood there before anyone noticed her. The air a little wet, smelling damp and grassy. Her mother had grass stains on her knees and was on her way to standing, this unavoidable smile on her face. The kids, only five of them since it was a Saturday, brought their eyes to Lindsay. They stared like she was the boogie monster. With frightened pouts, they slid behind her mother. Lindsay had not noticed her eyes shaking, her panicked breathing until now. Her mother looked up to what the kids saw, said her daughter's name quietly, then asked if she was alright.
I’m fine, Lindsay said. Got out of work early. It was slow at Cleary's .
Her mother nodded, perhaps thinking this was a lie, since Cleary's, the daytime diner, the night time bar, were busiest on Saturdays.
I need to run an errand, Lindsay said next. Can I borrow your car?
And perhaps her mother didn't want to deal with her teenage weirdness then and pry for more because she nodded happily, told her the keys were on the counter.

So she went, the only abortion clinic she knew of, heard of, in Scranton, almost an hour away from Hanford. She parked the car a block away, walked slowly up the sidewalk of the clinic, thinking about how she pictured it: a bright white, shiny modern building with confident women lounging on the benches outside, some nonchalantly opening the doors and entering like they were going into the supermarket or Forever Twenty One. But that was not what it was like. The building was shit brown. A lonely looking place, like a run down school that sat helplessly on a rotting piece of polluted land. She didn't see young women draping like jewelry outside on the benches either. But she was almost at the door and someone stood up from sitting on the curb. The woman wore a red turtleneck, despite the warm weather. She looked like she was too hot, her cheeks flushed, the patch of skin before her upper lip wet. She looked her mother's age and wore the same dorky sunglasses she did when the sun was bright and overwhelming. The woman adjusted her stance so her legs were wide and sturdy. She brought her hands up that held a sign: Babies are murdered here.
Lindsay took a step back. She read the sign for the fifth time. The lady swallowed, pulled with her right hand at the turtleneck that had her in a headlock. You going in there? she asked.
And that's all Lindsay could take. She shook her head, turned around, pictured River’s tight, muscular thighs, his forest green eyes, his wispy, thin hair. What kind of human did they make? Would it look like him, be like him, was it already pinching her insides, begging her to stop? It's father was gone, now she had to do this?
Back in the car, her blood froze. She shook and cried and seriously thought about driving her mother's car off the nearest bridge. When she got back, the kids were gone, their small house quiet and for once not too crowded. She rushed to the bathroom, closed the door on her mother who was at her heels asking her what was wrong, and finally emptied everything inside her. Lindsay hovered her face above the mess, breathing in the rotten smell of mashed up food and closed her eyes and knew she'd have the baby. But she'd keep all the details, all the information to herself.