A Spark of Light(11)

It didn’t take long. Mama came out clutching a small packet on a string. She looped this around her neck and tucked it in under her dress, between her breasts. They went home, and that afternoon, Louie went to Mass with his grandmama and prayed that his mother had gotten whatever she needed, and that Jesus would forgive her for not going to Him instead.

One week later, it was so hot that Grandmama stayed at church between morning and evening Mass. Mama told Louie she was going to take a nap. Near dinnertime, Louie went to wake her up, but she didn’t answer at his knock. When he turned the knob he found his mother lying on the floor, a widening triangle of blood pooling between her legs. Her skin felt like marble, the only cool surface in the world.

—


THE OUTPOURING OF GOODWILL IN the aftermath of Mama’s death had given way to the whispers Louie heard when he passed folks in church, or walked down the street holding fast to his grandmother. Something about Mama and Mr. Bouffet, the mayor, who Louie knew only for his marshaling of the Mardi Gras parade with his pretty blond wife and matching blond daughters at his side. And something else about abortion: a word he had never heard before.

His grandmama would squeeze his hand to keep him from looking at the people who murmured behind their hands and stared.

She squeezed his hand a lot, those days.

She was squeezing now.

Dr. Louie Ward’s eyes flew open and he immediately struggled against his surroundings—the soft beep of a heart monitor, the snake of tubing in his IV. He didn’t feel pain in his leg, as he expected, but then if he was in a hospital he probably had some kind of nerve blocker. The only thing that hurt like hell was his hand, which was being clutched by a skinny girl with pink hair and a ring of hoops climbing the cartilage of her left ear. “Rachel?” he rasped, and her head flew up.

The administrative assistant at the clinic had pinched features that always reminded Louie of a badger. “I’m sorry, Dr. Ward,” she sobbed. “I’m so sorry.”

He glanced down at his leg, thinking for one panicked moment that perhaps it had been amputated, and that was the source of Rachel’s hysterics—but no, it was there, if swathed in batting like a cloud of cotton candy. Thank God for that nurse at the clinic. “Rachel,” he said, raising his voice over the sound of her weeping. “Rachel, I already feel like I was run over by a truck. Don’t give me a headache, too.”

But the girl showed no signs of quieting. He didn’t know her very well—he flew to many clinics around the country, and the staff often blurred with each other. He was pretty sure Rachel was a grad student at Jackson State. She worked part-time as what the antis called a “deathscort”—guiding women from the parking lot inside the clinic. She also helped Vonita, the clinic owner, with administrative work. There was so much to do at the Center that they all pitched in, wherever they had to.

“I’m sorry,” Rachel repeated, wiping her nose on her sleeve.

Louie was used to crying women. “You got nothing to be sorry about,” he said. “Unless your alter ego is a middle-aged white anti with a gun.”

“I ran, Dr. Ward.” Rachel mustered the courage to glance at him, but her gaze slid away again. “I’m a coward.”

He had not even known that she was in the building at the time the shooting began. Of course, she would have been up front, and he was in the rear in a procedure room. And naturally she wanted to believe she would have been a hero, when push came to shove. But you never knew what path you’d take until you got to that crossroads. Hadn’t Louie heard this a thousand times before, from patients who had come to the Center, who seemed shell-shocked to find themselves there, as if they’d awakened in someone else’s life?

“You’re alive to tell the story,” he said. “That’s what matters.” Louie was aware, even as he spoke, of the irony. He turned his own words over in his mind. Coal, with time and heat and pressure, will always become a diamond. But if you were freezing to death, which would you consider the gem?

—


I DIDN’T CLEAN THE HOUSE, Joy thought, as she unlocked the door of her apartment. Breakfast cereal had dried to a crust in a bowl on the kitchen table; there were empty glasses on the coffee table in front of the television; a bra dangled from the arm of the couch. “The place is a mess,” she apologized to Janine.

Then again, Joy had not expected to bring home an anti-abortion activist on the day she went to terminate her own pregnancy.

When the door opened, there was a scatter of mail on the floor. Joy started to bend down gingerly but Janine moved faster. “Let me,” she said.

Let me drive you home.

Let me get you settled.

Janine had taken over like a mother hen, which was odd given that they were probably close to the same age. She watched Janine gather the bill and flyers. “Perry,” Janine said, and she offered a small smile. “I didn’t know your last name.”

Joy looked at her. “Same.”

“DeGuerre,” Janine answered. She held out her hand. “Nice to meet you. Officially.”

Joy smiled awkwardly, uncomfortable with the forced intimacy. All Joy really wanted to do was strip down, get into her pajamas and fuzzy socks, have a glass of wine, and cry.

Janine set the mail on the kitchen table and turned. “What can I get you? Are you hungry? Thirsty? How about some tea? She paused. “Do you have tea?”