A Spark of Light(34)

Olive nodded. “Oh, George,” she said, pasting a wide, dizzy smile on her face. “I hate to be a bother … but … George?” She waited until he looked up. “I’m afraid that my age is getting the best of me. Some parts don’t work as well as they used to.”

He blinked at her, confused.

“I have to pee, dear,” she stated.

At that Izzy turned. “If Olive is going to the restroom then Joy has to go, too. It’s for medical reasons.”

“I have an idea,” Olive said. “Why don’t we all go now? If we get it out of the way, then we won’t be any more trouble.”

At that, George snorted.

A Hobson’s choice, that was what she had to offer George—a choice that wasn’t really a choice at all—like the executioner asking if you’d prefer to have your head severed from your body, or your body from your head. Olive smiled at George. “Would you like me to go first, or Miss Joy?”

George took a step forward. “You think I’m an idiot?” he said. “I’m not letting you go into the bathroom by yourself.”

“Well, I hardly think you’d care to watch,” she replied. She got to her feet. “I don’t really think I can wait much longer for you to decide, dear. The muscles in the urinary tract just aren’t what they used to be—”

“For God’s sake,” George cut her off. He stepped forward, grabbing her arm. “Come on.”

There was a small single-person restroom off the waiting room where they were all sitting. George dragged her toward it and turned on the light, then gave her a rough pat down. “Go,” he said, but when Olive tried to close the door, he pushed it back open. “If you don’t want to do it this way, you don’t get to do it at all.”

Olive considered arguing with him, but in the end she just nudged the door closed a bit. It remained open for all intents and purposes, but she was mostly shielded from the view of everyone.

Think, Olive. Think. She did not have a lot of time. She couldn’t stand on the toilet and try to send a signal through the small window. George would hear her scrambling, and could poke his head in at any time. She pulled up her skirt, wriggled her underpants down, and sat on the toilet seat.

Beside it was a small cart with specimen bottles and labels and a Sharpie, so that you could write your name on the plastic.

Olive grabbed the pen and unspooled the toilet paper.

There are six of us and one of him, she wrote across three of the squares. We need a plan. Thoughts?

She knew that whatever the others plotted, she would be at a disadvantage. But she also knew to look for a signal. And to act.

Olive pulled up her panties and flushed the toilet. She rolled the paper back up, with the writing carefully tucked in a way that it couldn’t be seen until it was unspooled. She washed her hands and opened the door and smiled at George. “There,” she said. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

—


WHEN OLIVE CAME OUT OF the bathroom, Joy stood up, letting herself be manhandled by that crazy asshole before she stepped inside. While she peed, she looked at the pad in her underpants, which was soaked but not soaked through, and this was a good thing since she didn’t have a replacement. Then she pulled the roll of toilet paper to ball it up in her hand.

Except, she didn’t.

She read.

Then she took the Sharpie, and began to write.

—


JANINE HAD HOPED THAT THE shooter would cut her a little slack. Forgo the pat down, or let her close the door. After all, they both believed in the same sanctity of life—even if he had a pretty bad track record with that at present. Instead, he treated her just like one of the other women.

Janine unraveled the toilet paper roll. She looked at the notes in different handwriting. Olive’s first statement, and then Joy: What if we jump him?

She could do one of two things, right now. She could take all the toilet tissue and flush it, sabotaging the work of the other women. Or she could admit that through a strange twist of fate, her goals had aligned with theirs.

Right now, Janine was not holding a sign with a picture of an unborn child on it. She was not praying for the mothers who were walking past her. She was the person being prayed for. On any given day, she could have told you that, inside this clinic, lives were at risk. Today, the life was hers.

She reached for the Sharpie. Trip him, she wrote. And go for the gun.

—


WHEN WREN WAS GROWING UP, she thought there was nothing worse than having a mother who had actually chosen a life that did not include her. Her mom still hit the high-water marks—birthday, Christmas—with a card and a present, usually something from Paris that was so not Wren’s style she buried it in the back of her closet, not having the heart to throw it away. Her mom had hinted that, now that Wren was older, maybe she wanted to come spend summers in France. Wren would have rather vacationed on the front lines of a war zone. She may have owed her mother for the nine months she carried her in her womb, but that was it.

On the other hand, if there was some divine power, He or She had made up for the loss of her mother by giving her a father who was there for her 200 percent. Unlike her friends, who were always complaining that their parents didn’t get them, Wren actually liked being in her dad’s company. He was the first person she texted when she got an A on a test she had been sure she failed. He told her, honestly, if a pair of jeans made her hips look wide. He taught her about the night sky.