Looking for Jane (42)
Dizzy with the pain, all Evelyn registers is the utter pandemonium in the room, the shouting and screams and rattling chains, the Speaker bellowing commands that go unheeded. The sudden dampening of the sounds as she’s hauled out of the gallery into the hallway. The relative quiet of the security office and the feel of the chair underneath her. The ache in her shoulder and head.
It isn’t long before she’s joined by a crowd of others, all the women who stood up to protest, and some of their male allies, too. She spots Paula among them. Everyone looks rather the worse for wear; collars are torn or sitting sideways, mascara is smeared, ties are crooked, hair has come down from carefully pinned coifs. Some of the women, like Evelyn, suffered injuries. Lips are bleeding and bare arms are blooming bruises.
The security guards shunt them all into the small office where Evelyn is still seated, and they bake in the heat for what feels like hours. Evelyn thinks her adrenaline should be wearing off by now, but the panic hasn’t set in the way the pain in her shoulder has. She’s still quaking with exhilaration at her own daring, and thinks wryly about what Tom’s reaction will be when she calls to tell him that she has, in fact, been arrested and needs to be bailed out of an Ottawa jail.
There’s much muttering and complaining in the holding room. “Our protest became a riot,” Paula says proudly. “Well done, girls!”
“But when are we going to get out of here?”
“Where are the others?”
“Do you think they’ve shut it down?”
“Did we do it?”
“Are they going to arrest us, or what?”
“I don’t think they have enough handcuffs…”
“They could borrow our chains!” Paula says.
There’s a chorus of appreciative chuckling before the door finally opens and a tall, burly man with no neck strides into the room. All heads turn in his direction.
He glares at them, his lower lip downturned like an angry bulldog’s. “I’ve never seen such madness in all my years here!” he barks. “You should be ashamed of yourselves. The Speaker’s closed the Chamber.”
Evelyn is proud to see all her fellow protesters meet his gaze with wide smiles. No one looks away. No one is backing down. It unnerves him, this huge presence of a man who takes pride in the fact that he can intimidate people. Evelyn can’t remember the last time she felt so good. She could spit fire if she wanted to.
The man’s Adam’s apple slides up and down his thick, clean-shaven throat. “Well, we can’t hold you all. Just get the hell out of this building within the next three minutes, or so help me God, you’re all under arrest.”
CHAPTER 13 Angela
FEBRUARY 2017
When she leaves the store, Angela takes the copy of The Jane Network with her for Tina. They spoke briefly on the phone when Angela first discovered it, and Tina asked for a closer inspection.
After dinner, they’re both delightfully full of fajitas and beer—Angela finally found a non-alcoholic one that she didn’t hate—and Angela digs the book out of her tote bag and hands it to Tina.
“Here,” Angela says to her wife, settling onto the couch with Grizzly. “I gave it a bit of a skim. I had no idea this piece of history existed.”
“The Jane Network,” Tina reads out. “Oh hey, this is Dr. Taylor’s book!”
Angela stares back, nonplussed. “Sorry?”
“No, I mean I know her. I’m sure it must be the same Evelyn Taylor. She teaches at the university.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, she gave my class a guest lecture, I don’t know… three years ago? It’s pretty well known among the faculty that she was part of an underground abortion group in the seventies and into the eighties, back before it was legalized.” Tina flips to the table of contents, her eyes sliding down the page beneath her reading glasses. “She studied under Morgentaler, eh? Wow.”
“I saw that. I’ve heard the name, but I don’t really know who he is,” Angela says.
“He’s the one who went to the Supreme Court to challenge the constitutionality of the abortion law in the eighties. He even went to jail a couple of times. He’s a pretty big deal.” Tina shakes her head. “I had no idea she learned the procedure from him. She still teaches it. I brought her in for one of our closed-door lectures to tell the students about her experience. They loved it. I think it sparked a bunch of rebels.”
Tina smiles and hands the book back to Angela, takes a sip of her beer. Candlelight from the coffee table glints off the brown glass.
“My book club was talking at our last meeting about how we should read some nonfiction this year,” Angela says, studying the black-and-white cover. “I’m thinking of suggesting this.”
“Do you think your book club girls would go for it?”
“Oh, for sure,” Angela says, nodding. “They’re a bunch of feminists; they’ll find it interesting. Might be a good one to use to ease us all into nonfiction.”
Tina’s gaze drops. Grizzly hops from Angela’s lap over to Tina’s.
“You okay, hun?” Angela asks.
Tina tilts her head from side to side like a metronome. “Yeah. I guess I just wonder if you should read it, like, right now.”