The Mothers(65)

“What do you mean?” her father said. He placed a white pill on his tongue and flung his head back.

“You know.” She swirled around the buttons so she wouldn’t have to look at her father when she said the word. “Abortion.”

“Did someone tell you that?”

“No. No. I was just wondering.”

“No,” he said. “Never. She never would’ve done something like that. Did you think . . .” He paused, his eyes softening. “No, honey. We loved you. We always loved you.”

She should’ve felt glad, but she didn’t. She wished her mother had at least thought about it. A fleeting thought when she’d left the doctor and envisioned her own mother’s face. During a hushed phone call with the man she loved. When she’d called a clinic to make her appointment and hung up in tears, when she’d sat in the waiting room, holding her own hand. She could’ve been seconds away from doing it—it didn’t matter. She hated the thought of her mother not wanting her but it would’ve been better to look at her mother’s face in the mirror and know that they were alike.

—

THREE WEEKS AFTER he’d seen Nadia last, Luke squatted over his back steps, striking a match against the railing. Dave’s suggestion. Light a candle, he’d told Luke, the last time he called the helpline. Dave hadn’t said what type of candle. A scented candle like the ones in Luke’s mother’s bathroom, a tiny tea candle placed on restaurant tables, a thick red candle emblazoned with the Virgin Mary you found in the Mexican food aisle. A birthday candle, rainbow-striped and slender. Any type of candle would do, Dave had said, so Luke bought a pack of slender white candles. He sat on the back steps of the house, cupping his hands against the flame. It was supposed to bring closure, Dave had said. Peace. But as soon as he’d lit the candle, Luke only felt stressed. A light evening breeze rustled through the trees, and he hunched behind a shrub, trying to shelter the flame, suddenly responsible for guarding the fragile thing.

Dave was a counselor at the Family Life Center in downtown San Diego. Luke had found their flyer stuck in his windshield outside a bar a few weeks ago. Looking for real options? the yellow flyer asked, above a picture of a pregnant woman holding her head and a man next to her, staring off into the distance. It was the first pregnancy center flyer Luke had ever seen with a picture of a man on it. The others only held sad, alone women. On pregnancy center flyers, men were as absent in the midst of a surprise pregnancy as they were in real life. As absent as he’d been. He called the number, just to see what it was about. He told himself he’d hang up. But the on-duty counselor, Dave, started talking to him about the myth that only women suffer after abortions.

“Men suffer a unique type of loss,” Dave said. “Men struggle after losing their child to abortion because they’ve failed to perform the primary function of a father: protecting his family.”

Luke had never thought of it like that. He and Nadia hadn’t been a family—they were just two scared kids. But what if they had been? What if for a brief moment, they had been family, stitched together by the life they’d created? What did that make them now? Now Luke called the center every other evening. He hung up if anyone other than Dave answered. He’d told Dave about the boy at the baseball game, years ago. Dave didn’t judge him. It was normal, he’d said, for post-abortive fathers to feel grief. Once you had created a life, you would always be a father, no matter what happened to the child.

Luke fished his phone out of his pocket and dialed, careful to keep the candle lit.

“This you, Luke?” Dave asked.

“Yeah.”

“How’re you, buddy?”

“Fine.”

“Just ‘fine’?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” Dave cleared his throat. “Thought any more about coming into the center?”

“I can’t,” Luke said.

“It’ll help you, trust me, talking to someone face-to-face—it’s a lot better than over the phone. Sometimes you just need to see someone, know what I mean?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t bite. Promise.” Dave laughed. “And I got some books I can give you, if you come down. This one—” His voice strained, like he was reaching for something. “Great one, called A Father’s Heart. It’s by this guy named—”

“I gotta go,” Luke said.

“Hold on, pal. Don’t run off. I’ll just hold these for you when you’re ready, okay?”

“Okay.”

“So what’s on your mind?”

“I bought the candles,” Luke said.

“Great!” Dave said. “Light a candle. And close your eyes. Picture your child playing on a field at the feet of Jesus.”

Luke closed his eyes, the candle’s warmth flickering across his face. He tried to envision the scene Dave described, but he only saw Nadia, her smile, her hazel eyes—then he felt the burn. A glob of hot wax dripped onto his hand. He cringed, scraping the wax off against the step. Gravel and dirt clung to his skin. He should’ve put the candle inside something. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Behind him, the back door swung open and his wife leaned against the doorway, frowning.

“What’re you doing?” Aubrey said.