Red Clocks(54)

Shut up, she tells her monkey mind. Please shut up, you picker of nits, presser of bruises, counter of losses, fearer of failures, collector of grievances future and past.

At the kitchen table she opens her notebook to the For which I am grateful page. Adds to the list: 28. Two working legs

29. Two working hands 30. Two working eyes

31. The ocean

32. Penny on Sunday nights

33. Didier in the teachers’ lounge 34.

But fuck this shitty list. She’s sick of being grateful. Why the fuck should she be grateful? She is angry—at the amendment laws, the agencies, Dr. Kalbfleisch, her ovaries, the married couples, the term-house procedures. At Mattie for getting pregnant at the drop of a trilby. At Archie for dying. At their mother for dying. At Roberta Louise Stephens for trying so hard.

Rips the gratitude list out of her notebook, lights it in the sink with a match. She hasn’t yet fixed the smoke alarm.

Mattie told her mother the conference was in Vancouver. She could have said Portland or Seattle.

By now she will have reached the border. If she manages to get across, manages to find the clinic, manages to produce a convincing Canadian ID, the abortion will happen tomorrow.

She might not get across, of course.

She might be stopped.

Don’t hope she’s stopped, you monstress.

But she does.





I have been lifted off the earth to sit on the ocean with men whose lives are nothing like mine yet whose waking dreams are identical: clumsy suits of caribou hide, our fingers numb, the flame-red gash of sunrise. If wrecked in this vessel, we wreck together.





THE DAUGHTER


Stares out a rain-lashed bus window at Washington State. Trees and trees and trees. A wet meadow or two. For the hundredth time she opens her passport. Date of expiration still valid. She is merely traveling, which is not a crime.

According to the online forums, you should carry evidence of your purpose in Canada. She and Ash created an email account for Delphine Gray—a sweet person but not the best speller—and sent several messages to the daughter. Can’t wait to see u Mattie, girl your going to love Raincouver, we will check out all the sites!

For the clinic, she has a British Columbia driver’s license bought from Clementine’s boyfriend. Ash is lucky to have an older sister to advise her, giant brothers to defend her. A big rowdy fish-scented gang.

She keeps her bag on the aisle seat so that no friendly passenger can inquire about her destination. Rolls a licorice nib on her tongue. The sugar and chemicals ride her veins to the clump. Half Ephraim, half her.

She went to Vancouver once with Yasmine’s family. Mrs. Salter, who represented Portland (District 43) in the Oregon State Legislature, was giving a speech on housing rights. The daughter remembers a city in a bowl of mountains and dark silver water. Bored at the hotel, she and Yas started their list of cardiac weights. The heart of a Canada goose weighs seven ounces. Of a caribou, seven pounds.

The bus judders to a halt. The daughter opens her eyes. Dark-green forest, steel-colored sky, a chain of tollbooths crowned with red maple leaves.

“Everyone off,” shouts the driver. “Take all belongings with you and remove your suitcases from the luggage compartment.”

A woman calls, “Can I leave a sweater to save my seat?”

“No, ma’am, you may not.”

“What is this,” she says, “the Soviet Union?”

The passengers are herded through the icy air into a low wooden building next to the tollbooths. Pale young men in olive-green uniforms sit behind the desks. A muscular dog led by an officer trots across the linoleum, nails clicking.

Do they have pregnancy-sniffing dogs?

Seekers are transported back in Canadian police cars, or buses—the daughter isn’t sure. When they arrive in their home states, they are charged with conspiracy to commit murder.

An officer scans her passport. “What’s your destination in Canada?”

“Vancouver.”

“Reason for your trip?”

“Visiting a friend.”

“For what purpose?”

“Vacation,” says the daughter.

The officer looks at the passport again. Looks at her forehead, then at her chest. “You’re how old, miss?”

“Almost sixteen. My birthday’s in February.”

“And you’re traveling alone to Vancouver—for a vacation?”

Her face is getting hot. “My friend lives there. She used to go to my school in Oregon but moved to Canada a few years ago and I’m visiting her.”

Don’t offer too many details, say the forums.

“What’s your friend’s name and address?”

“Delphine Gray. She’s picking me up from the bus station.”

“You don’t know her address?”

“Sorry, yes, I do. Four-six-one-eight Laburnum Street, Vancouver.”

“Phone number?”

“We always talk online, so I don’t—I don’t need her number. It’s so much cheaper to talk online. But I have an email from her printed out, if you want to see it?”

“Why did you print out her email?”

“It has her address on it.”

“You said she was picking you up from the bus station.”