Red Clocks(59)

Mom has called twice to ask about the conference. Listening to her messages (“So proud of you, pigeon!”) makes the daughter’s nose run.

The daughter is ashamed to be ashamed of Mom when cashiers say “You and your grandma find everything you were looking for?”

This is the worst day of her life.

Second worst: when her father mistook Representative Salter for the school bus driver.

Is the failure of this trip a sign? She has tried twice now. Maybe she should just stay pregnant. Skip the Math Academy and push it out and give it to some couple with gray hair and good hearts. It’s the legal way. The safe way. Think of all the happy adopted families that wouldn’t exist.

She could skip the Math Academy and push it out and quit Central Coast Regional. Finish high school online. Let her mom help her wash and dress and feed it. When the daughter tries to picture herself as a mother, she sees the wall of trees by the soccer field, swaying and faceless.

She doesn’t want to skip the Math Academy.

(She kicks Nouri’s gothsickle ass at calculus.) Or to push it out.

She doesn’t want to wonder; and she would.

The kid too—Why wasn’t I kept?

Was his mother too young? Too old? Too hot? Too cold?

She doesn’t want him wondering, or herself wondering.

Are you mine?

And she doesn’t want to worry she’ll be found.

Selfish.

But she has a self. Why not use it?





Oreius would be trapped in the ice for seven months.





THE WIFE


Thanks Mrs. Costello for coming early. Kisses John’s perfect ear. Gets on the road.

Twice almost turns the car around.

She hasn’t been inside a courtroom since law school. This one is sultry with rain drippings raised to a boil by the heaters. At the front table sit Edward and Gin Percival. The wife can’t see their faces. Fluorescent light bounces off Edward’s shaved head. No sign of Mrs. Fivey, but Mr. is in the front row, checking his watch. Eight forty-five a.m.

The wife takes a seat against the back wall. In the jury box are seven women, five men, middle-aged and elderly, all white. Edward should have asked for a bench trial. Temple’s niece won’t make a good impression on any jury around here.

“Gin Percival,” says the gnomish judge, “you will stand while the charges against you are read.”

She gets to her feet. Dark hair in a bun, orange jumpsuit loose at her waist. She’s gotten thinner since the wife last saw her, on the low metal stool at the library.

The bailiff intones:

“One misdemeanor count of Medical Malpractice by Commission against Sarah Dolores Fivey.

“One felony count of Conspiracy to Commit Murder in acceding to terminate the pregnancy of Sarah Dolores Fivey.”

How much time could she get? The wife can’t recall anything about sentence lengths.

She can recall reading aloud “manslaughter” as “man’s laughter,” and Edward being the only person in class to agree it was funny.

Unable to see Mr. Fivey’s face, she pictures its mortification. Everyone knows his business now. The principal’s wife and her backwoods abortion. No matter how this case turns out, the Fiveys will leave tarnished.

From the prosecution table rises a slender red-haired attorney in a pin-striped suit. She takes her time strolling to the jury box, palms together at her throat as though in prayer. She looks younger than the wife.

“Fellow Oregonians, you’ve heard the charges against Gin Percival. Your job is simple: to decide whether there is sufficient evidence to convict Ms. Percival of these crimes. During the course of this trial, you’ll be shown a vast array of facts that establish her guilt on both counts. Listen to the facts. Base your verdict on the facts. I know that the facts will lead you to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Gin Percival is guilty of the crimes she’s been charged with.”

“Vast array”—lazy phrase. Repetition of “crimes,” “charge,” “guilt,” and “facts”—predictable move. Edward can take her.

He clears his throat. “Thank you, Judge Stoughton, and thank you, members of the jury—you’re performing an important civic duty.” He pauses to scratch the back of his neck, under the collar. “Mmh. My counterpart has told you that your job is simple, and I would agree. But I beg to differ with her assertion that the evidence will clearly show you much of anything. Because there is virtually no evidence. You will be presented with hearsay, speculation, and circumstantial evidence, but no direct evidence. And your job, which is, indeed, simple, is to see that there is not enough evidence to convict my client beyond a reasonable doubt of these spurious charges.”

His sentences are too long. He should have said “bogus” instead of “spurious.” This is rural Oregon.

“Thank you, and I look forward to working with you over the coming days.” He sits, wipes his face with a handkerchief.

Gin Percival keeps staring at the wall. Will Edward dare to put her on the stand? By all accounts—and from what the wife has smelled at the library—she’s a bit unhinged.

Has the wife become a person who believes all accounts?

Sort of, yes, she has.

She has been too tired to care.

The Personhood Amendment, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the calls for abortion providers to face the death penalty—the person she planned to be would care about this mess, would bother to be furious.