Helen in trouble, p.10
Helen in Trouble, page 10
Quentin shook his head. “You’ve got to be kidding with all this ‘nice’ crap--nice home for unwed mothers, nice couple. Helen’s in high school! Everyone would know if she dropped out and disappeared! She doesn’t want to have the baby, Maggie! She doesn’t even call it a baby, she calls it a thing. And she will never tell her parents, who think she’s the perfect princess of the world. She’s determined to get rid of it, and I’m going to help her. It’s just that I have no idea what to do.”
“Yow,” Mac said, “did I hear you say ‘get rid of it’?” “Yeah. That’s what Helen wants.” Quentin had been sliding down in his chair and was now practically lying down, his long legs stretched across the porch floor. He tilted up his bottle and drained it.
“Ah,” said Mac. With spooky accuracy, he began to speak in the voice of Father Benedictus, the ancient Jesuit who ran the parochial school from which he and Quentin had both graduated. Piping in a high, elderly voice with a false-teeth whistle, he said, “My son, there is a word for this abomination: abortion. Abortion is the murder of a living child in its mother’s womb before receiving the Sacrament of Baptism. The result? A blameless soul, infected with original s-s-s-sin, consigned forever to the Limbo of Innocents, to the outer reaches of hell. As for the procurer of this abomination? Can you tell us, Mr. Caffrey?”
Having addressed himself, Mac answered in a quaking, nervous voice, “Yes, Father?”
“What is mortal s-s-s-sin?”
Adolescent Mac recited, “Mortal sin is a grievous offense against the law of God.” On “law of God,” his voice cracked from bass to treble. Maggie clapped a hand over her mouth to muffle her laughter, then jumped up and peered through the porch window to make sure Mom wasn’t downstairs.
Quentin, who had pulled himself upright during Mac’s performance, was gazing intently at his brother and twirling his hair. No Caffrey had been to confession for years, and if anyone asked these three if they believed in the catechism drummed into them as children, all would have said no. Yet like many lapsed Catholics, their psyches still smelled faintly of incense. Mac’s clowning about doctrine was unsettling. In his intuitive, firstborn way, Mac was summoning what was on all their minds.
“And why is this s-s-s-sin called mortal?”
Maggie and Quentin chimed in. “This sin is called mortal because it deprives us of spiritual life, which is sanctifying grace, and brings everlasting death and damnation on the soul.”
“Quentin, my s-s- son.” Mac dropped his voice to a melodramatic whisper. “Where do you stand on everlasting death and damnation?”
Quentin stopped twirling, reached for the pack of cigarettes on the table, shook one out, took his time finding a book of matches and lighting it, blew a smoke ring, and pensively watched as it floated away, growing bigger and bigger until it was gone. Then he turned to Mac and looked him in the eye. “Here’s where I stand. It’s cruel, superstitious crap. I don’t buy any of it.”
Mac held Quentin’s gaze. He nodded. For several moments, no one spoke.
Maggie broke the silence. “Excuse me, Fatha Ben? About that limbo thing you were sayin’?” Her brothers rolled their eyes. Tipsy Maggie often turned into Scarlett O’Hara. “Ah have read mah St. Thomas Acquaah-nas and Ah am reasonably certain he wrote that ‘the Lim-m-bo of Infants is an eternal state of natural joy.’ Ah am reasonably certain that he used these very words, and Ah recall bein’ favored with an A+ in Theology 101.”
Quentin looked at her. “Is that true, Maggie? About limbo, I mean?”
Looking pleased, she took a swig of beer. “Yep. The gospel according to Saint Tommy A. And just in case you change your mind about where you stand, we all know about mortal sin and confession. Piece of cake.”
Again Mac nodded. As Father Ben, he piped, “Sacrament of penance,” slurring the last word so it came out “pen-ass”. No one laughed. In his own voice, Mac now held up his bottle and said, “A toast to Quentin and Helen.” He spoke slowly. “To the holy sacrament of penance. To the eternal state of joy. To, to. . . the best minds of my generation. To superstitious crap.” He paused. “To getting rid of it.” Gravely the three Caffreys looked at each other and clinked their bottles. Then, by silent agreement, they stood up and went to bed.
14 Dy-Dee Time
Helen waited until her parents went down to breakfast and slipped into the bathroom, baby food jar in hand. At least getting the jar had been a breeze. Mom kept a stock of baby peaches and baby pears for times when Helen was sick and didn’t have much of an appetite. Helen loved these tiny jars and their smooth, puréed fruit and sometimes had one for an everyday treat. After dinner last night, which was not too challenging since, as usual, most of the conversation was about Dad’s work, she casually said, “Mom, can I take some baby peaches to my room for dessert?”
Of course she could. Upstairs she had wolfed them down. Most food made her sick.
Now she sat on the toilet and peed her first urine, at least most of it, into the clean jar, forgetting to let the first drops go in the toilet. A little pee landed on her hand. Gross me out, she thought, screwing on the lid. After a long, soapy shower, she put on a shirt, Bermuda shorts, and leather sandals. In a grocery bag she packed a bathing suit, a summer dress, and her first pair of high heels hidden in a towel. Finally, she wrapped the jar in tinfoil and put the awful thing in her madras bag.
As she approached the kitchen, she heard Mom say, “kind of relaxed about making out.” She quickened her step and pushed open the swinging door. Her parents fell silent.
Dad said, “Hi, honey,” picked up the paper next to his plate, and began to read.
Mom said, “Good morning, sleepyhead. Pancakes!”
Helen glanced at the clock above the sink. Nine fifteen. “Okay, Mom, thanks. Just one, please.”
Dave looked up. “One? You’re not dieting, are you? You look great.”
“I feel like a fat load, but I don’t want to talk about it.” Dave held up both hands as if to fend her off. “Hey, beg your pardon. I meant only to compliment.”
“Sorry, Dad. Not really awake yet. Guess I’m kind of grumpy.”
Mom slid a pancake onto her plate, saying, “There you go, darling.” Helen looked at it. She had to eat the thing and pretend to enjoy it.
“Pass the syrup, will you, Dad?”
Quentin had actually proposed yesterday. Not once during these anxious weeks since she first missed her period had this ordinary solution crossed her mind. She wanted to get married even less than she wanted a baby, and she wanted a baby about as much as she wanted polio or rabies or cancer. She already had something like cancer, a tumor attached to her guts and sucking away her life. “Our kid,” he had said. She shuddered. Then she felt the vertigo again.
Helen stood up. “Thanks for breakfast, Mom,” she said, carefully setting her plate in the sink and heading toward the swinging door. “Delicious.”
Mom was saying, “you’re welcome,” but Helen couldn’t stop. She set off in a tiptoe-run toward the stairs. Damn it, blacking out again . Halfway up, her knees buckled and she crumpled onto the steps. Terrified that Mom was following her, she crawled to the second-floor landing and scuttled like a roach into the bathroom.
She lay on the tile, conscious of a new species of sorrow hovering around her cold, sweaty body. Today she would deliver a jar of urine to a doctor’s office for a pregnancy test, a grave undertaking with fearful stakes. For the first time in her life, she was about to do something very hard without a parent holding her hand, or standing beside her, or speaking encouraging words. Mom and Dad had no idea what she was going through. They were right down there in the kitchen, just a shout away, yet they might as well be dead for all the help they could give her. To protect them she had to lie to them, and to lie to them she had to make them less real. Every day they were becoming less solid, less vivid, more ghostly. Her secret was turning her into an orphan. She felt a wave of grief.
After a bit she got up from the floor, washed her face, brushed her teeth, and went downstairs to wait for Quentin in the living room. Her ghostly parents were already there, going about their adult business, her mother at the little desk writing a letter and her father playing the piano. Helen knew by heart every note of this piece, a Bach two-part invention Dad always played first when he sat down to practice. Last summer he had begun to teach her how to play the recorder. They had started with simple duets. Dad was usually lost in his own thoughts, and making music together, even the beginner pieces she could play, helped her feel closer to him. Years later, whenever she thought of home, in her head she would hear this piece, at once simple and complex, all things known and unknown made audible. Dad had told her that it was usually played up-tempo, often at breakneck speed. He played it very, very slowly. She liked that.
“Going somewhere, honey?” Mom looked up from her letter.
“Uh-huh.” Even though Helen had made up a story about where she was going, she was reluctant to produce the lie. From her orphaned perspective, her mother had a new air of frailty about her. Throwing yet another whopper at her seemed cruel.
“That’s nice. Where, may I ask?”
Here we go. “Quentin and I are going on a picnic.” She paused. Was this enough? Mom seemed to be studying the sheet of blue notepaper in front of her. She had put it on a magazine so her pen wouldn’t make impressions on the wood of her grandmother’s desk. The tilt of her head looked expectant, so Helen added, “At Great Falls. With some of his friends from high school.”
“Sounds like fun.” Mom pushed back her chair. “It’s a perfect day for it.” She stood up and walked toward the kitchen. “You’ll need sandwiches. How about tuna?”
“Mom. Stop.” Helen tried to sound grateful. “Thanks, but Quentin’s bringing the whole thing, lunch, a blanket, uh . . .” What else did happy, wholesome teenagers need for a picnic? “You know, an ice chest, Cokes.” Out of nowhere came a vision of the baby food jar in her pocketbook, its yellow contents sloshing around. “And Quentin should be here any time.”
She looked at the clock on the mantel. Nine forty-four—and there was the Chevy’s engine, grinding up the driveway. Dear Tinny. He was coming through. She grabbed her paper bag and pocketbook from the hall and opened the door before he had a chance to knock. She put her face close to his and hissed, “Picnic!”
“Bye, Mom and Dad,” Helen yelled, grabbing Quentin’s arm and turning him around in the doorway. “Back by dark.” She slammed the door behind them.
Quentin had put the top down on the convertible, hoping to add a bit of cheer to their dreary outing. “Come on,” she said. “You might tell me where we’re going.” “Shirlington.” He backed out of the driveway.
In five minutes, they were in a small neighborhood of two-story apartment buildings, a few houses turned into professional offices, and a shopping center composed of an A & P, a drugstore, and a tiny shoe repair shop. Dr. Erikson’s office occupied the first floor of a white Tudor-style house with brown cross-beams. Quentin parked in the lot out back and turned to Helen. “And now?”
“Please put up the top. I have to change.” She unbuckled her sandals.
Quentin jumped out, flipped levers, seized the ragtop’s frame, hauled it forward, and slammed it into place. Helen stripped to her bra and underpants.
“Can I help?”
“Sure, thanks. Hold my towel up.” This was a standard beach move, and again Quentin sprang into action. Helen quickly dressed behind the towel, then got back in and started on her makeup. The final touch was her heels, jammed onto bare feet. No one wore heels without stockings, but this would have to do.
“How do I look?” She straightened her spine and squared her shoulders. She wore a sleeveless blue sheath (as usual, made by Rosemary), a string of pearls, pearl earrings, and the black pumps. From the crook of her elbow hung the faded madras bag, all wrong for the outfit, but it was all she had.
“Comb your hair,” said Quentin. “You look so nice I want to cry.”
Helen dug in her bag for a comb and pulled it through her short hair, smoothing her little bangs to the side like the Breathless actress. “You look beautiful. And at least twenty,” said Quentin. “Cross your fingers,” she said. Already starting to sweat, she walked toward the building’s rear entrance, whispering “Mrs. Swiggart. Sandy Swiggart. Mrs. Donald Swiggart.” Next to the door was a brass plaque: Alfred J. Erikson III, M.D. She entered an air-conditioned hall lined with closed doors. At the end of the hall was a Dutch half-door, beyond which she saw a hugely pregnant woman in pink. The waiting room. Helen kept going, adrenaline surging like needles in her chest. She had to concentrate on her feet. She wasn’t used to wearing heels. Any false move might give her away. What would Erikson do if he found her out?
Don’t think about it.
As Helen approached she could see more of the woman in pink, who was pacing around a large waiting room, stopping every few steps to lean back into her hands. Whenever she leaned back, her jaw would drop and a low-pitched “Awwwww” would issue from deep in her guts. Horrified, Helen looked for someone in charge and saw the reception window on the other side of the room. Around the perimeter sat an assortment of mute women, many bulging in pastel tents. Two small children sprawled in a playpen. Everyone was staring at the woman in pink. When she finished a moan, Helen walked around her to the reception window.
A gray-haired woman in a nurse’s uniform looked up from her appointment book. She appeared not to notice anything amiss in the room. The woman in pink let out a sudden shriek, at which one of the other huge-bellied patients got up, touched the woman’s arm, and began talking softly. They smiled at each other. Why? One was in agony and the other so enormous she had trouble walking.The nurse glanced at this tableau, then back at Helen. “Good morning,” Helen said. “I have an appointment to drop off a sample. Sandy Swiggart.”
The woman glanced at her book, then up at Helen. She took a long, good look. “Yes, I spoke with you on the phone. Excuse me, would you mind having a seat for a moment?” Then she got up and left the cubicle.
Sandy/Helen took the nearest chair, trying not to attract attention. As soon as she sat down, however, one of the tent-women scooted into the next seat and said, “What’s your story, baby-cakes? You’re a young one!” Mortified, Helen turned to look at the intruder. She had coal-black hair sprayed into a rigid beehive. Her lips were two-toned, frosty pink outlined in scarlet. Her maternity dress fell in a plumb line from her flat chest to her skinny lap. She was staring at Helen’s left hand. Shit. She had forgotten the most important prop.
“Excuse me,” said Sandy/Helen, and headed for the ladies’ room in the hall. She locked the door, looked in the mirror, and her heart sank. A four-year-old playing dress up. With difficulty she dragged off the ring her parents had given her for her sixteenth birthday. Her fingers, like the rest of her, had started puffing up. The ring was pretty, a blue moonstone flanked by two diamonds. I’m sorry, she told it, pushing it on her left ring finger and twisting until only the gold showed.
In the short time Helen was away from the waiting room, the scene had changed. The woman in pink now lay on a stretcher in an area just past the reception window, her massive belly looking like a giant scoop of peppermint ice cream. A man in white was pressing a mask over her face, and she had stopped moaning. Oh, God, she wasn’t even moving. Helen looked around for some idea on how an adult should react to this alarming drama. The entire waiting room, however, now appeared to be fixated on anything but the drama, whether on a riveting magazine article, some complicated knitting, or her fingernails.
Taking her cue, Helen averted her own eyes and headed to a chair well away from the nosy beehive lady. Now what? Her heart wouldn’t stop pounding. She craved something to read as a distraction. A low table just a few feet away held piles of magazines, but she was afraid to stand up and be noticed, so she settled for scanning the covers. Alfred Hitchcock, on Life, looked bored while big crows circled his head. On Parents, a toddler laughed at an open-beaked parakeet: “How Your Baby Learns to Talk.” James Baldwin, on Time, gazed into the reader’s eyes below the banner, “Birmingham and Beyond: The Negro’s Push for Equality.” Then a stark black and white cover with—Oh, God—a screaming headline: “DANGER: CRIMINAL ABORTION IS OUR COUNTRY’S THIRD LARGEST RACKET!” Helen froze. Just looking at it felt dangerous, but there was more writing on the cover which she badly wanted to read.
Slowly she raised her eyes without moving her head. The stretcher and its passenger were gone, and the mood in the waiting room had turned drowsy. One woman was asleep with her mouth hanging open and her head flopped back against the wall. No one was paying the slightest attention to Helen. She returned her gaze to the magazine, a Saturday Evening Post. The right half of the cover was a woman’s face with half-closed eyes and a flat expression. She looked emotionally devastated, possibly dead. Covering most of the left half was text in bold, lurid print. Helen’s breath was shallow with fear, but she had to read it.
Steel forceps. A hypodermic needle. Cotton. A rubber tube. Pituitary extract. These are some of the tools of America’s most tragic crime—illegal abortion. In this week’s Post you’ll learn how abortion has become a million-dollar racket and how new laws can stop this national menace!
Pituitary extract? What were forceps? Apparently if Helen got her wish she’d be part of a “racket.” Her Dad once worked for a Senate committee investigating racketeers, something to do with the Mafia and unions. A big part of her wanted to stand up and bolt. Which was worse, having a baby or being a criminal? She clutched her madras bag with its incriminating contents. But this was only pee, and she was in an ordinary doctor’s office. As she sat there, trying to breathe more deeply, trying to think, a little boy in the playpen burst into noisy tears. The sleeping woman startled and muttered something like “no more peas,” and several of the other women laughed.
