Fiction by Christine Hume: "Blazon"
"We finally found a still spot inside us, and we stayed there until it was over."
We did not then become lost or sad. We refused to become a cautionary tale at someone else’s dinner table. We refused to follow in the footsteps of Woman Walks Home Alone or A Tearjerker About Teen Pregnancy. We made our own path. We stepped inside the erased footprints of our mothers and aunties. In order to make contact with our own distress, we walked barefoot in a blizzard across campus. We stepped directly, unthinkingly, into the speed of a midday sidewalk, which swept us further into panic. We wrote the words “mifepristone,” “misoprostol,” and “Cytotec” on a piece of paper and put it in our front pocket, but we forgot to take it out before we did the wash. All motion made us sick to our stomachs as we waited for an appointment. We puked in the neighbor’s flowerbed it was so bad. We got into corpse pose until our heart stopped racing and the sweat saturating our bra elastic dried. We ate a large bag of Doritos while watching a show. We didn’t tell anyone though we had never felt so sure of a decision in all our lives. After we told our boyfriend, he went back to playing Call of Duty, and we left. We told our husband when he was half in the bag, and he didn’t remember the next day. We called to tell him because we knew he would take it out on us. Our boyfriend was tender with us and made us spaghetti. We called in sick even though it was the holiday rush, even though it was tax season, even though our secretary was also out for the day. We drove four hours in a car we borrowed from our roommate’s friend. Our boss said to text when we needed to be picked up. Our boyfriend begged us not to go. Our husband had made a playlist for the drive. As we waited in the parking lot for our stepfather, we got high. We arrived two hours early because we couldn’t stand to wait at home. We came with our granddaughter so that she would understand. We came with our neighbor because she was able to sit quietly. We watched a woman in front of us argue with the receptionist about the designated driver rule. We came alone and did not hesitate at the shouting and praying. Our boyfriend got into a fight with one of the protesters, who threw holy water on us and said, “try not to die in there.” Someone met us at the car and asked if we wanted a bulletproof vest. We put on our headphones in the waiting room to block out the chanting. We signed in under a different name should any of our students come in that day. We couldn’t think of a name on the spot so we used our “porn name,” which we thought was pretty funny. We used our friend’s father’s credit card. We paid with tip money. We paid for it with our tax return. When we told our boyfriend the credit-card scanner at the clinic wasn’t working, he asked if we were making it up. We went to get the $1,000 from a gas-station ATM, but our bank had a $500 a day limit. We declined water then sat beside an empty chair. We opened our book and stared at the page. We closed out all our tabs and watched a woman cry silently beside a rubber tree. We tried to meditate. We stared into our phone and could not stop texting our boyfriend, “where r u?” We had hardly sat down when our name was called. A nurse called someone’s name several times, and when no one responded, she disappeared alone behind a door. Our mother drew in a sharp breath when our name was called. The technician asked if we wanted the ultrasound pictures, which we thought was messed up. We were afraid they would tell us to go home if we showed any emotion. The technician said, “it’s going to be okay.” We imagined ourselves as a character in the story we would later tell our friends over drinks. We joked with the nurse as we waited for the doctor. We were cold in the bright room and asked to put on our socks. We squeezed the nurse’s hand and felt grateful that she stayed even after we said we would not need her. We finally found a still spot inside us, and we stayed there until it was over. We did not listen to the vacuum or make eye contact with the doctor. We sat up in wonder that it was over so quickly. We wondered how much longer it could possibly take. We don’t remember anything but waking up in the darkened recovery room, feeling tired and relieved. We went to the healing room and felt comforted by seeing a dozen other women were lying on pillows. We asked if we could leave early. We had a small, very sweet glass of orange juice afterward. We felt hollow and bloated as we scrolled our feed, which was full of ads for breast pumps and baby slings. We left with our father who asked if we were hungry. We threw up in an old Slurpee cup on the way home. We turned off the radio when a man started delivering the news. We felt guilty, like we had accidently run over a dog or bird. We took Vicodin and went to bed. We promised ourselves we would be more vigilant. We hopped on our bike and rode standing up all the way to work. We emailed our professors asking what we missed in class that day. We imagined telling our future daughter about it at the dinner table, which goes surprisingly well. We never thought about it again until we told our niece twenty-eight years later. We called in sick and curled up with our cat. We only regretted having anything to regret. We walked away exuberant, having come from our own future, and it was good.
