We walked.
My permit was crisp and new in the drawer at home but I couldn’t drive without my Mom or Dad in the car. So we walked.
It was still warm enough out where we didn’t notice the weather. We took the path through the park and up the back alley behind the grocery store – if we walked along the streets it would have been inevitable someone in my family would have seen us.
I was the only one who knew. We had taken three tests in the furthest bathroom near the math wing to be sure. All three – plus sign. She ran her fingers along the white scar on the inside of her wrist and I stared at the three pink applicators lined up next each other on tile floor; neither of us cried. Somehow we instinctively knew, even without having the wisdom of age, that on the list of things she had to worry about this one would be near the bottom.
She never asked me to go with her and neither of us actually ever said out loud where we were going. The number to book the appointment was on a flier we had picked up at Farmers Market weeks before. A family friend was handing them out along the street and she tucked it in the back pocket of her cut off shorts as we walked away. I called to book the appointment.
The woman who greeted us was kind, calm and clear in her directions. She explained all of the options and left us for a few minutes before they began. It was the safest she said she had felt in weeks. Sitting there in that room, with people who wanted to help. I watched her sit on the table, the tissue paper lining crinkling as she rocked gently back and forth, her bruised knees pulled into her chest.
I sat in the waiting room.
Then we walked back.
I never asked her if it was his. She never liked talking about her Dad anyway. In the end, I suppose it didn’t matter. We were 15 and my biggest worry was the varsity basketball team. Her brown eyes held more sadness than my heart knew existed. It was a battle for her each day to get herself from sunrise to sun fall. When she came over on weeknights, which wasn’t allowed at our house, quiet and withdrawn, no one ever said anything. My mom set out an extra plate for dinner and she would curl up in the green leather recliner in our living room and sleep.
When I look back on that day, even pro choice feels like it falls short. Nothing about what happened felt anything like agency or a process in decision making. It felt like survival. Maybe for some people it’s easier to list off options, alternate paths or even flaunt the idea of heartbeat. And that is one thing I won’t forget – the feel of her pulse against mine as we held hands and stepped through the door.
Now imagine if there was no place to go.
- Donate to the Yellowhammer Fund—it provides funding for anyone seeking care at one of Alabama’s three abortion clinics → https://yellowhammerfund.org/
- Donate to the National Network of Abortion Funds—a network of groups that help fight financial and logistical barriers to abortion access nationwide → go.crooked.com/NNAF
- Donate to/volunteer with Planned Parenthood—walk people who are seeking health care past protestors and into clinics → go.crooked.com/clinicvolunteer
- Support the ACLU—it has a history of defeating Alabama in cases like this → go.crooked.com/ACLUAlabama
- Register to vote, and don’t just vote for president—vote the lawmakers who pass laws like this out of office, and fight the gerrymandered maps that have allowed many of them to win their races unfairly → votesaveamerica.com
*Resources from Pod Save America
Jessica Clarendon 