My Mistake, Her Choice
And our rights
Two weeks before Christmas, 1983. I’m home from grad school, sound asleep, my parents both at work, and the phone rings:
“Hullo.”
“Terry, it’s….I’m pregnant, and I need some money for an abortion.”
“Oh. Sure. How much is it?”
“$250.”
“I’ll go to my bank this morning and wire it to you.”
“I’ll pay you back.”
“No, we’ll split the cost. Do you want me to come up and go with you?”
“No. I want to do it tomorrow. I can’t wait. Annette is going with me; besides, we’re done, right?”
“Yeah…about us. Listen…I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, me too.”
IT WENT PRETTY MUCH LIKE THAT.
This is a memoir, creative nonfiction, and while I remember much of this conversation, I remember how it felt even more precisely, even after almost four decades.
It felt like shit.
Not just the out-of-the-blue call; not just the reality of the call and that I’d be deleting almost all the savings I had; and not just that I wouldn’t be there with her, to help her. No, the shittiest thing was that of the three times total that we had sex, I was stupid enough in all three to proceed without using protection. I knew she wasn’t on the pill, and of course, she knew she wasn’t either.
But I’m not here to speak for her. I’m speaking for my selfish, head-in-the-sand self, the one who wanted what he wanted and when he wanted it, though our acts were consensual, though at the time of our union she said that…
“You’re the best thing that’s happened to me here at school.”
Of course, that fed my ego, and made me more reckless with our bodies. Of course, my body would never get into trouble, would never bear any consequence for “us.”
AND THEN I FELT EVEN SHITTIER…
because after she had the abortion, I actually asked if she could pay some of the money back. She paid me $50, and I wish I hadn’t asked and I wish she’d said NO that first time just as she did when I shittily asked the second time.
She fell for me originally, she said, because of the way I interpreted a Shakespearean passage about a kiss. I fell for her because she was exotically Eastern European and had a resonant voice, and sometimes shy, demurring eyes. This could have been a classic romance.
But it wasn’t, because romances involve love…from both parties.
We officially broke up on a weekend near Thanksgiving when I was sick in bed with the flu. I must have been out of it because I was watching the Auburn-Georgia football game and actually cheering for Auburn. She and some friends came over to check on me. I knew I had a fever, but had no thermometer. She brought one, and also more of the vodka they’d already been consuming.
My cat Angela stared at them as if demanding they’d leave. My cat Angela took good care of me and slept near my feet throughout this illness, whether I deserved her love or not.
I didn’t love this woman, but I did love my cat Angela. I still dream of her, too.
This woman took the thermometer and called herself “sanitizing” it with hot water. She held it under the water for more minutes than I could count. Then she stuck it under my tongue. After three minutes, I removed it and saw its reading:
106 degrees.
I looked at her.
“Didn’t you shake it down first?”
‘Uhhh, no.”
Once, she begged me not to die when I took a trip to see a friend. I thought about this, my fever and whatever it was, and I knew at this moment, that I didn’t want to be with her. To me, that was that.
And because I was the man in this relationship, I could walk away unscathed.
AND EVEN AFTER THE PHONE CALL THAT NEAR CHRISTMAS MORNING…
Well, let’s face it, I was still unscathed. One trip to the bank and back home for all its nurturing and holiday comfort. She didn’t call me again. And, I told myself, I couldn’t call her because my Dad watched long-distance phone charges like the accountant my mother said he should have been. So even then, I accepted only the barest of responsibility.
Eventually, she began dating someone else, though once I saw them standing on a street corner of our university’s “strip,” and she was yelling her head off at the guy. And I kept walking because, of course, I could.
And because by then I had met another woman, the woman I’d soon marry.
But this other woman, the one who rightly chose to abort what we had so thoughtlessly conceived…I know other details about her that I’m not going to share. Details that I remember now only because I’m looking at this period with fresh eyes and finally unsuppressed shame. But the one other scene I’ll describe is this one:
On my way to pick her up for our first-ever date, as the sky faded in its October light, just as I reached the strip mall leading to her complex, I almost turned around. I had a bad feeling and wondered why I was doing this. It all felt like a bad idea, a fever dream. But I didn’t turn around. I kept going…
Because I could.
I AM VERY SORRY…
I did tell her that when I returned to campus that January, and I meant it. I was stupid and selfish, and I wish I had driven straight through the day to reach her before she left for the clinic. I wish I had behaved responsibly — for God’s sake, why hadn’t I bought some condoms the second time? — and I’m sure those traits got acted out in other ways, too. But what I’m also sure about, and what I’m not sorry about is…
HER HAVING THE ABORTION ITSELF.
I’m glad she made, glad she HAD this choice.
It was the right choice for us.
And the main thing I feel so shitty about is that while we both played our parts, the nature of this reality — as it always is — is that it was she who had to face the clinic and undergo the procedure. I supported her decision, but I should have done more. Go ahead and think what you will about me, but I’m so thankful that our big mistake didn’t lead to an even more tragic one.
Such decisions are gut-wrenching, and I suspect she knew for many days and carried this burden alone. I’m glad she told me, and I’m glad she made the decision to abort before she asked for my help. I don’t know what she would have done if I hadn’t had the funds or had them and been unwilling to send them to her.
I believe she would have found a way, though how and by what means I don’t know, which is another luxury afforded the men who play their part and then exit halfway through the play; another shameful part of how I acted, and all I didn’t know back then about her and about myself.
About my responsibilities.
In the coming weeks and years, people with means will still be making similar decisions to escape their unwanted burdens. Just as we always have, despite or because of laws that really don’t serve, much less protect, all of us.
[A story I’ve never told publicly before, written one day after the overturning of Roe and after my wife and I rallied with hundreds of others in downtown Greenville, protesting that decision. And in case you’re wondering, I told my wife about that abortion long ago].