There's only one true reason and a million fake excuses.
Chapter 27
"Hey! What a surprise!" Jules said sitting up on her bed.
"Hey."
The reason behind the visit wasn't exactly something to be jolly about.
"What are you doing here?" She asked typing furiously on her laptop before placing it on the carpet next to the bed.
"We need to talk," I said sitting down at the edge of the bed.
"Ok, what about?" She asked scooting closer to me.
"It's not good," I said taking a deep breath. "I'm pregnant."
"You can't have Frank's baby!" She cried out hysterically.
"It's not Frank's. He was injured in the war and he can't have any more kids; that's why I'm an only child."
"Then whose...?"
She looked at me in disbelief shaking her head as a single tear ran down her cheek.
"It's Harper's. Oh my god... Charlie how could you!"
Shit! Shit! Shiiit!
"It was a mistake," I said holding her in an effort to calm her down.
"Let me go!" She screamed pushing me back.
I hadn't expected it, and I was pretty much caught off-guard as she slapped me hard on the face.
"I don't know what I wanted to come of it Jules -I wasn't thinking."
"Get out of my house."
I had been kicked out like a filthy smelly dog, but what was worse, was the look of disgust and lack of worth she'd given me. It was worse than any physical attack or insult; just that mere look.
I felt like I was alone in the world. It was a lovely night, but I was aware of just how far away the stars were and how much less brighter than the sun the moon really was.
Harper had told me he didn't want to see me again, and now Jules had thrown me away.
I knew it was my fault, every major stuff-up. I just couldn't resist effing up.
Hope Medical Centre.
I couldn't fix all my problems but there was one that I could; I was going to get an abortion.
I slipped through the clinic doors aware of the fact that I was going to kill. There was no other way to put what I was going to do to that defenseless and helpless baby.
Religion had never been one of my strengths, but I could remember my mother telling me that it was wrong, immoral, murder...
That thing inside me had life even if it was the size of a pea. It had been alive from the moment I had conceived it.
In truth, there wasn't much difference between it as a mass of rapidly multiplying cells and blood, and it as a kicking and screaming baby at birth except time.
Those cells were a future person. They could have been the beginnings of the next Abraham Lincoln, Johnny Cash, or some kid's favourite teacher; I didn't know.
"I'd like to have an abortion. How much does it cost?" I asked the lady at the reception.
"It depends on how far along you are, but you can check out the options," she said handing me the brochure.
I walked to the waiting room where there were some other women waiting and reading their options as well.
There were the early abortions all the way up to those where a baby was killed at full growth leading to a still birth. That one sounded almost more perverse in its cruelty.
The cheapest was around a hundred bucks, and I was guaranteed to be flat broke afterwards.
I went back to the receptionist and she gave me a few sheets of papers to fill, advising me to fill in accurately so as to avoid 'inconveniences' which I am sure included bleeding to death on the operating table.
I wasn't anaemic, didn't have allergies, diabetes, heart problems, gonorrhea.
After finishing, I returned the papers and paid in old tens and fives. After all, wasn't money, money?
I waited for about twenty minutes before the nurse on duty called my name.
"Hello Ms. Charlotte Stout?" The doctor said indicating that I should sit on the hospital bed.
Yes, I was alone, but I felt that I needed a piece of Harp with me as this was his baby.
"Hello," I said getting on the bed.
"Are you certain this is what you want?" He asked almost fatherly.
I nodded.
He took my blood pressure, and after asking when my last period was, he told me that I was six weeks in.
It was precisely a month, but it had to be calculated from the first day of my last period.
Since the pregnancy was at its early stages, he said that he would perform an early medical abortion -which was more or less a forced miscarriage.
He told me that I would first take mifepristone to halt the preparing of my uterine wall to accomodate the egg, and then later prostaglandin which would flush out the egg and the thickened endometrium in a painful miscarriage.
I collected my mifepristone from the pharmacy and swallowed them at the water dispenser before I started for home.
I had already completed the first step; only one more to go...
