She pulled her sweater firmly around her body and sat next to him on the porch steps. They looked out at the sleeping neighborhood. The sky was slowly brightening on their right, and the city was beginning to stir.
“Can you feel it yet?” he asked. She shook her head. “How long have you known?”
“Only a little while. I guess I should have told you before. Sorry,” she shrugged. He shrugged back.
“I’m not expecting you to keep it,” he said. “I don’t want to keep it either. But,” he paused and kicked at a pebble on the weedy sidewalk. “But I don’t think I’d feel good about—you know.” She sighed wearily. “Look, maybe it’s ironic coming from me, but I think I would feel guilty.”
“That must be nice. I get to be the bad guy either way.” He looked at her but she kept staring ahead. Her eyes were tired and circled with gray. “It’s my fault in the first place. I missed a day and here we are. And now if I keep it, I have to live with the knowledge that I’m giving it a life that’s already falling apart. And if I don’t keep it,” she stopped and shrugged again.
“We don’t have to keep it. Like, keep-it-keep-it. There are people out there who would want it. Pro-life people are always saying that they’ll adopt unwanted—you know.”
“I need to have it first.”
“I’ll help you. Whatever you need.” She gave him a faint, indulgent smile.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Are you worried about what Tricia will say? Who cares? She has nothing better to do than—“
“Casper, it’s all of it. I’d have to face all of it again. You’d be surprised at how fast those people will clutch their pearls when they find out. They will pretend to be progressive and cool with it, but they’ll still think that I’m—,” she stopped and sighed. “I’ve tried. I’ve really tried to scratch and claw back some of their respect, but they all still view me as a complete train wreck. And they’re right.” He feebly began to deny it. “It’s true and you know it. You knew it before this even happened.”
“So are you going to have it or not?”
“I don’t know!” she snapped. She glanced behind her at the quiet house and lowered her voice. “I need time to decide. It’d be a lot easier to figure out if you weren’t pressuring me.”
“How much time do you need? You said you wanted to end it quickly. You said you didn’t want it to feel anything. And don’t I get a say in this? It’s my—,” he dropped his eyes to his shoes. “It’s mine, too. You don’t get to unilaterally decide its fate.” He dug at the ground with his foot. “Our fate.”
“Ours?” she bristled. “We’re not together. We’re two idiots who have to clean up a stupid mess we made, all while causing as little disruption to everyone else as we possibly can.”
“You keep saying ‘we.’”
“I don’t want to have this baby.”
“Just have it and give it away!”
“Sure, just have it! Just let my life explode all over again for the next year, give it away, and everything will be just like it was before. You and me in our cotton candy castle,” she scoffed. He clenched his jaw and shot to his feet.
“I’m sorry I don’t want to kill it!”
“Keep your voice down!” She jumped up and faced him. “Why do you suddenly care about this?” she whispered fiercely. “You think you’re so noble and moral, but you’re just like every other guy. All that matters to you is getting what you want.”
“Maybe that’s what Foster was like,” he spat.
“You’ve never even met him!”
“I don’t need to. He’s a rich jerk who took advantage of you and left you to deal with it.”
“You think that’s what happened?” A strange, sad look passed over her face, and her voice quivered. Her eyes briefly softened. “Casper, I knew who he was and I knew what I was doing.”
“What?” It was all he could say. They were standing toe to toe, their arms crossed across their chests, staring at one another. He wanted to hide himself.
“I saw Foster and knew I could get what I wanted from him. And it worked. Don’t look so disgusted, Casper. There were no stakes in it for him. He could still have his high society fiancee in public and have me in secret. But he told me he loved me. And I thought he meant it. I really believed he would dump her for me. So I took a calculated risk.”
“You got pregnant on purpose.”
“I figured if he truly loved me, it would be easy. And if not, I could simply—,” she paused and closed her eyes, “undo it.” Her nostrils flared, and she sighed deeply. “I’m not proud of it,” she whispered. “I can’t look at Charlotte without regretting that I even thought of it.” She looked at him again, and her eyes were trembling and pink. But he didn’t want to touch her. He wanted to get away. “But believe me when I tell you that this time was a mistake.”
“Oh, I believe you,” he muttered. “There was nothing in it for you.” Her eyes hardened. What was he doing, demanding to go through with something that would fuse the two of them together so permanently? He looked at the woman in front of him. The delicate contours of her lips, jaws, cheeks, and brows. The vibrant green of her eyes and red-gold of her hair against the freckled cream of her skin. He never would have believed it was possible to hate something so lovely. He stepped away from her and paced down the overgrown walkway. When he reached the jagged sidewalk, he stopped.
“Are you coming into work today?” he asked without looking at her. He heard her say that she was. Without another word, he picked up his bike and rode away.
—
He stood under the shower. The icy water felt good, and he let it beat against his skin until he was shivering all over. But he didn’t move away, or try to turn up the temperature. He wanted to feel the harsh jets lashing his skin. He wanted to feel his muscles ache and tremble in the cold. He wanted to hear the water hissing in his ears.
I knew who he was and I knew what I was doing.
I took a calculated risk. I could simply undo it.
Believe me when I tell you that this time was a mistake.
He clamped his face in his hands and scrubbed it, wishing his fingernails were longer so he could scrape his skin raw. He wanted to tear it off and throw it away. He hated it, all of it. He wanted to shred through the layers of muscle and bone, to find it and rip it out. He knew it was there. It had always been there.
I knew who he was and I knew what I was doing.
He wanted to hate her for it. He wanted to thrust a finger in her face and ask how she could dare to act in such a mercenary way, and without shame. To think of her setting eyes on that man and making the cynical calculations in her head, evaluating herself and assessing the precise amount of leverage she could wield against him to get what she wanted. To remember the glint of greed in her eyes when she told him, and the cool acknowledgement of her own triumph. It made him sick.
I knew who she was. I knew what was doing.
He rattled the thought away. But that was no sin. He had none of her sordid motives when he laid eyes on her. It had been pure adoration. The implacable impulse to worship. The implacable impulse to consume every square inch of her.
He turned into the shower head and let it pound against his face, fiercely rubbing his skin and clawing at his hair. He shivered, and his teeth began to chatter. His stomach was churning.
I took a calculated risk. I could simply undo it.
At the moment he saw her in the light of his apartment that first night, he had also assessed the risk in his own mind. He made quick work of it. It wasn’t the first time he’d benefited from skillfully playing the friend zone, so he knew it was far more likely to end within a few short weeks than to result in a serious attachment. That was all right with him. And even when he had, in that brief moment, considered the distant possible consequences, he had figured they could simply undo it. A tiny fist in the dark, distant as a star. They could simply undo it.
He turned off the water and shivered in the silence, his face in his hands.
When things are wrong, they will always seek to go right again. An irresistible hand, omniscient and infallible in its movement, will force all things to go the way it pleases, according to the secret counsel of an inscrutable will.
Maybe that was why things had turned out so predictably.
Believe me when I tell you that this time was a mistake.
Mistake. It was a mistake. Forgetting her birth control one morning could be dismissed as a mistake. Perhaps it was her mistake. But the sin was his.
It smote him with a force that staggered him. He forced himself to take a breath and threw out his hand against the shower wall. Sin. It was crushing, smashing him like a clapper in an iron bell, resounding again and again, wave after wave going deeper and deeper into him, blasting away the brittle artifice he had used to cover himself. Sin. He was naked in the light.
A blinding light. White. Vast in its unsearchable brightness, unapproachable in its deadly heat, swallowing up everything in its terrible beauty. He was paralyzed, bound without chains, unable to shield himself from the glare trained upon him, grave and unyielding.
It bore into him, piercing through his marrow, and he could see what it sought within him. Dead and black, calloused and thickened, pulpy and oozing fetid fluid, with arteries and veins like monstrous arms, swift and fervid, burrowed so far into his flesh that it was indistinguishable from the rest of him, threading him through with deadness. It was throbbing, possessed with an appetite that was never sated, animated by something belonging to himself, yet somehow alien, which groped with tireless fingers, gorging itself and spewing at the same time, consuming him in numbness. Painless agony, unfeeling in thought and word and deed, blind and vile and wretched.
Don’t You see? It’s too late. If You take it out, You’ll kill me.
He gasped and groped for the shower curtain, his entire body quaking with cold. He stumbled on to the tile floor and sank to his knees.
He crawled to the sink. The saliva dripped from his open mouth as he waited. The heat in his throat burned hotter and hotter. His silhouette was reflected in the cracked porcelain basin. He hated the sight of it. His stomach wrenched. He vomited until nothing came out, until his stomach stopped heaving and the bitter taste began to subside. His eyes burned and watered. He shuddered and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He slunk away from the sink and crouched against the wall, drawing his knees up to his chest. The words came to his lips.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
There was no answer. His head sank against the bathroom wall.
She had pulled her sweater tightly across her body. I could simply undo it.
Six weeks. It was six millimeters long. An errant pencil stroke. A mistake.
Nobody else knew about it but the two of them. She could simply undo it.
A mistake. Six millimeters long. Evaporated. Erased. Dissolved out of existence.
Six millimeters long.
Nothing is secret that will not be known and come to light.
Casper threw on some clothes and picked up his bike. He checked his watch as he left. He would need to time it perfectly.
—
Jin listened with his elbows on his desk. His mouth was a firm line.
“Let me see if I understand you, Casper. You no longer want to be recommended for the position because you don’t think you’re ready?”
“I’ve only been here a year, Jin. Shouldn’t someone with more experience be promoted before me?”
“Frankly,” Jin lowered his voice, “you demonstrate the most aptitude for the kind of work the position will entail. You’re creative and you’re quick. And I thought you were interested. You should be.”
“I am,” said Casper without thinking. He wanted his name on the projects, in the press releases, on the patents. “But,” he cleared his throat and attempted to recover himself. “What about someone like Pavel or Tricia? Or Reagan?”
At the last name, Jin cleared his throat.
“Look, Casper. Your modesty is…baffling. But this decision is mine to make, and it’s going to be based on workplace performance. Anyone offered this position will have had to show the necessary skill, but also commensurate commitment.” Jin raised his eyebrows meaningfully and Casper pretended not to understand. “Participation,” he added pedantically. Casper knitted his brows stupidly and saw the muscle in Jin’s jaw flicker under his skin. “They can’t be missing days at a time, Casper. It won’t be tolerated. Shouldn’t be tolerated at all,” he muttered.
“But what if that person has a good reason for it? What if they have things going on at home? Surely, Carver can’t discriminate based on—”
“Discriminate?”
“Yeah, discriminate based on disability or family emergencies—” Jin shuffled the papers on his desk, as if he were searching for an excuse.
“Now, hold on, Casper—”
“—or pregnancy.” Jin paused. “It’s a violation of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. Passed in 1978 in response to Supreme Court case 429 U.S. 125, General Electric v. Gilbert.” He’d spent some time researching it. Jin sucked his teeth.
“You can’t be serious.”
Casper went to the office door and opened it. He called to Reagan across the room, and was satisfied to see that everyone clocked it. Her face reddened and she strode over, joining him at Jin’s desk. Casper left the door open.
“What’s up,” she said with affected brightness.
“Reagan, is this true?” Jin asked quietly, peering behind her at the open door. He lowered his voice further. “Are you expecting?” Reagan went pale. She flickered a stony glance at Casper.
“It’s still really early, Jin.”
“When are you due?”
“March 25th,” she said quietly.
“And Casper? What does he have to do with it?”
“He’s the—,” she paused and glared at him. Even weeks ago, he had adored those delicate wisps of amber curl that dangled near her ears. Now they quivered full red, as if stirred by the rage in her face. Casper cleared his throat and shot a quick glance behind him to be sure Tricia was hovering nearby. She was.
“The baby is mine,” he said. Jin dropped an embarrassed glance to his folded hands on his desk.
“I see.”
“It’s not going to affect my work, Jin,” Reagan gushed. “I promise. It won’t be like last time. I’m used to all of the symptoms this time and I’ll try not to—”
“Never mind that, please,” Jin interrupted, holding up his hand. “You don’t need to say any of that.” He eyed Casper and tightened his mouth again. “Reagan, be sure to notify HR about your upcoming maternity leave. Make sure you specify short-term disability, so you get paid. But legally,” he said with another dark look at Casper, “you’re not required to use PTO for appointments. You know that, right? Legally. It’s written up in the handbook, so if you encounter any resistance, let me know and I’ll address it. Take whatever time you need.” He stacked the papers on his desk.
“Thanks, Jin,” she replied.
“Same goes for you,” added Jin, addressing Casper without looking at him. “You get six weeks paid paternity leave. If you want it. But it won’t include any time you miss if you go to her appointments. That’ll be PTO.” Before Casper could say anything else, Jin opened his computer and gave Reagan a terse smile. “Congratulations.” They muttered thanks. “I have some work to get to, if you don’t mind. And Casper?” Casper paused and waited. Jin shook his head and hunched over his screen. “Please close the door on your way out.”
—
She directed him to the hallway. The nearby stairwell was still being repaired, so she pulled him against the wall and thrust a finger in his face.
“What the—,” she stopped and lowered her voice, “what were you thinking? You had to tell the whole world? You do realize what kind of position you’ve put me in, don’t you? Of course you do. This was your plan, wasn’t it? To force me into having it! Congratulations.” She raked her hair with her hands. “I can’t believe you would do this! What about it being my choice? And I always thought you were so progressive,” she scoffed. “I guess you can take the boy out of Iowa…you do realize I can still do it.” His stomach shriveled, but he didn’t flinch. “Nothing is stopping me from going home tonight and taking those pills. And they’ll all pretend to be very sorry when I tell them I lost it.”
“You won’t do that.”
“I told you,” she hissed. “You know how hard it was when I had Charlotte. I told you everything. How could you do this to me?”
She had told him everything. Mark had been in one of his catatonic bouts and she couldn’t bring herself to ask Foster for help. She remembered knocking on the neighbor’s door just before midnight, clutching her belly and bracing herself against the porch railing. Sweating and crying out in agony as she endured labor, and all of the long, lonely nights afterward. Blood coiling down the drain as she wept in the shower.
“I’m not doing it again. You can’t make me go through with it. I’m going to the clinic tonight and I’m ending it.”
“You won’t do that, Ray.”
“Really? Why won’t I?”
“Charlotte.” Pain flickered across her face.
“That was different,” she murmured. “Why do you want this so badly? What could you possibly be getting out of this? Foster didn’t try to stop me. You should be thanking me for taking care of this for you.”
“Look, I know I’m not Foster and I know you don’t love me.” She didn’t deny it. “But you do love Charlotte. And this—,” he prepared himself to say the word, “the baby belongs to you just as much as she did. And it belongs to me, too. For now anyway,” he added. She sighed and covered her face with her hands. “Just for a little while. Then we’ll find a good home for it. Please, Reagan.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying! I can’t do it again, Casper. You have no idea what it’s like.”
“But I’m going to help you, Ray. Whatever you need. I promise.” She fixed him with an indulgent smile.
“You can’t help me.”
“I can pay for doctor visits—,”
“That’s covered by insurance.”
“Then I can buy groceries, new clothes, whatever you need. I’m serious, Ray. Please, believe me.” Her face softened. He was surprised to feel her hand on his arm.
“I’m so sorry, Casper. But I can’t do it again.”
—
He had never prayed before. Not really. All of those meandering, distracted mutterings, memorized and recited as needed whenever he felt particularly guilty or frightened — they were formalities. But he had never asked God for anything more than to be spared from hell, and as far as he knew, that request was still pending.
But the instinctual grasping of his heart for even a handful of mercy was something foreign to him. Mercy for that delicate life, but mercy for himself. Somehow he found himself asking for one as much as the other, finding that his fate was no longer his own.
—
The office was practically unchanged with Pavel’s absence. He had never been a vocal contributor; he offered a pleasant, if ambient presence in the room, which neither added nor detracted. But he had been there for eight years, so he was recommended to join the new division. Casper tried not to think about it.
He had been nervous about how the dynamic would change with one less person to run interference with Tricia, but he needn’t have worried. Strangely serene and even magnanimous, Tricia seemed to be content with the new structure, and didn’t begrudge Reagan any of her frequent trips to the bathroom to puke out her guts. She completely ignored Casper and Eric’s existence, which suited them fine, and appeared satisfied that nobody else was jockeying for her position as Jin’s would-be consigliere, though he never consulted her.
Casper shuddered to think how the situation would have been different if he had taken the new job, leaving behind an extremely fragile Reagan to the mercy of Tricia’s wounded ego. Her nausea had slowed her movement considerably, so when he saw her rise suddenly and stride toward the door, he knew exactly where she was going. It happened at least twice a day.
To his shame, he was relieved whenever he saw her rushing out. He said a silent prayer, unwilling to speak aloud, as if God might recognize his voice and ignore the request out of spite.
She hadn’t done it yet.
He found himself watching her even more closely than he had during the height of his infatuation. He monitored the clock on the wall, counting the seconds till she returned, pale and empty, from the bathroom. Sometimes he contrived a reason to wait by the office door, ducking his head into the hallway as casually as he could manage. A few times he had even followed her, impelled by sheer instinct, when he saw her clutch her stomach with particular urgency, when her tight mouth was quivering in a losing effort to restrain the sickness. He followed at a distance, watching to make sure she made it, but never let her see him. He didn’t want her to know he was clocking any of it, terrified it would upset the delicate balance.
But one day, while Jin was in the middle of a sentence, Reagan apologized and covered her mouth with her hand. Casper immediately followed her, instinctively taking the trash can with him. Good thing. She paused in the hallway, ten paces ahead of him. He put a hand on her back and gallantly held the trash can up to her face, helplessly watching as she clutched his arm for support and retched, her body heaving and trembling with the effort.
At last, she finished. A bead of spittle ran down her chin. She released his arm and shivered, her eyes watering. He offered her the cuff of his sleeve.
“I’m okay.” He ignored her and gently wiped her mouth. “Sorry. I’m not crying, I swear,” she assured him.
“Ray.”
“I know it looks like I’m crying. But it always happens when I throw up.” She smiled weakly, and he recognized that universal parental impulse to spare a weaker person the discomfort of witnessing one’s own pain. It sickened him.
“Ray, I’m so sorry.” He wanted to ask her why she was still enduring it, but he was afraid. He only stroked her back and said it again. She told him she was okay, then excused herself to rinse out her mouth. He stood stupidly in the hallway, holding the sloshing trash can and cursing himself. Then he prayed again, hoping for once that God could hear his thoughts.
—
A little after three o’clock, she texted him and asked him to meet her in the cafeteria after work. He went down a few minutes early and picked a seat in the darkened, deserted room.
He smiled at her when she came in, her arms folded across her stomach. As she sat down, she took out a blue paper from her pocket and slid it across the table to him. It had been folded and unfolded many times.
“What’s this?” he asked, taking it.
“A few weeks ago, when I was at the clinic getting those pills, there were some people outside. You said your parents do that kind of stuff. They were holding up signs and begging me not to do it.”
“Did they yell at you?” he bristled.
“Yeah, but it was,” she shrugged, “nice yelling. One of the ladies gave me that.” She opened it and flattened it on the table. “She told me there are people actually sitting around waiting for babies. Just like you said. I went on the website and it’s true. They’ll pay for everything. They even want to give me like, a tip, or something. That part feels a little icky.”
“Take it. Take whatever they’ll give you.” Then he sat forward. “Wait, are you seriously considering this, Reagan?”
“They have attorneys and everything needed to facilitate the adoptions and make it easy for everyone.” He couldn’t believe his ears. He watched her face, which was still variegating shades of yellow, and marveled. “There’s a phone number on the back,” she flipped over the pamphlet and pointed. “And I can’t bring myself to do it. I’m worried they’re going to try to talk me into raising it myself and I don’t know,” she shrugged, then looked up at him with pink, trembling eyes. “I just can’t do it,” she breathed. “I can’t—,”
“You want me to call them. I’ll do it. No problem.”
“Just try to find out what kind of people they are. I want to make sure it’s legit. I don’t want to hand him off to a cult, or something.”
It was strange. She entirely lacked his own survival instincts. She was motivated by her primal impulse to preserve the other life within her. He had wondered at it before — her baffling choice to continue her pregnancy with Charlotte — and had concluded that it was the result of the proud, iron will within her. And it was. Yet it was more than that. It was the terrible beauty of an unyielding desire for the good of another.
“I will. I’ll call them tonight.”
“Can you do it now?”
The hold music was a song he remembered from church. He was surprised he could recall the words, even if they had seemingly sung it every other week over the entire course of his life. He put it on speaker and Reagan hunched near him, resting her face on her arm.
The lady on the other end was bright and warm. She thanked him for calling and for making the right decision.
“Barb, what are the requirements for prospective parents? Do they have to complete background checks? Do they have to sign a statement of faith or something?”
“Oh, yes,” Barb assured him, her strong Texas accent warm and confident. “Though we don’t discriminate along denominational lines.”
“But these people aren’t polygamists or unitarians, right?” Reagan nudged him.
“What are unitarians?” she whispered.
“Heretics,” he muttered.
“No, no, nothing like that,” Barb promised. “Like I said, they need to complete a background check, and we generally insist upon a two parent home, though we do allow single parents to adopt if—,” Reagan tapped him and shook her head vigorously.
“I think we’d want two parents,” he said, watching her nod approval. “A mom and dad?” She nodded again. “Yeah, two parents.” Barb agreed.
There would be some initial papers to sign, a video call, some more papers to sign, more video calls, doctors notes faxed, more papers to sign. Then they simply handed him over the moment he was born. Easy. Done. Good bye.
Sure, he said. You can send the paperwork to me. Sure, he said. You can pray for me. He left the phone on the table and sat back in the chair. Reagan remained near the phone, her brow furrowed as she listened. When he heard Barb wrapping up, he sat forward and picked up the phone just as she was saying amen. Thanks, Barb. God bless you, too. Bye.
“She was nice,” he said, pocketing the phone. “What did you think?”
“Yeah,” she answered distantly. “One question: what’s a hedge of protection?”
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Katie Bertola 