but Cait had learned that a lot of damage could be done across a short distance. Some of the protesters tried to scare the women by telling them that they were damaging their health, saying they were destined to get cancer or to be infertile. Some used kindness as a weapon, offering boxes of doughnuts from Big Kahuna, knowing full well that if a woman took one bite, she wouldn’t be able to go through with the procedure. You had to have an empty stomach, or it was too dangerous. Some just straight-up screamed in the women’s faces and told them they were going to hell, which was the least effective at changing minds but the most upsetting, from what Cait had witnessed.
It was a hot day, not even nine a.m. and already in the nineties. Cait had hoped it might keep some of the protestors away, but they kept coming, and soon the barriers were lined on either side, and there was a spill-out onto the sidewalk, which meant the protesters would be the first thing the women saw before they even pulled in to the lot.
The first car of the day pulled up, a Honda Civic with Alabama plates. The crowd snapped to attention, signs raised like spears, and began to chant.
Cait went to work.
The women came to the clinic. They were brave and afraid, cowed and defiant, tearful and stony-faced. They were teenagers who came with their mothers and women in their thirties who came with their husbands and women Cait’s age who came with friends. Some came alone. Cait stayed close to each of them, shielding them as best she could, distracting them with a joke or a smile or leading them to the door in silence. She felt able to divine what each woman needed from her, and she gave it to each of them as best she could, hour after hour on the baking tarmac, while the protesters howled.
At the end of the day, she could still remember the face of each woman she’d led through the doors, still feel the heat of their palms pressed against hers. She couldn’t remember the face of a single protester. To her eyes, they had become a shapeless mass, a blur.
Maybe that was why she didn’t notice when one of them followed her the three blocks to the parking lot where she’d parked the Jeep. Maybe it was the heat, or the exhaustion that had set in to the marrow of her bones. She wouldn’t know.
All she knew was the sickening crack of the rock when it landed on her windshield, the glass splintering into a spiderweb, her heart pounding wildly in her chest as she peeled out of the parking lot, not daring to look back.
Fort Sumner, New Mexico—158 Miles to Albuquerque
Rebecca sagged in her seat. All the adrenaline had leached out of her now, leaving her weak and exhausted. They had to be halfway there by now, or close. She pulled her phone out of her bag. There was a single reception bar. She waited to see if any missed calls would appear on the screen, but the little phone icon stayed blank, and after a while, she allowed herself to believe that maybe he hadn’t called to check in on her. Maybe she’d get away with this after all.
Cait looked over at her. “You got anything?”
Rebecca nodded. “I’ve got a little reception now.”
“Did he call? Your husband, I mean.”
Rebecca shook her head. “It doesn’t look like it.”
“That’s good. Right?”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “It’s good.”
“So he doesn’t know where you are.” It wasn’t a question.
Rebecca shook her head, hot shame flooding through her veins. Cait wouldn’t understand the situation—couldn’t possibly ever understand, because Rebecca barely understood herself. How did she get here? She wasn’t meant to be this person. This wasn’t meant to be her life.
“How long have you been married?”
“Ten years.”
“Ten years is a long time.”
Rebecca tried to conjure up the sharp, bright happiness she’d felt on her wedding day. Neither of them had two nickels to rub together, so they’d asked friends to stake out a spot in Washington Park early one Saturday and brought along a bunch of folding chairs and blankets for the guests to sit on. She’d worn a white slip dress she’d found at a vintage place in the Mission, baby’s breath laced through her hair. Patrick had worn a suit he’d borrowed from a friend and a smile so big it looked like it might crack his face