unborn child’s future? Unborn children don’t have futures.
Which is exactly Petra’s point.
“Think of the stress of education,” she says. “The pressure it puts on our little ones, our tweens, our high schoolers.” She pauses for effect. “I’m just so proud to share our plan with you, a plan that will leave no child behind. Not one.”
“How are they planning to work that miracle?” I say back, turning toward the radio so quickly I almost lose my balance.
Petra clears it all up for me in a few sentences. “Beginning next month, WomanHealth will offer no-cost pregnancy management services to any woman referred by the Genics Institute. Your income won’t matter. And by any woman, we mean any woman, regardless of where she is in her term. If you don’t like your baby’s Q score, we’re here to help.” There’s smiling in her voice, and little mm-hmms of approval from the interviewer.
The words “no child left behind” take on fresh, terrible meaning: It’s impossible to leave a child behind if the child doesn’t exist.
Petra’s voice—prerecorded, I’m guessing—comes back in a public service announcement tone: Are you single? Unemployed? Worried about your financial future? No college education? Miserable about your Q score? Come on down to WomanHealth for your free consultation!
The next part targets a different audience:
Do you have everything except a child? Tired of feeling like you’re being outbred? Is it time to start the family you deserve? WomanHealth is here for you!
A radio voice reminds us this program has been sponsored by the FFC. As if anyone needed reminding. The same voice, void of any identifying dialect markers, introduces the brave women who have offered testimonials. N from Vermont says her piece, then A from Dallas, and a teenage-sounding girl identified as Z from St. Louis. Z can’t be much older than Anne.
To hell with the caffeine jitters. I nuke the cold coffee.
“I was on the streets,” Z says. “Like, not knowing what would happen tomorrow. I heard that WomanHealth was helping people like me, so I went in to talk to them. Yeah, I guess you could say they helped take care of my future. They told me—”
Z from St. Louis is cut off. Another voice replaces hers.
“This is H from Washington,” the radio voice says, “telling us about her experience with WomanHealth.”
“It was just a mistake. I got pregnant, and no, I wasn’t married. WomanHealth saved me.”
I kill Petra’s voice with a finger, and scratch out a note on the pad usually reserved for shopping lists. It isn’t my best effort, but those damned Westminster Quarters chimes are singing out their time-to-go song. And for this, I think short and sweet is best.
Dear Malcolm and Anne,
I’m so sorry, but I can’t stay here anymore. Please don’t look for me. I hope to be home soon.
Love, Elena/Mom
A magnet, one Malcolm bought me from a long-ago trip to San Francisco, does the job of holding my words until someone comes home later today. After a last look around, I load the car with my three pieces, check for cash in my wallet, and start up the Acura, which I’ll dump at the nearest big-box store parking lot before going the rest of the way on foot. Cabs are no use to me; cabs keep records. My house, the house where Freddie and Anne played as toddlers, where Malcolm and I once sat up late discussing books and music and all things erudite, lingers for a few seconds in my rearview mirror as I drive away.
And then it disappears, along with my forgotten coffee in the microwave.
THIRTY-FOUR
Inside a brick building on the fringes of one of Washington’s less chic neighborhoods, the two women at the check-in desk are a study in shades of drab. Their name tags say Mrs. Parks and Mrs. Flowers, neither of which image they conjure up. Mrs. Parks teeters on a wooden stool behind the desk, a tall, insect-thin shape of a woman, while Mrs. Flowers takes our identification cards one at a time, scans them, and checks off names on a clipboard.