Personhood

A Story by Molly Cara

Jade couldn’t blame Dr. Sontag; Jade loved Dr. Sontag. There was simply no way that the clinic could afford to double the size of its procedure rooms and install elevators; it could hardly afford lab coats for its doctors. As a result of Senate Bill 732, clinics were shutting down left and right in Pennsylvania, and at a rather inconvenient moment for Jade, who was 16 weeks pregnant when the bill passed.

Dr. Sontag had known Jade for ten weeks now, and already there was an undeniable rapport between them. The two women were ten years apart in age and nothing alike in disposition, but they were both from Pennsylvania, and they were both women, so they had something to talk about in the weeks between the transvaginal scan and the standard ultrasound.

Dr. Sontag had taken a liking to twenty-five-year-old Jade the moment she learned that Jade taught math on weekdays and Hebrew School on Sundays.

Ten weeks ago, Jade would have taken a liking to anyone who offered her information and the right to a choice. Still, the choice was hard to make, and it was Dr. Sontag who waited patiently as Jade alternated between abortion and adoption, between readiness and heaviness.

...

Today, Jade takes a liking to no one. She scowls to herself and to all things she passes on the road to the nearest Crisis Pregnancy Center. She very nearly runs over two schoolchildren and several squirrels; today she has no patience for careless creatures. It is Shabbat, and she can’t believe she’s driving on a Saturday morning. But even the sky is drooping, and the thick ivory smoke sags lower than her breasts. She has to terminate this pregnancy.

Jade wants tenure, not an infant. Jade wants to travel. Jade wants to go to graduate school and study environmental science. But that’s in the long term.

As she pulls into the lot, she finds it unexpectedly difficult to find a parking space. After circling the lot twice, entertaining various unlawful notions, she spots and pulls into a vacant spot a good distance away from the Crisis Pregnancy Center.

Icy winds break out and slash across her face. Jade pulls her hood up and wraps her scarf tighter. When her breath comes, it comes staggered. Heavy. She walks faster.

With prickly palms, Jade lingers by the door. She imagines the disapproving, overcast eyes awaiting her inside. Will she have to explain herself? Naturally, Jade is prepared with an explanation:

That night, she had been with her partner of many months. He had been over her house, typing a security report for his employer, while she graded her students’ exams. (This was a sort of ritual they shared, convening to conquer their most mundane tasks over hibiscus tea, beneath soft music, and later, soft sheets).

But something had gone wrong that night and-

Jade yelps and leaps backwards. A young couple sashays through the doorway with hands clasped and eyes aglitter. If these folks can get through the appointment happy as honeymooners, why can’t she? She is Jade Roth, the calculus teacher with the stern voice and the rigid homework policy. If she can cope with differential equations and the lazy teenagers who try haphazardly to solve them, she can cope with a doctor’s appointment.

She watches the young couple fade into the parking lot before stumbling through the open door. In the waiting area, leather couches do their best to comfort daughters too young to be mothers and mothers too young to be grandmothers. The age-ambiguous receptionist looks up from a stack of papers and extends a clipboard towards a hushed, flushed Jade.

“Good morning. I assume you are Mrs. Roth, here for an eleven o’clock appointment with Mrs. Apdott?”

Jade hesitates. “I am here for an eleven o’clock appointment with a doctor.”

The receptionist cuts abruptly into Jade’s confusion.

“Yes. Dr. Apdott. She’ll be with you shortly. Have a seat.”

Jade accepts the clipboard and glances around the room in search of an open seat. Seeing none, she retires to the far corner near the door and shrouds herself behind the magazine table. When she can bring herself to acknowledge the clipboard in her sweating palm, she pulls her insurance card from her pocket and begins to transcribe the necessary information. She’s halfway into the questionnaire when the receptionist’s voice worms its way through the sympathetic silence.

“Jade Roth. Mrs. Apdott will see you now in room two. I’ll take your clipboard,” she adds as Jade trudges into view.

Room two is the first door on the right side of a broad corridor. A zaftig woman rotates 180 degrees to face Jade in the doorway. The woman, presumably Mrs. Apdott, sports a magenta blouse and black suit pants. Her face sits six layers beneath her makeup, which includes tan foundation, grey eyeliner, and red lip liner. Mrs. Apdott creases her forehead, focuses in on the bridge of Jade’s nose, and parts her lips to speak.

“Jade, darling. Come in. How are you?” The voice is adenoidal, the words over-articulated.

“How was the drive? I’m Mrs. Apdott by the way.”

The smile is toothy and dotted with fugitive lipstick.

“Let’s do an ultrasound, yes? How pregnant do you think you are?”

Jade looks up into the mismatched, froglike eyes.

“I know I’m sixteen weeks.”

Mrs. Apdott issues her friendliest giggle.

“You don’t look sixteen weeks pregnant. You hardly look pregnant at all! But just to calm your nerves, I’ll tell you all about the adoption process.”