Three, Four, Five

We all have to make difficult decisions.

 

“Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

Her lawyer sat across from her, tapping her pen against the yellow notepad that lawyers never seemed to grow tired of. Her pin-striped suit was pressed and lint-free, her hair pulled back from her face in a tight, complicated twist. Her make-up was flawless, framing serious, steel-grey eyes.

Her young client wet her unpainted lips with the tip of her tongue, wringing her hands in her lap. The sweater she wore was too large for her and hung loosely on her small frame. Her sneakers were scuffed, her jeans torn at the knees, and her green eyes were stormy and red-rimmed from crying. Her short brown hair was tussled and in need of a washing.

She lifted one shoulder, looking small and insignificant in the uncomfortable steel chair, dwarfed by the over-sized sweater and her attorney’s domineering presence. The lawyer shifted, crossed her legs, and stared across the smudged table at her client.

“Just tell the detective why you did it, why you were there, and they’ll go easy on you.” She made an annotation on her notepad. “Though I don’t see why you’d deserve a lesser sentence.”

The girl shifted uncomfortably, not lifting her gaze from her lap. She picked at her nails, already bitten to the quick, and rubbed the blood on her jeans after she pulled a particularly painful hang-nail.

This wasn’t anything less than she expected. The accusations, the disgust, even from the people she knew and trusted.

Why were you there? Why did you do it?

Because I had to, I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t have lived with the responsibility, I just couldn’t...

The door behind the lawyer swung open and in stepped the red-headed detective and a uniformed police officer. The detective rounded the table slowly, the heels of her boots clicking against the dull ceramic flooring. Her blouse was tucked neatly into her trousers, her badge clipped to her waist and catching the light of the single overhead lamp in the naked room.

“Are you going to tell us why you were there, Ms. Goffman?” the detective addressed the bedraggled woman, who looked up with frightened eyes and wrung her hands more tightly in her lap, whitening the knuckles of her dry and cracked hands.

“I–I had to do it, I didn’t have a choice.” Her voice was dry and hoarse from crying. She sniffed hard and rubbed her nose. “He made me go there, he told me life would be easier if I just did it, that we’d never survive if I didn’t.” The detective didn’t look impressed and simply crossed her arms and gave the woman a stony stare. The woman began chewing on her nails.

“Do you think you had a right to do what you did, to take another’s life? You don’t see anything wrong with what you did?”

Questions, too many questions. She didn’t want to answer anymore questions. She wanted to go home to her one bedroom apartment on the far side of town and crawl into bed and sleep until all of this went away. She would have given anything to be out this room and out on the streets with the dealers pushing their smack and the prostitutes strutting the stuff. Anything was better than sitting in this tiny room with all of these people watching her, accusing her.

She shot her lawyer a desperate look and received nothing but a shrug in return. Why was everyone looking down at her with looks of disgust on their faces? She hadn’t done anything wrong, she had a choice to make and she had made it. She couldn’t have lived with herself if she hadn’t gone through with it.   

“I had to do it,” she cried, her words catching on a sob as she began to rock back and forth in her seat. “Don’t you understand, I had to–“

“Ms. Goffman?”

She looked up. The red-headed detective was addressing her again. But now the detective was wearing pastel-green scrubs and the look in her eyes was that of concern. The room she was sitting in was bright, the walls a stark white. The chair she sat upon was cushioned and there was carpeting on the floor.

She looked around. There was no police officer, no lawyer, and no looks of disgust or disappointment.  There were only other girls, most younger than herself, and most of them were alone as well. One with sad grey eyes sat across from her, her mother by her side. They weren’t speaking.

The other girls in the room seemed oblivious to the red-headed nurse who was calling a name that wasn’t their own.

“Ms. Goffman, are you ready?”

She looked at the nurse, green eyes tired and confused.

“I.... Do you have a phone I could use? Please.”

The nurse simply smiled, switched the clipboard to her other hand, and held the door open. The nurse led her back to the quiet front desk, and there the secretary with the bright smile offered her a phone and left the cubicle to give her privacy.

She took a deep breath, calmed herself, and dialed the number.

She waited as it rang. …three…four...five...

The other end clicked on just after the sixth ring.

“Hello?” The voice was heavy with sleep and distinctly male.

“Hi, it’s me.”

She waited. Silence buzzed heavy in her ears as the male on the other end remained quiet.

“Did you do it?” he asked. “Is it gone?”

It... Her grip tightened on the receiver, knuckles going white. She bit her lip, tried to hold down the hurt and disgust that bubbled in her throat.

“No,” she said quietly. She cleared her throat and spoke again, this time more clearly. “No, I didn’t do it, and It isn’t gone.”

Silence. ...three...four...five...

“It’s my baby, our baby. I’m not going to do this, I won’t. I can’t,” she said when there was no response from the other end.

The silence rang loud in her ears once again. Then he spoke.

“You’re on your own, then. I don’t want anything to do with this s**t.”

Click. The line went dead.

Silence.

She hung up the phone and managed a smile at the secretary who beamed as she returned. Then she turned and left the building, pushing open the plain glass door. She walked down the unflawed steps and stopped on the sidewalk.

The streets were damp with the day’s rain, cars swished by, and pedestrians chatted as they walked down the street. The sky above her was tinted grey, but they were calling for sunny breaks later in the day.

Passing a hand over her belly, she smiled and headed down the street.

Reviews

[Sara Muschweck]

I did enjoy reading this, the choice she had to make, and in the end what she could live with herself for doing. You wrote this in a tasteful manner, not shouting about one side or the other, laying out what was in the girl's thoughts, and her own choice in the end. A very good write.