I hate hot and prickly tasks, but that’s what Sunday afternoon and half of Monday morning brought my way. Although the weather was warm for late November, it was a marathon of physical activity and the barn loft’s inadequate airflow caused seven hours of profuse sweating. To my surprise and consternation, Kyla thrived. Without a handkerchief in sight, she drank coffee during our rare breaks while I swiped my face, head, neck, and arms with Dad’s old bandannas between gulps of bottled water. When it related to the farm, Kyla had always been the boss.
After she purchased the five Nubians, the goat man had related that alfalfa hay was the best source of roughage given the condition of the farm’s pasture. Lucky for Kyla, the business-savvy goat expert had a hundred and fifty bales available, and all for the cheap price of $600. My gullible sister took the bait, hook, line, and sinker, and called my name when the delivery arrived.
It was after 11:00 when I hefted the last bale through the barn loft’s paint-peeling door and scurried up the ladder to satisfy Kyla’s weird hay-stacking fetish.
***
After taking a cold shower, I flipped on my old window unit air conditioner, repositioned my Lazy Boy, and dialed Connie Dalton.
She answered on the first ring. I was glad we had exchanged texts earlier this morning. That icebreaking had revealed she wasn’t hostile to my call.
“Hello.” Her voice sounded much younger than I’d expected, almost like a teenager. From Bert, I’d learned her late-term abortion occurred in 2011 when she was twenty-five. That would make her thirty-four now.
“Hi Connie. This is Lee.” I didn’t repeat my last name. “Is now a good time to talk?” In my text, I’d promised I’d call before noon. Given the subject, I wanted to be extra sensitive.
“It is.” I heard arguing in the background, younger kids, girls, I think. “Hold on, let me close this door. The twins are at it again.”
“Okay, take your time.” While I waited, I heard Connie firmly, but respectively, instruct her kids to be kind to one another and remember Tolstoy’s calendar. I understood her first statement, but not the latter.
“Sorry about that. The kids are out-of-school today, teacher workday or something.”
Connie and I spoke ten minutes off-topic. From Bert, she had learned about me, Rachel’s suicide and my widowhood. He had warned me the conversation might be uncomfortable and shared that the best way to get our interviewee talking openly was to personalize myself, the questioner. Before Connie took the lead and transitioned us to the purpose for my call, she had given me an insightful perspective on the pain Rachel likely experienced before ending her life.
Connie and Lawrence married in 2007. Their son William was twenty-one months old at the time of the abortion. The couple had not planned the pregnancy but were happy. That changed over the next several weeks.
A sonogram at week twenty-nine revealed the network of cavities in their baby’s brain was larger than normal. Connie’s doctor referred her to a specialist. It was two weeks later, after another sonogram, that the couple learned their baby had a brain abnormality. The part of the child’s brain that connects the right and left hemispheres was missing. It didn’t exist.
The specialist told Connie and Lawrence their baby could never suck or swallow and would likely suffer from uncontrollable seizures after birth. There would be no end to the medical attention and care needed. The baby’s quality of life would be nonexistent.
Connie shared how at first, she blamed herself for not detecting the problem much earlier, but the specialist assured her that would not have been possible.
For several minutes, Connie’s mind and memory returned to 2011. Her sorrow and grief figuratively leaked through our phone connection. Finally, after what seemed minutes of her soft, semi-controlled crying, Connie said, “Lawrence and I faced the most horrible dilemma. We could end sweet Justin’s life and spare him unspeakable pain and suffering, or we could follow the religious teachings we’d held sacrosanct all our lives. Our decision was straightforward. How could any normal human being decide otherwise?”
I responded with, “you two were loving, and courageous.” I really didn’t know what to say, but I wholeheartedly agreed with their decision.
Connie, now more in control, continued. “What once was pure joy became unbearable. For several days, back home considering our options, sweet Justin persisted in kicking my belly. I finally realized his kicks were not playful but were his only way of screaming his pain. This realization was the final straw. God or no God. It would be inhumane to not give our dear baby the peace he deserved.”
The time had come. Per instruction from Bert, I asked a mind-numbing, heart-stopping question. “If you would be so kind and courageous, please share how Justin’s life ended and how you and Lawrence dealt with it.”
Connie didn’t hesitate. “The doctor used a sonogram to find the baby’s heart. He gave me an injection through my stomach to stop it from beating. My baby gave me one last kick. I believe it was to assure me of two things, that he loved me, and everything was going to be okay.”
That’s when I cried. It was the saddest story I’d ever heard. “I’m sorry,” I said. As quickly as it started, my sorrow turned to anger. The steady drone of “abortion is murder” from right wing evangelicals exploded in my mind. In the seconds before Connie shared her next thought, I shook my head in amazement at how ignorant, no, stupid, humans can be. If not for religion and what the Bible supposedly says, humanity would stop painting every issue as black and white. The world is full of gray. For an unknown reason, I was glad I’d gone to law school and gained critical thinking skills.
“Your crying assures me you are a genuine human being.” Connie paused for a few seconds. “As to the second part of your question, I delivered sweet Justin at the end of my thirty-second week. Deceased, of course, but beautiful, a spitting image of William.” I had planned on ending our call by asking what life was like today for Connie and her family. However, she beat me to it. “Now, although we have three healthy children, William, almost thirteen, Carrie and Lauren, eight going on eighteen, Justin is still with us. The only difference is he isn’t suffering. He’s healthy and headstrong.”
I think Connie would have continued her daydreaming if all three of her kids hadn’t rushed in and announced they had found a turtle on top of the tarp covering the swimming pool. “Sounds like you need to go. Thank you for sharing your story with me, Bert, Yale Law School, and the world. We will do everything we can to protect the right to late-term abortions in situations like yours.”
After our call ended, I cried some more, wishing life didn’t include such tragic events.
***
I stayed in my chair another thirty minutes, reliving the pain of losing Rachel. It didn’t take long to realize I was heading toward despair, something I’d often done during the past year. It normally took at least twenty-four hours to resurface. I lowered my footrest and stood. I didn’t have the luxury of time, not with tomorrow’s court appearance looming.
Twenty minutes later, my mind was unwilling to focus. I moved to the kitchen table and scanned Alabama’s eminent domain statute, and two federal circuit cases I’d found on point. At 12:30, it was time for a drive to clear my head. Afterwards, I could focus.
By the time I reached the Explorer, my mind was revisiting something Kyla had said yesterday afternoon. Her chosen subject was Lillian, more particularly, her constant presence while the three of us were growing up and her love for the barn loft. Kyla’s last statement before I descended the ladder to hoist up more bales was, “now Lillian has her own barn, red with a big loft. And her pond is gorgeous, complete with its enormous fountain.” These statements, plus my recall that Kyla had said Lillian’s place was on Cox Gap Road, tricked me into an adventure of sorts.
Before departing Kyla’s, I programmed the Explorer’s GPS to guide me to Alexander Road, the other identifier sis had mentioned during my phone call Saturday morning.
The weather had turned cooler since this morning, but the blue sky was ablaze with a brilliant sun. The GPS instructed me to turn left on Beulah Road. As safely as I could, I scanned the screen to get a feel of where I was going. After two miles, I’d turn right onto Highway 168, then proceed south to Highway 431 and make another left turn. From there, I’d drive two miles and turn left onto Cox Gap Road. After another mile, Alexander Road, along with Lillian’s red barn, huge pond, and spurting fountain, would be on my right.
I didn’t expect unsafe twists and turns, so I used my time to make a dreaded call. After speaking with Connie, I recognized two things. One, my mental state wasn’t stable enough to deal with stories seemingly like Rachel’s. And second, I wanted to give all my attention to the mission I’d set for myself here in Boaz.
I reached Cox Gap Road without clearly articulating what that mission was. Regardless, I called Bert and relayed that I wasn’t the right person to interview those who’d experienced a late-term abortion. As expected, he was sympathetic, leaving open the door for my return if I changed my mind.
I passed a six-bay cleanup shop and rounded a corner. I knew instantly that the Norman Rockwell scene before me was Lillian’s place. A large pond, a gorgeous deep green with fountain spurting water ten feet in the air, nestled next to Cox Gap Road. A right turn on Alexander Road led quickly to the driveway and a cute one-story cabin that was fifty yards in front of a like-new red metal-sided barn with a distinguished gambrel roof and an over-sized loft.
I thought about stopping but kept driving. A large, late model black SUV was parked in front of a matching garage at the rear of the cabin. I couldn’t stop my thoughts from venturing across the back porch and inside. I drove another half-mile to a driveway and turned around. A quick calculation yielded forty-eight years as the time span since the silky and sexy Lillian had called me at the University of Virginia and told me she was marrying Ray Archer. That too was the week of Thanksgiving.
Again, I drove past, looking left across the pond and seeing for the first time Lillian sitting inside the gazebo with her head down, probably reading a novel.
I returned to Harding Hillside, hoping the entire time that Lillian hadn’t seen my blue Explorer.
The Pencil Driven Life 