Still Not Over

By Diana C. Caporaso

Before I was born everyone told my mom to get an abortion. She almost did.

“You’re sixteen,” they said. “You can’t have a baby. You’re too young. This kid would have a horrible life and you know it. It’s better off. You know you can’t keep it. It would be shipped around foster homes forever, our tax dollars wasted on some unwanted baby. It would be selfish of you to have it. Look at what you’re putting your mother through, you little tramp.”

After hearing this little spiel from everyone, she didn’t really have much of a choice. Her father offered to drive her to the abortion clinic, but she went by herself. There were some protesters outside the clinic that day holding signs that said things like “Save the Innocent” and “Stop the Infanticide” and “God Sees You.” They stood out there every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon religiously like a club or something. They jeered at my mother as she passed and made her feel even more ashamed. Mom figured they didn’t know anything.

She sat curled up in a chair in the waiting room, her knees pulled up to her chest, feeling terribly alone except for the fact that I was there with her that day, barely the size of a peanut. There was a couple there in the waiting room talking about normal things, but my Mom could tell the woman was nervous because she was holding the man’s hand so tight her knuckles were white.

That’s when a girl came out of the office into the waiting room, crying so hard her parents had to hold her up. Mom almost didn’t recognize her because the girl’s face was so red and distorted and messy, but then she realized it was Alissa Conrad from school. Everyone knew that Alissa had gotten raped a couple months ago after the homecoming dance.

A nurse asked if Alissa would be okay, and Alissa’s dad assured the whole room that his daughter would be fine. The woman with the white knuckles almost tore her husband’s hand off. Mom thought about the protestors outside every Tuesday and Thursday and sometimes even holidays.

Alissa left the clinic sobbing, “It’s still not over, it’s still not over, it’s still not over…”

And my mother left right after her.

xxx

My grandparents were pretty pissed that she didn’t go through with it. They tried to make her go back. Especially after Mom had amniotic testing which said there was a huge chance I’d end up with Down Syndrome. But by that time I was almost the size of a fist and Mom said she could feel me inside her and she was in love with me.

Well, we all know how this story ends, or else I wouldn’t be here writing it. Mom had me and I turned out normal with the right amount of chromosomes. Of course they wouldn’t let her keep me and instead of being passed through foster homes like a hot potato, I was adopted by this really nice couple who couldn’t have kids. It should have ended there and then it would have been almost a happy ending.

I had been with the really nice couple, whoever they are, for almost a year when my mom turned eighteen and ran away from home. She had gotten this boyfriend who was in law school and too smart for his own good. She claimed she had been forced to give her baby up and she wanted me back. Her boyfriend knew a really good lawyer and they came up with a strong case which played on the jury’s emotions. That’s how I left the nice couple and found myself with my teenage mother again.

Sometimes I try really hard to recall that first year of my life with those mystery parents. But it’s like trying to remember a dream half an hour after you’ve woken up. It’s at the tip of your tongue, you feel an emotion maybe, you’re the closest you can get to remembering without actually remembering it. The only thing I can almost remember is a red beard that tickled. I spent the first three-quarters of my life looking for a man with a red beard whenever I walked the streets of Chicago but I never found him, and then I gave up.

I think that first year with my mystery parents had to be the very best year of my life.

xxx

“Shit, the condom broke.”

I was lying between the sheets in Taylor’s bed pretending I hadn’t just heard the four words no teenager wants to hear after having awkward teenage sex that she didn’t even want to have. Taylor was examining the condom as if he could still fix it.

“When’s the last time you had your period?” Taylor asked, fitting his pinkie through the whole.

“Um,” I said, not wanting to talk. I had it on my birthday and had to go to my Sweet Sixteen crying from the cramps. “Two weeks ago.” I sat up and started fumbling around for my bra.

“You’re still on the Pill, though, right?” he wanted to know next, finally giving up on the condom and closing his fist around it.

“Uh, yeah, Tay, don’t worry about it,” I responded, giving him a quick peck on the mouth. The truth is I stopped taking it a couple of months ago because it made me feel depressed when I took it. I pulled my shirt on and said, “Can you drive me home now?”

“Yeah, sure babe,” he said without really thinking about it, his mind was obviously still on the fucking condom. He stood up and he was still naked and I suddenly felt like I shouldn’t be looking at him.

When we got to my house Taylor kissed me goodbye and he tasted sweaty. “Night, Hannah.” Then he looked past me and added, “Hey, Ms. Kemp” because it just so happened that Mom was taking out the garbage at that exact moment.

“Hello, Taylor,” she said in her “I’m-not-amused” voice. “It’s kind of late, don’t you think?”

“Don’t worry,” Taylor assured her, “I won’t be late to class again tomorrow morning.” Because on top of it all my mom is the health teacher at my high school. She gets to show all my classmates how to put condoms on bananas. Maybe Taylor had been late that day too.

There was a different type of lateness I was worried about now, but I told myself I wouldn’t think about it until the time came, if it came at all. I said good night to Taylor knowing it had been a terrible night and afraid that it would be a night I would pay for for the rest of my life.

I got out of the car and stood next to my mom who was waving as Taylor pulled away. When he was out of sight she put her hand down. “I don’t like him,” she stated for the millionth time.

I wasn’t taking this again, not tonight. “You don’t even know him.”

“I know guys like him. He’s failing my class, you know.”

Okay, so maybe Taylor wasn’t the brightest guy in the world, but his heart was in the right place. “Yeah, and the smart intellectual guys are all perfect,” I said sarcastically. “Remember Russell?” Russell was the law school boyfriend who helped get me back. He lived with us until I was seven and then he bailed. I hate, hate, hate him. If it weren’t for him, I’d might still be with…

“Well,” Mom said, putting the lid on the trashcan, “I don’t want you staying out this late anymore. It’s not safe. You’re only sixteen.”

It’s hard to take orders from someone who’s younger than my best friend’s sister. Someone who obviously made some mistakes in her own life. But maybe it’s hard to take orders from your mom no matter who she is.

I turned and headed towards the house, knowing she was following me. My mother tries to follow me everywhere.

So I had to wait until I was in my room with the door shut behind me until I could grab my screaming pillow to let it all out. I use the same pillow every time to muffle my screams. It’s small and square and pink and my grandmother made it for me when I was four. My grandparents never talk to my mother because of me, they never even send Christmas cards. But for my fourth birthday my grandmother sent me this pillow and I’m not even really sure why. I’m glad she did because I really need it. It’s hard to act so normal and unaffected all of the time.

Then I started running water for a bath. Usually I just take normal showers, but when I’m upset I soak in the tub. It wasn’t until I was immersed in the bath bubbles that I even began to think about crying. When you’re all wet no one can tell there are tears on your face.

“I didn’t even want to have sex with him,” I whispered to myself, sinking deeper into the water which was so hot it burned my skin at the surface.

xxx

“You still didn’t get it yet, did you?” Jocelyn asked as she pulled a t-shirt from the rack.

Her voice was too loud. “Shhh,” I said, looking at the other customers, but they were too busy checking out price tags. “How can you tell?”

“Because you’ve been acting totally weird since we got here. You haven’t even said a word about that purple jacket in the front of the store when I know it’s totally your style.”

Who even knew if I’d be able to fit into that jacket nine months from now? “No, I haven’t gotten it yet. And it’s been three weeks!”

“Did you tell Taylor?” Jocelyn asked next. She was still talking about this in her normal voice as if it were no big deal. She seemed more interested in finding a pair of khakis in her size.

“No. I’m pretty sure he’s forgotten about it by now. I told him I was still on the Pill.”

“The Pill sucks. I heard it makes you get fat.”

I looked down. “Maybe everything happens for a reason.”

“I just farted,” Jocelyn stated. “Is there a reason for that?”

“Jocelyn,” I said, loud enough to get her attention away from the newest shipment of sweaters. “I don’t think you’re grasping the seriousness of this situation.”

Her expression finally changed. “Look, Hannah,” Jocelyn said. “It’s going to be fine. You’re just not getting your period because you’re too stressed. Just calm down, and it will come. And if not…” her eyes strayed to a display of turtlenecks. “You could always just get an abortion.”

xxx

My aunt told me once that the people who adopted me were pretty rich. That they had a nice house and they went to Church on Sundays. They were young, but old enough to start a family.

I know I shouldn’t think this way… but sometimes I really think that my life would be so much better if I had just stayed with them. I know my mom loves me, but most of the times she seems more like a bossy big sister than a mother. My friends all think it must be awesome to have a mother so young and so cool about putting condoms on bananas. But sometimes I just want a real mom- even if she wasn’t my real mom. Having a dad would be pretty nice too. Maybe they would have raised me better, and I wouldn’t be in this situation now, wondering if I’m going to become a statistic.

Most kids who are adopted can’t wait until they turn eighteen so they can seek out their birth mothers. I’m an adopted child who wants to find her adopted parents, how weird is that? I wonder if they ever got another daughter who got to be tickled by that red beard.

xxx

It had been three and a half weeks since the broken condom and I’d been using the screaming pillow so much that it got a tear down one side. I brought the pillow downstairs to my mom so she could sew it, even though I know she hates the screaming pillow because it reminds her of her mom. It just makes her sad but what was I supposed to do? I don’t know how to sew.

Mom was sitting at the table drinking coffee. “That thing’s torn again?” she asked when she saw it. “Why can’t I just buy you a new pillow?” she said, knowing perfectly well why not.

“It’s just a tiny tear. I saved most of the stuffing.”

“Alright,” mom sighed, getting up to get her sewing kit from linen closet.

I noticed a stack of pictures next to her coffee cup. “What are those from?”

“Oh, I just found those today,” she called from the hallway. “They were in the basement. I think they’re from a trip we took to see Russell’s parents when you were two. Now, where is that sewing kit…?”

I picked up the stack and started flipping through them. They were mostly of my mom and me, Russell always hated being in pictures but he loved taking them. There were some pictures of scenery and a couple of a house with green shutters. When I got to the last picture I dropped the entire stack.

“Be careful with those!” Mom scolded as she came back into the kitchen holding her sewing kit. I bent down to pick them up and she added, “Watch out for fingerprints.”

“Uh, Mom?” I said, holding the last picture towards her. “Who’s this guy with the red beard?”

Mom studied the picture of the man wearing jeans and a red plaid shirt, looking like he didn’t want to be having his picture taken. “Oh, don’t you recognize him? That’s Russell.”

“Russell didn’t have a beard,” I pointed out. “Or red hair.”

“I finally convinced him to shave that disgusting thing off a few weeks after this picture was taken. And his hair started going gray prematurely like his father’s. You probably wouldn’t remember him with his hair like that.”

The look on my face must have worried her. “Honey, are you starting to feel sick again?” she asked, feeling my head. I hadn’t told her that I suspected that my recent nausea had to be either morning sickness or extreme paranoia. And I wasn’t about to tell her how crushed I felt to find out that the one real memory I thought I had of my adoptive parents was shattered. Without that memory, it felt like they had never even existed, a dream I just made up.

I was sick of all this not knowing, of all this wondering. I left Mom in the kitchen with the pillow and the pictures and went upstairs to make a phone call.

“Taylor? It’s me, Hannah. Can you drive me to the drugstore?”

xxx

Taylor offered to buy the pregnancy test for me, but I paid for it myself, taking a crumpled twenty out of my back pocket and laying it on the counter. I could tell the teenage boy behind the counter was trying really hard not to make a face; I recognized him from school but I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t even want to know what he was thinking.

“Have a nice day,” he smiled, handing me the pregnancy test in a white plastic bag.

Taylor seemed more scared than I was as we drove back to his house to take it. “I wish you had told me you stopped taking the Pill. Maybe we could have been more careful. I don’t know. Man, my parents are going to kill me, I can’t be a dad, dads don’t play football.”

I let him ramble on so that I wouldn’t have to say anything. His parents weren’t home, but we still locked ourselves into the bathroom anyway as we opened up the test and read the directions.

“So basically I have to pee on this strip and I’ll know in three minutes.”

“We’ll know the rest of our lives in three minutes,” Taylor said, his tone so serious that he seemed completely vulnerable. “I’ll wait outside if you want.”

After I had forced myself to urinate (and I don’t think I’ve ever had so much trouble), I lay the test down on a flat surface and let Taylor back in and we waited together. One line equaled not pregnant, two lines equaled fucked.

Taylor was holding my both my hands so tightly and when I looked at his knuckles I thought about that woman at the abortion clinic my mom had told me about. Holding on for dear life, afraid to let go…

Only one thick pink line stared back up at us. Taylor hugged me so hard and he actually started crying. I didn’t know that football players cried. “Oh, Hannah, we’re so lucky, we’re so lucky…”

Yeah, I thought sarcastically. Lucky. Well… at least lucky enough that I wouldn’t have to make the same decision my mother did.

But the other girl in the abortion clinic that day entered my mind too. Alissa Conrad, her face all messed up, dripping, repeating the same words all over again. It’s still not over… it’s still not over… it’s still not over.