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  The fat woman was behind the counter at the coffee shop. Young but fat, flaunting white, freckled arms. He didn’t like the place but it was the only place to get coffee near the clinic. Lists of stuff with foreign names stood on the counter. People in expensive clothes came in and ordered the foreign names. Norman said, “I want a cup of plain American coffee,” as he always did, and Lard Arms nodded. When he made the sign and started bringing it into the coffee shop, she had stopped speaking to him or smiling, and looked at him warily. That was how he wanted it. She put the filled cup on the counter. He put down exact change, took the cup to a table by the window, propping his sign up against the glass, and sat down. He felt tired. His hip hurt again, the grinding ache, and the coffee tasted weak and bitter. He stared at his sign. A long, curling hair, caught in the rough wooden edge, shimmered bright as gold wire in the sunlight coming through the glass. He reached out to pull it off. He could not feel it between his fingers, stiff and half-numbed from carrying the sign all morning.

  * * *

  They went in front of the reception desk and the angry woman went behind it. She said to Delaware, “You’re Sharee.”

  “I’m Sharee,” Sharee said.

  “It’s for her,” Delaware said. She moved her head and shoulders, moved forward a little, to get the receptionist to look at her instead of at her mother. “I made the appointments for her. She saw Dr. Rourke.”

  The receptionist looked from one to the other. After a while she said, “Which one of you is pregnant?”

  “Her,” Delaware said, holding Sharee’s hand.

  “Me,” Sharee said, holding Delaware’s hand.

  “Then she’s Sharee Aske? Who are you?”

  “Delaware Aske.”

  After a moment of silence the receptionist, whose name tag said she was Kathryn, accepted that, and turned to Sharee. “Okay, now there’s one more form to sign,” she said with professional firmness, “and you for sure didn’t eat anything this morning, did you?” Sharee responded at once to the institutional tone. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “And I can sign the form to sign.”

  Delaware saw but did not acknowledge the receptionist’s sudden, understanding glance at her. It was her turn to be mad. “How come you let those people yell at us out there?” she asked in an abrupt, trembling voice.

  “There isn’t anything we can do,” the receptionist said. “They can’t come onto the property. The sidewalk’s free, you know.” Her voice was cool.

  “I thought there were escorts.”

  “The volunteers usually come Tuesdays, that’s the regular day. Dr. Rourke put you in today because he’s going on vacation. Right there, see, honey?” She showed Sharee where to sign.

  “Are they going to be there when we go out?”

  “Where’s your car?”

  “We came on the bus.”

  Kathryn frowned. After a pause she said, “You ought to have a taxi going home.”

  Delaware had no idea what it cost to ride in a taxi. She had eleven dollars and Sharee probably had around ten dollars in her bag. Maybe they could ride the taxi part way. She said nothing.

  “You can call it from here. Tell it to come to the back entrance, the doctors’ parking lot. Okay, that’s it. If you’ll just sit down over there, Nurse will be with you in a minute.” Kathryn gathered up the papers and went into some inner office.

  “Come on,” Delaware said, and went over to the sofa, two chairs, table-with-magazines arrangement. Sharee did not follow her for a while, but stood at the reception desk, looking around. Delaware still felt angry. “Come on!” she said.

  Sharee came over, sat down on the sofa, and looked around from there. She had dressed for the occasion in her new jeans skirt, white cowboy boots, and blue satin cowboy jacket. Debi at the Head Shop had given her a wet-look curl in Daffodil Gold a week ago; sometimes she let it get too tangled up, but this morning it looked good, like a lion’s golden mane, wild and full. Fear and excitement made her dark eyes shine. Looking at her, Delaware felt strange and sad. She picked up a magazine and stared at it.

  It was kind of a pretty place. The sofa and chairs were aqua, her favorite color. Delaware was staring at a magazine and looking mad. Sometimes Delaware acted like she knew everything. She knew a lot but she wasn’t the mama, she wasn’t a mama at all. That was the thing she didn’t know. And Sharee did know. She remembered all of it, how she stuck out in front like a piano and had to pee all the time, and how her own mama had been so mad. Mama was always mad. It was a lot easier ever since she went to Alaska with David, it was a lot easier without her, just Sharee and Delaware in the apartment like it was meant to be. She remembered Delaware right from the first. That deep, deep softness and so small, like everything good in the world there where you can hold it and hug onto it and the milk came and it felt so good you didn’t know if you were the baby or the baby was you. Delaware didn’t remember that. But she did.

  This time she had known right away, next morning. With Delaware she hadn’t known because she wasn’t thinking about babies then, she wasn’t a mama, she was just thinking all the time about Donnie and loving him. Then when she started sticking out in front and her mama asked her about it, she and Donnie had broken up and she was going with Roddy. And then her mama had got so mad she had to stop going with Roddy or anybody. But this time, this was different. This time she was mad herself. She and Donnie had been in love. But this was different. What Mac did, in the car, at the drive-in, like that, like some zoo monkey, and then made her watch the rest of the movie. When he finally brought her home, she took a long shower, and in the shower she thought, something’s happening. Next morning, she thought, something’s happening. And then in two days when her period hadn’t started she knew. She knew it wouldn’t. And she was really mad. People thought she never got mad, but she did. It was like it started right there in her stomach, the same place, and spread out around her like a ball of hot red light. She didn’t say, but she knew. She didn’t know everything but she knew what was hers. What was inside her was hers. Mac had bent her arm and covered her mouth and stuck his thing into her just like some zoo monkey, but what happened inside her was hers, and she made it happen or not happen. Delaware had happened because she was hers, her own, she made her happen. This was different. This was a piece of her like a wart, like a scab you pick off. Like Mac had hurt her, cut her, made this wound inside her. There was a scab over the wound, and she was going to get it off and be whole. She wasn’t some zoo monkey or some kind of wound, she was the person she was. That was what Linda always said when she was in the special class. Be the person you are, Sharee. You are a whole person, a lovely person. And you have a lovely daughter. Aren’t you proud of her? You’re a good mother, Sharee. I know, Sharee always said to Linda, and she said it in her head now. Sometimes Delaware thought she was the mama, but she wasn’t. Sharee was. As soon as she said she wanted an abortion, Delaware got mad-looking and bossy and kept saying are you sure, are you sure, and Sharee couldn’t explain to her why she was sure. You have to be a mama to understand, she said. Sometimes I think I am, Delaware said. Sharee knew what she meant. But that wasn’t the kind of mama she meant. See, you were me until you were you, she told Delaware. I did you. I made you. But this one isn’t like that. It isn’t me, it’s just like this wrong piece of me I don’t want, like a hangnail. Jeez, Mama! Delaware said, and Sharee told her don’t swear. Anyway, Delaware knew she knew what she was doing, and stopped asking are you sure, are you sure, and got the appointment with Dr. Rourke. Now she was sitting on the aqua sofa looking sad again. Sharee took her hand. “You are my knight in shining armor,” she said. Delaware looked really surprised and then said, “Oh, jeez, Mama,” but not mad. “Don’t swear,” Sharee said.

  A nurse came in from the hall, a white woman in nurses’ ugly pale green slacks and smock. She looked at them both and smiled. “Hi!” she said.

  “Hi!” Sharee said, and smiled.

  The nurse looked at the papers in her
hand. “Okay, just checking,” she said. “You’re Sharee,” she said to Delaware. “How old are you, Sharee?”

  “Thirty-one,” Sharee said.

  “Right. And how old are you, honey?”

  “I just came here with her,” Delaware said.

  “Yeah,” the nurse said, looking confused. She stared at the papers and then at Delaware. “Then it isn’t you that’s here for the procedure?”

  Delaware shook her head.

  “But we need to know your age.”

  “What for?”

  The nurse went official. “Are you a minor?”

  “Yes,” Delaware said, nasty.

  The nurse turned and went off without saying anything.

  Sharee picked up a magazine with Kevin Costner on the cover. “That man looks mad,” she said, studying the photograph. “There’s a man comes into the Frosty that looks mad like that all the time. He’s really cute, though. He always gets the burger, no fries, and a strawberry softie. I don’t like softies. They don’t taste like anything. I like the hard ice cream. The old fashion. Old fashion hard ice cream. That’s what you like too, isn’t it?”

  Delaware nodded, and then said “Yes,” because Sharee needed you to say things. She had found that she wanted to cry, that is, that she was ready to cry, but didn’t want to. The cause was the place on her shoulder where the man’s sign had hit her. She wanted to cry because it hurt. She wasn’t hurt. There was no mark on her jean-jacket. There would be nothing but a little bruise on her, something she’d see tonight when she undressed, or maybe nothing. But the place where the wooden edge of the sign had hit felt separately alive and hurtful. It made her heart cold and her throat swollen. She took deep breaths. The nurse came back.

  “Okay, honey!” she said to the air between Sharee and Delaware.

  Sharee jumped right up, her turn to dance. She got hold of Delaware’s hand and tugged her up. “Come on!” she said, looking excited and pretty.

  Norman had no right to just walk off like that. He was rude and selfish. His sign had not hit the girl in the shoulder, but if it had, if it had happened to, it could quite well have gotten both of them into trouble again. He had absolutely no right to do that. Swinging the sign around that way. He could have hit her. He had no right. He never obeyed orders. She would have to tell Mr. Young if Norman was so unreliable.

  It was past nine and no one else would be coming. She looked down the block, but there was no one on foot, and none of the cars that came by slowed down. The terrible woman in her boots and a satin jacket like some circus performer, dragging the girl, her own daughter, you could see how alike they looked. That poor girl, she should pray for her. Only she was so angry, it was hard to pray. She could pray for the baby. And the father. Some poor boy, maybe a serviceman, a soldier, and no doubt he didn’t even know, what did they care about his rights, nothing. Nothing but self, self, self. They had no right. They were animals.

  Her throat was sore and her hands were trembling again. She hated it when her hands trembled. They said soldiers were afraid on the battlefield. But the trembling made her feel that she was like Grandpa Kevory sitting in the dark room that smelled of urine, his big, white hands trembling and shaking, you’ll have to help me hold that cup, Mary, and then his head would jerk on purpose, and the water would run down his chin and he would shake Mary with his horrible shaking hands. No one would come.

  They had no right to expect her to stand here alone. Norman was supposed to be here. He had volunteered. She had only come because she had missed last Tuesday because she had to substitute for the secretary at the school and always made up for time she missed. She had promised Mr. Young. Promises were important to her. No one else really cared. They came when they felt like it and never thought a thing about not being there if it was the least bit inconvenient. He had no right to walk off like that, leaving her alone without a sign or anything, thinking of nothing but himself. She had thought that maybe Mr. Young would happen to drive by and see her standing there keeping guard, keeping the faith. But there were no cars coming down the street. No one was coming. No one would come.

  I am a soldier, she thought, and as always the thought moved through her making her strong. The brave boys were there defending the flag: she saw the flag waving bright and clean over clouds of oily blackness. She would ask Mr. Young if she could carry an American flag when she was on duty. American flags were on sale now at the mall, with yellow bows. I am a soldier of life. I am on guard. She stood straight and walked up and down the sidewalk in front of the clinic, turning on her heel at the end of the lawn. She was glad and proud to be a soldier.

  Going down the hall Delaware said to the nurse, “Can I come in?” She had blown it not saying how old she was. The nurse walked right on and said, “Ask Doctor,” in an eat-shit voice.

  Why did they talk baby talk, anyhow, wait for Nurse, ask Doctor?

  Dr. Rourke greeted her, “Hi Della.” Pretty close. She asked him if she could stay with Sharee and he explained that they found it better not to let relatives or significant others stay with the patient during the procedure. Sharee let go her hand with a big smile. She liked Dr. Rourke, a handsome ruddy redhead, and had told Delaware several times that she thought he was cute. She followed the nurse eagerly through a swinging door. Dr. Rourke stayed in the hall with Delaware. “She’ll be fine,” he said. Delaware nodded. “Aspiration is about as big a deal as a haircut,” he said in his pleasant voice. He waited for her to nod, and then said, “You know I can do that tubal ligation. It’s not a big deal, she won’t know the difference.”

  “That’s the trouble,” Delaware said.

  He didn’t get it.

  “She understands this,” Delaware said.

  “I can explain the ligation to her so that she’ll understand that she won’t have to worry about prevention anymore.” He was warm, urgent with generosity.

  “Can you untie it?”

  “She shouldn’t be having,” then a pause.

  “She was brain damaged during birth,” Delaware said. She had said it fairly often. “It isn’t genetic.” Living proof, she stared at the doctor. He began to look angry, like Kevin Costner, like everybody.

  “Yes, all right,” he said. Doctors never make mistakes. “But isn’t it pretty likely that she’ll forget to use the diaphragm again?”

  “She didn’t. She doesn’t forget. This jerk she knows took her to a drive-in and came on her in the car. So like she doesn’t want some date-rapist’s side effects.” She stared at the doctor, who looked impatient, so that she hurried her words. “Maybe like someday she’d want to have another baby. I can’t choose that for her. How could I do that?”

  He took a deep breath and let it out heavily.

  “All right,” he said. He turned away. “She’ll be fine,” he said again. “Piece of cake.” He went through the swinging doors.

  Delaware stood a while in the hall and then thought it was stupid to wait there. She went to ask the receptionist where the bathroom was. She had begun to need to pee while they were on the bus, even before they changed to the westside bus at Sixth.

  Norman waited till he was sure Squealy Mary would be gone, but when he came back she was prissing up and down in front of the Butcher Shop as if she owned the place, straight-backed, turning around at each end of the lawn like some wind-up toy. What did her husband think he was doing letting her show herself on the street like that? They were all the same, showing their wares, prissing on their stick legs. Sucking up to Young. Oh, Mr. Young says this. Mr. Young says that. He knew what Young said. “Though I speak with tongues of men and angels.” He knew what Young said and he knew his own business. None of their business. They ought to be home, keeping house and keeping out of the way. He started to turn back, to go around the next block hoping she would be gone when he came back to the corner. When he realized what he was doing, he stopped short. He strode down the block straight to her. “All right,” he said, “I’ll take over now.”

  “
I’m on duty,” she said in her high, shaking voice.

  “I said I’m taking over,” he said, and watched her head bobble and tremble. But she did not move. “I’m going to tell Mr. Young about your behavior,” she squealed.

  “I stand here,” he said.

  “All right, stand there,” she said, and she started parading up and down again. He stood holding up his sign. Again and again she came past him, from the left, then from the right, heels clicking on the pavement, hands by her sides, shoulders held narrowed in. He thought to shove the stick of his sign up into her, keep her back straight! He never looked at her. He stood at his post in front of the steps of the Butcher Shop and held up his sign. God was his witness.

  Sitting in the very clean green stall, Delaware decided to cry, to get the tears and the snot out in private while her mother was busy elsewhere, but of course they wouldn’t come; she just made her throat feel sore. She unbuttoned her shirt and slipped it down to look at her right shoulder, between the neck and the shoulder cap, where she could feel the hurt of the blow of the man’s sign. Nothing showed except some redness that was probably because she’d kept rubbing it with the hand Sharee wasn’t holding.

  Back on the sofa in the waiting room she picked up the magazine to hide behind. She read some words about something, but saw with great clarity all the time the legs and feet of the woman who had shouted about praying. She was wearing tan pantyhose and navy shoes with trim little heels. Her skirt was navy and white, white dots on navy, with pleats. Above that Delaware could not see her. She could only hear the screaming, “Mom, Mom.” The man was wearing slacks, brown slacks and brown shoes, and a striped shirt. He had a saggy belly because he was old, but he had no face, because he was shaking the possum sign in front of it with that chopping motion, as if it was an ax, first up and down, then closer and closer to Sharee and Delaware, as they came closer and closer, till he hit.