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Willa snorted out a bitter laugh. “I got counseling for myself, on a sliding pay scale, about a year later when I became suicidal. I got in trouble for that, too. My mother wagged her finger in my face about me causing more trouble and making my dad worry. I didn’t intend to worry anyone. I just wanted to die. I prayed nightly that God would take me in my sleep. I woke up exhausted and disappointed every single morning for months.”
“And Mara?” Barrett looked at her, incredulous.
“I wasn’t allowed to tell her either. She had just gotten married in December; this happened the following May. My mother said it would be selfish to involve her in my ‘shenanigans’ when she was barely off her honeymoon.”
“When did you tell her?”
“My dad orchestrated that; I think. It was in November. I wasn’t doing well. My grades had fallen, my mother was on my case, and I didn’t care about anything. He called Mara and told her I needed help. I started staying with her and Zale much more often after that. My mother didn’t like it, but my dad made her back off.”
“You told Mara then?”
More tears welled over and spilled. “I told Zale. I’ve never seen him so angry as he was that day. He hugged me so tight I thought he’d crack my ribs. He smelled so good, I remember pressing my nose against his shirt and breathing him in, no hint of cigarette smoke on him. I think it was the first breath I’d taken that didn’t smell of smoke, in months. No matter where I went, I couldn’t escape that smell. He was the first to comfort me,” she smiled at the memory, “then he held my hand while I told Mara. She was devastated. She grieved with me, and she grieved for me. It was the first time I had an inkling that I was even permitted to grieve. I mean, I did it to myself! She took me to a therapist and that was good, but I didn’t go long enough. It was too difficult to talk about. It was a few months later when I hit rock bottom. I wanted to die but I thought if I could just wait it out it would pass. I was losing hope and starting to think seriously about ending the pain. I made one lucky phone call and the people on the line arranged things for me.”
“You were incredibly brave, incredibly selfless, and incredibly neglected.”
Tortured eyes, angry eyes, turned to meet his that were shiny with his own unshed tears. “That’s just it, Viking, I wasn’t. Even though I hated what I was doing, I was relieved that I was forced into a decision.”
“You were just a little girl. You shouldn’t have been forced to make any decision, not like that, not without a tremendous amount of support. You had no resources and your parents cut you off from the few you had.” Barrett countered, his voice controlled.
Willa pulled her hand from his and fisted them both in her lap.
“There is no excuse. I was responsible but I was weak. I hate being that girl!” she spewed the words, pain lacing every syllable. “She should have run away. She should have found a way, but she curled into a fucking ball, killed her baby, and nearly killed me. I won’t be dependent on anyone. People let you down, Barrett, and I’m the worst of the worst! I let down the one person who was completely dependent on me for life.”
“You were the one who was let down, curly,” he said softly, “Come here,” he invited, holding out his arms.
She looked at him with longing in her eyes, and whispered, “This happens to me every May, and it’s fucked me up on every level. I think you should go.”
Done with waiting and tired of holding back, he reached for her, picked her up, and placed her on his lap.
“I’m not going anywhere, Willa.”
Throughout the night Willa texted Minty, Junie, and Zale to let them know she was okay, and Barrett listened to her story. Though she could see the pain her words brought him, she needed him to know.
She told him about the embarrassment of going to the hospital the night before to have her cervix dilated, how it hurt, and the nausea from the pain of that invasion. She told him about coming home afterwards in that same car with its upholstery permeated with cigarette smoke, and crying herself to sleep, both of her hands splayed over her flat tummy, to somehow hold the child within just once, whispering sorry until her voice was as thin as her hope.
She told him about praying to get into a car accident on the way to the hospital.
She told him about the nurse who was kind, brushing her hair back from her forehead, soothing her angst while she lay on that despised gurney, underwearless, before they took her into that room where they spread her thighs wide and scraped out her womb.
She told him about the doctors, the ones who would do the dreaded procedure, offering her birth control but refusing to keep it from her parents if she took it. She told him how, when she said no, they said they’d see her back in three months for her next abortion, then laughed at her when she denied it.
She told him about waking up in recovery to the sounds of a baby crying that she thought by some miracle might be hers. How she tried to sit up but couldn’t see, how a nurse came over asking if she was in pain, how Willa asked for the crying baby and how the nurse told her the baby was not her concern.
She told him about the volunteer who called to wheel her out of the maternity ward when it was over, a volunteer who happened to be an acquaintance of her parents. How her dad went off to the side with the woman, leaving her in the wheelchair in the middle of the hallway, as they spoke to each other in hushed voices while she kept her eyes downcast towards her empty lap.
She told him how when she got home, she went straight to bed, and when she woke, she woke up empty.
She told him about her nightmare, the same one that revisited her dreams every May, and occasionally at other times when something threatened her peaceful world or triggered her memories.
She told him about the smell of cigarettes that seemed to cling to her skin at times, and the phantom cigarette smoke that sometimes choked her.
She told him about the bathtub full of dead babies that lived in her imagination that she feared she’d one day see for real.
She told him about the hospital bracelet, the only tangible reminder she had of the child, that she carried with her everywhere in a little velvet bag.
She told him everything.
Much later he stroked her hair back from her face while she slept sprawled across his chest in her bed. He thought back to that first meeting at the side of highway six. Rhys met Rebecca and eight months later he married her. It had been almost a year since that roadside meeting and they'd had one date, barely. He understood now all that was holding her back, all that had kept her from him.
