Could you pick me up at home at 3.30? I will need to go to an address in Burbank. I will then need you to pick me up again at 8. Possible?

I texted back:

Possible. Send me the address we’ll be heading to.

The address arrived a minute or so later.

916 Burbank Blvd.

I googled the address.

It was another abortion clinic.

nine

RISK IS SOMETHING to which I have an aversion. When you have played by cautious rules your entire life – and you fear what could happen if you stepped away from routine and put your foot into uncertain waters – the idea of going toward something weighed down with potential danger is not an easy one …

But here I was, driving toward Westwood. Knowing I was putting myself back into the story of all that happened last week at that clinic in Van Nuys. Knowing that I wanted to do just that … if just to learn more about that security guard who died and who continued to spook me. Perhaps because part of me kept thinking: the moments he spent confronting me might have cost him his life.

I also wondered: would lightning strike again? Would I be driving her right back into potential danger? Still, it had been reported on the radio that every abortion clinic in the Greater Los Angeles area had beefed up security in the wake of the Van Nuys attack. I tried to feel reassured by that. Just as another part of me now thought: fuck the fear.

But as I got closer to her address another question kept nagging at me: why did she call me directly? Why didn’t she just order an Uber normally – and get whatever driver was assigned to her by the big computer in the sky?

That was my first question to her after we drove away from 1710 Malcolm Avenue.

‘I called you,’ she said, ‘because, after all that happened, I felt immense guilt about dragging you into this literal inferno. Are you okay?’

‘I’m here. Unlike that security guard. Was he a friend?’