Lucy hugged her mother. “You were always there, weren’t you?”

Mom shrugged. “Well, yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?” She softly kissed Lucy’s forehead, rose to her feet, then left, making sure to give one last smile before closing the door behind her.

Lucy knelt down, wincing against the pain and the bloodstone-knot of Kotex pads, took a deep breath, then did it quickly, making sure not to stare at the thing that would have been her child for too long. Everything went into the bag—fetus, placenta, blood, urine, amniotic sac—then with a quick zzzzzzzip! the bag was sealed.

She closed the toilet lid and sat on it, holding the bag near her chest.

Two minutes. She allowed herself to sit there and hold the bag and cry for two minutes, no more.

Mom filled Dad’s metal lunch pail with ice and Lucy placed the bag inside, then secured the lock on the lid.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to take a cab over to the hospital,” said Mom, shoving a twenty-dollar bill in her daughter’s hand. “We can’t afford what they’d charge us for an ambulance—”

“—s’okay, I think the bleeding’s getting better now...God, I’m getting kind of...of dizzy...”

“—I’d come with you but I have to call Aunt Eunice and see if we can’t stay with her for a few days, until your father calms down—and he will calm down. And probably be damned sorry once he does. You ain’t gonna have to move out, I’ll see to that.”

“You sure he’ll want us back?”

“You know it. For no other reason, he can’t cook worth a damn. You wait. Six or seven days living on TV dinners does wonders for helping a man find humility. Can you make it by yourself? You’re so pale.”

Lucy felt as if she were folding in on herself; the pain was still screaming through her center, the nausea was still rising, and the shaking had only worsened. “I d-don’t know. I think I c-could maybe use some help.” Then came the dizziness.

The next few minutes were a feverish blur: Mom’s voice, Mom’s hands helping her to sit, to move, then the smell of exhaust fumes and a strange man’s voice saying, “Is she gonna make it?” then a second pair of hands, hard and calloused and strong, helping her into the back seat, then motion, sick-making motion that caused her to leak all the more, so wet down there, so warm and wet so why did she feel so cold?...

...voices and images, people in a drunken pain-dream swarming around her...

...bright lights, other voices, other hands, squeaking wheels and faster motion, her clothes taken away, sterile smells, pain still there, still leaking, her legs gently lifted, ankles into cold stirrups, a needle in her arm, a plastic mask placed over her mouth, numbness, my baby, oh Mom, empty, empty, empty...

* * *

A previously undetected defect in the fetus was the explanation the doctors gave to her. They were all very nice and showed the proper amount of sympathy and concern but, despite their words of comfort and their patient explaining of all the medical jargon and Mom’s reassuring pats on her hand (“You can still try again, someday”), all she heard was Empty, empty, empty...