Tyler Chan
February 21,
2014
“For Better or Worse”
Abortion had
never been a term to spark much emotion from Rich. He was not a religious man,
nor was he particularly impassioned by any political agenda. He’d heard the arguments, seen the
hostility the subject aroused, and quite frankly didn’t care one way or the
other. His beliefs were his own,
and with that he was satisfied.
Rich was glad to
have found a woman who shared this apathetic disposition—something he found
unbearably absent during his years at a conservative university. Kat had come from a Catholic
background. Her family—especially her mother—was deeply involved in the local
parish and she had been too by default. However, as she aged through her teens
and into her twenties, Kat’s justification for missing Sunday mass gradually
evolved from “I’m too tired” to “I’m hungover” until finally reaching “I just
don’t believe any of this.” So by
the time they’d met, Kat and Rich were perfectly and happily compatible on that
front.
They had begun dating
in the summer of 2010, when Rich was home from school. Mutual friends had
introduced them and everything proceeded in a fairly conventional manner. They
went on a few dates—movies, dinners, parties—all of which were almost certain
to result in more intimate contact than originally anticipated, and by August
they were officially “together.”
Kat was perfect
for Rich, and he knew it. Her long kinky blonde hair was perfectly
uncontrolled. Her light green eyes were stunning and vivid against the black eyeliner
that surrounded them. Her makeup was always done flawlessly—something she took
a lot of pride in. Sometimes Rich
would go into the small Italian restaurant where she worked, sit at a booth,
and just watch her smile and radiate as she glided across the room with a tray
full of hot lasagna and fried calamari. He would watch the men she served,
knowing that they must feel the same way he’d felt the first time they met—enamored
by her beauty and personability. Then when they’d leave a twenty-dollar tip on
a thirty-dollar check, she’d hold it up towards his booth and do an inconspicuous
little dance. He would just laugh and shake his head, but not in disbelief—it
never surprised him. But it wasn’t
her refined appearance that held Rich’s attraction all the years they spent
together.
Rich was
infatuated with her sense of humor.
Despite her refined appearance, Kat’s mind was as unfiltered as it was
unoffendable. Rich’s humor was dark and insensitive to most, so her receptiveness
to jokes about baby Jesus and Anne Frank was liberating to say the least. He
was free to be open with his off-color jokes and Kat responded in kind. The
first flowers she ever received from him were left on her windshield while she
was working with a bit of a cold. They were handpicked and accompanied by a
note that read:
Roses are red and sweet like a sucker,
Stop working so hard and get well
motherfucker.
To which she
cheekily replied by text:
I’ll work if I want, stop being a perve.
Leave me alone, I’ve got pizzas to serve.
Kat was still in
school, and she had a long way to go. Rich had graduated a year and a half into
their relationship. She’d been at the same community college for four years and
was applying to transfer to a university the following fall to study
psychology. She loved learning of all kinds, though her reckless enrollment in
any course from Drawing 1A and African American Culture to Astronomy 100 and
Volleyball was, in Rich’s mind, no doubt the culprit for her prolonged academic
career.
“If you just
took the classes you needed, you’d be done already,” Rich told her one Friday
afternoon as the two were driving to San Diego for the weekend. “You wouldn’t
be stuck there like you are.”
“I know. I am
taking those classes. I just take a lot of electives,” She reasoned.
Rich wasn’t sold
on her argument for a second. “But you take electives instead of the ones you need and that makes this whole thing take
so much longer.”
“Well, what’s
the rush? Can’t I just learn what I want to learn? Why does it matter how long
it takes?” she replied with a playful smile.
“’Cause it costs
money. And don’t you want to be done with school already and, you know, start
your life?” Rich was treading softly. He knew her enthusiasm for aimless education
of all things was a sensitive subject.
“Well, why don’t
you marry me already and we can.” She
said in a trivial manner.
Rich didn’t miss
a beat. There weren’t many subjects that, after all their sadistic joking,
still had the power to break his concentration, and marriage wasn’t even close.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m not doing shit until you finish school.”
Kat rolled her
eyes. “Ugh, why? That’s not for like three more years! Come on already. Just
propose!”
“No way! How am
I suppose to go to your parents like ‘Hey guys, so like I know Kat is still in
school and everything, and I’m still looking for a job, and Kat’s still selling
spaghetti and whoring herself out to customers for tips—“
“Fuck off! I
make more money than you!” she said in playful argument. Though it was true, she
did make more money than him at the time.
“Whatever,” Rich
answered back, rolling his eyes, “Once I find a job I’ll be ballin’ out of
control. Sippin’ Dom P with my cereal and shit.” He mimicked a gang sign with
the hand that wasn’t steering, though it more closely resembled a gesture
rudely imitating someone with mental disabilities.
“Good, then you
can afford to buy my ring. Yellow diamond, princess cut,” she said holding her
left hand up and flicking her ring finger up and down, trying to draw his
attention from the road.
“Oh, yeah?” He
said sarcastically, “Well like I said, finish school and maybe if you’re good
we can work something out. But you’re buying your own ring.”
Kat laughed and
responded with a “Fuck you”
No love was ever
lost between them, and nothing was off limits, especially “pregnancy termination,”
much to the dismay of their friends. It was common practice for Kat, when
talking about children and pregnancies, to lift up her shirt and start beating
her stomach with her fists. “Just in case,” she would say to the appalled
expressions of her friends, “You never now!” Rich would laugh hysterically,
though rarely did anyone else share his amusement.
It wasn’t until one
October night, when Kat was two weeks late, that Rich began to feel a little
apprehensive about the subject. They had been through three years of deranged
abortion jokes and finally arrived at their first pregnancy “scare”. It wasn’t supposed to be scary—not to
them—but it was.
They stumbled
through the instructions and after a couple forcefully drunk bottles of Dasani
water Kat headed to the master bathroom of Rich’s apartment to take the
pregnancy test.
“Well…” she
called down the hall to Rich who was seated anxiously on the couch, fiddling
with his phone.
He flung himself
off the couch and jogged down the hall to the master bathroom. He was growing
more and more nervous. He couldn’t fathom the turmoil their lives would be in
if they were to have a child. They weren’t ready. They couldn’t afford it. They
didn’t want children. Everything they’d envisioned for their future was now in
jeopardy. Until now, this had always just been a “Wouldn’t that be crazy”
scenario. Now it was becoming real.
When Rich
reached the bathroom, Kat was standing in the doorway. She looked shaken and
fragile. Rich’s heart sunk. He’d never seen her so broken. She stood there teary-eyed trying
desperately to muster something resembling a smile to inject some ease and
humor into the situation but her trembling mouth wouldn’t allow it. It was unbearable for Rich to see her
like that. He wanted so much to see the vivacious, carefree girl he’d fallen in
love with, but she couldn’t even fake it. She looked depleted, like all her
cheer and exuberance had run out.
They went to the
clinic the following morning. Their minds were unchanged about what needed to
be done. Rich felt numb about the situation. It felt like everything was a bit
quieter, a bit slower, and a bit more detached from reality. But he was a
realist. He knew that they were in no financial or psychological position to
care for a child. He also knew
that he wanted more than anything to have a happy life with Kat. He wanted to marry her, and maybe
eventually start a family. But this was all too soon, and the health of their
relationship was not something he was willing to jeopardize.
Rich sat
nervously as Kat filled out the packet of paperwork in the waiting room. He found it strange that he was so
nervous, having trivialized the process of “pregnancy termination” for so long.
But after seeing Kat’s reaction to the pregnancy test, he had a slightly
different outlook.
“Kat? Kat?” the
nurse repeated, leaning on the knob of the half open door.
The couple
simultaneously snapped out of their daze. Kat grabbed her purse and got up.
Rich put his hands on the arm rests of the chair as if about to push himself
up, but waited for the nurse to wave him in, which she did.
“Do you want to
know anything about the baby?” the technician with the probe still between
Kat’s awkwardly parted legs. A vaginal ultrasound was something unheard of to
Kat and Rich until that morning, and neither were excited about it.
“Nooo,” Kat
answered with a laugh shaking her head, “not at all.” She tried to stay upbeat
about the situation as best she could, and these little nuances helped ease the
tension, if only for a moment.
Rich, who was
sitting in a chair next to her, was relieved by her response. He gave a dismissing
laugh, as if a homeless man had just offered them heroin, and said, “Yeah, I
think we’re okay.”
“Do you want to
know if its twins?” the tech asked. Rich’s heart skipped a beat, feeling as
though the question implied the answer.
“I mean, I
guess. I don’t know. Does it matter?” Kat said, appealing to Rich. He shrugged,
not wanting to encroach on the rights of the “mother”. “Sure”, she concluded,
her female curiousity getting the best of her.
“Okay,” the tech
said spinning the monitor around, “Well, you are having twins. There’s one sac
here, and the other right here.” She pointed them out with a pen on the screen.
Rich was annoyed
by the technician’s wording. If they didn’t want to know anything, why would
she even propose such a self-answering question? She wasn’t making it any
easier. He looked at Kat, who looked surprised but merely out of amusement and
disbelief. She had the slightest hint of a smile but her eyes indicated that
this new information felt like another turn in the knife.
After a short
pause, the technician continued, “If you need some time to think about it, we
can do the medical abortion up to four weeks from now. After that, you’ll have
to do the in-clinic procedure.”
“No, no. It’s
fine,” Kat answered quickly.
Rich was once
again relieved. If anything it
felt to each of them like an even greater crisis had been averted.
The technician
finished her work, withdrew the instruments, and stood up from her swiveling
chair. “Okay the doctor will be in in a few minutes. She’ll walk you through
all the steps. You’ll take the Mifepristone here, then you’ll have Misoprostol
to take at home tomorrow. She’ll explain everything,” she said before heading
towards the door. She flipped the lights on, pulled the door open and just
before shutting it behind her, raised the folder in her hand as a quick wave
goodbye and said, “Good luck” She smiled and shut the door.
---
Rich struggled
to come to terms with being alone, but he was managing in every way he knew
how. Cigarettes numbed his
anxiety, long work hours distracted him from depression, and a new Sig Sauer
P226 pistol and a nearby shooting range cooled his anger. His methods were bordering on unhealthy—and
he knew it—but he naively ignored the matter thinking he was too mentally strong
to lose control of the artificial normalcy he was creating.
Rich worked
every day designing marketing campaigns for small businesses—usually used car
lots or local veterinarians. Most
of his free time at night was spent preparing the next day’s work. On weekends,
he would prepare for the next week’s work. Eventually “free time” melded with
work time, before almost disappearing entirely.
It had been
almost a year since Kat passed away. The day after going to the clinic, a
painful red rash began expanding up her lower stomach. Rich called the clinic immediately and,
at their advising, drove her to the emergency room immediately where he would
last see her being wheeled through swinging doors on a gurney. Complications
from her abortion medication had led to a bacterial infection that ended her
life along with any others she was carrying. She was dead 22 hours after the
abortion.
Three months
after Kat’s passing, Rich was promoted to Executive Account Manager. He
overlooked every client account on the west coast. The transition was completely unnoticeable. For Rich, work was work. He had worked relentlessly and
tirelessly since Kat’s death, and continued to do so without a hitch.
Another three
months passed and Rich was offered a position at InVision—a high profile
marketing firm whose clients included Marriott, Philip Morris, Nestle, and
other multi billion dollar corporations.
For most in the field, it was a dream job. But Rich no longer had
dreams. He didn’t have aspirations or goals—only work. Work had become his life. It consumed
his entire being. It blanketed the
void left by Kat’s departure, then filled it, then sealed it.
Every once in a
while his friends would invite him out, to which he would always reply, “Sorry,
I’ve got a huge deadline next week”.
He always covered just far enough into the future to avoid any
possibilities of rescheduling.
His friends grew
accustomed to this and eventually their efforts dwindled, until one night he
received a text message from his friend Kevin inviting him over for his
girlfriend’s birthday party. He
began typing the usual response when an incoming call interrupted him.
“Hey I was just
texting you,” Rich said, unnerved by having to now decline the invitation by
voice.
“Are you
coming?” Kevin asked suspiciously.
“Ah, I can’t
tonight man. I’m swamped—“
“Dude, just come
for a little. You don’t have to stay long.” He sounded annoyed, probably for
good reason.
Rich didn’t have
any further argument, so reworded his previous excuse, “I just have so much
stuff to get done.”
“Dude, it’s
Katie’s birthday. It’ll be fun.” Kevin insisted.
Rich was annoyed
by the persistence but, having not seen his friends for a while, he reluctantly
gave in. “Do I need to bring anything?”
Kevin’s tone
changed instantly and he excitedly answered “No, nothing. We already have food
and beer. Just get your ass over here.”
Katie’s birthday
meant that her friends would be over as well. Rich’s friends had been hesitant to introduce him to any
girls since Kat had passed, but it had been a while now and slowly they were
becoming more direct about it. “Dude, she’s bringing her cousin” or “Her hot
friends will be there” were more often than not tagged onto any invitation.
The party was
more fun than Rich expected. The initial greetings felt a little awkward, the
majority of which included “Man, I haven’t seen you in forever” to which Rich
never really had an explanation other than “Yeah, works been crazy.” But after
a while, he settled in and all of the once familiar faces became once again
familiar.
“You’ve met
Sydnie, haven’t you?” Kevin said pointing towards the pretty blonde girl next
to him.
Rich had been
there an hour or so and knew that some kind of random introduction was
inevitable. “No, I don’t think so.”
Rich replied, extending his hand towards the girl. “I’m Rich.”
“Sydnie. Nice to
meet you,” she said grasping his hand gently. Her hand was small and slim and
all of her fingers seemed to overlap each other as Rich shook it and smiled at
her.
“I’m gonna grab
a beer, you guys want one?” Kevin asked pointing back and forth between Rich
and Sydnie.
“I’m okay,”
Sydnie answered as Rich raised the beer already in his hand to show Kevin.
Kevin turned and
left. The convenience and quickness of Kevin’s departure made it pretty obvious
to both Rich and Sydnie what his intentions were. The two looked back at each other and, in doing what was
expected of them, began talking.
They talked
about jobs, school, what their plans were for the future, what their plans were
for Thanksgiving. She told him
about the flower business she’d started with her sister and the new Prius she
was buying in December. Rich enjoyed the conversation. It felt like he was
finally normal again—talking to girls without any awkwardness, despite a faint
sense of guilt that would sporadically creep into his head. He hadn’t really
spoken to many girls in this context since Kat, but nonetheless tried to get
back into the swing of things. They talked throughout the night and by the end
of the party Rich felt an instinctual confidence he hadn’t felt since before him
and Kat had met.
“We should hang
out some time,” He said as they prepared to part ways.
“Yeah,
definitely. That’d be fun,” She replied, smiling back and nodding. Her teeth
were excessively white and perfect—something that usually goes unnoticed in
Southern California.
“Let me get your
number. I’ll shoot you mine, hold on,” Rich said pulling the phone out of his
pocket. The words felt unfamiliar to him, but came naturally—like a picture
book being dusted off and read for the first time since childhood. The two
exchanged numbers and a hug, and went their separate ways.
Over the next
few months, Rich and Sydnie talked consistently and went on numerous dates—movies,
dinners, and parties—each bringing Rich one step closer to his old self. They
spent more and more time together until after four months, Rich asked Sydnie to
be his girlfriend. She accepted
with a perfect smile and, though they’d already been increasingly inseparable,
was happy to further solidify their relationship.
Sydnie was cute
and sensible. She had pretty blue eyes and high, sculpted cheekbones that
needed little makeup to accent them. Her hair was very blonde and very
straight. She was never overly serious, but her sense of humor fell far short
of Holocaust jokes. Rich was sensitive to this for the most part, but would
indulge in the occasional off-color comment at which she would scoff and shake
her head in disapproval, but always with a smile. Sometimes he’d hope for a witty, or equally inappropriate
response, but it never came.
Rich often
thought about Kat. He was constantly making mental comparisons between his
current and former lovers. She was shorter than Kat. She was duller than
Kat. She was a better cook, more
athletic, and could sing better than Kat. She was smarter than Kat. Smarter. Intelligence never mattered to
Rich. No amount of it satisfied his desires, but its absence never left him
wanting more. In fact, none of
these things mattered to him. He was only interested in the intangibles, things
that Kat was rich with.
After a year,
the couple decided to move in together. It was more Sydnie’s idea than his, but
he didn’t have any immediate objections, so obliged. They leased a nice townhome with three bedrooms. “We can
rent the room out. It will save us a ton of money,” Sydnie argued. Frankly,
Rich didn’t need the discount. He was making enough money at his new job that
Sydnie’s suggestion to lease in the first place seemed somewhat thrifty to him.
Though the “lease to own” option made him uneasy. He knew the time would inevitably come when he had to choose
whether to anchor himself to this home and this girlfriend, or somehow explain
to her that he just wasn’t ready.
Rich spent less
time at the office and more time with Sydnie. He rarely worked at home and
never worked on weekends, due in part to her insistence. Occasionally he’d
leave work early to prepare dinner before she got home from the flower shop. She’d
walk in and cover her mouth in surprise, then rush over and give him a hug and
a kiss. He liked surprising her. It made him feel like he was doing a good job,
like he was doing things the right way.
He thought he
was happy, though happiness was no longer something he easily understood or
recognized. What he knew was that
he was no longer alone, and that was enough; that was his happiness now. Happiness, satisfaction, and
contentment became one in the same to him—indiscernible to his scarred over psyche.
The night of
their two-year anniversary, Rich and Sydnie sat down to dinner at home.
“Mm, the steak
is so good!” she said, chewing a bite enthusiastically. Rich smiled, mouth full of her garlic
mashed potatoes that had put his effort to shame. “Your stuff always turns out
better than mine,” she continued, “It’s not fair. You don’t even try!” Rich wasn’t sure how to take that. He feigned
a subtle laugh and continued eating.
They chatted and
reminisced about the two years they’d spent together. They talked about how
they met, their first impressions,
After Rich took
the dishes to the sink, he returned to the table, filled his wine glass, and
took it to the living room where Sydnie had curled up onto the couch. He sat
down next to her. She was looking at her wine glass, eyes glazed over. She spun
it slowly between her fingers watching the dark merlot swish gently about.
“You okay?” Rich
obligatorily asked.
She curved the
corners of her mouth into a terribly fake smile and without looking up said,
“Mhmm.”
Rich was
concerned. Their life together was so normal to him that he couldn’t imagine
what could possibly be wrong. “You sure?” he persisted, watching her eyes
follow the wine around the glass.
Sydnie made no
acknowledgment.
“Syd, hey,” he
said tapping her curled up legs with the back of his hand. She looked up at him
but remained silent. “Come on, what’s wrong?”
Her intense
pensive look was only mellowed by the affects of wine and food. “Um…” she
muttered, finally breaking silence.
“So… we’ve been together two years now.”
He nodded
suspiciously and said, “Uh huh,” already gathering his thoughts about marriage.
“And, um,” she
continued hesitantly, “There’s something…”
Rich looked at
her, more confused than before.
“I know I should
have told you already. I don’t know, I guess I thought it would be better to
wait.”
Now Rich was
completely at a loss. “Should have told me what?” he questioned.
“Um, well…” she
said looking up with a forced, closed-lip smile, “I’m, ya know…”
Rich’s stomach
knotted. His confused expression intensified but he knew what was coming. It
was something he hadn’t faced since losing Kat three years ago. He’d never
worked out how to deal with it, how to react, how to accept or reject it.
She didn’t need
to finish, but did, “pregnant.”
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