The pair gazed at Fletcher in silence. David breathed faster, trying to suppress shock and anger. The doctor made a men-tal note to watch for signs of hyperventilation. Karen's face paled to the color of the pillowcase into which her head sank.
"You didn't tell her?" she said in a dulled monotone.
"If we went to the mother with this news," Fletcher said, "the repercussions would be enormous. It would put every-one involved into jeopardy." Her voice grew urgent. "The state could imprison us, seize Renata, and ruin our lives. Contact with the donor is out of the question." She stood to turn her back to them, taking a deep breath and longing for escape. One sick child threatened to demolish all her work, her entire career, which had culminated in the reckless action that had saved Renata's life in the first place.
"I don't understand," Karen said softly.
"What?" Fletcher said, turning around to face them. She sniffed sharply, took a breath, and tried to maintain a doctorly attitude.
Karen searched Fletcher's face for a sign of compassion. "I don't understand why you've done all this. You-you do all this research and study to perform fertility operations. And then you try something that no one else has ever done before just to help me have a baby. You must have some overwhelming re-gard for human life. Then how can you value the life of an unborn child so much that you'll go through all this to save it, yet let it die a few hours after it's born?"
The doctor shook her head. A pressure built up inside her, ready to burst.
"Isn't that," Karen asked, "the mirror image of an abortionist's view?" Evelyn surrendered to the tears that ached inside her. She wept for the memory of her own lost child, for the fatal choice she had made at an age when her body was that of a woman's but her soul was unprepared for a woman's existence.
David watched her stand with her head buried in one hand. He glanced at his wife. She nodded, releasing his hand. He brought a chair over to the side of the bed and helped the woman into it.
"When I was nineteen," Evelyn said, her head lowered, "I had an abortion. I was forced to make a choice no one should be forced to make-to kill a tiny little human or let one night's mistake rule my life forever. Well, I killed it. And it's ruled my life, anyway."
She took a shallow, sobbing breath. Hesitantly, David put his hand on her shoulder. If she noticed, she made no sign.
"All my life since that day I've tried to find a way out for other women. Find a way to protect that fragile, tiny human life while protecting the freedom of the full-grown woman." She gazed up at the man.
"Her life's just as fragile, you know."
David nodded. His anger had turned to wonder and con-cern. He had never seen a doctor cry. He didn't think they could.
Karen's eyes brimmed with tears. She took two tissues from the bedside box and offered one to the other woman.
Evelyn accepted it, smeared at her eyes with it. It didn't bother her-she never wore makeup. Karen dabbed at her own eyes. She wanted to reach out and hold the woman, but she was beyond her grasp.
"I made a desperate choice in helping you." Fletcher's voice lost all trace of dispassionate medical calm. "Now I have to make another choice that could undo everything we've achieved."
"I'm sorry" was all that Karen could say. They sounded like the emptiest, least helpful words in the human language.
VIII
This was the day she had hoped to avoid. She knew it would happen, she had simply hoped to put it off indefinitely. Infi-nitely.
A doctor has many difficult moments, moments she wishes would never have to occur. Regrettable moments that deal with unavoidable death or grieving relatives or angry patients. The standard, rehearsed words of comfort or confrontation can usually calm a tense situation, but even if not, the parting is generally professional and permanent.
Evelyn Fletcher, M.D., Ph.D., took a long drag on her ciga-rette, set it in the ashtray, and watched the smoke curl up past the cone of light from her desk lamp into the darkness of her office. In this situation, she was facing the end of her medical career. Words would be useless. She had endured another crisis just as severe years ago: the day she had to tell her boyfriend that she was pregnant and had decided on an abortion. Words could change nothing then, either. Ian Brunner was another premed at UCLA in the late 1950s when the world took a breather between Korea and Vietnam, between the Air Age and the Space Age. Between D-Day and Dealy Plaza.
He sported a crew cut, skinny tie, and spoke of medicine as a way to make a great living. His only regret was that he had to be around sick people all the time.
Ian and Evelyn were an odd item at the school functions. She dressed like a beatnik in black leotards, black dance shoes, and a black cashmere sweater that hung to her thighs. Her jet-black hair, pulled into a single thick ponytail, reached down to the small of her back. This did not endear her to the more staid eighteen-year-olds in premed. That she carried a copy of Gray's Anatomy instead of Sartre's Nausea set her apart from the beat crowd, too.
She liked Ian, though, with his conservative trappings that failed to disguise a rebellious streak. If their academic records had not been so superb, their notorious behavior might have gotten them sacked in their first year. Both, however, enjoyed their studies as well as their lives. That was why she never quite understood his reaction to her announcement. They had finished a chemistry class to-gether and gone for dinner to Ship's on Wilshire, a brisk walk of a few blocks in the cool winter air. She was troubled all the way, not really knowing how to broach the subject. All through the meal she had a sinking feeling that no matter what she chose, things would change between them. Finally, on their way back, she lit up two Camels, handed one to Ian, and said, "A friend of mine died today."
"Who's that?" he asked.
"A rabbit named Friedman."
She didn't have to elaborate.
He took a long drag on his cigarette. His expression was unreadable. "So what's the plan?"
"I can't have a baby," she said in an apologetic tone that surprised her. "I've got years of med school ahead. I'm seeing someone tomorrow to get"-her voice caught for a moment-"to get it fixed." They walked in silence for a long time. Finally, his voice cool and muted, he asked, "Is it mine?"
"Yes."
He flicked his cigarette into the gutter. "Are you sure?"
She stopped to stare at him. "Yes. How could you doubt me when I-" All pretensions of cool adulthood fell away from him in a blaze of anger. "I don't see how you could go ahead and just kill it. Kill it! Take a miracle like that and-"
"Ian, I-"
"Don't try to rationalize it. It's your body. Go ahead and get sliced up. Just don't pretend you're not killing our baby."
Without a glance back at her, Ian strode away into the night.
That was the last conversation they had ever shared. When Evelyn visited a Santa Monica doctor the following evening, she went alone, lonely and scared. When the deed was done, she slipped into the darkness to seek out a hotel room nearby. She spent two days there, in bed, coping with the physical and spiritual pain of her decision.
It was in that drab room with its window overlooking the bright and beautiful Pacific that Evelyn first came to realize that there had to be a way out of the horrendous morass of death and guilt that surrounded abortion.
She returned to her classes the next Monday and never slowed down. She entered medical school four years later, concentrating on reproductive endocrinology. If she found out the how and why of pregnancy, she could find a way to free women from abortion.