MOM LEFT MY SOUL A crime scene.

Marred with nightmares, bad habits, which I've tried to scour, bleach and burn away in the last four years she's been gone. But her fingerprints are still on me—in the shadowiest corners, escaping notice. I didn't realise until black light was shone on them.

The black light being Suki's pregnancy, and the fingerprints being the iron conviction I don't want kids. Ever.

The news drove a wedge into my head and cracked it open, opening my worst fears to cold air. Maybe I would have adopted this stance regardless of my mother walking out on her own kid. But when I think of the idea of parenting, all that comes to mind is her silhouette exiting through the front door.

Parenting means being responsible for someone. Parenting means having someone place their trust into you. Parenting means the constant risk of fucking up some innocent kid's life or breaking their heart beyond repair.

Mom has never come back to Carsonville.

She calls at the signposted annual events of importance, and messages in the interim. I hate that I start looking forward to birthdays and holidays so I can hear her voice. I feel guilty for missing her so acutely. She doesn't deserve my longing.

She frequently asks me to visit. She is willing to buy an inter-city bus ticket for me, but not willing to drive an hour to see her fucking son. This is always her modus operandi. She tries to plug up the holes in her parenting with wads of cash. 

Dad says in the good ol' days, she used her lucrative job as evidence of her being there for the family. She balanced quality time, loyalty and showing up against six figures in a bank account. While I appreciated all the hard work she did, it wasn't the same.

She put a roof over our heads, but a house doesn't make a home.

Dad told me the man she had an affair with thought in similar, transactional terms. The other man bought the pair of them an apartment in Boston. Dad had to travel there to sort out the divorce proceedings; he kept all the property and his car. We sold all the things Mom left behind, like clothes, books and jewelry. Their wedding rings.

Parenting means holding the hearts of your children in your hands. Bad parenting means crushing them.

And I don't trust myself enough to not become a bad parent. The thought of making a kid—my kid—cry terrifies me. I'm not ready. I'm not adaptable.

I'm not like Suki.

She goes to church on Sundays. She never misses her commitments. She wants to be an archaeologist. She's from a wholesome, complete family, and strong enough to carry two hearts inside her.

I shouldn't be obsessing over this. The first priority is the ultrasound tomorrow, a fast-flying week after I found out, but when I'm alone my thoughts run away from me.

The way Suki nurtures her hobbies and dreams is like parenting in miniature. She's exhausted after ballroom lessons, but she never quits. She sticks religiously to the cello rehearsal routine she made even when her fingers bleed then form calluses. She's in Honors everything and she's planned out the AP classes she'll take in senior year. Disciplined. Responsible.

Meanwhile, I spent freshman year jumping off buildings and being a smartass to teachers.

How could I be a father?

I'm aware that there are other options to parenting. Adoption and abortion—none of which is my call to make, though I will be there for Suki no matter what she chooses. I try not to let myself consider anything other than this. Before we tackle those decisions, the first priority is the ultrasound.

I want, more than anything, for Suki to be healthy.

But underneath the largest of desires is a smaller one, burning and festering and growing steadily.

I want, nearly more than anything, not to be a father.

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Suki is a walking contradiction.

She's flame written in blue ink, or river written in red.

She hates romance but gets easily sentimental. She's perceived as a good girl by everyone in her life except me. She follows the rules not out of any moral code, but out of convenience. Most interesting to me is the way she resolves her faith with her own personal beliefs.

For a girl who prizes freedom, bodily autonomy and equity over all else, she abides by the same text that the diehard racists and forced birthers do. I'm a veritable failure at English Lit, but surely there's not that many ways the same Bible can be interpreted. A sheep is a sheep. A murder is a murder.

"Institutional religion has been used as a tool of mass oppression. Continues to be, actually. I know many people have warped the Gospel for evil intent," she says animatedly, eyes bright and impassioned. "But my faith isn't about following the Bible like a textbook or condemning those who don't."

"Uh-huh."

She throws a sideways smirk at me, trying to lighten the mood. "I mean, we had pre-marital sex and now I'm pregnant."

We're walking from the bus station to the Planned Parenthood clinic. I didn't even know this place existed. But Suki has been here multiple times, all related to getting on hormonal birth control. Not that it ended up working.

I've never minced my words around Suki. I have a terrible habit of saying exactly what I think, or freezing up and blurting a loaded sentence. This offends many people at school, not least of which the teachers that give out detention passes much too easily. And on today of all days, I don't trust my mouth at all. So I keep quiet.

"My faith isn't about following the Bible exactly."

Abortion is not off the table for her, nor did I think it would be. I'm relieved she is keeping her options open. That she has a choice.

"Not breaking the rules shouldn't be your biggest motivation. It should be love."

We've both processed. The day she came over to my house, it was like a bomb had been dropped. Sunday, I was only concerned about finding my way back to her, calling her back to me, clinging to each other while the impenetrable dust and debris clouded everything else out.

Now the dust has settled. It's calm between us, but not the content sort. It's like we're standing in the crater of the explosion, hunting through rubble. Calm because the trouble is over. But now begins the scavenging, the fallout, the attempt to start a different sort of life.

A life I'm not sure I can handle.

"I know I'm flawed. I sin. Everyone does. God knows this, too. It's not for any human to judge. That means not judging others' failings, but also not judging your own. It's for humanity to love the way He loves. To do our best to bring glory to His name without conditions, expectations or deadlines."

We enter through the clinic's sliding doors, Suki falling silent. I take a seat in the waiting room, while Suki marches up to the receptionist's desk to check in.

She intertwines her hand with mine when she takes the seat beside me.

Suki looks positively starry-eyed when she talks about her faith. It's a light within her that doesn't appear when she dances, plays music or spends time with me. I never understood how someone so analytical could be religious.

Does she not see the gaping plot holes, contradictions and unhealthily zealous practices associated with the whole sham?

"I don't buy it."

"Why not?"

I chew on the inside of my cheek, piecing together an answer that doesn't sound dismissive. "Because that kind of devotion seems... toxic," I nearly whisper.

"Really?" She smiles peaceably. "Sounds like a parent's love to me."

Not all parents.

But I nod and make a sound of agreement, "Fair," determined not to disturb the bombsite on this most fucking horrible of days. Ultrasound day.

Half an hour later, we've been admitted to a room and Suki's been slathered with gel like a pastry getting egg-washed. Her t-shirt is pulled up to her ribcage, and the nurse is roaming her flat abdomen with a microphone-looking thing.

Other than a sharp hiss when the gel first contacted her skin, Suki seems quite at ease.

"Do you know how exactly I got pregnant while on hormonal contraception?" she asks curiously.

"Depo Provera hormonally stops ovulation," the nurse begins. "If no eggs are released during your cycle, you can't get pregnant. And in many cases, your cycle and your monthly bleed stop as well. But it takes some time to take effect, and as always, anything can happen."

Suki bites her bottom lip. She and I exchange a glance. I would have waited far longer if I knew there was a chance she could still fall pregnant. In fact, I would have abstained indefinitely to avoid this.

The nurse asks, "What symptoms have you experienced? Anything particularly distressing?"

"No," Suki shakes her head. "I stopped bleeding, but I knew beforehand that it was a side effect. Around a month ago, I had a few bouts of morning sickness but it's already stopped. I feel... fine. Normal."

Suki's attention is on the nurse while they converse. She doesn't notice the incredulous widening of my eyes. She feels normal? How can she? I feel like everything in my past and future has been obliterated in the span of a week.

"Pregnancies develop in many different ways," the nurse continues obliviously. "The most important thing is that your baby is perfectly healthy. Have a look."

She swivels the screen of the monitor towards us, Suki on the bed and me at her side, holding her hand delicately.

On screen I see markings of black and white, a markedly humanoid lump lying within a ring of white tissue.

I think the only other time in my life I've seen an ultrasound image is when Mom was watching a rom-com about a one night stand resulting in a pregnancy. The whole concept felt distant and irrelevant, like a relic from a foreign place. I didn't understand. I didn't care.

Now, I don't have the luxury of separating myself. The thing inside Suki has half of my DNA.

She stretches her index finger to the screen. "Is that the heartbeat?"

She did her research before coming here.

She studied up on medical imaging to understand exactly how ultrasound works, and she already formed her own hypothesis about why she fell pregnant. Her questions to the nurse were not for knowledge, they're for vindication.

"Yes. Nice regular rhythm, and strong, too."

I don't see a regular rhythm. The point to which Suki gestured is throbbing erratically, inflating and collapsing with each pulse. And it's fast. Really fast. Nearly as fast as my heartbeat.

The oblivious nurse reassures Suki, "It's uncommon to have so few symptoms, but nothing seems unusual from what I can see. Maybe your baby's the strong, silent type."

I can clearly see the emotion in the room. Suki is staring at the monitor like an angel just revealed itself to her. The nurse is smiling faintly as she moves the ultrasound stick around, the image on the screen angling correspondingly. I can see the emotion but it doesn't reach me.

"Well, I don't know who the silent part comes from," Suki quips, squeezing my fingers slightly.

Each beat of that little black lump makes my throat constrict.

It feels like the room is getting smaller and smaller. The hairs on the back of my neck tingle like the ceiling is about to slam into it, squeezing me into a tiny dense cube of muscle and bone. This room is a coffin.

When I zone back in, Suki glances at me with an expectant stare. I give a shaky, mirthful chuckle to her joke. "Heh."

Not the most convincing. But considering the strong desire I have to sprint all the way home, it is a victory.

"Can I have a word with Suki alone, please?" The nurse gives me a cursory, austere gaze. She's hardened up in a matter of seconds. Why?

I stammer. "You said that the b— it's healthy."

"It is. This is a different matter, nothing life-threatening. We'll only be a moment."

"Go on," Suki says, squeezing my fingers once more. "I'll see you real soon."

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A / N :

Timely reminder that my character's opinions and beliefs are not mine.

I know it's impossible for everyone to agree on what they would and should do in a situation like this, but what's great about being pro-choice is that you're not centering what you would do. 

We should center the person who would be sacrificing time, energy, comfort, money and health to carry to term. It's up to them. We don't judge either way, for whatever reason, at whatever trimester, because we don't know. (And human beings are more than vessels for other human beings.)

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Aimee <3