Mrs. Ellenburg comes into the room. She stands a few feet from me. I can see the pointed toes of her black heels. "Wesley is concerned that you are not ready to have an abortion," Mrs. Ellenburg informs me. "You don't have to go in today. We're staying in Greenvale for the holidays instead of going to Miami. I can take you next week just as easily as today. Don't worry about your mother. She's given up her right to have an opinion in the matter."

I shake my head. "No. I want to get it over with. I want to get it over with today."

"All right. Would you like to go into the bathroom and freshen up?"

I nod and leave the room, quickly, still staring down at the carpet. I slip into the downstairs bathroom and nearly cry when I see my reflection. I look atrocious. My eyes are bloodshot and red-rimmed, my eyeliner smeared. I look almost as bad as I feel inside. I dab around my eyes with a damp washcloth and comb my fingers through my hair. It doesn't matter how I look. I'm getting an abortion, not collecting an award.

"I'm ready," I announce, more confidently than I feel.

Mrs. Ellenburg holds the front door open for me and I walk through, slowly, raising the strap of my messenger bag onto my shoulder. She turns the lock before coming through, then pulls the door shut behind her. We walk down the front steps together. Across the street, Mrs. Stevenson's minivan sits in her driveway. Mrs. Stevenson stands beside the open driver's side door, head lowered, digging through her purse. I don't know when I last saw her. Was it the last time I saw Anna? When Mrs. Stevenson stood in her foyer with a bag of take-out Chinese in her arms? That was Thanksgiving. An eternity ago.

Mrs. Stevenson is talking to someone, but I don't hear her words, just the sound of her voice drifting across the street on a chilled breeze. The minivan's backdoor is slid open and someone's bent inside, their legs sticking out. All I see are a pair of faded jeans and a pair of white sneakers. I recognize the sneakers. White with black and turquoise stripes.

Anna's home for winter break.

"The door is unlocked, Shannon," Mrs. Ellenburg informs me.

I tear my eyes away from the Stevensons. I open the passenger side door and slide into Mrs. Ellenburg's Saab. She climbs into the driver's seat, latches her belt, and starts the car. She removes her sunglasses from her purse and slides them on. The day is overcast. It might snow again. I don't know why she needs sunglasses. It doesn't matter. I gaze out the window at my house as we back down the drive. When I return, I won't be pregnant any longer. I won't be pregnant, but everything else will be the same.

I keep my eyes straight ahead as we pass the Stevenson house. Anna and her mother are still in their driveway. I don't know if they see me. If they do, I know they're wondering where I'm going. They're wondering who I'm with. I keep my eyes straight ahead. I don't let my gaze wander.

"Would you like to listen to the radio?" Mrs. Ellenburg asks.

"I don't care," I reply.

Mrs. Ellenburg presses a button on the radio, then pushes a cassette into the tape deck. There's a click, then the car fills with the voice of Billy Joel in the middle of a song. I burst into tears.

"You don't like Billy Joel?" Mrs. Ellenburg asks.

I shake my head. "It's not that. This was our song. That's what Wes said anyway. He said I was an uptown girl." I wipe my eyes.

Mrs. Ellenburg turns off the tape.

"I have something for you," Mrs. Ellenburg says after a few minutes of silence. We're leaving Stoneybrook, heading toward the freeway on-ramp. "Can you reach my purse in the backseat? There's a paper in the side pocket."

I unlatch my belt and lean back between the seats. I pluck the paper from the side pocket of her purse, then return to my seat. I latch my belt again and unfold the paper. It's a piece of white stationary with a dark teal border and at the top written in dark teal lettering, reads: From The Desk Of…Molly Stratten Ellenburg. Mrs. Ellenburg doesn't look like a Molly.

"I called my gynecologist this morning," Mrs. Ellenburg explains, "and asked him about the procedure. They'll explain it in more detail at the clinic, but there you are, a rough draft, so there won't be any surprises."

I stare down at the paper. Written in sweeping cursive are the steps to the abortion procedure. Mrs. Ellenburg actually numbered them. I read over the paper, my stomach twisting and knotting. I don't know what I expected. It didn't seem real before and now reading it over…it's more than simply real. It's a cold and frightening reality.

"I'm going to be sick," I announce. "I'm going to throw up. Can you please pull over?"

Mrs. Ellenburg eases the car to the side of the freeway. I unlatch my belt and open the car door. I lean out and vomit. I vomit my apple juice and cheese sandwich onto the side of the freeway. I gag. All the water I drank this morning comes up, too. I gag again. My throat feels fiery and raw. Tears streak down my cheeks. My nose runs. Here I am, hitting rock bottom.

Mrs. Ellenburg places her hand on my back. She rubs it. It's very strange.

"All right then?" asks Mrs. Ellenburg.

I nod and close the door. She hands me a packet of tissues. I remove one and wipe my nose, then take another to wipe my mouth. I pull down the visor and flip open the mirror. My face is red and blotchy. Just like my eyes.

"Are you ready to go on?" Mrs. Ellenburg asks me.

I nod.

We pull back onto the freeway and continue toward Stamford. I wipe my eyes and blow my nose. I wish I could rinse out my mouth. I find a stick of gum in my messenger bag. I lean my head against the windowpane while I chew, squeezing the tissues tight in my fist.

"Wes is very lucky," I tell Mrs. Ellenburg after several minutes of silence. "He talked about you all the time, you know. When we dated, that is. I used to wonder if that was kind of weird, talking about your mom so much. Now I understand. He always had wonderful things to say about you and his dad." I close my eyes and squeeze the tissues a bit tighter. "My mother slapped me when I told her I was pregnant."

"Wesley mentioned that," Mrs. Ellenburg says. She flicks on the turn signal. I hear it ding faintly and feel the car ease onto the off-ramp. "Did he tell you I hit him with a magazine?"

"Yes."

"Well, he deserved it. He's twenty-six years old and should know better than to have sex with virgins he's known for a month. He obviously didn't consider the possible consequences. He realizes them now," Mrs. Ellenburg says and gently eases to a stop at the light off the freeway. She looks both ways and turns to the right. "Wesley's very worried about you and how this will affect you. Not simply right now but possibly for the rest of your life. The abortion won't fix everything, I hope you realize that."

I bite my lip and nod.

"It's good that you realize that. Now, which way is Sleet Street? I don't know where we are."

I point to the left. "It's that way," I say, softly.

Mrs. Ellenburg moves into the left turn lane. I start feeling queasy again, my stomach twisting into more knots. I know this shouldn't be easy. A couple minutes later, we turn into the parking lot of the Stamford Health Clinic. It's near downtown Stamford and I realize I've past the clinic a dozen times and never realized. The clinic is in an old two-story house, painted yellow with white trim. It looks very cheery. Outside the gates, several people stand with signs. There are seven or eight of them. My stomach drops.

"Who are those people?" I ask Mrs. Ellenburg, even though I know. I want confirmation.

She's searching through her purse. She glances up. "Anti-abortion protesters," she replies, completely nonchalant. "Just ignore them. They won't do anything to you. Now, did you cash the check I gave you?"

I shake my head and lift my messenger bag onto my lap. I take the check out of my wallet and hand it to her.

Mrs. Ellenburg tears the check in half and slips it into her own wallet. "Wesley went to the bank before we came to your house. He gave me cash to pay for the procedure," she tells me and replaces her wallet in her purse. "All right, are you ready, Shannon?"

I bite my lip and nod slightly. My head feels very heavy. My neck doesn't move it correctly. I glance down and see Mrs. Ellenburg's stationary sitting half under my leg. I stare down at it, at the words peeking out. "Mrs. Ellenburg…can I ask you one question?"

"Yes."

"What's a cervix?"

Apparently, nothing I ask surprises Mrs. Ellenburg anymore. She doesn't even hesitate. "It's the opening to your uterus," she replies.

I nod. "Oh," is all I say. I'm glad she doesn't point out that perhaps I shouldn't have had sex if I don't know such simple things about my reproductive system. I know it's what she's thinking. She's probably wondering how I ever figured out how to have sex in the first place.

"Do you have any other questions?" she asks me.

I shake my head. "No. I'm ready."

We climb out of the car. I take much longer than Mrs. Ellenburg. I mess with the buttons on my coat and adjust my scarf, and then take awhile straightening the strap of my bag over my shoulder. Mrs. Ellenburg waits patiently on the sidewalk, looking quite poised in her tailored pantsuit and sunglasses, as if standing outside abortion clinics is something she does every day of her life. When I join her on the sidewalk and we walk side by side toward the clinic. She rests her hand on my back as we approach the gates. I keep my eyes downcast, ignoring the protesters who attempt to speak to me.

Inside the clinic, I sign in at the reception desk. Mrs. Ellenburg counts out the money for my abortion. Two hundred and fifty dollars. The receptionist hands me a stack of forms to fill out. They look similar to the ones I filled out at Dr. Wallingford's office. It takes me about fifteen minutes to complete the forms. Without my mother here, I'm not a hundred percent certain of all the answers. I wonder if she's thought about me at all while in Hawaii. I wonder if she remembered what's happening today, what's happening right now. Doubtful. I'm glad she isn't here. A stranger is better than my mother.

"Shannon," a woman calls my name from underneath an archway. She's mid-forties, about my height with straight shoulder-length brown hair and wide hips. She smiles at me as she comes over, hand extended. "I'm Jennifer Drabek," she introduces herself as I shake her hand. "I'm a counselor and I'd like to speak to you before your procedure. Okay?"

I nod and stand up.

Jennifer extends her hand to Mrs. Ellenburg next. "And you are Shannon's mother?" she inquires.

Mrs. Ellenburg takes her hand. "No. I'm her boyfriend's mother," she replies and sounds completely unruffled. I'm grateful for that.

Jennifer takes me into her office, which used to be someone's living room. It's odd to think that. That where a family used to live and sleep and eat, now girls are given abortions and written prescriptions for birth control pills and tested for STDs.

"Please have a seat," Jennifer tells me and slides into the chair behind her desk. She opens a file with my medical forms. She glances at the top paper a moment then closes the file and looks across the desk at me. "Okay," she says and folds her hands on the desk. "Before you decide to have an abortion, I'd just like to go over all your options, and then, if you still believe an abortion is the best decision for you, I'll explain the procedure and you'll meet with the doctor. Okay?"

I nod, but barely. "Yes," I say, quietly. I clear my throat. "Yes," I repeat a little louder, a little clearer.

Jennifer hands me a couple papers. She goes over each with me. One paper describes the adoption process and the other discusses teenage pregnancy and raising a baby alone. I ask her a couple questions, but am not too interested. I already know what I'm going to do. When she finishes, she explains the abortion procedure and what happens during and after. I ask some questions, even though I realize some sound stupid, but Jennifer answers each one, unfazed by my naïveté. When we're done with that, she begins asking me questions. She asks about my boyfriend and my family and my friends, normal things like that, except there's nothing normal at the root of her questions. She's fishing around in my life, searching to see if this is truly my decision.

"Do your parents know about the pregnancy?" Jennifer asks.

I nod. "My mom knows. I told her," I answer. I glance over to the left side of Jennifer's desk. She has a lot of pictures arranged in painted wooden frames. She has a nice, happy-looking family. Her daughter looks a lot like her. She plays tennis. "My mom knows," I repeat. Mom keeps pictures of us on her desk at work, too. We're lined up in rows in our uniforms, blonde-haired and blue-eyed and smiling. We're on display. It's not because she's proud of us.

"And she knows about your choice to have an abortion?"

"She made the appointment," I reply. "I thought I didn't need parental consent?"

"You don't. I'm just asking."

"Oh."

"And your boyfriend? What does he think?"

"He says he supports whatever I choose to do."

Jennifer nods. "That's good," she says.

We talk a little more and then Jennifer announces that we're done unless I have any other questions. I don't. She leads me back into the waiting room, where Mrs. Ellenburg's still sitting, wearing her reading glasses, flipping through a magazine.

"Jennifer's going to take me back to an exam room," I tell her, stopping beside her chair.

"All right."

"I'm going to leave my bag with you," I say and set my messenger bag in the chair beside hers. "It'll take an hour or so."

"I'll wait right here," Mrs. Ellenburg says.

I nod and walk away. Jennifer slips an arm around my shoulders and leads me to the back of the house and into an empty exam room. She stays with me until the doctor comes in. The doctor is female and I'm sort of relieved. Dr. Wallingford was pleasant enough, but that exam was still embarrassing. The doctor introduces herself as Dr. Redmond and gives me a quick physical exam. She looks over my chart and the papers from Dr. Wallingford and asks me some questions. Then she describes the procedure – called manual vacuum aspiration – and its risks.

"The procedure will only take around ten minutes," Dr. Redmond explains. "There may be some discomfort. Most women say it feels like strong menstrual cramps. Of course, you will be given a painkiller. You have a couple options there. First, we can give you a sedative and inject a painkiller into your cervix. You'll be awake, but you won't feel much. Or we can administer anesthesia, which would be done intravenously. You'll sleep through the procedure. Most women choose the first option."

I don't even think about it. "I want the anesthesia. I don't want to be awake."

"You'll stay in the recovery room longer with the anesthesia. Usually, we keep you an hour with the sedative. With anesthesia, we prefer an hour and a half or two hours. Just to ensure there's no complications or infection."

"That's fine. Do I need to sign something?"

Dr. Redmond nods and removes a form from my chart. "Here is the waiver. Please sign here and here." She hands over the form for me to sign. While I sign, she tells me about the anesthesia and the risks it involves. I barely hear her. I just want this over with. "I'll get my nurse," Dr. Redmond tells me after I've signed.

I sit on the exam table with my hands folded in my lap. I bite on my lip and fight back my tears. I know I'm making the right decision. At least I probably am. I tug on my paper gown and try not to think about it.

Dr. Redmond returns with her nurse. She asks me to lie back and I obey. I stare at the ceiling and listen to them move around the room. Dr. Redmond and her nurse talk - sometimes to me, but mostly to each other. The nurse takes my right hand and starts the IV. She stands beside me then, my hand resting in hers and in her other hand, she holds a syringe.

"Okay, Shannon, we're about to begin," Dr. Redmond says in a calming voice. "Are you ready?"

"I'm ready," I whisper.

"Please count backwards from ten," the nurse instructs and sticks the needle into the IV.

"10…9…8…7…"

When I open my eyes again, it's over.