Look at You Now E-Book

Liz Pryor

• Herausgeber: Atlantic Books
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 416

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

In 1979, Liz Pryor, a good girl from a privileged Chicago family, discovered that she was pregnant. At only 17 years old, her parents were determined to keep this shameful event secret from everyone, even her siblings. One snowy January day, after driving across three states, her mother dropped her off at what Liz believed was a Catholic home for unwed mothers, but was in fact a locked state facility for delinquent pregnant girls. Over the next six months, alone and isolated from everyone she knew, Liz developed a surprising bond of friendship with the other girls, which led her to question everything she once held true. Told with tenderness, humour and candour, Look at You Now is a deeply moving coming-of-age story that pays tribute to the triumph of the human spirit in times of adversity, and the transcendent power of friendship in the toughest of times.

Leseprobe

In 1979, Liz Pryor, a good girl from a privileged Chicago family, discovered that she was pregnant. At only 17 years old, her parents were determined to keep this shameful event secret from everyone, even her siblings. One snowy January day, after driving across three states, her mother dropped her off at what Liz believed was a Catholic home for unwed mothers, but was in fact a locked state facility for delinquent pregnant girls.

Over the next six months, alone and isolated from everyone she knew, Liz developed a surprising bond of friendship with the other girls, which led her to question everything she once held true. Told with tenderness, humour and candour, Look at You Now is a deeply moving coming-of-age story that pays tribute to the triumph of the human spirit in times of adversity, and the transcendent power of friendship in the toughest of times.

To Peter, thank you for convincing me to be brave

No legacy is so rich as honesty.

—William Shakespeare

Contents

Author’s Note

Look at You Now

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Afterword

Acknowledgments

Also by liz pryor

About the Author

author’s note

This work is a memoir. It reflects my experiences and memories as accurately as possible. Aside from references to members of my family, names, locations, and identifying details have been changed, and some individuals portrayed are composites. For narrative purposes, the timeline of certain events has been altered or compressed.

look at you now

chapter 1

My mom hadn’t uttered a single word in the two hours we’d been driving. Clearly, nothing in the world feels as quiet as the silence of a mother. There were no other cars on the Indiana interstate that day. Snow was pouring out of the sky and the road was slick. I thought about offering to drive but when I looked over, I dared not speak.

It was early January 1979. “Baby, I Love Your Way” was playing on the car radio. I had just turned seventeen and was a very young senior in high school. Young, not because I was smart and skipped a grade, but probably because my parents wanted to get me off to kindergarten as soon as possible. There were a lot of kids in our house: I was born number five out of seven children in nine years. My brothers were the oldest and then came the five girls. Our mom called us her army and sometimes her crowd, and maybe most fitting, her herd. Being a part of an army, crowd, herd, had great value as a little kid. There’s a sort of mob identity thing that goes on in big families, a free pass that you can take advantage of. Other parents, older siblings, neighbors, teachers, coaches, people, give a nod when you’re one of so many. A nod that says, “Oh yeah, you’re okay, you’re one of them.” It’s like having a little something extra inside that reminds you you belong somewhere in the world, and it never goes away. I’d grown up my whole life knowing I was loved. Knowing I would always have a place I belonged.

I didn’t think much about the way we grew up; it was just my life, and up to that point almost all of it had been spent in our hometown of Winnetka, Illinois, a small community thirty minutes north of Chicago, perched like a Norman Rockwell painting on the edge of Lake Michigan. We lived in a gigantic house with three stories, eleven bedrooms, four fireplaces, and a killer basement. In the winters we made snow forts in our backyard, and our tree-lined driveway covered with snow looked like a fairy-tale wonderland. But the best thing about that great house was how perfectly it fit our army of family: seven kids and two parents.

My dad grew up the son of a naval captain and went to boarding school in Connecticut before heading off to college. He worked for IBM after graduation, and then came the Pryor Corporation, a business he started on his own in our garage before I was born. Our mom, well, she was the president of us. She did everything that had anything to do with the seven of us and our home. She drove, fed, nursed, looked after, scolded, praised, and kept the ship running, every day. Our mom spent her entire life within the protected walls of the North Shore. Her parents still lived just a mile or two away from us. After Catholic high school, she went down the street to college at Northwestern University, where she majored in theater and starred in most of their musical theater productions. She met and fell in love with my dad at Northwestern and married him soon after graduation. They settled in the area, and quickly we kids arrived, one after another.

Northwestern University was a beautiful sight. Every time we drove past the ivy-covered brick buildings, set back on the edge of Lake Michigan, our mom pointed out the sorority where she’d lived and the fraternity where my dad had lived. I’d watch the college kids walking with their backpacks, holding hands and being young, and found it near impossible to imagine that could ever have been our mom and dad—that they could have ever been young, ever been anything other than our parents.

• • • •

We finally pulled off the interstate to get gas. It was late morning, the sky was dark, and the snow still hadn’t let up. My mom uttered her first words in hours.

“Are you hungry?”

“No, thank you, Mom.”

She stepped out of the car and closed the door hard. I leaned over to change the radio station. Frank Sinatra came on singing, “I’ve got a crush on you.” This was the music my mom loved and had been singing my whole life. My grandfather, her dad, was our mother’s most cherished confidant. We called him Papa and he was the quietest, kindest man I’d ever know. He and my aunt and my mom sang and played music in our living room after family dinners sometimes. I’d hide behind the drapes, when we were all supposed to be sleeping, and watch my grandfather play the tiple; it sang straight through my heart the first time I heard it. It had ten strings and looked like a baby guitar. As Papa played, my mother would sit on the couch, her big brown eyes wide and alive. She’d tap her high heel on the living room carpet, stand up, arms stretched in the air like she was talking to God, and belt with a voice that thundered through the house. Her beautiful face lit up the room, but it was her verve that was so impossible to ignore.

On one of those nights when I was about six years old, I found the courage to come out of the drapes and ask my grandfather if he would teach me to play that tiple. He answered with a bent little smile, “No, this is a useless instrument. It won’t exist by the time you grow up. You need to learn to play the guitar.”

“Okay, where’s a guitar?”

“We don’t have one, and you’re too young, Liz. I’ll teach you when you’re eight or nine.”

What? That was a hundred years away. I committed the rest of that year to campaigning for a guitar, declaring on a daily basis that I could not live without it. I put notes all over the house; in drawers, in the fridge, in the bathrooms, in their cars. All of them read, Please, please, please get Liz a guitar, any guitar will do! And then the following Christmas, under the tree, like magic, there sat a guitar bigger than me with a note that read, Here you go, Love, Papa.

The guitar became like an appendage. It gave me the greatest access to myself I would ever discover. It was like finding a key to the place inside that could help me understand what mattered most in life. The music helped me through and around the things that lived inside me. Once I began, I didn’t stop. I wrote, played, and sang for everyone and anyone who would listen. And ultimately, I got a seat with the grown-ups in our living room. Singing along just like my mom did.

• • • •

I watched as my mom crunched her way back through the snow and ice from inside the gas station, carrying a small bag and a cup of coffee. Our mom didn’t go anywhere without her high heels. She had heels for every occasion. On that day, she wore her three-inch-heeled, fur-lined, zip-up black leather boots. She navigated the winter ground like a seasoned professional—a lifetime of Chicago winters gave her the practice. She handed me a small carton of milk and a travel box of Ritz crackers. She carefully placed her hot coffee on the floor and then leaned over and flipped off the radio. I knew things were bad, I mean radically bad; that was the first time she’d ever, ever turned off Frank Sinatra.

She made her way back on to the toll road. The quiet was killing me. I wasn’t used to this kind of quiet. My mom had been a consummate communicator my entire life; you always knew where you stood because she couldn’t stop herself from telling you how she felt. I watched the sad, beaten-looking farmhouses outside the car window along the interstate. I watched the cold-looking farmers and their kids bundled up, walking in the fields. For the first time in my life it dawned on me how lucky I was. How incredibly fortunate our family was. We were the people who didn’t need or want for things. I had an extraordinary life. I was watching the snow fall in sheets onto the farmhouses when I noticed a little boy riding a snowplow with his dad. I thought back to the time my dad first taught me to ski. I was a tiny kid. We were in Aspen, Colorado, just after Christmas on a perfect, crisp, sunny day. I was gliding along the snow in my new red skis, between my dad’s legs. I remember hanging on to his knees for dear life, trying not to fall, listening over and over again to his strong, knowing voice, “Bend your knees, Lizzie, and lean forward.” With my dad around, I felt like I could do anything. I glanced over at Dorothy, driving in silence, and realized, life wasn’t mostly a struggle for our family; it was mostly a ride, a really good ride, actually. But that day in the car, life was doing what it does: It was changing, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I wanted all of this to be a horrible dream. I prayed for that, but I kept opening my eyes to find myself still sitting in the passenger seat as Indiana passed us by.

The seat was uncomfortable. I reached over to move something nudging me in the side—my mother’s black patent leather purse. She’d had it ever since I could remember. It was packed full to the brim. Her initials, DPB, were monogrammed in shiny gold thread on the outside flap. Dorothy Bennigsen Pryor. No one said her first name quite like our mom. It was as though there were three syllables when she said it, and only two when anyone else said it. “Dorr-o-tthy,” she’d say, long and slow. She said a lot of words long and slow. Her hello, particularly on the phone, was the longest hello in the history of the world. “Hhhheeeellllooooo?”

She insisted that I answer the phone, “Hello, Pryor residence, this is Liz speaking.” It’s just good manners, she’d say, but I couldn’t do it. I usually answered with a benign “Hello?” Dorothy would quickly correct me. “Lizzie, do you realize, when you say hello you sound as though you are grunting, or ill? That sound you make isn’t a word; the person on the other end couldn’t possibly understand you. The word is pronounced Heellloooo; say it as it is supposed to be said, please.” This was the stuff that moved her. I never tested it, but I’d guess using the word fuck or shit would have elicited less conflict with our mother than ending a sentence with a preposition, or using a word incorrectly, or failing to enunciate the “beaaauuuuttiifffuulll” words of the English language. Dorothy didn’t just have certain rules or thoughts about life. She lived them, passionately, and acted as though we couldn’t exist without truly understanding and living them ourselves. She was unlike any other mother I’d ever met, and everyone noticed. It wasn’t just her curiously dramatic manner and expression. It was the fact that you could feel when she spoke how much she believed what she was saying. That was the powerful part. There was a sense of plea behind everything she said. A plea you couldn’t ignore, because her belief was so potent. Find the good in people; go to church; laugh; be kind; read books; say thank you; look your best; kill them with kindness; you only have one shot to make your first impression—those were the front-running lessons in our mom’s book on life. But none of them were expressed or taught in the usual way. Everything came at us in a Dorothy way, a way that forced itself inside and became a part of us forever.

• • • •

The heat in the car was blasting hard, but Dorothy was always cold, and I wasn’t about to ask to turn it down. I leaned my cheek against the glass window. Indiana looked like a winter paradise outside now, white and gray and strangely beautiful. The silence in the car was intermittently broken by the clanking sound of my mom’s forgotten coffee mugs rolling beneath our seats. I leaned over and looked underneath the seat. Everything in the car reminded me of what I was about to leave behind: my life, my mother, my family, our home, my friends; everything that made me feel like me. The worn, musty carpet smell brought back all the times I’d hidden on that same car floor many, many years earlier.

“If a policeman comes, smile and tell him your mom will be right back.”

“Mom, no, we can’t park here.”

“Mom, you have to find a spot like everyone else.”

“Mom, come back!”

Inevitably a policeman would approach the car.

“Hello, kids. Wow, how many of you are there?”

“Our mom will be right back.”

“Okay, but where is she?”

“She’ll be right back.”

“Well, she can’t park in the middle of the street and leave you kids in the car.”

“We told her that.”

“We know.”

“Is that a real gun?”

Every time a policeman came to the window of our car while our mom was double-parked doing errands, I’d grab my stuffed dog Henry. My aunt Bev had sent me Henry for Christmas when I was seven years old. The instant I saw Henry, I loved him. I’d dive to the floor, Henry under my arm, and hide. I’d cover myself with my coat, hoping to look like a blob on a messy car floor instead of a kid with a stuffed dog. But mostly I wondered if they put little kids in jail for being left in a car without a mom. I was glad I threw Henry in the side of my suitcase that morning. He’d been everywhere with me since I could remember. Maybe he would help remind me of all the things I would need to remember.

• • • •

I glanced over at my mom and cleared my throat. “Could we pull over so I can use the restroom, Mom?”

She lifted her eyebrows, but didn’t say a word. We pulled over a few minutes later. The roadside diner we found was called the Roadside Diner. I wanted to laugh—it was something Dorothy would think was funny and stupid—but that wasn’t going to happen. Not today. I hopped out and ran to the restroom. As I made my way back to the car, I could feel my mom watching me. As soon as I got in, she turned the car around and pulled up next to a funky-looking man standing by a truck. She rolled down her window and asked, “Sir, how much longer until the Greenfield exit?”

My mother had a very strange habit of arbitrarily acquiring a mid-Atlantic accent that somehow sounded British, in the same way Katharine Hepburn did. It drove us all batty. It was so completely random—you never knew when it would emerge. Really? You’re from Chicago, and two seconds ago you sounded like you’re from Chicago, but now suddenly you’re Katharine Hepburn?

The trucker guy responded, confused, “What?”

She lost the Katharine Hepburn accent and said, “Forget it!”

I felt her look over at me. If things were normal, I might have rolled my eyes and said something sassy or funny, but I stayed quiet. My mom was doing the tapping thing on the steering wheel, which I’d seen her do before. Methodically tapping each finger a few times on the wheel, waiting a moment, and tapping the next. What was she doing? Singing in her head? Counting something? Saying the rosary? Our family was Catholic, and Dorothy loved, loved, loved to pray. She told us every day that we should pray as often as possible. I remember praying like crazy in third grade when I was waiting for her to pick me up after CCD class. Dorothy called it catechism class, its purpose was to further my religious teachings. I called it Sunday school on Wednesdays, and I really didn’t like having to go. Every Wednesday when I was eight years old, I had to go after school to Saint Mary’s Church for CCD and get ready for my first Holy Communion.

On one of those Wednesdays my mom was late picking me up—really late. She’d been late before—in fact, she was always late—but that day I had a feeling she might actually truly forget me. The other kids were long gone and as I waited, I began to worry about how long it would take my family to notice I was not there. Would it take a few meals, a few days, maybe even weeks? There were a lot of people in our house, maybe no one would notice one kid missing. . . . I decided, while thinking on it, to roll my white kneesocks all the way up as far as they would go, and then all the way back down to my ankles. Up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up down, until one of my socks lost its tightness and dropped on its own to my ankle. I had half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and some raisins in my lunch box. I didn’t know if the priests would mind if I lived on their steps, but maybe they wouldn’t; they were very generous people. I noticed a bunch of trees in the parking lot across the street and decided it would help me not to panic if I counted something. I counted all of the trees.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, eighteen trees exactly, not counting the ones on the sidewalk. I decided to click open and click closed my yellow Tweety Bird lunch box fifty times. Click open, click closed, click open, click closed, click open, click closed, click open, click closed. The sun was getting lower by the second. I looked over at some kids crossing the street and noticed their Catholic school uniforms. Although we were Catholic, we didn’t go to the Catholic schools because my dad would not allow it. He was not a Catholic, he was nothing—that’s what he said. I felt lucky that I could wear whatever I wanted to school every morning. I had on my favorite blue-and-white seersucker skirt and my white turtleneck with the duck on the neck. It was getting cold and I wished I’d brought my yellow sweater, but at least I had long sleeves. I looked all the way up at the church steeple bells and then heard the rectory door at the side of the steps creak open. I turned to see Father Joseph making his way toward me. My mom, and her parents before her, had known him a long time. Dorothy had lived in this area her whole life, and it felt like she’d known everyone a long time. He smiled, and I smiled back. Finally, a person, even if it was a priest.

“Hello, Lizzie Pryor.”

“Hi, Father.”

“This is a surprise.”

“Yes. . . . My mom is late.”

“The other children have long gone. Are you sure she’s coming?”

“I think so, I mean, I hope so.” I studied his long black robe as he sat down on the step next to me. It was like a dress.

“Do you like thumb wars, Liz?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Do you want to play?”

I stuck my thumb out and beat him six times in a row. He looked carefully at his watch after the thumb wars and said, “Do you think we might give your mom a call?”

“446-7737, that’s our number. Yes, thank you, Father. I think that’s a great idea. It will be busy, it’s always busy, but we’ll just have to try again and again till they answer, okay?”

Just as we were about to go inside and call, I saw my mom’s car pull up. I was crazy with relief. I frantically gathered my things and almost bonked the priest on his head with my book bag.

“Sorry, Father, but you see? There she is, you see her? That’s our car, see it? Do you see it? She’s here. Thank you for keeping me company. I’m going to be all right, Father, and have dinner with my family and live at my house, isn’t that great?” I flew down the steps and into the backseat of my mother’s messy car. Father Joseph made his way to the car window equally quickly.

“You’re really late, Dorothy.”

Her Katharine Hepburn voice surfaced. “I am well aware of how late I am, thank you, Father.”

“I see. Well, I do have the authority to caution you: This should not happen again.”

She looked right at him. “I am doing the best I can, Father. I have six other children at home and my husband is traveling for work.”

“God has millions of children, Dorothy. Your best was not good enough today. I’ll pray for you. And you, Lizzie, come find me if she happens to be late again, okay?”

“Okay, I will, Father. Practice at thumb wars so you can beat me.” He waved as my mother pulled off. I decided I would pray for my mother too, to not be late so much.

• • • •

Hours later, the day was ending, we were still driving, and there was nothing to see but darkness. My mom was messing with the wipers, trying to get the snow off the windshield. There were piles of papers, school flyers, books of stamps, and lipsticks strewn across her dashboard. It was a wonder she could see out the windshield at all. She never did fit the image people had of a woman with seven kids. She didn’t own an apron and never baked a pie or cookies in her life. She wasn’t a line-the-lunches-up kind of lady; she was more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants, hope-like-hell-she-makes-it lady.

A lot of our life was left to chance, and by what seemed so often a miracle, things ended up working out most of the time. It might have been her unwavering belief in positive thinking. My mom was a fanatic about finding the good in people and in life, and she was a believer in hope. Whatever the situation, she could find the pinhole of greatness. It was a gift. She pounded phrases like see the glass half full, smile and the world smiles with you, turn the other cheek, rise above it, expand your horizons, reach for the moon into our young minds until she was sure we would look and find the good first.

I suddenly thought about all the things in life my mom had so seamlessly taught me by simply being who she was. Her faith in life was lodged inside me in a way I could never really explain.

What I imagine Dorothy was placed on the planet to do was to love people. Strange as that may sound, she was a master. Being loved by our mother was one of the most important things that would happen to any of us. No matter the other ways she fell short, she effectively taught seven people the single greatest thing life has to offer: She taught us how to love and how to be loved.

• • • •

I hadn’t seen a thing, not even a billboard, for miles. We were in the middle of nowhere. Then finally a lone building appeared ahead. As we drew closer I could see it was a small hospital. There was a big square cement building behind it on a little hill. I saw a faded green wooden sign out in front of the cement building that read, Gwendolyn House. The sign had a large crucifix on it, with a dented Jesus lying sad and suffering. We pulled into a spot in a small parking lot outside of the cement building. My mom dropped her head onto her hands, which were still holding the steering wheel. I felt my guilt all the way through to my bones. I was the reason for all of this. It was on me. I wondered in that moment if it was true that God only gives you what you can handle. I’d heard that saying a thousand times. When I was really little, I remember hoping that God knew I couldn’t handle losing the tetherball tournament, and that I couldn’t handle not getting a guitar. I hoped God wasn’t taking a break that day in the car. I hoped like hell he was watching and would make sure I could handle what was happening.

Dorothy finally lifted her head off the steering wheel and faced me. “Lizzie, I need you to pay very close attention to what I am about to say. It is extremely important, do you understand me?”

“Okay, Mom.”

“We’re here, and there are a few things you need to know.” She shuffled around in the seat as she spoke. “We’ve decided we are not going to tell your brothers and sisters, nor your grandparents, a single word about this. Neither your friends nor anyone you know can ever know you were here. They will all be told you are sick and at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.”

What? This was the first I’d heard of this.

“I’m sick? What am I sick with, Mom?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“What’s the Mayo Clinic?” She looked almost annoyed.

“It’s a medical diagnoooosticcccc clinic in Minnesota, one of the best in the country.”

I looked at the dark vastness outside the car. I was trapped. Trapped in that car, in my body, in my life—and about to be trapped in a cement building in the middle of nowhere, Indiana.

Dorothy continued, “They will take care of you here and that’s what you need.” She began to sound like the incoherent mumble of Charlie Brown’s parents. “I’ll try to visit, but I have to take care of your sisters, wa wa wa waaa.”

I wanted to ask her if it would be better if I were sick, maybe even dying, if that would be easier, but I didn’t because somehow, in that very moment, my mom looked different to me. For the first time in my life I saw her as a person. I remember once seeing my third-grade teacher out at a restaurant and thinking, What the heck is Mrs. Beckwar doing eating? Teachers don’t go to restaurants. And moms aren’t people, they’re moms. But that moment in the car, Dorothy was just a person, racked with worry, defeated and overwhelmed. It scared me. I was the cause of this. I’d shamed my parents to the point of having to lie to my brothers and sisters, and to all their friends. And on top of that, they were asking me to lie to everyone who meant anything to me, for the rest of my life. I wasn’t taught to lie. I guess someone forgot to tell me that lying was indeed acceptable, if life got bad enough, and if your kid was truly terrible. I looked at Dorothy—the devout practicing Catholic, the firm believer in “all things will work out”—and I was suddenly terrified. I didn’t see hope or faith or any good in this; all I saw was despair. Watching terror besiege the person who had continually given me strength throughout my life was like someone reaching over and pulling out my own power cord.

“Mom, I’m sorry, more sorry than I’ve ever been in my life.” I could barely get the words past the rising mountain in the back of my throat. “I know how disappointing I am. I even know that you may never be able to love me the same.”

She stared straight ahead and said, “Love doesn’t work that way, Liz. I’ll love you as I’ve always loved you forever. Mark my words, that will never change.”

My entire body began to tremble. “Mom, I really don’t want to go in there.”

“I know you don’t, but it’s what we have to do.” My chest felt as though it was going to come up through my throat. “I don’t know what else to do. There weren’t a lot of options. If you’re here I can at least drive up to visit you.”

We both sat quietly, both terrified, in different ways. She sat up straight, as though she were gathering her own courage, and turned off the car.

“We have to go in. Get yourself together.” It was still snowing. I got my bag and my guitar out of the trunk and followed the click, click, click of Dorothy’s heeled boots across the icy path toward the entrance. The building was set back on a small hill, surrounded by a lot of land and what looked like an endless amount of trees. It was mostly concrete, and I couldn’t see any windows. There were very few lights on, so I couldn’t see very well. The first thing I noticed as we made our way to the entrance was a small sign to the right of a big door that read Locked Facility. My mother pushed the red button marked Entry and a loud buzz sounded. We walked into a small hall lit by fluorescent lights above. We went through another door and into a stark entranceway. The floor was tiled and the walls painted brown. A large black woman with unfriendly eyes was sitting at a desk behind a wiry chain link–looking fence barrier, almost as if she were in a cage. I peered through the fence into the small room where she sat. I saw a little TV and some file cabinets. The woman ignored us. My mother leaned toward the desk and said in her slightly hushed Katharine Hepburn voice, “Pardon me, we are here to see Ms. Graham.”

I whispered, “Why does it say Locked Facility, Mom?”

There was a ball of terror churning inside me. Before she could answer, another woman approached, a petite white woman wearing a gray wool suit, with short black hair and wire-rimmed glasses resting on her head. She looked to be in her forties, around my mom’s age. She said hello and led us into her office. There was a framed plaque that read,

Even though I walk in the dark valley

I fear no evil for you are at my side

With your rod and your staff that give me courage

The woman took off her coat, folded it just so, and sat down on the wooden desk chair. She looked at me and said, “I am Ms. Graham, welcome to the Gwendolyn House.” She said it without a lot of welcome. She looked down at the papers in front of her as she continued. “I am the resident social worker and will be here for Liz in any way she might need me. Beginning with the mandated weekly sessions she will attend here in my office . . . Tuesdays are her day, one o’clock, and she may never miss.” She wasn’t a warm person, but she wasn’t mean either, she was just kind of cold and sterile. My tears were falling out of my eyes like rain off a roof, but there was no sound.

My mother spoke. “I am Dooorrrooothy Pryor, and as you know this . . . is Liz. We are grateful for the accommodation on such short notice.” The woman looked at me curiously over her reading glasses for a long moment and then asked my mother, “Why is she crying?”

Dorothy, in the way only she could, said in a matter-of-fact tone, “She’s pregnant.” She said it long and slow, making her point.

The woman paused. “Well, yes, that is why she’s here. But why is she crying?”

Dorothy paused, and then, “I would guess she’s crying because she’s terrified, Ms. Graham. She just turned seventeen years old, she has to leave her friends and family, she has to hide from everyone she knows, miss her last months of high school, and of course she will have to labor and biiiiiiirth a child.” The Charlie Brown–muffled-parent voice had disappeared. I could hear my mother again, loud and clear.

Ms. Graham appeared miffed. She looked at me over the edge of her glasses, sitting low on her nose now, and handed me a tissue. She went on to explain what I could expect for the next several months. Ms. Graham described the “facility” as a place where unwed mothers, some “in trouble,” some just “unfortunate,” come to receive the care and assistance they need during pregnancy. It was now a government-run facility.

“Many of the girls in this facility are wards of the state,” Ms. Graham said. “They’ve come from juvenile detention homes and/or foster care. They all come from households surviving below the poverty line, which allows them to come in for the care they need for the duration of their pregnancies. This is a locked facility; the girls cannot leave the premises. They have specific times when they can go outside, but we have worked very hard to make it a place where they feel welcome.”

The silence was deafening as we both absorbed Ms. Graham’s words. Was this a prison? Was that how badly I’d messed up my life? My mother finally asked, “Can you explain to Liz what we spoke about on the phone?”

Ms. Graham began. “Yes. Here is how it will work: You will have access and free rein to go anywhere at all times. You will have a badge that gives you this access but you must show it to the guards. Your parents have been clear about not revealing your last name to anyone; therefore, no matter what happens, do not reveal your last name. You will be Liz P. while you are here. It is not often—actually, never have we had a resident such as yourself—someone who is in hiding from her community and family—so we are working it out as we go along. You obviously will be the only resident to have access, meaning you are not technically on lockdown. Your father has provided money you might need while here, although there are not too many places to spend it. There are beautiful grounds, which you cannot see at night, but in the morning you can look for the paths we have through the surrounding grounds outside. There is also a schoolhouse up the hill, which the girls walk to and from daily. They attend school for a few hours in the mornings. The cafeteria is in the basement; the food is not great, but you will find things to eat. There are vending machines at the end of the hall. You also have pay phone privileges. You will be in a single room for as long as we can offer that to you. At the moment we are clear, but we may have to allow a roommate in, as the girls filter in and out all the time. There is a doctor on the premises, with whom you will meet every week for your OB checkups. The hospital where you will deliver your baby is right next door, easily accessible, through a secure hallway under the building.”

Ms. Graham kept talking. She sounded strict, like a boring high school history teacher, but there was something else about her. I could feel little drops of kindness, maybe even a softness as she spoke. “There are chores required for the residents who live here, and you will not be exempted from them; it felt wrong not to have you participate. They involve sweeping, emptying garbage, cleaning bathrooms, things like that. Your name will be on the white chore board in the lounge area—with a television, couches, et cetera—on the wing where you will stay. It is not much but the girls spend most of their day there. I am the social worker here; you will report to me once a week to let me know how you are doing. There is a woman in charge of your wing with whom you can consult if you have any issues. There is a chapel behind the facility that is open all hours. There is also a discipline system on your wing for girls who don’t fulfill their responsibilities or who partake in any sort of violence or harm to fellow residents. These girls have had challenging lives; they are also emotional and they’re pregnant. Some of them have had altercations, but for the most part they are well-adjusted and grateful to be here where there is a warm bed and food to eat. Smoking is allowed in the lounge and cigarettes can be bought in a machine in the basement. When is your baby due?”

My mother answered, “Her baby has to be delivered before her high school graduation date, which is June first.”

“I see. Well, let us hope that happens for her.”

The Katharine Hepburn voice was gone. The hardcore, end-of-her-rope Dorothy had emerged. “That has to happen for her,” she said. “It took a lot of cooperation to get her high school to agree to the school credits transferring and to keep all information off the records. The only unbending requirement is that she be physically present for graduation. Liz will be going off to college in the fall, but not without showing up to receive her diploma. Her high school was incredibly accommodating. Liz, you should feel very grateful.”

I was having trouble breathing. I whispered, “I’m grateful, Mom.”

“When the time comes, Mrs. Pryor, we will see if inducing labor for Liz would be something the doctor can recommend.”

The Katharine Hepburn voice returned. Dorothy was back in control. “I thank you, Ms. Graham, thank you again for everything. This will be an adjustment, but we have no choice. Please call if she needs anything, day or night. And, Ms. Graham, as I told you on the phone, Liz will be giving this baby up for adoption immediately after the birth. In fact, she has made a promise that she will not look at, touch, or ask about anything other than the sex of the child. We need to make sure she follows through on that; in the end, it will make it easier for her.”

Ms. Graham looked over at me, as though she needed confirmation. I nodded, and then watched as my mother reached for her white cashmere scarf. As she wrapped it around her neck she said something else, but her voice sounded muffled and far away. I was sinking underwater and had nothing to grab on to to stop myself. She was leaving, I was staying, and I’d never ever been more terrified. It was the same feeling I’d had as a young kid, when she dropped me at school in kindergarten. And then again in the beginning of the year in first grade, second grade, and third grade. I had cried and whimpered my way through school in the early years away from my family, away from my mom. Something inside me couldn’t seem to catch hold of myself.

“Lizzie?” my mother was saying. “I have to go; your sisters are at home alone. I have a lot of people with a lot of questions that I have to somehow figure out a way to answer. And a long drive back.” I sank further and further down to what felt now like the bottom of the black sea.

“Can you show her to her room and help her set up, Ms. Graham?”

Ms. Graham nodded as my mom grabbed her purse and her camel hair coat. I followed the click, click of her heels out of the office and into the hall. With her back to me, she pressed the handle of the steel door that led to the outside world, to the snowy night and the long drive home. When she turned to face me I saw her eyes well up.

“You’ll be okay, sweetheart. I’ll come back this weekend and we’ll go somewhere nice. I feel terrible leaving you here, but I know it’s the right thing. Remember to pray, Liz. Ask God to help us through this.”

She hugged me close; we stayed like that a long time. I was sobbing hard until she finally backed up and took my face in her hands.

“I love you, Liz.”

“I’m sorry, Mom, I’m sorry about all of it,” I said. She squeezed me tightly. “You’ll be back Friday?” I asked.

“Friday it is.”

The door slammed shut behind her. I stood in her wake for what felt like an eternity, and then made my way back to the woman’s office. Ms. Graham asked me how long I’d been playing the guitar. She was trying to be nice, but I couldn’t answer; I was still crying.

One hallway led to another, then down a few stairs to another heavy door with a lock on it. Ms. Graham took a ring of keys out and opened the door. We entered a corridor that had an odd odor and flickering lights. She turned to me and said, “You will be fine here; you just have to give it some time.”

We turned and entered a good-sized room with paneled walls and a thumping ceiling fan going round and round. This must be the lounge. There was another door on the opposite side of the room leading out to what looked like a hall with rooms. The hall in this wing must have made a U shape, and the lounge was in the middle with two doors. There were several young pregnant girls sitting around, most of them smoking cigarettes. The room was thick with smoke. A TV with an antenna held together by tinfoil sat crooked against the main wall. There were two shabby couches, a recliner, and several chairs scattered around. There was one lone window oddly placed in the wall in the back, mostly covered by a dreary-looking curtain.

As Ms. Graham began trying to get the girls’ attention, I noticed a very young girl with a horrible scar running down the entire side of her pale face. All the girls looked up at me, except for the girl with the scar. Ms. Graham pointed at each girl as she spoke.

“This is Nellie, Tilly, Amy, Hadley, Marina, Elaine, Doris, Wren, and that over there is Deanna.” A few of the girls waved. “This is Liz; she is a new resident.”

The white chore board on the wall had my name on it. The other girls had their first initials and last names, but mine was my first name and last initial. One of the girls was sitting in a beaten leather La-Z-Boy chair reclined all the way back, a big girl with dark brown skin wearing huge red hoop earrings that looked like bracelets. Her pregnant belly hung heavy over her jeans. She was eating a bag of Doritos while holding a cigarette and a can of Orange Crush. Ms. Graham stepped away to fix the TV, which the girls were all saying was broken. I took another look at the black girl in the recliner. She caught me and said, “What are you looking at? You stay the fuck away from me.” I nodded and then looked down at the floor.

I followed Ms. Graham through the room, out the other door, and down the hallway. Mine was the last room at the end of the hall, on the left. Ms. Graham turned to me. “Remember, your day to see me is Tuesday, Liz. Every Tuesday you will come to my office at one o’clock. But I’d like you to come by tomorrow and we can see how you are getting on. If you need me for anything, you can ask Alice how to get ahold of me; she is your resident supervisor.”

“Okay.”

“Do you think you’re going to be okay tonight?”

“I don’t know.”

She was gone, and I was alone. The room had two beds, two dressers, and a long window along the wall at the head of the beds in the room. The bed frames were steel, the room mostly cement and brick. I couldn’t bring myself to open my suitcase. It would be like opening the doorway to hell, and I knew I wouldn’t survive. Crying had become like breathing. I took off my long winter coat. It was a full-length gray wool cape coat my mother had given me for my birthday the year before when I turned sixteen, which felt like a long time ago. I laid the coat out on the bed and sat on it. The cinder-block walls were painted a dirty cream color, and the floor was gray linoleum. The dressers were built into the wall and had several drawers. I took a long time deciding which side of the room I should use; maybe the side you couldn’t see when the door opened would be the best. My mom had put a jar of peanut butter and a box of Wheat Thins in my tote that morning. I pulled them out and placed them on the dresser on my side of the room. I pushed my suitcase and guitar to the side I’d chosen. I saw my stuffed dog Henry’s ear hanging out of the outside pocket of my suitcase and pulled him out. I’d brought him along at the last second early that morning. Henry had the same goofy look on his face he’d always had. I thought about all the places that silly dog had been with me and wondered if I should put him back in the suitcase to spare him from this place, but instead I placed him on the bed and looked at him. And for just a moment, everything felt like it was going to be okay. Henry was the one reminder of life before this place.

Maybe it was all a dream, a horrible nightmare, and I was going to wake up in my room at home to see my Madame Alexander dolls on the shelf and hear my little sisters, the twins, fighting in the next room. But you always know it’s not a dream when you find yourself hoping it’s a dream, again and again and again.

I got sick to my stomach later that night. I threw up several times in the bathroom that was attached to the room. It was clean and sterile-looking, like one in a hospital. It had those steel handles mounted on three walls, the ones you see in homes for old people. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I splashed water on my face; it was hard to look at myself. When I did, the voice in my head reminded me that I was a horrible person, and I could think of nothing to defend that. I was a horrible person.

I had no idea what time it was, but time was meaningless anyway. My tears wouldn’t stop no matter how hard I tried. I looked out the window at the cold trees in the darkness, and then noticed the lock latch. I unlocked and opened the window about a foot and took a deep breath from the freezing cold outside, as though I’d discovered a secret place from which I could steal oxygen. The cold tore through me and stayed in the room. I curled up like a baby on the bed, looked out at the tree nearest the window, at the way the snow sat so perfectly on each branch, and wondered if anything was ever going to look beautiful again, and finally fell asleep.

chapter 2

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