Time is a cruel thing, isn’t it?  It’s always there for you in the beginning.  Bending down, feeding us from its long slender hands.  But as soon as we’re ready to take the leap, it conspires against us.  It’s merciless.

 My child lightly grabbed my finger.  She held on so tight.  It was… remarkable how such tiny hands, those infinitesimal appendages could hold on with such a loving might.  She was born on April 3, 1997.  Her name was Chelsea Emmet Smith.  She weighed three pounds and eight ounces.  I could hold her with just one arm, but I wanted to surround her with both.

 She always seemed a little more courageous than me.  She was more ambitious, and just so ready to live… life.  She was conceived only seven and a half months prior.  And as much as I hate to admit, she was a mistake.  I had just graduated medical school.  I was going to be the head surgeon at Boston Memorial Hospital one day.  I knew I was.  Yeah, I drank a bit.  Perhaps more than I should have.  The bottles always felt cold, and distant from my hand.  Distant from me.  The black and white clock above, hanging off the banister was waiting.  It was only a matter of… time.

 This guy came up and lightly put his hand on mine.  I cooked in his eyes.  My gosh they were beautiful.  He never told me his name.  But then again, it was almost like I could see everything about him in his eyes.  We talked for an hour or two before he asked to share a cab.  We lived on the same street, why not?  After all, he was gorgeous, and there was something about his eyes that soothed me.  I accepted.  I had drunk more than I thought I had, so he helped me outside the bar, and across the street.  The large lighted face at the top of the college clock tower looked down upon me with a menacing laugh.  My knight-in-shining-armor pinned me up against an alley wall, and his course, burly hands tore through my blouse.  I didn’t understand what was going on.  I felt his fingers crawl around my breasts and unclipping my bra, but it didn’t make sense.  I tried to look in his eyes, but there was nothing there.  Just a dark shadow over his eyes.

 Needless to say, I didn’t put up a fight.  I might as well just let him take me.  A drunken girl trying to fight back would probably end up lying dead in the dumpster not four feet away from the initial attack.  When he was finished, he put his wretched hand over my mouth and told me never to repeat this to anyone.  Ever.  He left me there.  My clothes were torn and filthy.  I couldn’t wear them ever if I had tried to.  I woke up, sitting in an alley with three homeless men standing by the dumpster laughing.  I hated them.  I wondered how many times they had had their ways with me that night.  I looked down to see a dirty brown sweater covering my chest, and a newspaper lying over my legs with a torn pair of Khaki’s sitting there next to me.  One of the homeless men looked at me and held up his gloved hand and gestured a friendly hello.  Or maybe he dismissed me.  I’m not quite sure. 

 The line at the abortion clinic was longer than I expected.  It had been two months since the thing’s conception, and I couldn’t wait to be free from it.  The clock looked at me with the most solemn face I had ever seen.  It wouldn’t stop.  But it wouldn’t move very fast either.  It kept a pace that drove me mad.  I wanted to just dig in there myself and pull the thing out.  The woman before me was next.  What was her problem?  Why was she so sad about this?  What was the big deal?  Her scenario was a little different, though.  She wanted the child.  So did the father.  They would’ve been loving parents.  You could see it in them just by looking at them.  But there was an enormous risk that she would die during the birth.  She had no choice.  Twenty minutes later, the woman came out, pale as a ghost.  Her husband was holding her hand, looking off into space, disappointed.  There was no crying.  Not one tear.  Just soulless people quietly walking down the corridor.  Not saying a word.  Opening the door and leaving the hospital.  She used to go to my church, so maybe I knew why she felt so bad.  I found out later that next week that she committed suicide.  She stabbed herself in the waist.  Her note said that if her baby didn’t deserve to live, neither did she.  “Next,” the doctor impatiently called.  I was next.  This was it.  Free at last.  When I got changed, I waited in the room by this machine that looked like one of those old computers from the fifties combined with a vacuum cleaner.  The doctor came in with a smile on his face.  “Ready?  Oh don’t be so glum, it’ll only take a few minutes.  Now if I could just have you hop up on this chair and spread your legs.”  I followed the orders and looked up at the ceiling.  My heart was bouncing faster than usual.  It was odd.  It was the big beat from my heart, followed by a smaller beat.  My heart couldn’t possibly be that fast.  The suction tube was placed into position.  Damn, it was cold.  Heartless.  The beating got faster.  What was going on?  Was this thing actually alive?  Was it as afraid as I was?  Did it actually know that I was about to…

 The procedure was a complete success.  The thing… my child was terminated.  I saw her.  Grasping the umbilical cord.  Her grip was so tight.  I couldn’t help it, I vomited.  All that night.  I couldn’t stop thinking of her.  Her small body.  Her strong life.  She was so brave.  Until the very end, she was holding on to the only connection between me and her.  God, what have I done? 

 In my mind, she’s still alive.  She would’ve been ten years old this year.  I look up everyday at the ceiling, wondering if she’s up there.  If there is a there.  I loved her.  No, I love her.  And my old friend Time, well he just keeps things nice and slow for me.  So every minute, I can regret that one decision.  God…what have I done?

Jake Roman