The Apple House by Gillian Campbell

Author:Gillian Campbell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FICTION / General, FICTION / Literary, FICTION / Contemporary Women
Publisher: Brindle & Glass
Published: 2012-09-12T00:00:00+00:00

Ginger Ale

I had scandalized Dr. Campeau, I knew that, but I had some idea that if I jumped through all the right hoops, he’d understand, and I needed someone to hold my hand. I understood he didn’t approve of abortion, but then no one in their heart of hearts approves of the actual bloody act, no woman especially, least of all those who suffer through it. How could we?

His daughter was a single parent at age eighteen. In those days, not so long ago, when most pregnant teens were banished on pretence of furthering their education to live with an imaginary aunt in another town, the baby was invariably handed over to an adoption agency. But Dr. Campeau’s daughter stayed at home in full view of the village throughout her pregnancy. She and her parents brought up the child together. So I should have known better than to assume he’d ever approve, but I wasn’t really thinking. I’ve known him nearly all my life and he’s seen me through more than one childhood crisis. I needed him, where he’s always been, on my side.

The counsellor he referred me to worked out of the regional office of the CLSC, an umbrella organization that takes care of Quebecers from cradle to grave. It’s a few miles north of the tracks, up past Louise’s expensive new library and the even more expensive Hotel de Ville, a monument to Saint-Ange-du-Lac’s proud status as a city, beyond the English high school, the French high school, and innumerable little strip malls, right at the edge of the concrete wasteland of the industrial park. It’s a one-storey cement block building plunked in the middle of a field of spiky yellow grass that serves as an overflow parking lot and a dumping ground for derelict cars, a sorry end for what is quite possibly the last bit of farmland remaining on the West Island. It couldn’t be more out of the way, but presumably the land was cheap and there’s a shuttle bus every half-hour from the big shopping centres along the Trans-Canada Highway, the assumption being perhaps that anyone, no matter what their state of health, can get themselves to a shop, or else, as Charmaine’s father and most of the village merchants maintain, that shopping centres will make you sick.

The location suited me perfectly, since I had no intention of confiding my plans to my family. I had some vague idea of announcing, well after the fact, that I’d had a spontaneous miscarriage. I prepared the ground for this deception by casually announcing to my mother that Dr. Campeau had scheduled more tests.

“Shall I come with you?” she asked immediately.

“No, no, I’m fine. Maybe next time, if there’s a problem,” I said, pricked with panic by the look of concern on her face.

The counsellor, whose name was Collette, looked about sixteen, though she must have been older, but in any case far too young to be giving advice or guiding anyone through a crisis. She was

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