Truth and Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett

Author:Ann Patchett [Patchett, Ann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061754814
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-10-13T07:00:00+00:00

WHEN THE PHONE RANG at seven it came as a real surprise. It felt like we had been asleep for fifteen minutes. Lucy’s friends were famous for calling at three and four in the morning, hours I perceived to be unreasonable, but they didn’t call at seven. “It’s for you,” she cried sleepily.

“We’re going to Tanzania,” the philanthropists’ adviser said. “The car is downstairs.”

“How did you get this number?”

“Don’t worry about packing. Don’t worry about anything. Just walk out the door. I’ve bought your clothes for you. I’ve arranged for a passport.”

“I didn’t tell you where I was staying. How do you know where I am?”

“Just come downstairs. I’m in the car. I’m right outside. We’re ready to go.”

“You’re bluffing,” I said. “You don’t know where I am.”

“I will always know where you are,” he said gravely. I hung up the phone.

“That’s very creepy,” Lucy said. She was still holding the extension.

Immediately the phone started to ring like an alarm clock and I told Lucy not to pick it up. In fact my phone would ring for months after that, sometimes every hour on the hour until I finally unplugged it and put it in the closet.

“Pet, look at the time.”

“Take your shower first,” she said. “I have to go back to sleep.”

I crawled off the sofa and took my shower and then shouted up the ladder to Lucy’s loft. “Get up! We need to get going.”

“I’m too sleepy,” she said. “I can’t.”

“Get up!”

“Forget it,” she said. “I’m tired. I can’t. I’ll have the baby.”

“Get up now or get up for the rest of your life.”

Lucy moaned and dragged herself out of bed and crawled down the ladder. “That sort of puts it in perspective.”

In the days before Roe v. Wade, I doubt that many American women were wracked with guilt over having abortions. They were too busy wondering if they were going to be butchered. So when luck went their way and they made it through the procedure safely, it was a cause for celebration rather than remorse. What legalized abortion brought to this country, along with safe medical practices, was the expectation of shame, the need to wonder if you were doing the right thing even though you knew exactly what you’d do in the end. We could have our abortions but we had to feel horrible for the decision we made, even if it was hardly a decision at all. So while social decency compels me to say that on the train uptown we cried and cursed fate and wondered what life might be like with a baby, the truth is we did not. I could not imagine Lucy looking after a baby for an afternoon, much less a lifetime. She did not try to imagine it at all. She was a little worried it might hurt. She was wondering when she would be able to have sex again. She was excited because this was also the day she got to go and pick up her book jacket cover.

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