Rachel Sophie

Unemployed. Living at home.
Newly divorced. Sex was
the elixir to ease a broken
life, and unexpectedly added
a lifetime of anguish.

Mel and I dated in high shool;
he belonged to the Hell's Angels
crowd that wore black bomber jackets
like Marlon Brando in the "Wild Bunch."
He hung out at "Ed's Pool Hall" every
day after school and on weekends, too
except when we'd double-date to the
drive-in making out in the back seat
until it was time to go home.

In my senior year in high school
I met Ronnie. We fell in lust and
eloped.  Our folks found us in
a motel about 150 miles outside of
Belleville, Illinois where I lost
my precious cherry.
Life together resembled a Stephen King
horrow show.
We lived upstairs in his parents not
so plush home, in the attic and meals
and sex were a real test of intestinal
fortitude--in or out of the mood for
rude behavior.

12 months later, after a rickety
stressful, yeast growing marriage,
we divorced. I moved back home
after the tornado of our mis-carried
marriage had ended just before "Silent
night. Holy night. All is calm. All is
bright."
Got a job at Arthur Murrays Dance Studio
as the hostess with the mostess, in those
days they called me the receptionist.
Being a highly visible flaming redhead
they decided I'd be a major attraction
for the men who "wanted to learn dance."
So they taught me the how to's of
how to teach beginners to dance.
Had some short-lived moments of fun...
but nothing seemed to fit
and most of all, I didn't fit.

Quit the fast life of ballroom dance
and flitted from one mis-adventure to
another. Out of sheer desperation, I
telephoned my high school boyfriend Mel
and asked if he'd like to get together
and commiserate. He agreed.

Well that one commiseration cost me a lifetime
of miseration. After only one afternoon together,
and after 19 years of not being able to get pregnant
due to some mis-formed uterus, I got pregnant.
I told Mel and he opted for marriage. Well sure
in hell I wasn't about to go from the frying
pan into another mis-fired fit of desire.

So I contacted my ex----- and he offered
to front the money for an abortion and
gave me the name of an under-the-sheets
doctor in the Northern most part of town.
I called. They told me to come with the
cash.

I drove my 1958 red MGA roadster convertible
in the dead of December's chill, prepared to
do whatever I'd have to do to stop this sickness
of throwing up, throwing myself down several
flights of carpeted stairs in stilletto heels
trying to abort the fetus making me sick
to no avail.

Arriving about 10:30 a.m. I was taken to a private
room. Shortly a woman came in and asked if I had
the money. $250 BUCKS cash on the barrel head.
They gave me some kind of sedation and the next
thing I remembered was sitting up on the
operating table, a drape across my midriff
asking if it was a boy or a girl.
They increased the sedation, and I drifted back
into la la land.

When I awoke, someone handed me pills for pain
and sent me home. That night I lay sweating,
in raw agonizing cramps, silent as a church
mouse; not wanting my mom to catch a glimpse
or get a hint of what happened. She'd have
considered me an outcast. And oh my god,
the family!

Well, it was a girl. And sorrow and grief
followed me into every relationship, job,
theatre, vacation, marriage, et al.
It took me years to come to grips with the
death of my daughter Rachel Sophie.

One night in the process of grieving my
losses throughout life, I lit a candle
on my alter, said several prayers of
contrition and asked my sweet, unheard
child for her eternal forgiveness.
I learned that the seemingly easiest
way out can be the doorway to hell.

Would I ever, ever, ever support a young
woman in making this inexorable choice
in a seemingly despairing situation where
all avenues and doors seem to be closed
where fear opens its mouth and devours
every rational, godly thought one
has: n e v e r! Ever again.

I will forever be making my peace
with myself and my daughter, until
the gates of eternity stand open and there
Rachel Sophie waits with outstretched arms for her
mother.