Snowstorm
The car moves slowly, tracing its tire-track footprints in the snow that blankets I-95. Leo -- always one to take extra precautions -- steers carefully to avoid skidding into the other lanes. Eliza sits still in the passenger seat. She is drugged from the procedure, still groggy from the sedative pills she swallowed. The snow is falling faster now, the flakes heavy and crystallized, glistening through the wind’s harsh whispers. The windows ice over from the cold outside, the temperature low enough to freeze over ponds and rivers and lakes. The snow is wet and thick and veils the roads ahead. Leo inches closer toward the windshield, gripping the steering wheel and squinting his eyes as he looks down at the highway. Eliza drifts between consciousness and exhaustion, eyes opening then closing, falling asleep to the slow rhythm of the snowflakes outside her window.
It had been three days and still no period. It was late. She bought a cheap pregnancy test from the drugstore down the street and took it by herself back at home. She waited the three minutes on the floor, watching anxiously as her phone ticked second after second until the plus sign appeared. Positive. Silently, she cried from either joy or distress. She didn’t know.
When Eliza told Leo, he wasn’t angry, but he also wasn’t thrilled. He sighed, hung his heavy head and sank it into his palms. Leo hugged her and kissed her cheek and wrapped himself tightly around her. They stood there for a minute, stagnant in this moment, until Leo released and softly cupped his right hand against Eliza’s stomach. What would we do with a child? He stepped away. Eliza looked down at where Leo’s hand had been and pressed her own there, flat against her stomach. I know. She nodded. The two of them stood together in silence, their breath now synched as they exhaled into the ground below them. Eliza’s eyes grew heavy and damp, and Leo turned his back toward her, moving dish towels and dirty spoons and any other object he could find across the counter. He needed something to distract his hands.
Eliza booked an appointment at the abortion clinic a few towns over. The car ride was quiet, neither of them speaking. As she stepped out of the car, she noticed that the storm had just begun, but gently, dropping only a few small flakes from the sky. Snow from a few days before had melted and mixed with thick brown mud and dead winter grass, creating an ugly slush that hugged the edge of the road. As Eliza walked, the harsh wind stung her bare face and followed her inside, down her spine, into her throat, silencing her when the doctor asked, Are you ready?
Leo sat in the waiting room as Eliza sat down on a metal bench, icy and sharp as her bare legs touched its surface. She had pulled her cotton gown down further, past her knees, to stop the frigid feeling that filled her, the loneliness she felt in this white open room, but the cold was powerful enough to bleed through the gown. The doctor directed her toward the medical chair and perched Eliza’s legs onto the stir-ups and handed her three pills for sedation. She swallowed each pill slowly as if wanting to hold on to the sweetness of consciousness before this, the sweetness of the raspberry shape in her belly.
Leo pushed her -- sitting in a wheelchair post-procedure -- back to the car when she was done, lifting her up and onto the passenger seat. Eliza’s eyes shot open sometimes, but they mostly slowed to a close as her bobbed up and down. Tonight, he slush they walked past would freeze over and harden into a dirty block, a dirty, unbreakable compound of once beautiful snow and mud and dead grass.
The snow begins to pick up, and Leo grips the wheel tighter. He reminds himself that soon, they will be home and without this memory; he had decided to leave it at the clinic when he left. Eliza, still drowsy, remains half-asleep. She tries to open her eyes and give power to her body, but she is still weak and exhausted. She reminds herself that soon, they will be home and she will sleep this off; she will wake up tomorrow and start a new, baby-less life. Just her and Leo. The events of this morning heavy the air. The silence in the car is cold and chills them both.
The windshield is now blanketed completely, and the windows are iced over, light grey in color. The snowflakes grow bigger and fall faster as the wind outside shrieks and flings the car to the side each time it blows, the vehicle inching closer and closer to a tipping point. Leo starts to lift his foot from the gas pedal, his leg trembling and anxious to slow this car down. Eliza lifts her head off her shoulder and peers out the window beside her. It got so dark so suddenly. It’s funny, you know? It looks so lonely, out there in the dark, white snow. Eliza can mumble this much before the wheels spin and lose their grip on the snow below and the car skids and slides off.