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After the Twilight Drug Hallie Tobias I squeeze the dropper, watching five beads of urine fall. It's the third time in as many months I've felt compeUed to take a pregnancy test. Breastfeeding my eleven-month-old has stopped the flow I never found comforting until now. My body became an abundant but foreign landscape foUowing her birth, stomach etched with paths like Ughtning against white night sky, ovaries ceasing their usual rumble that sets my body's cycle. Five minutes waiting. I pace, remember the show I saw last night on how antibiotics can block birth control piUs. In the bathroom cabinet, Ceftin for my respiratory infection sits next to the famiUar beige packet of Ortho Novum. When a red cross rises on the test patch like a comet's radiant streak, I whisper, "Oh, please no," hear our baby kick her crib in the next room. My husband is away, at a rehearsal. I am alone with my daughter. There is someone in my body with me. I call backstage, teU him why he needs to come home. Early the next morning I leave for the cUnic alone, my husband bound to play a concert he can't cancel. After a short drive, I see myself on security monitors and fiU out insistent forms: Do you believe you are pregnant? Do you want to be? The nurse confirms I'm five weeks along. My daughter was only five weeks' gestation when I learned about her in a similar office. I'm sent to the clinic counselor, a woman with frosted hair who apparendy has never seen someone cry so much. She urges, 'Wouldn't you like to wait the weekend? You seem very emotional." From her mental institution a thousand miles away, my mother whispers, You let some boy stick it in, didn't you? Twenty-five years ago, her accusation slapped me every night before I ever dated or kissed. Whüe she locked herself in her bedroom or stood naked, screaming and spitting at the top of a staircase, I changed my brother's diaper, fed him dinner, hugged aU his stuffed animals good night. 139 140Fourth Genre In the counseling office, I teU this stranger behind the desk that I am the primary wage-earner for my famüy. I know I can't cope with two chüdren under one-and-a-half. I have no money that isn't spent before it arrives, no energy, a Ufe yet to Uve. The world is not big enough for aU of us. In the exam room, the nurse offers a hospital gown, VaUum, and talk about vacuum suction. She says the procedure wül probably be done in ten minutes, and I could feel severe cramps. Then she leaves me to relax. I shiver. I am seventeen again, in court, testifying against my mother. Ifmy testimony is convincing, my father wül win custody of my nine-year-old brother. If not, my brother wül spend his days with a schizophrenic who pees into cups in the kitchen and talks to people I can't see. It seems impossible we could lose, but my mother's famüy has hired one of the most powerful attorneys in Chicago. Money changing hands has influenced more than one ruling. And in the late 1970s, it is unusual for fathers to obtain custody of their children. In the witness box, I teU stories none ofmy uncles or aunts wanted to hear years ago when they praised me for being strong, how I once woke to see Mother opening and closing a scissors above my eyes, or how I dodged hurled pots of boiling water. I Ue only once, when I say, I don't hate her. Ifeel sorryfor her. After weeks of testimony, including a closed-door session between my brother and the judge, we wait for the verdict inside a cold courtroom.With the pure belief that what's right wiU happen, my brother is smiling. I stroke the hair on the back of his neck. The judge asks the attorneys to approach the bench. We strain forward, hear her say that based on...

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