Perennial

There is a circle. You’ve drawn it, grey and sharp, with a pencil, and your lover has been over your shoulder, calculating the exact rounding line. It is a perfect circle. His breath hot on your ear, palm cradling your neck, moving with you.

Now, erase it. That charcoaled, perfect circle. See the pink eraser shavings on the page, only a faint outline of the circle left. Your lover slept in bed when you woke in the middle of the night.

Together, you both were equal parts of the creation. You did the drawing, the doing, he gave you the instructions. But you knew, in the wrenching rot of my gut, that it was the wrong circle. It was not right. You’re relieved now that it’s gone, aren’t you?

When Mary Magdalene calls the Planned Parenthood on Alameda Avenue, she begins to erase the circle.

Three hours later, Jesus lays on the mattress that curves so tightly to His spine, rests neck on His palms, points toes to ceiling, asks Maggie,

How was your day?

It was okay.

I’m not feeling too well.

And Jesus puts Maggie to bed. He brings her soup, lemonade Gatorade, the blue heating pad wrapped in the corner, a cotton blanket, grey wool socks. He did not know He’d drawn a circle.

When Maggie, pallid and sweaty-palmed, peed for seven seconds on a white and light pink stick in her tiny yellowing bathroom to see two pink lines, the story did not change. It is easy to be afraid of the unknown, but it is not cowardly. A life with more strife may not be the better life, the right path.

Jesus is not unaware. He feels there is something amiss but instead – he chooses not to know.

And this is how Mary Magdalene has an abortion.

________

It is a bone cold Wednesday morning and hers is the first appointment of the day, but she does not know it. The clinic opens later on Wednesdays. The staff beyond the glass doors, gathered in the brown wool-covered chairs, see her in the hallway. A snapshot of the seventeen women that day who are ready to begin the ridding.

She tires of waiting, goes across the street for a raspberry muffin and a blueberry tea. She goes back to her car, the smell of sunscreen and wool socks, to sit in silence.

Trying to give life to a circle that has been drawn on paper for five weeks is like trying to feel your third left rib. It cannot be done.

________

Maggie apologizes, not for the first time that day, or week, or month, or yet, but the first for erasing the circle.

You would have been wonderful

---I am not.

Jesus would have been an incredible father. He could still be one day. Is this a betrayal? How heavy is it? Betrayals are measured by buoyancy, after all.

________

Jesus guides Maggie’s toes and heels into the dark grey wool socks. He settles the fabric against the arch of her foot, smaller in His hand than on land, He rubs His brown-bearded cheek against the sock on her foot, her heel encircled inside His palm.

He is not bound by this decision—He is liberated from it.

When the clinic doors open, she walks to reception and pays the four hundred and fifty dollars to have a medical abortion. She fills out the patient history form, and waits.

Tens of minutes later, the sonogram stick slicks inside of her.

Would you like to know if anything abnormal, like twins or multiples, is happening?

Okay.

There is only one circle, one not-yet. The decision, she assures the technician, would be the same either way.

________

She is led into a small room for the emotional consultation. The therapist, white lab coat, curly hair, round-cheeked face, asks,

Maggie, are you and your partner faithful to each other, that you know of?

Yes.

Are they here waiting for you, or do they know where you are?

He knows I’m at a doctor’s appointment. But not what...