I wanted to tell Mother my secret in a wide open space, among trees and birds, where we had something to look at, besides each other. I hoped to prepare her for the shock. Father had been admitted to St. Vivian’s Hospital hours earlier. His emphysema had worsened to the point where inhalers and nebulizers proved ineffective. When the gurney arrived to transport him downstairs for a series of tests, his nurse suggested we leave for lunch. I drove to Muller’s Deli, weighing the words to tell my mother I was pregnant and wanted to abort the baby.

The possibility of carrying a child and giving birth created an avalanche of wonder and expectation within me, but I’d planned for so long to attend art school, study The Masters, visit all the great museums. Since learning of my pregnancy, some days narrowed to the pinpoint center of a spiral. Others expanded outward. I drew detailed minutia, then large swathes of color: ants, bees, dragonflies, eyes, ears, and wrinkles on knuckles, to bridges, cathedrals, rivers, mountains, and canyons.

Mother had chosen River Bend Park for its old trees and river view, things we both loved. We ate havarti cheese and sweet red pepper sandwiches, seated in the garden, side by side on a wrought-iron loveseat, overlooking the Kentucky River where it snaked east toward Pine Mountain. I wondered if she, like me, tried not to worry about Father. Sixty-three, he’d smoked since the age of twelve, worked in a tobacco factory all his life. He continued smoking, despite his emphysema, but only on the back deck since Mother’s diagnosis of breast cancer last fall.

The open air diluted the smell of her skin, but every so often I caught a whiff that reminded me of a cast-iron skillet. That heavy smell grated against the sweet scent of the red peppers on my sandwich. I studied the thick live oak branches tilting toward earth, trying not to see Mother’s wrists, so thin and pale yellow.

I still couldn’t believe a baby floated inside me. When I was young, I pictured myself with children. Born late in my parents’ life, an only child, I suspected they neither planned nor wanted me. I swore my life would be different. Now this pregnancy at the worst possible time, disease and death lurking in our house. Those very threats paired me with Ryan. I longed to touch and be touched.

Mother took a deep breath. “It’s hard to feel bad when it’s spring.”

I followed her eyes from the fallen flowers of the star magnolia to the pale pink dogwood blossoms open like hands to receive. She seemed to relax as she looked at the trees, as if this was just what she needed, to immerse herself in spring’s growth. I tried not to imagine what she’d say when I told her. Would she remind me that our family descended from a line of staunch Catholics? I imagined her asking me why I couldn’t carry her to term, (I was convinced it was a girl), and give her up for adoption. But one of the girls in my homeroom class gave her child away. She hung herself a year later.

I prayed for the right words as I calmed myself, noticing how Mother also stared at the cornucopia before us. Swathes of orange, yellow, and cream daffodils swayed beneath silver maples with leaves cocooned in tight buds, waiting to uncurl. Mr. Wessler, the master gardener at the nursery where I worked weekends, told me trees and flowers contained blueprints, beginning with the seeds, detailing every increment of their life cycles. This innate knowledge directed their response to changes in temperature and light, so they knew when to rise through soil, when to open blossoms, when to disperse seeds. I wondered what inklings curled within human embryos.

Mother glanced around. “Do you mind if I take my hat off?”

I tried not to envision her bare head, how much it exposed, so quickly, wondering what if I said no. But she didn’t wait for my answer before she removed the straw hat and anchored its wide brim beneath her purse. Perhaps she suspected what I’d say. I didn’t want to see her bare head. During the first round of chemo treatments, her hair fell out in patches, revealing a scalp the color of raw salmon. She rarely took the hat off, even at home. It was so odd to see her remove it here, as if she were ready to uncover something important, as if she knew both of us were waiting for something to happen.

Looking straight ahead, I imagined the russet waves of her hair shining in the sun, even though my peripheral vision revealed a skull unprotected as a newborn’s. Did she have any hint of what I hid? I waited to hear her ask why Ryan hadn’t been around. She had to wonder why I wouldn’t accept his calls. I’d graduate in two weeks, and then I’d be less likely to encounter him, but how long would it take for me to not miss his touch?

Mother talked about how Father tried to hide from her his inability to breathe. He looked so frail, as if the light could show right through his skin. She hoped he didn’t have to stay in the hospital, but she didn’t mention any hopes about his tests. Mother rarely talked to me about how she felt. I didn’t know how to respond. It took me my surprise that she’d overstepped the boundaries of our world. No maps existed from that point on. An unspoken code, part of our DNA, ingrained from our German heritage, demanded we restrain our emotions, and imply affection rather than display or declare it. But, I’d trampled all the boundaries with my unwanted pregnancy. It felt as if I floated in the river’s current, unanchored, nothing to ground me.

As I sat beside Mother, clutching the remaining triangle of my sandwich, I thought about what I could say to lead into my revelation, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak. Instead I said, look at the redbud.

I couldn’t stop myself from imagining a daughter to unfold the beauty of nature for, and share in the excitement of her discoveries. I’d tell her about the Newport plum to our left with pink lace blossoms smelling of almonds, the Bradford pear flaunting white confetti, and the ash with its crusty strips of bark waving in the wind.

Behind us sassafras trees swished shadows left to right, releasing a root beer scent. My body wanted to follow their luxurious rhythm. I looked down to restrain myself, to remind myself of what I needed to do. I could no longer bear to wonder. Or imagine how it might be different if my parents were healthy, if I were older, married. How to carry and nurture a child might open up my art, my life.

I took a deep breath, bringing myself back, seeing my scuffed white gym shoes against the red bricks, hearing Mother’s nylon jacket swish against my denim shirt sleeve as she raised the sandwich to her mouth. The sun cast the loveseat’s tiny interlocking diamond grid with the shadows of our seated frames onto bricks spiraling to a center bronze sundial. The shadows of our bodies leaned toward each other, almost touching.

I didn’t expect the park with all spring’s abundance to affect me so intensely. My fingers ached to hold my sketch book, to translate this intricate network of light and dark. I wanted to immerse in all the blossoms, tranquilize myself. But it also heightened my awareness. The undeniable fact. My body cradled its own evolution, cells dividing and multiplying even as I tried to fathom words to say, to divine Mother’s reaction.

Studying the shadows near my shoes, I remembered Mr. Wessler explaining how sassafras trees grew three leaf shapes: unlobed, two-lobed like a mitten, and three-lobed, often on the same branch. I knew nothing of a fetus’ formation, but I imagined my baby floating and unfolding within me. As I swallowed, I thought about how the organs of my body connected to transform cheese, bread, and peppers into vitamins and minerals, nourishing all the way down to the cellular level. When we’re done eating, I told myself, I’ll tell her then. I tried not to fidget.

If only I could have shared my secret with my friends Laura and Janet. I had planned to, until last week, when members of the local “Right to Life” organization visited our school. After their presentation, Janet asked how anyone could kill a baby, and Laura shook her head in disbelief. I shrugged when they turned to me. Said I didn’t know what I felt about abortion. Maybe it was an abomination. But even as I lied to them, in my heart I knew it wasn’t right to judge anyone who decided to abort a baby, especially when the condemners never faced an unwanted pregnancy.

There I sat, nearly holding my breath. After swallowing every last smidgen of my sandwich, I closed my hands into fists, pressing nails into the soft pads of my palms. I stretched my legs out in front of me. Mother’s legs were bent back beneath the bench, as if she was trying to curl up for warmth. She threw pieces of crust toward the ash tree. The motion vibrated the metal beneath us. Her other hand lay in her lap, tightened around the breadcrumbs. Fat bodied doves waddled to reach them, tiny heads bobbing. I don’t know why, but she started talking about the farm her grandparents owned, the land sold before I was born. Smiling toward the river, no doubt seeing that land spread before her, she asked me to close my eyes and listen. She mimicked bird calls: red-winged blackbird, finch, cardinal. Her rendition of the dove’s mournful sound saddened yet soothed me. She said Grandma claimed bird songs held the secret of life, if you decoded them. How I longed to tell Mother my secret, but without hurting her. She’d been through so much with her cancer and Dad’s emphysema. How could I bring more pain into her life, into mine?

We didn’t talk for a while, eyes closed, listening side by side, breathing slowed and synchronized. The odd thing was, in that silence, I’d never felt so close to my mother. Could she sense my confusion, my inability to speak? Maybe I exuded signals only the woman who birthed me could interpret. It felt as if my body hummed, intent as a bee’s buzz. I couldn’t stop myself from returning to the scenarios I’d fantasized, where in the midst of all the spring growth, I revealed she was going to be a grandmother. What joy there’d be, and an added incentive for her to fight the cancer, to live. Maybe I could whisper my secret in her ear.

But there she sat, watching the chickadees hide seeds in the branches, palms cupped open in her lap, as if enticing the birds to land. How could I burden her with my shame, when she had so much to carry already?

I studied her face. Lush, arched eyebrows I used to envy – gone, along with her eyelashes and every trace of hair. It might sound funny, but I missed the tiny, colorless hairs on her face, which you couldn’t see unless the sun hit them with just the right light. Her skin, once radiant, now looked thin and too fragile. I had to look away, at the hedge of blazing forsythia. At the grass gleaming liquid green, as only the first spring growth can. Rain the previous night had heightened the scents of sweet soil, and seduced earthworms closer to the surface. I heard her take a deep breath.

“Did you have a fight with Ryan?” She touched my wrist, her skin hot.

“I’m pregnant.”

I couldn’t believe I’d said those words, just like that, like I’d said I was going shopping or might like to get some ice-cream later. Mother released a drawn out “oh.” Heat rose in my eyes, tears pooling. A sensation of rushing forward filled me, a feeling of falling from a great height. No way to take back the words, to stop the growth inside me. No way, but one.

I waited for her to barrage me with questions and accusations. How could I have let this happen? What was I going to do now? How could I be so selfish? Did I realize this would kill Father?

But she didn’t speak. Instead she leaned forward, hands braced on her knees. I watched her, thinking at any moment she’d get up, turn, and leave me alone on the loveseat. The nausea of morning sickness rose in me. I took a deep breath, and kept my face toward the river. Patches of purple and white redbuds interspersed with the browns and grays of the woods along the river banks. Clouds overhead left part of the forest in sun, part in shadow. Birds squawked and flapped wings behind us.

“Are you sure?” Her voice cracked.

I hadn’t seen Mother cry since our next door neighbor’s daughter died from bee stings.

I remember being horrified at the thought of all those bees, but I was more terrified by the way Mother broke down that day of the bees, the way she kept apologizing to us afterward.

I was sure, I said, my voice high and tight.

When her tears came, she dropped her head toward her chest. I thought she’d passed out until she began sliding her palm over her bare scalp as if to wipe it all away. Swallowing hard, I concentrated on the shadow of her arm shifting on the bricks before us; lighter and fuzzier when her hand reached the back of her head, darker and more delineated when she neared her forehead.

She sat up, head tall, and snugged on her hat. “We better get back to the hospital.”

I sat there, feeling my breath leave me. I wanted to kick something hard, like a car door. Crunch a huge dent with the heel of my shoe. I wanted to screech, “Did you hear what I said? What are we going to do?”

But we walked to the car silently. I said nothing as Mother took the driver’s seat. Bone-tired, I leaned against the headrest, suffocating from the sun beating through the glass combined with the metallic, antiseptic smell emanating from her skin. I sat still as she drove with her eyes fixed straight ahead. She slid into a parking space like water upon a shore. We opened our car doors, but neither of us moved. I couldn’t. Not even when she reached over and touched my hand. We’d go to an out-of-town clinic, she said.

I sat very still, her hand light in mine. My mother was telling me to have an abortion. The same decision I’d made. Why didn’t I feel relief? There was neither blame nor incomprehension in her tone or words or face. Her voice, soft and steady, gave nothing away. But her eyes avoided mine.

Together we headed toward the visitors’ entrance. I tried to shove down the floating question of what my choice would have been if my parents were healthy. Without a word I walked at her side as the three of us passed beneath an arbor supporting a web of Chinese wisteria, their vines in full bloom, their gnarled trunks thick as wrists, their shadows swaddled in fragrance.

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Karen George is author of five chapbooks, and two poetry collections from Dos Madres Press: Swim Your Way Back (2014) and A Map and One Year (2018). Her work has appeared in Adirondack Review, Louisville Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, SWWIM, and Still: The Journal. She reviews poetry at Poetry Matters: http://readwritepoetry.blogspot.com/. Visit her website at: https://karenlgeorge.blogspot.com/.