Free Apart From Love by Uvi Poznansky Page A

screaming, ‘cause they all seemed to be so sleepy, so eerily quiet, even though from time to time you could see a head turning, or a hand lifting or falling.  
And me, I even became angry, madly angry at that unseen woman, whose voice pierced me. She roared, arousing something in my heart which was so annoying, so alarming, so crazed even—until at last I thought, Enough! Just shut the hell up! Why isn’t nothing being done here, I mean like, anything to silence her! Slap the madwoman! Restrain her! Strap her in a straightjacket! This is a clinic, after all! Tie her up, so she can’t stir up trouble no more!  
And on that note, all of a sudden it came to me: somehow I knew, right then, that she was no other—no one else but me.

And still unable to stop myself from wailing, I began to listen, I mean, really listen to my own voice. I tried to take apart the different notes flying—with such force, such anguish—out of my throat.  
I could hear different breaths, different speech sounds. Some was like, open, some—partially blocked. Finally I made a complete sense of it all. It was then that at last, I got it.  
“Ma,” I heard me raving, on and on and on, “Ma, take me, take me from here, take me, ma, please! Take me before it is too late!”  
Little by little I regained control over myself. And the voice—my voice—which by now was like, hoarse from shouting, became softer and softer still, until, at last, it faded away.  
I laid there exhausted, trying to catch my breath, asking myself, When would she come? When would she take me back, take me home?  
And I knew right then that I won’t never be quite the same. This was the day that changed me. From now on, my life would be measured not by a stretch of years, my fourteen years—but by the depth of this pain, this sorrow.  
So I asked myself, What could I bring back, what would I remember out of it?  
With some effort I recalled being led into the operation room, trembling a little in that skimpy paper gown, being told to mount the bed, and like, feeling them fingers—so cold on my outstretched arm—as the nurse had tried, several times, to find my vein.  
But then, after that I couldn’t recall nothing, nothing but that screaming, that goddam earsplitting screaming in my head. Thank God that was over.
I went back in my head, searching for an earlier moment, the moment I’d stopped in front of the entrance door, shedding tears, even kicking the stairs and pounding the wall with my fist, refusing to go into that clinic. I recalled arguing with ma, pleading with her to let me go, let me turn back, ‘cause it was a school day, and I shouldn’t miss it, really.  
But she insisted that what I shouldn’t miss was my future, because it was no good for me to repeat her mistakes, and if I did better in school, and scored better grades, especially in math, and learned, at long last, how to subtract my age from hers, I would know just exactly what she meant.  
At any rate, keeping the baby was out of the question, ‘cause it would, like, screw up my entire life. After all, she said, I was still a little girl myself, and despite thinking myself a woman I knew nothing, really, absolutely not a thing about parenting. And what’s more, I didn’t have no partner, no man with whom I could share the burden.  
And by burden she meant, raising a child; which made me feel awkward, and like a burden myself.  
At last I found myself having to obey her, because like, part of me reckoned she meant well, and she was right, too. And anyway, as everyone says, ma knows best—even though she went on dating Johnny for a whole month after that.  
But the other part of me recoiled in fear at the thought, the mere thought of entering that door. I didn’t want no procedure, ‘cause I wanted so bad to hold on to the baby. In spite of everything ma had just said, I believed I was, like, destined to have him. Me, I could see, yes, I could just picture what lied