Free Gould by Stephen Dixon Page A

where I’m going after this year. I’m not ready for it by any measure, and a kid?—oh come on,” and she said “You’re a nice guy, intelligent, personable, have decent looks and in good clothes you’d be very presentable, and plenty of other things, and for me personally, particularly how I feel about you. I felt a lot, and it’s obvious I believe in you a lot too, and for some reason it also seemed you’d be a terrific father, loving, caring—” and he said “Maybe I would. They say good uncles make for good fathers, though I have no nieces or nephews, so why’d I say that?” and she said “You’re being clever, trying to take me out of my misery, and it was funny,” and he said “No, I said it seriously, so I must, as another one of my paternal virtues, be losing my marbles,” and she said “Anyhow, it wasn’t a real abortion, so there was no money involved, unless you want to help me make up for the three hours’ work I missed; I would have missed more but I stuck it out on the floor for as long as I could. Can I come over and talk?” and he said “Not right now; and there’s no one here, that’s not why. But ‘on the floor’ where?” and she said “Woolworth’s. I first found out I was pregnant when my period was late,” and he said “You mean you got suspicious,” and she said “So I got a test at a pharmacist’s—after other signs had appeared—and when it turned out positive I took something someone gave me—a drink to induce the abortion or miscarriage or anything you want to call it,” and he said “And it worked like that?” and she said “Not the first time. So I took it again and then realized—it’s supposed to take a day or so—that I had to be at work behind the counter, so like an idiot I went. I needed the money,” and he said “You should have called me,” and she said “And then it started happening—terrific cramps—maybe from the first time I took it, or the second, or both, but I had to go to the bathroom real bad and was also discharging,” and he said “Blood?” and she said “When I later looked in my underpants, everything. So I went, I was a mess before I even sat on the toilet, and the rest of it just swooshed out of me there. I tried to check what sex it was, didn’t have a clue from what I could observe of it, and flushed it down. An ignominious way to go, wouldn’t you say? Now I wish I had saved it, given it a backyard burial, but that wouldn’t be so good. Dog might dig it up and eat it, or worse, walk around with it and drop it at my feet as if he’d caught and killed it,” and he said “It’s no joke; it must have been terrible and physically painful for you; I’m sorry,” and she said “I felt sick after but told myself I wasn’t going to let this send me home—why should I lose good pay? Good? The lousy cheapskates but after a few hours I told them I had the flu, and left. I hope that won’t be the last time I get pregnant,” and he said “Why should it be? Look how easily you conceived this time? We went out for how long, a couple of months?” and she said “More than three, but it’s not as if we did it just once,” and he said “Anyway, you’re fertile. You took precautions and you still got pregnant, which either means, and I doubt you’d do this—you’re too much of a perfectionist—” and she said “Me? Not me. Miss Unperfectnik. But regarding what?” and he said “Your IUD device. About putting it in right,” and she said “The ‘D’ is for ‘device,’ and the device is always in, didn’t you know?” and he said “Sort of. But my point is that you had to have put it in right originally, being what I think you