Molly, by Lisa Hecmanczuk [lightest ebook reader txt] 📗

The broken doll pieces lie scattered on the back seat of the old Ford. Molly’s mother has torn her child’s doll apart in a fit of rage. Nine year-old Molly sits in the back, staring at the dismembered doll and wondering what she has done to provoke her mother’s anger. Her mother is usually so calm and sweet. Why does she get so mad sometimes? Molly looks out the window and regards the rolling hills and farm lands of Michigan. She dozes off. Her mom startles her when she announces, “We’re in Ohio now!”

Molly lifts her head from the sill of the back seat car window, her neck rather stiff. She meets her mother’s eyes in the rearview mirror and sees they are all kindness now. Molly refuses to look at the doll pieces again. She will forget about them. To bring up the doll would make her mom mad again. She doesn’t want that to happen.

Molly is fourteen and getting ready for her first
high school dance. Her mother bursts into her room and starts screaming at her. Molly can barely understand what her mom is saying. Her mother spots a bottle of perfume on Molly’s dresser and throws it at the mirror. The perfume fragrance hangs heavy in the air and the perfume has spotted Molly’s silk gown. She runs into the bathroom, but succeeds only in spreading the stain. After a few moments, Molly quietly opens the door and checks for the sound of her mother. She hears her in the kitchen, banging around pots and pans. Molly sneaks out the front door. She decides she will not go to the dance in a stained gown. She meets her boyfriend before he arrives at her house and tells him of her predicament. He tells her he has another idea of how to spend the evening.

Molly notices that she hasn’t had a period for a few months. She asks her older sister Meg about it. Meg frowns at her and starts to question her. Molly doesn’t want to admit it to Meg, but eventually she confesses that she slept with Mark the night of the dance. Meg buys her a home pregnancy kit and the results are positive. Molly is only 14 and scared to death of her mother. How can she tell her? Meg tells her she will take her to a doctor to make sure. The doctor confirms that Molly is pregnant.

The gynecologist gives Molly a pamphlet about abortions and one about adoption options. She needs her mother’s approval for abortion and will not be able to hide her pregnancy in order to give the child up for adoption. Molly doesn’t know what to do. The next day at school, she blurts it out to Mark. He laughs loudly, but is quickly silenced by Molly’s deathly serious regard.

“You’re serious?” Mark asks.

“Yes. I went to the doctor and everything. I don’t know what to do. My mom will kill me.”

“Let me see if my older brother has any ideas,” Mark says.

“Don’t let him tell anybody,” Molly responds.
Mark agrees to swear his brother to secrecy. A few weeks pass and Mark meets Molly in the parking lot before school one day. He walks her over to a secluded area under a tree and tells her that his brother knows a place she can get an abortion for $50 without parental approval. Molly is frightened, but she is even more scared of her mother. She agrees to meet Mark there Saturday afternoon. Molly doesn’t tell Meg, but fakes a school function on Saturday to get out of the house. She drives her bike to Mark’s house.

“I thought you were meeting us there.”

“I didn’t tell Meg,” Molly confesses.

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. I just didn’t.”

“Okay, well hurry up and get in the car before my mother comes out.”

Molly hurries into the backseat of the car. It is an old Ford, like the car her mother had several years ago. Suddenly, she has a vision of the broken doll. She shakes her head as if to clear it.

“What’s wrong?” asks Mark.

“Nothing,” replies Molly, but in her mind she sees the disjointed doll pieces: head, legs and arms. Molly is now four months pregnant. It is getting somewhat harder to hide the extra weight. She wonders how the baby inside of her looks. Does it have a head, arms, legs, fingers, toes and hair?

A few minutes later, Mark’s brother Kevin comes out to the car. In his hand he holds a key chain with a skeleton on it. The sight of the bones and the memory of the broken doll make Molly nauseous. She asks to use the bathroom. Mark shrugs his shoulders and then said, “Yeh, okay. I guess you have that morning sickness stuff—only it’s the afternoon.”

Molly runs into the house and past Mark’s mom to the
bathroom. After Molly vomits, she flushes the toilet and washes her face. She looks in the mirror and sees a photograph of a baby. She turns around to see a framed picture of a baby a few months old. There is an inscription across the bottom of the frame which reads: “Mark, Our Special Boy.”

As she admires the photo, Mark’s mom, Jean, approaches the bathroom door. “Are you alright Molly?” she asks.

“Oh, I’m okay. I was just looking at the picture of Mark as a baby.”

“Oh, yes isn’t that sweet? You know that was actually taken before we got him.”

At this, Molly opens the door, “What do you mean before you got him?”

“Oh, you didn’t know? Mark was adopted.”

“He was?” asks Molly, totally stunned.

“Yes. His mother was much too young to raise him. The grandparents had tried to, but then the grandmother had a heart attack and it was too much. We were lucky to get him. Back then, it was hard to adopt a baby. See after Kevin was born, I suffered problems and couldn’t have another child naturally. Still we wanted a brother for Kevin and more joy for our family.”

“Oh,” Molly utters.

“What is wrong Molly? You are white as a sheet.”

“I’m not feeling well.”

“Here come in the kitchen. Have a glass of water,” Jean says as she leads Molly to the table and pours her a glass of water. “Ice?”

“No, thanks. I really have to get going.”

“Where are you guys off to anyway? I thought Mark said they were going to play football. Do you play?”

“No, I was just going to watch.”

“Oh, that sounds boring,” Jean replies and starts laughing.

Molly joins in. Then she hiccups and belches.

“You better cancel your plans. You’re not up to it.”

Molly thinks how right Jean is; she is not up to the abortion today.

Mark comes into the house and asks, “Molly, what’s taking so long?”

“I’m not up to it,” Molly answers.

“What? We had an agreement!” Mark exclaims.

“What’s going on in here?” Mark’s dad asks as he walks into the kitchen. “This conversation sounds very strange.” Marks’ dad, Craig, is a pediatrician. He looks closer at Molly. He squints. Then he looks at Mark.

Mark knows the jig is up. There is no fooling his dad. Mark spits out the truth in one sentence.

Jean looks like she might faint. She takes a long drink of water and walks out of the room.

“Does your mom know?” asks Craig.

“No, she gets so angry. I’m so scared,” Molly explains.

“I know,” Craig responds. “But you have to tell her. You can’t go to that abortion clinic. They will permanently scar your body, not to mention the scars it will leave on your soul.”

Jean reenters the room with a magazine. Inside, it shows each stage of development of a baby in the womb—from embryo to fetus. Molly sees that a four-month old fetus has all its limbs as well as eyes, lips, a nose and genitals. The child in the picture is sucking its thumb. Molly remembers the broken doll and says she has made up her mind. She will put the baby up for adoption.

Jean and Craig agree to accompany Molly and Mark home to provide moral support as she breaks the news.

Molly’s mom, Virginia, is in the kitchen making a pie when the group walks in. “What is this? An intervention?” she jokes.

Molly laughs a little too hard and blurts, “Mom, I’m pregnant. Mark’s the father.”

Virginia’s eyes look like they will pop out of her head. “What the hell?”

Molly says, “I’m so sorry Mom. It was wrong. We both made a mistake. But I want to be responsible. I want to have the baby and give it up for adoption.”

“You will not!” exclaims Virginia.

“I can’t have an abortion, Mom. I saw the pictures of what my baby looks like.”

“No,” says Virginia.

“But Mom,” pleads Molly.

Virginia takes a deep breath. “No, you will keep the baby. I will raise the child as a brother or sister to you until you have completed school and settled down.”

That night after supper, Virginia goes to her room and prays. She thanks God for the opportunity to make amends for what she did. For the first time in 25 years, Virginia feels okay. She has carried the burden of aborting her first child for all these years. Now she has the opportunity to make up for it in some ways. She can never undo the past and will never know the joy, love, and hope her first child might have blessed her with. But one thing is sure; she will not let another child slip through her hands.

Finally the rage that has burned inside Virginia starts to fade. On her daughter’s face she was able to see a reflection of how she felt at 16 when she was pregnant, out of wedlock, with an abusive father raising her. She asks for and feels God’s forgiveness. She consoles the teenager inside of herself and forgives herself. Her decision to abort her child can never be made right, but she can make peace with herself.

In the ensuing months, Virginia not only prepares for
the birth of her grandson, but she takes an active role in distributing anti-abortion materials. She creates a magazine showing the stages of development of the child within the womb and distributes them to local libraries, doctor’s office’s, schools, roller rinks and other teen hangouts. She prays the rosary every day for her aborted child.

Molly enrolls in a special high school for unwed mothers and gives birth to a healthy baby boy that summer. She names him David. Molly is able to stay home over summer and bond with David. In the fall she goes back to high school while Virginia cares for David. Molly goes to college after high school and receives a teaching degree. She continues to live with Virginia for a few months until she finds a job. Molly is able to get a job teaching where David is enrolled in school and to move out on her own with David by the time he is 9 years old. Virginia and David are very close, but David has no doubt about who his mother is. She is the