The Color Of Grace (23 page)

I quietly followed her up the sidewalk and into the warm
building. Mom motioned me toward a waiting room chair. Numbly, I turned and
slumped to the nearest seat, glancing around in the vain hope of filling my
attention with something other than fear.

Most of the women waiting for their
appointments were pregnant. I figured that wasn’t my mother’s condition, though
honestly, she was only forty-two, still perfectly able to have children.

Oh, man. Maybe she
was
pregnant but there were complications. Or maybe she just wasn’t sure how to
tell me she was starting a new family with her new husband. Maybe she thought
I’d feel left out.

I frowned. No. That theory didn’t seem to fit. As I watched
her chat quietly with the receptionist and then fill out a clipboard full of forms,
I recalled every awful word I’d said to her lately and wondered how I was going
to make things better between us. Was there still enough time to prove how much
I loved her?

After she handed the clipboard back, she came and sat next
to me. I had the sudden urge to reach for her hand and hold on for dear life.
But I kept my fingers tightly clenched in my lap, praying everything was okay.
My mom was okay. Life was okay. I just had to breathe. Relax.

When the nurse opened a door off to the side and poked her
head out, I nearly began to cry. But she called another name besides my
mother’s. It took my brain a moment to register the name she called was mine.

“Grace?” the nurse repeated, her brow puckering with
confusion.

Mom had already pushed to her feet and paused to look
expectantly down at me. “Well, come on.”

What?

I’m not sure I spoke aloud or not, but no one answered my
question.

I blinked up at Mom, then swiveled my gaze back to the
waiting nurse. I waited a beat, expecting someone else named Grace to get up
and disappear behind the mysterious door, but when no one did and my mom even
reached down to grasp the sleeve of my dad’s logging coat, I finally stumbled
upright.

Mom let go of me and led the way to the opened door and the
smiling nurse.

Inside, a hallway loomed forward with a dozen closed doors
branching off in both directions. The moment felt so surreal, I expected the
walls of the hallway to slant off to the side any moment, giving me a distorted
view of the world.

But everything remained normal, all too clearly normal. The
nurse kindly introduced herself to me as Sheila before she asked me to step to
the side and sit in a chair to be weighed and get my blood pressure taken.

I didn’t ask questions, I numbly sat, obeying without
thought. Finally, I raised my eyes to my mother. As Sheila strapped the chilly
cuff around my arm, reality slapped back into me. Mom had brought me to a
gynecologist’s office. Mom, who had just discovered I’d been kissing a boy and
thought I had “befriended” three more, had gone behind my back and tricked me into
coming to a freaking OB-GYN.

As the sphygmometer cuff increasingly tightened around my
bicep, my blood pressure no doubt inched higher and higher. Sheila asked me to
stay still and relax. I don’t think I moved a muscle; I was too petrified with
shock—devastating, unreal, coma-inducing shock. After frowning at my results,
Sheila took my blood pressure one more time before she finally jotted down the
results.

Then she led me down the hall that still refused to morph
into some wonky Twilight-zone walk of horror and showed me and Mom into a room
with an examining table set in the corner, though obviously still the
centerpiece of the tiny chamber.

I avoided the table and took the chair probably meant for
Mom, leaving her to stand awkwardly by my side, readjusting her purse to cover
her waistline.

“So what’re we doing here today?” Sheila asked as she followed
us into the room, gently closing the door behind her. After she flipped open a
file, she slipped a pen from her pocket and lifted her face with a smile.

The smile slipped a little as she looked at me. I could only
guess how awful I looked, my face probably some pasty shade of gray, my
shoulders drawn in and hands tightly gripped in my lap. The nurse glanced
questioningly at my mother.

Mom pursed her lips tight before saying, “I want to get her
checked for every STD out there and make sure she’s not pregnant.”

A squeak of sound left my mouth. But honestly, I could not
believe my mother had just said that aloud…to a complete stranger.

It’s hard to describe the feelings that roared through me. I
think I’ve blocked most of the experience. I remember lifting my hands to cover
my face, trying to shove the squeak back inside my mouth, but I’d already let
it out and it gained Sheila’s attention. Her eyes went sympathetic.

She sat in the doctor’s rolling stool in front of me and
softly asked, “Have you become sexually active, Grace?”

My face flamed so hot, probably going from stark white to
violent red in a nanosecond.

“No,” I gasped, utterly appalled anyone would even dare to
ask me such a thing. My lips trembled.

She must’ve sensed I was on the edge of a breakdown because
she glanced at my mother once before turning back to me. “Would you be more
comfortable if your mother stayed in the waiting room?”

Mom huffed, looking like she wanted to argue. I had the urge
to say I’d be more comfortable if
I
stayed in the waiting room, or better yet if I went home, far, far away from
any of this. But she was being so nice I just couldn’t get snarky. So I shook
my head. I really didn’t care what my mother did at this point. Nothing,
absolutely nothing, would make me feel better.

Sheila nodded. She asked me a few questions, jotting down my
answers. Then she rose, offered me an encouraging smile, and said the doctor
would be with me shortly.

Shortly
took another fifteen minutes. In that time, the patient
room echoed with an eerie silence as both Mom and I refused to say anything to
each other. Frankly, I couldn’t even look at her. I mean, honestly, how could
she do this do me? Why? Without even talking about it with me first.

I didn’t even know who she had become.

Never having felt so alone and forsaken in my entire life, I
dabbed at the tears swimming in my eyes. I was on the verge of that breakdown I
kept pushing deeper inside me when the door breezed open and a tall, stately
looking gentleman strolled in, eyeing my folder as he said my name. Then he lifted
his face and smiled. There was no censure in his eyes, no “you’re way too young
to be having sexual relations, young lady” grimace on his face at all. That was
almost more traumatic to deal with than if he’d started off with a disapproving
lecture.

Lowering himself onto the rolling stool, he sat at eye level
with me.

I don’t remember a lot of the conversation we had, but I
recall how professional he remained, though clearly he had to deal through the
drama brewing between my mother and me.

At one point, he came right out and said, “Grace, you’re
clearly upset. I won’t do an exam while you’re in this state.”

For a moment, relief flooded me. I’ve seen movies and TV
shows about women in these offices, dressed out in capes with sheets covering
their waists and their knees lifted up and spread apart. I so did not want to
go down that horrifying road.

Mom, however, wasn’t so reassured. She stepped forward,
clearly upset. “But, what if she’s—”

The doctor lifted his hand. “Ma’am, I’m sorry to disappoint
you, but my patient right now is Grace, and I will only do what is best for
Grace.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. Here was a complete stranger,
defending me against my own mother. Something was seriously wrong with this
picture. When had my mom turned from my protector, my provider, the one person
I went to when I was in trouble, to the enemy?

“I’ll do it,” I blurted out.

Both the doctor and Mom paused to gape at me.

I nodded, bolstering my courage. “I want to take the exam. I
want to prove to her I’m still a virgin. Can I do that?”

The doctor had to have seen the determination and desperation
in my gaze because after a moment of holding eye contact, he slowly nodded. “If
that’s what you want, we can do an exam.”

So I took my first exam. The movie and televisions shows
make it all so funny.

It wasn’t.

Didn’t matter how kind the doctor was, how professional and
clinical he remained, it was still the most humiliating moment of my life. I
felt invaded and exposed, and I couldn’t even reach out to clasp Mom’s hand for
emotional support. I suffered through it alone.

The doctor—I still can’t remember his name—talked in a calm
voice the entire time, explaining the procedure, which still didn’t stop me
from jumping like a scalded cat when he first touched me there.

I stared at the little dots on the ceiling tiles and tried
to pay attention to what he said. I guess he had to test for something called
HPV. Whatever it was, it sounded downright nasty, and the younger a girl was
when she started having sex, the more likely she was to catch it.

Not that I had to worry.

Afterward, when the doctor confirmed my virginity plus
negative results on the pregnancy test, I was too humiliated to even be smug. I
changed back into my clothes with so much speed I’m surprised I managed to put
everything back on in the correct order.

Back in the waiting room, I bypassed the checkout station
where my mom paused to speak to the receptionist and I pushed out the front
door, walking swiftly with my head down. The car was locked, so I was forced to
stand and stew in the miserable snow until Mom approached and remotely unlocked
the doors.

Unable to lift my face in fear I might actually make eye
contact with someone, I yanked open the door, slammed it, and pulled on my
seatbelt, all before Mom had even opened her door.

She slowly slid inside, sat beside me, and shut her door.

The silence in the car was deafening. She started the engine
without a word, without an apology for assuming I’d turned into some kind of
hooker, without even a “whew, that was a close call.”

When she still hadn’t spoken as she pulled out of the
parking lot and onto the main road, I couldn’t take it any longer.

“Where to now?” I snarled. “The hospital to take a drug
test? An AA meeting to stop me from becoming a drunk?”

My mother harrumphed and paused at a red light. “There’s no
need to be nasty, Grace.”

My mouth fell open. “No need? No need! Do you realize what
you just did to me? Do you even care? I mean, who
are
you? I don’t even know anymore.”

“Oh, you’re accusing
me
of changing, are you?” She laughed out a harsh snort. “That’s rich. You’re the
one with a new set of friends, going around kissing boys and—”

“I have kissed exactly one boy,” I cut
in, yelling. “And I didn’t even like it…something you would’ve known if you bothered
to ask me. And honestly, I kind of sort of
have
to make new friends because you forced me to go to a new school.”

“That’s no reason to totally abandon your old friends,
Grace.”

“I didn’t! They abandoned me. Something else you would know
if you just stopped to talk to me.”

“I try, Grace. I really try. You’re the one who—”

I scoffed. “Are you kidding me? Not once have I heard you
ask me, ‘
Hey, Grace have you become
sexually active
?’ Did you even think about asking me? I would’ve been
honest. Have you ever known me to lie? But you didn’t ask. How could you just
assume…” My voice broke. “Next time you want to know if I’m a virgin, just ask.
All right?”

My emotions roared out of control, so I gave up on talking.
Folding my arms over my chest, I turned and stared out the side window.

Mom took up the silent treatment as well. I hoped she was
soaking in my accusations and realizing she’d actually been in the wrong.

The anger carried me most of the way home, which I’m glad
for because as soon as the actual devastation set in, I started crying these
huge, hot, soaking tears and I couldn’t stop. Without speaking to the woman who
had given birth to me, I slammed out of the car as soon as we parked, then
stomped into the house, stormed all the way to my room and locked the door.
That’s when I stood petrified in the center of the room Barry had assigned to
me and felt utter misery.

I ripped back the covers on my bed, crawled between the
sheets and bawled, forgetting to even take my shoes off.

For hours.

I didn’t want to talk to anyone, look at anyone, or hear
anyone.

When my cell phone rang, I dug it out of my book bag only to
turn it off. When Mom knocked on my door to announce supper, I didn’t move. She
must’ve realized I wasn’t going to abandon my bed unless she broke down the
door and literally dragged me by my hair to the dining room because she never
knocked again that night.

I didn’t leave my room, or even my bed, until about one or
two in the morning when I had to use the bathroom. The rest of the house was
dark; I was grateful.