If Only I Had Told Her

This looks like an AA meeting.

Not that I’ve ever been to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, but this scene fits the depictions of books and movies. We’re in a room in the hospital basement, which makes it both a little too cold and too humid, creating a creeping chill that makes me hug my elbows. We’re sitting in a circle of folding chairs. By “we,” I mean myself and twelve other people, all older than me, except for one girl who’s around my age. She arrived late, in pajama pants and reeking of cigarettes. Her shouted apology as she grabbed another folding chair sounded cursory and insincere.

I’m trying to focus on the woman who’s speaking; she’s describing how much she misses her work as a public defender in the juvenile system, though the job gave her PTSD. I kept thinking that she was going to describe being attacked or something, but it seems the system did it to her, the unrelenting waves of children who’d never been given a chance passing through her office, then being funneled on.

I’m trying to listen to her talk about the times the job had given her joy, when she’d won motions to clear someone’s record or keep someone out of the adult system. The girl my age sits directly across from me and fidgets in her seat, playing with her dirty-blond hair and smacking her gum. I watch her face as her bored gaze wanders around the circle. I avert my eyes before she reaches me.

“And I worry about the kids,” the lawyer is saying. “The kids I defended before and the kids I’m not defending now that I do contract law.” Her voice quavers. “Is anyone listening to them? Do they have anyone who cares about their stories?”

I look back at the new girl to see if she’s listening, but she’s staring straight me, and she doesn’t look away. She cocks her head in what seems to be a greeting, but I turn and refocus on the lawyer, who has quietly started crying.

“But I can’t go back. I can’t face it. I tried for ten years, and it broke me, but sometimes I wish I could go back.”

From the other side of the circle, Dr Singh says, “It’s hard when the source of our trauma is also a place where we once had joy or a sense of identity. Does anyone have thoughts on what Marcia or someone like her should do with those feelings, hmm?”

“You should be focusing on the kids you did help,” the blond girl says loudly. “Like, when I was in juvie, I wish I’d had a lawyer who had given a shit. Maybe I’d be in a better place now if you’d been my lawyer.”

“Remember language, Brittaney,” Dr Singh says, his accent making her name three syllables.

“But like you said,” Marcia says, “maybe you would be in a better place if I’d been your lawyer. I’m not putting kids in a better place anymore.”

Brittaney shrugs and smacks her gum. “You did what you could for as long as you could, and you can’t anymore, so what else can you do?” She shrugs again, as if the matter is settled.

“What about the loss of identity that Marcia spoke about? Did that resonate with anyone else?” Dr. Singh asks.

A former soldier named Carlos begins to speak, and the next half hour is more productive. We have another forty-five minutes to go when Dr. Singh says we should take a bathroom break and stretch our legs.

The moment he says “bathroom,” I need it urgently, and I sprint out of my chair into the hallway, where the restroom is easy to find, thankfully.

When I come out of the stall, she’s waiting for me.

“You’re pregnant, right?” Brittaney says before I’ve reached the sinks.

“Yes,” I say, then I turn on the faucet.

“I knew it!” Brittaney crows. “I can always tell. Sometimes I know and the girl doesn’t even know it. I’m like that. You’re what, four months?” She spits her gum into the trash can.

“Three.” I’m a little over three, but I don’t owe her my medical information. I begin to rinse the soap from my hands.

“Girl! You having twins then? I’m kidding! You’re not that big. You’re so tiny that you’re showing early. Not that most people could even tell, but whatever. When I’m pregnant, I don’t show until I’m almost seven months gone.”

“How many times have you been pregnant?” I can’t help asking. Our eyes meet in the mirror.

“Three. But I miscarried once, and I just got the three-year-old with me now.” She looks away from my gaze and shrugs, similarly to when she’d been talking about the lawyer’s PTSD.

“I’m sorry,” I say. I’m as shocked by the statement as I am by the way it has been relayed, as if it is of little consequence.

“Oh, it was real early, and the baby daddy was an asshole, so…” She shrugs again.

I’m drying my hands and praying that she won’t ask me about my “baby daddy” when she says, “So you’re what, eighteen?”

“Nineteen.” I toss the brown paper towel into the trash can and turn back to her.

“I just turned twenty-one,” she says proudly. “It’s nice to see someone here besides the old fogies.”

“Yeah,” I say as I head to the door. I don’t need a friend here, and I don’t imagine we have anything in common.

Brittaney chatters at me about all the pregnancies she’s successfully predicted in the past the whole way back to the room and our folding chairs. Before sitting down, she assures me that she’ll be able to tell me the sex of my baby if I give her a few more weeks.

“Cool,” I say and am relieved that Dr. Singh is calling the room to order. I manage to not meet her eyes for the rest of the group therapy session, and afterward I quickly leave and find Mom in the waiting room, ready to escort me to the car. The same chill I’d felt in the basement greets me outside. My jacket is too tight around my middle. I’m going to have to let Mom buy me a maternity coat before much longer.

“How was it?” she asks. “Do you think it will be helpful?”

“I don’t know,” I say.