Don’t think I was just some crazy wacko hippie. After years working in a medical office, mentored by Shirley, a tough eighth kid of nine born in Harlem, I’d seen a lot. Set and cast broken bones, assisted with vasectomies, cleansed and helped suture Watts riot wounds, calmed hundreds of women and girls through the shock of their first pelvic and breast exams. So it didn’t seem far-fetched to be sliding sterile tubing into my best friend Angel’s uterus. Here I was, a few weeks after she learned she was pregnant, hoping to save her life: she wasn’t done being a teenager.

This process for “spontaneously aborting” a fetus seemed simple but it doesn’t always work, and many women have suffered terrible consequences, including death, which I would only learn later. And it wasn’t working: Angel’s uterus was tilted.

My boyfriend TR made calls. He had educated friends who would do deep research before making important decisions. A couple he’d known for years gave him the contact information for a “highly competent” doctor in Mexico. The next day I placed a call. “Yes. I’d like to schedule an abortion.” They hung up. “Babe, what are you thinking?” TR whispered. “Hang up. Wait a few days. Call again on Thursday but only schedule an appointment.” I felt pretty lame.

I’d been in the process of moving what I owned into TR’s apartment so my Toyota was still filled with boxes when two weeks later, I squeezed Angel, my one-year-old son, myself and TR’s lanky body into the car and took off for Yuma, Arizona. We checked into a motel and the next morning, Angel and I left for San Luis Rio Colorado, a town barely across the border in Sonora, Mexico. We thought we’d be back by late afternoon so TR and my son stayed in Yuma.

San Luis Rio Colorado is a tiny, dusty town. We weren’t expecting a pediatrics clinic: a pale blue stucco building, lots of tropical foliage, and a well-swept walkway to the door. We were greeted by a friendly nurse and told to sit and relax. When she returned for Angel, she asked if I wanted to stay with her, and led us to a small room where Angel was given a gown and a cup for a urine sample. She climbed up onto a gurney and answered a few questions. Then the nurse turned to me: “You stay, keep sister company. We wait for medicine to work. She fall asleep soon.”

We didn’t meet the doctor. There were no forms to fill out. No hand-holding. Angel and I talked, trying not to think about what was happening, but then she was fading fast. When her last words drifted off, I sat looking at her sleeping, glasses resting cockeyed on her nose, a peace softening her features.

And I burst into tears. What the hell had we done? Looking closely at her sweet face on the pillow, I realized: this could be the last time I ever saw my best friend alive. The nurse had to loosen my grip on Angel’s ankle before wheeling her away.

I sat alone in the waiting room, anxious and worried, before noticing the wall covered in framed photographs. There must have been fifty images of smiling children, mothers holding newborns surrounded by huge Latino families, proud parents showing off their toddler twins, and round pregnant mothers cradling their swollen bellies, beaming into the lens. I told myself someday Angel would look like these women too. But I didn’t know what to make of it all. Was this guy really a pediatrician? What if Angel died? I would never go home. I would stay with her in Mexico forever. Would they let me have her body? What would I tell her family?

I could hear muffled voices. I paced. I studied the photographs. I turned the pages of magazines. I laid down on the couch. I paced some more. It seemed like hours before another nurse came in to let me know everything had gone well. “Podemos ir ahora?” I asked if we could  go now, but no. “Ella debe permanecer por ocho horas.” I could not believe it: eight hours? The nurse explained that any complications would occur within the first eight hours. We could leave when they were sure everything was okay.

I was grateful. But wandering around San Luis Rio Colorado until 5:30? I walked dusty pathways, ate street food, worried, meandered through small shops, cried, ate more street food, read a paper over coffee, cried some more, and finally returned to the clinic. A young boy directed me to bring my car through an alley to the wooden gate. When I reached the gate, he pushed it open and flagged me to enter.

I was in another world. The courtyard was huge, beautifully landscaped with lush palms and ferns and tropical flowers in bloom. Two round tables with chairs were shaded by gigantic multicolored umbrellas. A fountain spouted water that filled a large pool, gardenias floating on the surface. And a modern glass and steel house occupied the far end of the courtyard, shielded from full view by tropical vines and more palms. The doctor lived here.

A back door to the clinic opened and two nurses brought Angel out to the car. I wanted to run to her, throw my arms around her, let her know I was with her and that she made it and we were going to be okay, but she was pale and unsteady and fragile. I opened the passenger door and they helped her sit. “Ella esta bien. She’s good.” One of them gave me two prescription bottles: one I recognized as nembutal, the other an antibiotic. They gave me printed instructions and a number to call if anything went haywire. The first nurse hugged me. “No te preocupes.” Once we were settled in, she opened the gate. “We are on our way, sister. We’re almost home now,” I lied. But Angel’s mouth wasn’t working yet and all I got was, “Ima shuhglad. Ah yoo okay? Okay. Goodangel.” It was enough.

I don’t know what border crossing is like now but in 1970, random searches were the norm. The line to the inspection station moved fast and I was sure they’d wave us through—until they flagged me to pull to the right and turn off my engine.

Our story had been pre-arranged but Angel joked with the guards and slurred her explanations and next thing I knew, we were ordered out of the car. I was instructed to open the trunk, the hood, and the gas tank. The boxes? I had to pull eight boxes out, open every one, and remove the contents, laying my life out on the ground around the car. When Angel started to say something, I stared hard at her and ran my index finger across my neck. The guards were chuckling amongst themselves.

Finally I was told I could pack it up and put it all back in the car. While I did so, with Angel’s useless assistance, three of the guards inserted long, thin metal prods into every crevice of my engine and then into every nook and cranny underneath the car, tapping and listening for sounds that would indicate contraband had been stuffed into what? The radiator? The crankshaft? The gas line? I was losing patience as we lost daylight, but we’d been there long enough that Angel was gaining some clarity. As I finished repacking, I was climbing in the driver’s side when she jumped out of the car and threw her arms around the neck of one of the guards. “Gracias. Gracias. Dios te bendiga. Que todos sus hijos sean bendecidos. Gra…” I leapt out of the car and stared at her over the top of the Toyota, fire in my eyes and an expression on my face she’d never seen before. Through gritted teeth, I said: “Every.One.Is.Blessed!” She got in the car.

By the time we reached Yuma, TR was a wreck. I had no excuse for not calling. He was terrified and relieved all at once. I needed to sleep before heading back to L.A.

Angel and I were hit with the reality and couldn’t stop crying for days. Only luck had saved us from a nightmare—Angel was one of the lucky ones. TR’s friends never would have done that research if thousands of women hadn’t already died during illegal abortion procedures. We were barely out of our teens and couldn’t understand what kind of lawmakers, men who should be protecting us, would force us into this situation? I could have been faced with a murder charge if that tube had punctured the uterine wall. Angel could have died on a table in Mexico. We had no idea that three years later, a woman’s right to choose what is best for her own body, for her own life, would become law.

About the Author

Zoë Christopher is a writer who has, over the years, identified as ice cream truck driver, waitress, medical assistant, addictions counselor, astrologer, art installer, bookseller, photography mentor, and program officer for a radical women’s health nonprofit. She holds a Master’s in transpersonal psychology and spent 20+ years providing supportive intervention to various forms of adolescent and adult crises. Her work has been published in Zingara Poetry Review, great weather for MEDIA, StoryNews, the YUNews Poetry Hotel, and Shadowplay Journal. She’s currently working on her memoir.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zoe.christopher.3/. Instagram: zorpho

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