Janine felt her heart pound. She couldn’t speak; what if Ethel recognized her voice? Instead she reached out and snatched the blessing bag. “You don’t have to go through with this,” Ethel said triumphantly. Janine knew why—if you could actually get one of the women to take a bag, you had already gotten into her head. “We can help!”

Turning away, Janine rang the buzzer at the Center’s front door, and two seconds later she heard the buzz that would let her enter. There were maybe ten other women sitting in the waiting room—young and old, calm and jittery, black and white. The woman at the reception desk had a name tag, VONITA. Janine gave her alias—Fiona—and watched Vonita highlight her name on a list. Then she checked her watch. “You’re the last one,” she said. “Let’s get you in for a quick lab test and you can do the ultrasound after counseling, so we don’t hold up the process. It means you’ll have to stay afterward, but only for a few minutes. Sound good?”

But Janine said nothing. She had expected the nerves that would make it difficult to be a spy. She had not expected the PTSD, the sudden wave that knocked her off her feet and made her see not this clinic owner and this reception desk, but one she’d visited long ago in a different state.

“I’m gonna take that as a yes,” Vonita said, smiling. She patted Janine’s hand. “I know you’re nervous, but I promise you, we’ll get you through.”

Janine was whisked into the back to have her blood tested for her Rh type, and to give a urine sample. Janine’s was in her purse in a little baby food jar. Allen had gotten it from someone who knew someone who was pregnant, and she hadn’t asked any questions. In the bathroom, she poured it from the jar into the specimen cup.

When she entered the waiting room, Vonita was just starting the counseling session. She sat down between a woman whose eyes were so heavy-lidded she might have been asleep, and a woman who was taking notes diligently in a spiral notebook. “I run this clinic,” Vonita was saying, “and I am glad you’ve found your way to us. Now, we’re gonna spend a few moments together, and then the doctor is going to come talk to you as a group, and then you’re going to have a chance to meet one-on-one with him.”

As she spoke, she walked around the semicircle of seating, handing out clipboards with paperwork. “All of you have a file, yes? On the top is a prescription for azithromycin, which is given to you prophylactically so you don’t get any type of infection. I need you to get that filled and bring it with you when you return for your procedure.” She looked around, making eye contact with each woman to make sure they understood.

“The sheet underneath that prescription is what we’re going to work on first. It’s your twenty-four-hour informed consent. Mississippi law says that you can have an abortion twenty-four hours after completing this counseling session. This form signifies that you have made two visits, the first one being today. We’re going to fill out the areas marked with X’s to document that you’re here for your first visit. So. Take your pens, and let’s all do this together.”

Janine blindly followed the instructions, making up a fake address for her fake persona, and scribbling the date and a signature. The woman beside Janine who was taking notes held up her hand. “What about the time?”

“Dr. Ward will fill that part out for you when you meet with him.” Vonita held up a fan made of brightly colored pamphlets. “These are booklets that the Department of Health requires us to give to our patients. This first one gives alternatives to abortion, like programs for unwed mothers and licensed maternity homes and adoption information, and it tells you where the health departments are located all over the state. The second booklet shows you how a fetus develops from beginning to end of a pregnancy. The third booklet tells you what your risks are when you have an abortion, as well as when you have a baby. And the last one is my favorite. It’s about contraception.” Everyone but Janine laughed. “Today is the day you need to decide what kind of contraception you’d like to have when you leave here.”

This surprised Janine; she had known that the Center was a murder factory, but not that they also tried to prevent pregnancies. She pressed down so hard on her mechanical pencil that the lead broke.

“Now, please sign and date on the form to acknowledge you were given these materials.” There was a tired thread in Vonita’s voice, as if this were a script she had memorized long ago. “The second portion of this page will be filled out when you come back. You’ll have to reaffirm your decision by signing again. Any questions yet?”

A few women shook their heads. The others just sat in silence.

“We do two types of abortions here at the Center,” Vonita said, and Janine leaned forward on the edge of her chair. “There’s the surgical abortion, which the doctor performs; and there is the pill—the medical abortion—which is an option if you are ten weeks pregnant or less.”

“Which one’s the fastest?” a woman blurted out.

“Girl,” Vonita chided gently, “I’m getting to that! If you decide to have a surgical abortion, you’ll be here for three to four hours, although the surgery itself is less than five minutes from the time you go into the operating room till the time you come out. You recover for about a half hour and then our nurse will give you discharge information—both verbally and in writing—about how to take care of yourself, along with a phone number to call for emergencies, and a date to return for a checkup. Surgery patients, if you return for a checkup, it’s fifteen dollars for the pregnancy test, and thirty dollars if you see the doctor. What I suggest you consider is you give yourself three weeks, then go to your regular physician for a checkup; and you get a pregnancy test from the pharmacy and do it yourself. You should have a light line or a clear result, and if you do, you can go on your birth control method.”

A young woman with beads in her hair that sang asked, “Does it … hurt?” Everyone perked up, listening carefully for the answer.

Yes, Janine thought. She felt herself sinking backward into the darkest corner of her mind, the vault where she kept the memory of her own procedure. It hurt in all sorts of places, when you least expected it.

“There is some discomfort,” Vonita answered. “We suggest that you take deep breaths, in and out. There will be a nurse in the room to help you get through the process. It’s doable, that’s what I can tell you, but it’s also not a garden party.” She surveyed the group. “Now, pill patients, when you come in you will be here for an hour and a half. You’ll be in a room like this, a few of you at a time. The doctor will give you the first pill, which stops your pregnancy from growing and tells your body and your brain that you’re about to abort. Then he will send you home with four pills in a little package. Twenty-four hours after you’ve taken the first pill here at the Center, you are eligible to take those other four pills. There’s a window, so if you’re at work at noon the next day, stay at work and then take the pills when you get home. You’ll bleed for about three weeks; it takes that long for your hormone level to go back to its natural state, and after that you come for your checkup.”

“Which one do you recommend?”

“Only you can decide,” Vonita said. “If you ten weeks along or less and are eligible for the pills, you get to avoid surgery. But surgery is over and done more quickly than the pill procedure. So really it is up to you.”

Janine found herself thinking of her brother, Ben. He lived in a group home now, and he bagged groceries for a living. He had a Down syndrome girlfriend he took out to dinner and a movie every Friday night. He was obsessed with Stranger Things. He had the same Sara Lee pound cake every night for his dessert. He was happy. On the other hand, was she? She had devoted her livelihood to saving innocent babies, but was that out of faith or guilt? She glanced around the room and wondered how many of these women would have their abortions and feel like a burden had been lifted; and how many, like her, would let it govern the rest of their lives. But she said none of this.

She forced her attention to Vonita again. “Now, after I finish up talking, the doctor is going to come out here and talk to you as a group. He’s going to explain exactly what he does in the surgery and exactly how he administers the pill. If you have any questions, you can ask him at that time. If you have any private questions, you can ask him after that, during the individual session he has with you. During that time, he will say what the law requires him to say to you. He’ll review your ultrasound and your medical history and he’ll sign off on your paperwork. Then you’ll go to the reception desk, and schedule when you’re coming back. I’ll tell you how much you owe and who your doctor is going to be the day you return.” She tidied the stack of paperwork on her lap. “Questions?”

How do you do it? Janine thought. How do you counsel this, when you know they will leave here completely different women than they arrived?

She looked around at the other women. How can I save all their babies?