Now Alice sits in the chair across from Evelyn, leans forward with her hands clasped tightly between her knees. “I want to run something by you.”
“Shoot.”
Alice hesitates. “Remember when my sister Emily came in?”
“Of course.” A smart girl. A failed condom.
“Well, a friend of hers was asking about it for a friend of hers, because that girl’s aunt had told her she could call around to doctors’ offices and ask for a woman named Jane.”
“Jane?”
“Jane. Just Jane. It’s a code word.”
Evelyn shifts in her seat. “A code word for an abortion?”
“Kind of. A code name for this network that’s connecting women with doctors who will provide abortions. A whisper network, basically. Apparently there’s a big one in Chicago that’s been using that code name and it’s caught on elsewhere. I guess it’s generic enough to slide under the radar.”
Evelyn is quiet for a moment. “Someone I knew a long time ago named her baby Jane,” she mutters, running her index finger over a seam in the thigh of her scrubs. “Interesting that they’d use a code.”
“Very,” Alice says. “It’s a clever system.”
Evelyn notices the spark of possibility in her eyes. “I see where you’re going with this, Alice, but—”
“Please just hear me out, Evelyn. Please.”
Evelyn licks her dry lips, nods.
“So, there’s a team of organizers for this network. They just call themselves Jane, or the Janes. It’s basically a formalized version of what we do. Right now women hear about us from their sister’s friend’s cousin, then they call us, right? But it only allows a relatively small circle of women to hear about the fact that we can offer safe abortions. Word isn’t going to get out much further than a few degrees of removal from you and me.”
“We do a couple of them a week, Alice. We’re doing what we can.”
“But not all we can, right?”
Evelyn chews the inside of her cheek. “What we’re doing now is risky enough as it is.”
“I know. But I want to do more. If we can.” Alice lets out a long sigh. “The organizers are having a meeting tonight. I asked Emily to try to connect with one of them through her friend. She gave me the address. It’s at eight o’clock. I’d like to go.”
Evelyn surveys her nurse with a shrewd eye. “And you want me to come, too.”
“Yes. Just come see what it’s all about, and we can talk about it afterward. No commitment.”
Alice smiles, her perfect teeth shining white in her dark face. She’s a serious person and doesn’t smile often, but when she does, it illuminates everything around her. It’s so warm, perfect for calming the nerves of their after-hours patients.
Evelyn stands and paces the worn carpet a few times, stooping to pick up a rogue piece of yellow Lego before turning back to Alice. “I can imagine what it’s about. It’s a bunch of women risking everything by being brazen and too out in the open about what they’re doing. It’s easier the way we do it, Alice. The less people know about what we do here, the better. It keeps us safe, and that means we can continue to offer the service. We can’t offer it if we’re in prison. And neither can these Janes.”
Alice meets Evelyn’s eyes straight on. They’re reflecting the soft light of the lamp on the reception desk.
“But what if we’re too safe here? What if some desperate woman out there right now can’t find us? What if she thinks there’s no one who can help her?”
“We can’t help everyone, Alice. I wish we could, but we can’t.”
“No, we can’t help everyone, but we could be helping more.”
The two women stare at one another for a long moment, each calculating the consequences of pushing too hard.
Evelyn exhales slowly, shrugs. “Let me think about it.”
* * *
Tom has already started on dinner when Evelyn arrives home. She can smell onions and what might be eggplant. They’re both vegetarians, and Tom is one of the best cooks Evelyn has ever encountered. She hangs her purse and jacket up on a hook in the front hall and neatly sets her shoes on the boot tray before wandering down the long hallway to the kitchen, following the sound of classical music and sizzling veggies.
“Welcome home, dearest,” Tom says. He plants a kiss on her cheek and hands her a large glass of red wine.
“Ah, cheers,” Evelyn says with a sigh, settling herself down on a stool at the kitchen island.
“My wife seems taxed on this Friday evening,” Tom says, his back to her as he tends to the frying pan. “Care to vent?”
Evelyn hadn’t intended to get married, but Tom asked when she suggested they move to Toronto, and she’d agreed willingly. It was the most natural of seemingly unnatural choices, to marry a gay man. For both of them, it felt like an extension of their existing relationship.
But in the moment when Tom proposed, Evelyn had laughed aloud.
“I thought your intentions were entirely honourable, Mr. O’Reilly,” she said with a smirk. “Or have you just been manipulating me all this time? Leading me into believing you’re gay so you could sneak up on me with a surprise proposal?”
He dropped to one knee and held both of her hands in his own. “Marrying you would mean that I could enjoy a lifetime’s supply of your lemon shortbread biscuits, and that alone is worth the commitment.”
She smiled wryly.
“But, Evelyn, you have truly made me happier than any other woman ever has at any point in my life.”
The smile sank a couple of notches on Evelyn’s face as she realized he was quite serious. His relationship with his mother was strained, to say the least. He had fled England to escape her snide remarks about his “nature” under the pretense of expanding his horizons with an overseas education.
“I know you have your reasons for never wanting to get married or have children,” Tom continued. “You’ve trusted me with your biggest secrets, and I’ve trusted you with mine. But I think we could stay safe and be very happy sharing a life together.”
Evelyn smiled, then, feigning outrage, cried, “You don’t expect me to take your name, do you?”
“Of course not, my darling. I wouldn’t dare suggest such a thing, for fear of grievous injury to my most delicate and valued organs.”
Laughing, Evelyn nodded. “Okay.”
“That’s a yes?”
“That’s a yes.” And she let Tom slide a simple ring onto her finger.
Evelyn runs that same finger around the rim of her wine glass now, watching the diamond in her engagement ring catch the light from overhead as she considers how to broach the topic of the Jane network with Tom. They’re rarely cagey with one another. Their shared bluntness is one of the things that’s made their unique relationship work over the years. And how else could it work if they weren’t brutally honest with one another? There’s no space to play games with each other when your relationship is based on a mutual need to keep your true identity a secret.
“I know that look. Spit it out, love,” Tom says, sitting down on the stool across from her.