Victor had to admit, the sign was good. Better than good: the sign was terrific. The sign was so mind-blowingly good that he wished he’d made it himself.
Your sign is factually inaccurate, the female shrieked. There is no connection at all between abortion and breast cancer.
Her face came in and out of focus. Anthony, clearly, lacked a steady hand.
The snowflakes flashed and flickered. They glowed like volcanic ash.
The female talked and talked. Victor’s mind began to wander. Her voice annoyed him. Also, Anthony’s breathing was getting on his nerves.
Abortion is not a risk factor! Having breasts is a risk factor!
And in that split second, everything shifted. Victor saw exactly why Anthony had recorded this moment.
He went back to the beginning and watched again, analyzing his own reaction. The female wasn’t particularly attractive, not at all his type. She had a sharp little face and very dark eyebrows, which made her look angry. For the first minute exactly, he hated her: the nagging voice, the butch haircut, the certainty. The inescapable, infuriating, should-be-melted-in-an-oven puffy jacket.
Then, at sixty seconds, the earth shifted. He heard the quaver in her voice. There was no question in his mind that tears were coming. There was no question in his groin.
The snowflakes flashed and flickered. He wished that he could zoom in closer. He wished that Anthony would stop breathing.
At sixty-two seconds her eyes began to fill.
Victor paused the video to study her face.
Columbia.
He had a thing about women crying. A woman crying cracked him open with love.
The video ended abruptly. Heavy footsteps, a male voice somewhere off camera. Sir, please step out of the way.
Victor watched the video at half speed, at double speed. He watched it again and again.
HE HAD SO MANY QUESTIONS.
Who was she, and how had she gotten herself into this situation? Was she a prostitute? Why did she hate children? Or was it men she hated, the man she’d been fucking? Most importantly: Who was that man?
Watching, he memorized every detail. A car alarm shrieking, traffic noise, a bicycle whizzing past. In the middle distance, just above her left shoulder, a street sign was visible. MERCY.
Columbia, he thought. It wasn’t really her name—Victor knew this—but he needed something to call her. She cried efficiently, with heroic force. At fifty-nine seconds her face was impassive, still as granite. At sixty-one seconds, her eyes closed briefly.
At sixty-three seconds she cried two tears exactly. A single fat tear shot down each cheek.
Every small, blessed detail. Her earlobes were pierced with tiny silver hoops. Victor imagined her getting dressed that morning, choosing the outfit she’d wear for her abortion. That she had worn jewelry bothered him deeply. It seemed inhuman. This was more or less what he’d expect from a woman about to kill her baby, except that Columbia was not inhuman. Her distress was palpable. It couldn’t have been clearer to Victor: she didn’t want to do this. She seemed ready to collapse from grief.
MERCY. The name seemed significant.
Every detail seemed like a gift.
The deep male voice at the end of the recording. Sir, please step out of the way. Was it his imagination, or did the guy have an accent? Was this the man Columbia had been fucking, whose baby she was about to kill?
When he thought of it that way, he almost felt sorry for the guy. Almost, but not quite.
He watched the video again. He was starting to hate the protestor a little. It was more than sign envy: the guy, whoever he was, was standing too close to her. It was a pet peeve of Victor’s, an uncontrollable impulse. He had a similar reaction while watching porn. A solitary female, that was his preference: a beautiful female undressing, preparing herself for him. Seeing another man touch her ruined his pleasure. It distracted him from the business at hand.