The four of us sat together on the bed he and I had shared, where we woke to classical music, where he brought me coffee, where their bright faces greeted us in the morning; the bed where I nursed them as infants, where we cuddled on those bright, happy mornings. Now it was evening and the shadows lengthened, telling of darkness to come. It must have been September. I had hoped for something different, a last minute reprieve, a path away from the edge. But now the time had come to do the hardest thing. We would tell them together.
Pat Yingling is a writer, former teacher, and mother writing a book on abortion.