When you needed me, I failed you.

You had appeared in my doorway in a Lanz nightgown with splashes of royal blue and red, bold and energetic, like you, my friend from the big city, far away from my small-town New England experience. To me, you were everything I would never be: sophisticated, cool, prep-school educated. Cross-legged on my bed in the corner, I huddled in my pastel Lanz, subdued, calm, how I wanted to be, but wasn’t often as I drowned my grief over Dad’s death in booze, wailing along with Springsteen, even though I didn’t really “believe in the promised land.”

A campus light silhouetted the old maples out my window. Under one of those trees a few days before, in October sunlight, you said, “Fuck. I’m pregnant.” You would get an abortion, you said.

My stomach turned.

Please understand, it wasn’t because I believed abortion is immoral. No. Nothing as simple as that.

My dad was adopted. Had my biological grandmother opted for an abortion, my father would not have been born. I would not be. The women I knew who’d had abortions were emotional wrecks. Abortion led only to heartache in my limited view back then.

You entered my room with a simple request. You put a hand on my desk. You looked tired, beaten down, not your usual confident, upbeat self. “Can you drive me Wednesday? Four o’clock?”

I knew where. You didn’t have to say it. The abortion clinic in Springfield.

Your slouched shoulders perked up in visible relief. Had you suspected something I wasn’t even aware of yet?

In the days between the words “pregnant” and “abortion,” you didn’t know that two friends on our floor had shared their abortion stories with me. Needed to cry with someone and I was their someone. Both Catholics, their abortions, too fresh, tormented them, guilt stamped a deep bruise on their hearts. I ached, seeing only their present hurts. A happy future seemed impossible.

I should have said, no, I’m sorry, find someone else, but I couldn’t. Instead I said yes, I’d drive you. I didn’t know how to undo that yes.

That, I woke to a sick stomach. My body offered me an out. After morning classes and lunch, in the hallway by our rooms, you and B were talking. “Hey, I really feel like shit. I don’t think I can drive you,” I said. You paled, mumbled about trying to get a cab. B said she would drive you. I gave her my keys. Avoiding your eyes, I closed my door, saying I needed a nap. On my patchwork quilt made by my ex-boyfriend’s mother. B held the keys to my dead father’s car. An old love and a dead dad on my mind, I started my turntable, “Vincent” by Don McLean. Worry for you pressed on my back. Don McLean crooned, “. . . the world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.”

I had failed you. I should be there, holding your hand, offering comfort before and after.

I flopped on my bed, buried my face in my pillow and wept.

This is a long-winded way of saying I’m so sorry. As the digits six and zero loom not so far away, I can finally forgive myself, because at least I handed someone else the keys. I can see the mess twenty-year-old me was and all the emotional turmoil I couldn’t face back then. I may not have been able to drive you that day, but I provided the wheels. That gives me some comfort.

I hope you have been able to forgive me too.

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