The Funhouse

please, please, I've just got to.”
        Mama's face suddenly turned white, chalk-white. Even her lips were pale.
        “Mama? Do you understand that I can't possibly have this baby? I just can't go ahead and have it, Mama.”
        Mama closed her eyes. She swayed, and for a moment she looked as if she would faint.
        “I know what I did was wrong, Mama,” Amy said, beginning to cry. “I feel dirty. I don't know if I'll ever feel clean again. I hate myself. And I know that an abortion is even a worse sin than what I did. I know that, and I'm afraid for my soul. But I'm even more afraid of going ahead and having the baby. I've got my life to live, Mama. “ I’ve got my life!”
        Mama's eyes opened. She stared down at Amy, and she tried to speak, but she was too shocked to be able to get any words out. Her mouth moved without producing a sound.
        “Mama?”
        With such speed that Amy hardly saw it coming, her mother raised a hand and slapped her face. Once. Twice. Hard.
        Amy cried out in pain and surprise, and she raised one arm to protect herself.
        Mama grabbed her by the blouse and dragged her to her feet in a disconcerting display of strength.
        The chair fell over with a crash.
        Her mother shook her as if she were a bundle of rags.
        Crying, frightened, Amy said, “Mama, please don't hurt me. Forgive me, Mama. Please.”
        “You filthy, rotten, ungrateful little bitch!”
        “Mama-”
        “You're stupid, stupid, so damned stupid!” her mother screamed, spraying her with spittle as hot and stinging as venom. “You're an ignorant child, just a stupid little slut! You don't know what could happen. You don't have the slightest idea. You're ignorant. You don't know what you might give birth to. You don't know !”
        Amy was unwilling and unable to defend herself. Mama pushed her, pulled her, jerked her from side to side, this way and that, shook her, shook her, shook her ferociously, until her teeth rattled and her blouse tore.
        “You don't know what sort of thing might come out of you,” Mama screeched maniacally. “God knows what it might be!”
        What is she talking about? Amy wondered desperately. She sounds as if she's heard Jerry's curse and believes it'll come true. What's going on here? What's wrong with her?
        Second by second her mother was becoming increasingly violent. Amy hadn't really believed that Mama would kill her. That's what she had told Liz, but she had been exaggerating. At least she had thought she was exaggerating. But now, as her mother continued to curse her and shake her, Amy began to worry that Mama would seriously hurt her, and she tried to squirm away.
        Mama refused to let go.
        The two women tottered sideways and bumped solidly against the table.
        The nearly empty mug fell over, spun around twice, dropped off the table, scattering droplets of cold coffee, and smashed into a dozen pieces when it hit the floor.
        Mama stopped shaking Amy, but her eyes were still demented and wildly lighted. “Pray,” she said urgently. “We've got to pray that there's no baby inside you. We've got to pray that it's a mistake, that you're wrong.”
        She pulled Amy down roughly onto the floor, onto her knees, and they knelt side by side on the cool tiles, and Mama began to pray loudly, and she held Amy by one arm, held her so tightly that Mama's fingers seemed to pierce Amy's flesh and touch the bare bone, and Amy wept and pleaded to be released, and Mama slapped her again and told her to pray, demanded that she pray, and Mama asked the Holy Virgin to be merciful, but Mama wasn't merciful when she saw that Amy's head wasn't bowed far enough, for she grabbed her daughter by the back of the neck and forced her face toward the floor, forced it down and down until Amy's forehead was touching the tiles, until her nose was pressed into a wet splotch of spilled coffee, and Amy kept saying, “Mama, please,” over and over again, “Mama, please,” but Mama wasn't listening to her, because Mama was busy praying to everyone, to Mary and Jesus and Joseph and God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, and she prayed to various saints as well, and when Amy gasped for breath a couple of drops of coffee slipped up her nose from the small puddle into which she was pressed, and she spluttered and gagged, but Mama held her down, held her even harder than before, squeezing the