9.

 

It was more than five years ago that Sadie sat at the dining table snapping the ends from green beans with her stomach swollen and her breasts aching with fullness. No matter how pregnant she felt every home pregnancy test she took told her that her belly was empty. Sometimes she claimed to feel the baby kick, but Gloria knew it wasn't possible.

Gloria had decided to let this false pregnancy pass in silence, only mentioning Sadie's swollen belly once to suggest that she go to the doctor. Sadie erupted with anger and she never mentioned it again. Gloria understood her desperate desire to have a baby. She'd had it too, but was unwilling to do it without a suitable partner. She didn't want her child to have a test tube as a father. So she waited and hoped to meet someone special.

She watched Sadie roam from room to room in her house nesting: crocheting booties and looking through baby catalogs. Gloria wondered what would happen when nine months passed and there was still no baby. As the delivery date grew nearer, Sadie's joy created an uncomfortable knot in Gloria's stomach.

One evening, as Gloria took the same alley shortcut to the parking garage that she took every day after work, she discovered something that would change both of their lives forever. Some would call it luck, but Gloria called it destiny.

She heard it before she saw it; a muted whimper floating out from behind a green dumpster. Upon first hearing it, she didn't even consider looking to see what it was, but the whimper happened a second time, and then a third. She turned back, her heels clicking on the blacktop in the empty alley.

Gloria approached the dumpster cautiously. She was all too aware that this could be some kind of trick. That she could end up a story on the six o'clock news. She peered around the dumpster and saw a wriggling bundle in a cardboard box wedged behind it. Her heartbeat quickened. She knew what it was before removing the white pillow case that covered it. Her slender fingers moved slowly lifting the fabric to reveal four watery eyes looking up at her. Both infants began to scream. Their arms waved in the air and their legs kicked violently.

Gloria placed the box on the floor in front of the passenger's seat so she could look down at their blotchy little faces every time she stopped at a traffic light. They cried all the way home. Sometimes when the car was still, she'd reach down to stroke their cool foreheads, and they'd quiet for a moment, their little fists relaxing slightly. They were probably hungry and in need of changing, but she would have to drop them off with Sadie before going to the corner store to get supplies.

 

Sadie sat in the living room with a bundle of yarn in her lap and a crochet needle in her hand. She'd already finished the booties and was moving on to making a simple yellow and white baby blanket. Yellow is a good color for a boy or a girl, Sadie thought as she started her first stitches. She heard the jingle of Gloria's keys at the door but didn't bother getting up. Gloria knew it was hard for her to get up and down now and never seemed to mind that Sadie didn't open the door for her anymore.

When Gloria pushed the door open she held a box in her arms and the widest smile Sadie had ever seen spread across her lips.

"What's that?" Sadie asked.

Before Gloria could answer the question the cries of two newborn infants poured from the box. "Guess what I found," Gloria said.

Suddenly feeling light with joy, Sadie sprang to her feet, sending the yarn in her lap tumbling to the floor. She looked into the box and saw the most amazing thing she'd ever seen in her life: the wide open faces of new life. "They're hungry." Sadie reached in and took one out, cradling him in her arms.

"I know. I'll go to the corner store to get formula and diapers. Will you be all right?" Gloria asked, but she knew Sadie would be just fine. She saw the light in her eyes when she held the child in her arms. Gloria saw it, and she felt it too. These babies belonged to them.