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Whoosh whoosh, whoosh whoosh. The black and white screen of the ultrasound shows a sac with what looks like a kidney bean resting in the bottom of a rounded edge. The sound being amplified into the room is her heartbeat. Little Miss Can’t be Wrong is strong and thriving. Dr. Smith doesn't look at me as he says, “Based on measurements, you are fourteen weeks along.”
I am lying back on the table, with my shirt drawn up under my breasts and my pants unzipped and folded back. The grease on my belly is smooth and glistening in the stark light of the room. My stomach has transformed over the last few weeks and rises slightly above the line of my hip bones. The head of the ultrasound wand slips smoothly over the gel. The image shifts, and the little bean disappears from the dark circle in the middle of the screen. He rolls the wand again, and the bean is back. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh whoosh. My blood is her blood, and her blood is my blood. There is such a feeling of rightness, listening to the rhythm of her heart beating.
He pulls the probe away from my stomach, and the room is quiet, quiet, quiet. Too quiet. I miss the sound of her little heart beating. The screen goes black, and I bite my tongue to keep from calling out, telling him to bring her back. He hands me a wad of tissue, and I wipe the gel from my skin. I button my pants and let my shirt fall back into place. He leaves me alone in the room, the white room with its too-bright lights, and my eyelids glow red when I blink. I fold myself over my knees, holding her close, while she is small, while all I pass to her is my blood and not my toxic self. “Keep you. Keep you. Keep you.” The words are a whisper, a prayer, an impossible wish.
Sometime later, there is a knock on the door, two light taps, and I pull myself upright again. “Come in,” I say, trying to force any telltale expression from my face, trying to get myself to neutral. Miss Janice steps through the door and stands at eye level to me, where I sit. Her eyes are so knowing. They know everything. I can feel it.
“Shall we see your room?” She offers me a hand to slide off the table, and I take it, needing the touch of a hand more than she can know. But she does know. I wonder how many girls she has met in this room. I wonder how many times they’ve turned and gone back to wherever they came from, determined to convince parents or lovers to help them keep the baby. I wonder how many times she has offered her hand as the only comfort to a broken heart.
We make our way down the hall, and she shows me the kitchen in the back of the house. “You can keep anything here you want; just put your name on it. Marker, masking tape.” She indicates a roll of tape and marker hanging from a hook on the wall. “There are some standards that we keep on hand for all residents: bread and milk. The staples. But if you want anything special, you’ll need to mark it, or it will be eaten.” She smiles, and I realize suddenly that I’ve left Barb’s pie somewhere, and it makes me feel a wave of sadness, I’ve lost the only thing my grandparents ever gave me.
She opens the fridge to show me the racks crowded with containers with tape marked “Mary” and “Josephine” and “CC.” One container on the second shelf down says “Alison” in blocky capitals. “I took the liberty of putting that in for you.” Relief washes over me, and I could hug her. Really though, it’s just a piece of pie. I have read that people get emotional when they are pregnant, having to do with hormones shifting and everything, but this roller coaster of feelings is overwhelming, and about the stupidest things, too. It’s just pie. But it was really good pie, and it was made by my grandma. I test the word out inside my head and feel less weird about it than I thought. It still makes my eyes water, that Janice has done this for me. Maybe my eyes are just going to water nowadays. Maybe there will be tears from here on out, because I’ve scraped the scab off of my broken life, and the wound is just flowing.
The stairway is just past the kitchen, and the room across the hall is called “the common room” with two long tables butted up together to make one very large rectangular table surrounded by chairs. We go up the stairs, and I hear voices halfway up.
“Bitch, I told you to stay out of my room.”
“I wasn’t in your room.”
“Then tell me how half your weave ended up on my pillow.”
Janice taps on the wall, three sharp staccato raps. The voices drop to silence, a door closes, and feet shuffle off down the hall. “We have eight girls with us now. We’re able to house twelve if need be, but we like to stay at ten or below. The girls who are furthest along will have their own room the last few months, or weeks, if it can be arranged. It makes everything run a little easier if there’s a little space. You are going to be rooming with Cecelia; she’s twenty-four weeks along. Josephine just moved to her own room. She’s at thirty-four weeks.” I try to calculate weeks into months, but my math skill are shabby at best, and I finally just let it go. Further along than me—that’s all that really matters.
“Cecelia is taking classes at the adult education center so she won’t be home until a little later. You can sign up for classes, and we do some job training, too, so when you leave us you can find a job and start building a career. There is a really good CNA course that will be starting on Tuesday.” I nod, as if that is something that interests me, but I don’t know what CNA stands for, so I’m really just nodding for her.
My room is just big enough for two beds, a six-drawer chest and a closet. One bed has pictures taped up on the headboard; the other is bare. I pause, looking at the pictures of a skinny girl with short-cropped, dark, spiky hair and way too much eyeliner. Her boyfriend, I assume, has the same hairstyle, but white-blond hair. They look like the yin and the yang. I don’t quite know what I was expecting, but she looks like she could, and maybe would, bite the heads off of baby animals, and I’m a little terrified at the idea of going to sleep with her in the next bed.
***
I am relieved to find there is a back entrance leading right into the stairwell, so after I park my car in the back lot, I make two trips—one carrying my laundry basket with all my clothes and the other carrying my toiletries and all my art stuff from another life. I leave the box with my mother’s letter and the pictures locked in the trunk, not really sure why I don’t want to bring her inside with me.
I go down to the kitchen to make some toast. I eat alone in the common room, and when I go back upstairs, I find that Cecelia Van Fleet, all black-haired and eyelinered bit of her, has arrived. She is wearing Doc Martens and shredded jeans, her stomach protruding round and solid against the stretched fabric of her t-shirt. I can’t take my eyes off of her belly, and I know she sees me looking. I blink and drop my eyes, and a low, simmering chuckle escapes her. “What, never seen a bump before?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stare,” I mumble, making myself busy by shuffling through my stuff.
“You can use the bottom three drawers if you want.”
I risk a glance at her and see her watching me with a half grin splitting her lips. “Thanks.” I start moving my few things from my bag to the drawers.
“You got a name?”
I stop and straighten. “Sorry. I’m Alison Hayes.” I put my hand out, and she laughs, her blue eyes sparkling.
“I know. Janice filled me in this morning that you were coming. That’s why I cleaned you out three drawers. She nods to the end of her bed, where there is a small pile of clothes.
“Thanks,” I say. She takes my hand finally and uses it to pull herself up. She holds it then pulls me into a quick hug.
“We hug round here. This is family.”