The police station is a two-room, low-ceilinged building a short walk away. In the front room, the cop steers me past a large, black metal desk where another officer sits behind a computer, slurping his lunch. He starts to put his bowl down, but my cop gestures for him to keep eating as he pulls open a connecting door.
Inside the second room, two small cells face a long narrow window high above. My heart begins to race and the baby inside me kicks and turns. I stop, my heels digging in, but the officer pulls me forward.
In the first cell, a middle-aged man sits on the low platform that runs along the back wall. He looks at me, my pocks, my belly, staring flatly as we pass. With his battered blue coat and the stubble along his jawline, he could be anyone squatting by the side of the road waiting for a bus.
The cells share a solid wall between them. We pass to the second one. The cop hesitates, glancing at my stomach. But after a moment he thrusts a key into the lock, pushes open the heavy bars, and motions me in with a flip of his fingers.
There’s a sitting board along the wall and a bucket in the corner, which, from the smell of the place, serves as the toilet. The baby turns inside me again, feeling so heavy. I move to sit. The board is just a few inches off the floor. My pants feel like they’re going to split apart. The cop watches me with a little frown, and it strikes me that he’s troubled by the conditions of the cell because of the baby. But he clanks the door shut, locks it, and leaves.
Although it’s nearly as cold inside as it was outside, my armpits and the back of my neck began to feel damp. I see the metal bars, the spaces between, the peeling green paint on the wall. It’s the same paint they used in the orphanage. Blood rushes up to my ears. I try to get up from the sitting board, but I’ve forgotten my size and only fall back.
“What’s your charge?” The man speaks to me from the other cell.
I don’t answer. I’m not sure myself what I’ve done wrong. Is being pregnant and unmarried enough to get me locked up?
“Second child?” he guesses. “He’ll be calling in the Family Planning officials.”
People are always so nosy. I just keep quiet.
He sighs wearily. “My neighbor said I was trying to steal his pigs. It was a dispute between us, and I got the bad end of it, because I didn’t have any money to pay a bribe. Have they processed you yet?”
I was planning to just ignore him, but now I’m wondering what he means. His voice is not unkind. “Process?”
“Get your information. Have you signed papers?”
The cop still has my ID card, but I haven’t signed any papers. “No.”
“That’s good. Get your people to come here and offer to pay a fine. Before he gets Family Planning involved. If you come up with some money right away, it will probably cost you less. It won’t get you the household registration papers for the baby, but they might leave you alone so you can try to raise the money for it.”
I think of the money in my jeans—532 yuan, minus the bus ticket. And there’s still time to catch the bus. I have the ticket in my coat pocket. I have to get out of here no matter what. I scramble up clumsily and start yelling for the cop: “Officer! Officer! Officer!”
The door to the room scrapes open. “What’s going on? What’s the noise about?”
The bars are cold as ice on my cheek as I push my face against them. I thrust my arm out, waving at the officer. He’s the same one who brought me in. He swipes his mouth with the back of his hand, chewing. He must have just started eating his lunch.
“I want to pay my fine!”
He stalks over to my cell. “What’s this?”
“I want to pay my fine. I have money!”
He frowns. “But I haven’t charged you with anything yet.” He swallows whatever’s left in his mouth and tips his head to one side. “Your family was going to get your . . . husband—”
“He’s in jail in Gujiao!” My mind races. I already told him that I wasn’t married to Yong. He probably hasn’t checked my ID number yet and is still confused about my status. “And my family doesn’t have any money! They were borrowing money to get him out of jail in the city.” If only he would just take the money and let me go . . .
I pull up my coat, dig cash out of my pants pockets and hold it out to him. “Let me pay this! Please!”
He looks thoughtfully at me, then at the money. I thrust the money at him, willing him to take it.
“You should let her pay now.” My cellmate moves to his bars. I can see his hands wrapping around them. “Don’t involve the Family Planning Council. They’ll force her to abort and make her pay for it. Or charge her with huge fines if she keeps the baby. She’ll never get out from under the weight of that debt.” He still thinks I’m breaking the one-child policy, but the truth is that I’ll be loaded down with fines all the same. This fills me with so much panic that I feel dizzy.
“Besides, she might have that baby any moment.”
I see the chance my cellmate is giving me. I grip my belly, double over with a gasp, and fake a pain.
“You stay out of it!” The officer points a finger at my cellmate.
Clutching my stomach with one hand, I push the money at him again. “Please, Officer!”
“She says her family won’t have the money to pay those big fines.” My cellmate ignores the officer’s order. “Her man is in jail. Let her pay what she has and be done with it, eh? No one has to know anything about it. She’ll go to the city. Let it be their problem. You see those unlucky marks on her. Better to get those pocks out of here.”
The officer’s eyes turn to me, and I can feel the flicker of them—one, two, three, four—as they jump from one pock to another. He grabs the money, shoves it into his pocket, and takes out the key. As he opens the cell door and hands me my ID card, he keeps his eyes averted, like I don’t exist.
I bolt out of the cell. As I pull open the door to the outer room, I half-turn toward my cellmate. He nods at me. I tick my head back at him and go. I don’t know why he decided to help me, but I’m not going to waste the chance he’s given me.
***
Out on the street, the icy wind blasts trash and dust every which way. There’s less than an hour until my bus arrives, but I know I can’t wait inside the station because Wei might still be there, waiting for his bus to Jiaocheng. I don’t want to take the chance of going into any of the shops or restaurants either because it seems like everyone knows each other in the village. Instead, I hide in an alley stamping my feet and breathing into my hands, hoping no one will notice me. Luckily, the freezing temperature keeps people inside or hurrying along the streets with their heads tucked under their hoods.
Finally, I hear the screech of the bus pulling to a stop. I peer around the building. Two passengers get on. I wait a few moments more before I dart aboard. I thrust my ticket at the driver, find a seat near the front, and slide down as much as my big stomach allows.
The door shuts, and the bus starts off. I sigh. My fingers find the back of my neck, and I begin to yank out strands of hair. I realize I haven’t needed my old habit these last few months at Ma’s. Now, all my things are gone. I have no money. I have a baby that I don’t know what I am going to do with. A hopeless mess!
The baby turns inside me. I grab a fistful of hair and tug hard, feeling my scalp lift away from my skull. Why have I let so much time pass? Now, since I gave the cop all my money, I can’t even pay for a termination. If I have the baby, Ma will want to take care of it. But if it’s a girl, Yong will sell it. And sell me too? It sounds too unbelievable. But Yong’s own brother doesn’t think so. I remember his face when he talked about Yong. He seemed as sad as Luli whenever she talked about her granddad.
I still have my cell phone. I pull it out from deep in my coat pocket. Over the past few months, I’ve slowly stopped checking it every moment. The calls and texts from my friends, all unanswered, have gradually trickled off. I only use it to stay in touch with Yong now, and I don’t even hear from him that much. I scroll through the other numbers. Zhenzhen, Hong, Ming, other friends who seem like strangers now. My thumb hovers over Luli’s number. But there’d be no point in calling her now. She’ll be at work. Besides, I have no idea how to explain why I disappeared without warning and ignored her messages for months.
My belly tightens, cramping all the way around my back. I gasp, and my breath catches in my chest. The pain is very real this time.