Free Chosen by Chandra Hoffman

there—”
    “I need a job,” he says softly. Something in his voice strikes a chord with Chloe. Here is a man who is out of control of his own life, dependent on his girlfriend’s pregnancy to provide for them for the next few weeks. This is familiar, stepping gingerly around the easily bruised male ego, rushing home to quietly intercept and pay the bills, then letting Dan gallantly whip out a wrinkled ten when they go out to breakfast at McDonald’s.
    “So you gonna do that for me?”
    “Pardon?”
    “You gonna get me a job, or am I gonna take this baby and Penny and find ourselves another agency?”
    “Jason,” Chloe fumbles, “I have tried to get you a job. It doesn’t work, and it’s actually not even my job to find you—”
    “You’re gonna make it your job, though, right?”
    “What?”
    “You understand me? You’re gonna make it your job. You’re gonna get us money and get me a job, more than minimum wage, and no fucking construction either.”
    “Jason, I can refer you to Americorps or VOA or something, but I don’t really have the resources—”
    “I know all about your resources, Little Miss Portland Heights.You’ll do it, or nobody is gonna like what happens. Not with the baby, or Penny, or nobody, understand?”
    And then he hangs up.
    When Chloe and Dan go upstairs and undress each other, they don’t talk about their phone calls. He will only insist that she quit her job, say that she doesn’t make enough money to be threatened by thugs. She will tell him that she’s not leaving, not moving to Hawaii or Colorado to be a surfer’s or a snowboarder’s wife. What she has never said: that she’d rather be an adoption social worker, even if that means she may not be a mountain bike mechanic’s sort-of fiancée with a cubic zirconia ring and no set wedding date.
    In the morning, she will drop Dan and his bike at the MAX line, and on the way to work she will detour by her bank, continuing south to Felony Flats. Remembering the loose flashing on their apartment door, she will slide the envelope, $100 in cash, easily underneath.

8
Penny for Your Thoughts
PENNY
    “W ho was that, baby?” Penny tries to climb onto Jason’s lap. Their baby twists inside as she tries to get comfortable. Jason elbows her off him; he’s mad. She lands on her hip on the dirty orange shag carpet. “Ow!”
    “You’re too heavy. Jesus.” He gets up off the sofa, paces the tiny room. His jacket jingles, his angry walk, a sound that makes her want to hide behind the sofa or strip off her black sweatpants and lie down for him.
    But she gets up and crosses, one eye on him, to the bassinet in the corner. She folds, refolds, the two tiny blankets from Julio’s wife, nice straight creases. She sits the green bunny rabbit up a little straighter. Soon, baby, soon, she thinks.
    Jason jingles over to her. “Just getting things worked out for us.”
    “But we’re still…” She is afraid to say it, when he’s like this. He’d promised he would take care of her, take care of things.
    “What?” He spins, narrowing his eyes at her. God, she hates how he knows he can scare her. He knows what got done to her outside Denver. For the first time since those freeloaders showed up, she wishes Lisle and Brandi were home.
    “I just mean,” she says as she hooks her fingers in the front loops of his jeans, trying to rub on him, but her stomach’s in the way. Pennylooks down between them. If she leans forward she can see her white feet. They look wider than they are long, like boiled potatoes, her toes tiny sausages, straining against the skin. “I just mean, nothing’s changed about Buddy, right?”
    “Jesus, Penny.” Jason sighs, rubbing his chin hard into the top of her forehead where her hair is coming back in bristly. “What do we want with a baby right now?” He is pushing her on the shoulder, digging his fingers into her shoulder bone, and she stumbles to her knees. This she can do. “What do we need with a