Free The Cotton Queen by Pamela Morsi Page A

with which I could protect myself. I was vulnerable, attackable. I took a defensive position on the far side of the commode. I squeezed myself in between the cold white porcelain and the rough red brick. I tried to make myself small, very small, so small that I would be invisible. I tried to make myself so small that I wouldn’t exist anymore.
    Bam! Bam! Bam!
    The banging of a fist on the door scared me so much I screamed.
    “Babs? What the hell is going on?”
    The questions came from Mr. Donohoe.
    For a couple of seconds I couldn’t remember how to speak. Finally I answered, “I’m sick.”
    There was hesitation from the other side of the door.
    “That boyfriend guy is out here wanting to see you,” he said.
    “Tell him to go away,” I answered. “Tell him I’m sick and to go away.”
    More hesitation, then I heard his footsteps retreat. I didn’t move. I didn’t get up. I waited. I couldn’t be certain that Burl would actually leave. I didn’t trust Mr. Donohoe to persuade him. The minutes ticked on. I stayed hidden in my safe spot on the restroom floor.
    I don’t know how long I was there on the floor. Minutes? Hours? In memory it was a lifetime. Then Mr. Donohoe knocked on the door again.
    “He’s gone,” the man said.
    “Okay.”
    Slowly I got up. I walked to the sink and turned on the water. I washed my face and then stared at myself in the cracked mirror. I was unrecognizable as the happy, carefree young woman who’d come so close to being the Cotton Queen.
    I found Mr. Donohoe at the dispatch desk, busy doing my job.
    “Sorry,” I said. What else was there to say.
    He nodded. “You know that you’re fired, of course.”
    The man’s brow was furrowed in concern, but his words were unflinching.
    “I’m sure you’ve got a lot of problems,” he said. “I’m sorry for that. But I just can’t have them here on the job.”
    I shrugged. “I would have to quit anyway,” I admitted, honestly. I was embarrassed about what had happened, but I was more afraid of the future. I could never come back to Big D. If Burl knew where I worked, it was only a matter of time until he showed up again. Even if he never came inside the building, he could follow me to where I lived.
    “I’ll only beg for one favor from you, Mr. Donohoe,” I said. “Please don’t tell that man where I live or when I left or where my daughter goes to school.”
    The man nodded. “I won’t say a word,” he promised.
    Still my evenings at the motel were now all terror-filled expectation. Every car on the road, every person who pulled into the driveway, every door slammed was a threat until proved otherwise.
    After the motel had closed for the night and I was not on duty at the registration desk, I was watching from my own little cottage window. Long after the lights were out and Laney was asleep, I sat in silence, cold, scared, watching.
    I missed my period. Then I started getting sick. I told myself it was nerves. I had no money. I had to find a job. That was my first priority. I couldn’t think about what nausea in the morning could mean. I told myself it was the flu. I hoped that it was a tragic, terminal illness. Finally I had to admit to myself the possibility that Burl had left more in my body than that feeling of uncleanness and violation. I could be carrying his baby.
    At first I sat on the toilet, pounding on my stomach to make it go away. I jumped up and down on the bed until I was as high as the ceiling and then went down to land flat on my belly, but nothing happened. I borrowed a huge washtub to set next to the bath. I filled one with ice water and the other near boiling. I sat in one and then the other. I screamed, I went light-headed, but I didn’t miscarry.
    I knew that there were ways to make it go away. I had heard hushed rumors as a teenager and more as a young wife of people in dark alleys who would do things, for a price. I had no money. But even if I had, how could I find those people. I didn’t