Free The Cotton Queen by Pamela Morsi Page B

know who to ask.
    My final attempt at ending the pregnancy occurred at an employment agency downtown. The less-than-helpful owner of the place dismissed me with disdain. Lacking a glowing recommendation from my last job, he was certain that he couldn’t help me. I walked down the street to where my car was parked. In the alley beside the building was a rusty metal stairway that provided access to the roof. I stopped in my tracks and stared for long moments. Then taking a deep breath of determination, I climbed those stairs.
    They say that just before you die your life flashes before your eyes. I had a similar sensation. With each step upward, I remembered all the things that had brought me to this point. From the most immediate, the child I carried, my mind worked backward. Burl’s horrible attack. The death of my sweet Tom. My choice to marry young. My mind wandered back through all that I’d done and those things that were thrust upon me against my will. As I reached the top step and turned to look downward, I knew that my current course of action was very dangerous. I would surely lose the baby. But I could just as easily die myself. And it would probably look like suicide.
    Laney would be alone in the world, just as I had been.
    Would Uncle Warren and Aunt Maxine take her in? I was sure they’d be willing to. Or she’d go to live with Freddie and LaVeida after all. That would make the Hoffmans happy.
    I thought about all the things I would miss. Watching Laney grow up. Seeing her become a young woman, marry, have children. I didn’t want to miss any of that. I didn’t want to die. And I didn’t want her to be left alone in the world, without parents, the way that I had been.
    I sat down on the top step and put my head in my hands. Maybe I was just a coward, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t risk it. There had to be some other way. I tried to think. I tried to pray.
    A woman having a baby out of wedlock in 1963 was immoral. Not only would I be a shame and embarrassment to my family, I’d never outlive the scandal. I’d undoubtedly lose custody of Laney. Women who got pregnant went for hurry-up marriages and fudging the date on the birth certificate. But I couldn’t marry this baby’s father. He was already married. And he was evil.
    I knew there were institutions for unwed mothers. Young girls were taken in, fed and housed while their families made up stories about summer camps or visiting relatives in distant states. When the baby was born, it was given up for adoption with none the wiser. But those places were for teenagers, I thought. I had never heard of one that took a grown woman and her kindergarten-age daughter.
    What else was there to do? What other options did I have? I didn’t know. I didn’t even know who to ask.
    “What are you doing up there?”
    The question came from the bottom of the rusting staircase. It was posed by a stranger, a bum really. A dirty, ragged man looked up at me curiously.
    “Nothing,” I answered, guiltily.
    He started up the stairs. There was something wrong with one of his legs and he held tightly to the handrail and half dragged himself up each step. I hurried down to waylay him, not wanting to put his age and health through the exertion of the climb.
    “I was just admiring the view,” I assured him as we met at the first landing.
    He glanced around and nodded. “It’s a beautiful world all right,” he said. His hands were grimy, the fingernails black, but his eyes were clear. “Some people like it better from a distance,” he said, indicating the top of the stairs from which I’d just come. “But me, I try to admire it close up.”
    “Yes, I guess so,” I agreed. I opened my purse. I only had a dollar and seventy-eight cents. I apologized as I handed him a quarter.
    “It’s all I can afford,” I told him. “I’m out of work and I’ve got a child to support.”
    He nodded.
    “You should go home, lady,” he said.
    “What?”
    “Go home to your