Free B005HF54UE EBOK by Willy Vlautin

said.
    ‘Where are you staying? You can at least tell me that.’
    ‘I gotta go,’ she said and hung up the phone. Then she went through her purse, found the note with the number of the local pregnancy resource center, and called them for directions.
    It was located in a rundown strip mall. In an office. Two middle aged women sat inside behind a partition. The girl introduced herself and the older of the two ladies took her into a back room with two chairs, a small coffee table, and Christian posters on the wall. The woman gave her a glass of water, and the girl told the woman her story.
    ‘I don’t know who the father is,’ she told the lady. ‘I used to drink a lot. It happened at a fraternity party when I was in college. I can’t remember who it was.’ Adoption was what she wanted. She tried not to cry, but she broke down more than once. The woman was patient and hugged the girl and kept her talking. She would only interrupt to say things like, ‘The child’s welfare is the most important thing. It’s good that you’re here. I can help you, I can help your baby.’
    The woman called two adoption agencies. She set up times for meetings. The girl took another pregnancy test and confirmed her situation, and by the end of the second week they had decided on an adoption agency, a doctor, and had seen folders of prospective parents. It was weeks after that that they finally decided on a couple that both she and the woman thought were the best. She met with the couple just once. They all sat around a table. The girl remained silent while the couple talked to her. They told her about themselves, about what sort of life they would give the baby, what sort of house the baby would live in, what sort of extended family they had.
    The couple paid for medical coverage through St Mary’s hospital. They arranged prenatal care and prenatal classes. The couple gave the girl a fifteen hundred dollar a month stipend and she moved into a prepaid quad with three other pregnant girls.
    The apartment complex was near St Mary’s, on Fifth Street, downtown. It had a large communal kitchen and two bathrooms. Her private bedroom came furnished with a separate entrance, and another lockable door that led into the kitchen area. There was a TV, a single bed and dresser, an alarm clock, and a sink.
    The other girls were in various stages of the same situation. At times they would sit at the kitchen table and tell their stories. When asked, the girl left out Jimmy Bodie, her mother, her sister Evelyn, even Las Vegas, and when asked, only said, ‘All I know is that if my father found out he’d kill me. He really would.’
    At night, when she couldn’t sleep, she’d watch TV or listen to her tapes. She wouldn’t write anything down, and hadn’t since she had left Las Vegas. The other girls would see movies, watch TV together, go shopping, but she never felt comfortable enough around them, and most days she just sat in her room or took long walks through the city. During her fourth month she got a job as a lunch waitress at the Cal Neva Casino. She worked three days a week, and began to sleep better once the job started. She opened a bank account and deposited each month’s stipend and used her tips for food money.
    In the middle of her eighth month she was no longer able to work and spent most of her time going to the library or watching TV. She’d never read much, but met a librarian and asked the woman if she knew where she could get a high school reading list.
    The librarian made a list for her and the girl began checking out books. One by one she read Beloved by Toni Morrison, Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton. She read John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway. Pearl S. Buck and Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Walter Van Tilburg Clark.
    Throughout the months, though, her anxiety never eased or slowed down. She had hoped being away from Jimmy would somehow calm her nerves, but they continued as they always had. Most of all she was