Free Stranger by David Bergen

She went home and locked herself in the bathroom and took out the tester and peed. It verified what she already knew. She sat for a long time in the bathroom and tried to think logically about what she must do, but then she thought of Eric and she felt sad for what might have been. She pushed these thoughts away, because what good could come of them, and what purpose might they serve other than to make her wilder in her sadness? She wrapped the tester in a piece of tissue and she put it in her pocket. She would discard it later, away from home.
    She took to wearing looser clothing, but then she was with Roberto and she could not hide it from him. He said that he had always wanted to make love to a pregnant woman. He was like an overgrown adolescent. He had no sense of consequence. After a few more occasions she said that a relationship wasn’t possible.
    Illya met her one day after work and said that Roberto had told her, and how was it that Roberto knew before she did? God,Íso, she said. Look at you. And she touched Ís o’s belly. When? she asked.
    In sixteen weeks.
    It is Doctor Mann’s?
    Illya. She said this sharply, in annoyance or shame, or both.
    Have you told him?
    Why? He’s gone.
    Has he written?
    Nothing.
    Because of his wife. Or perhaps he’s still sick.
    Ãso said that she didn ’t want to think about it.
    Will you have the baby at the clinic?
    Yes, but in a regular room. I couldn’t stand knowing there were people behind the glass watching.
    Ã SO began to make plans. She took the bus to the city one Saturday and she picked up an application for permit papers for herself. And then she went to the US embassy and inquired about registration for a child who was born outside the country.
    The woman she spoke with wore very large and round glasses on a very narrow face that looked like a machete. The woman asked if she was a United States citizen.
    No, Íso said, but the father is.
    The woman said that then the father would have to apply for the passport and for the citizenship papers after the child was born.
    I cannot?
    No, ma’am. You cannot. She appeared to be mocking Íso’s speech. Then she said that Íso might want to let the father know.
    Ãso was startled and she looked down. I will, she said.
    But she didn’t. She imagined that the doctor’s wife was reading his mail, and she didn’t want the doctor’s wife to know anything. She put aside her permit application. She tried to forget about him.
    And there came a time when she could no longer hide what was real, and so she told her mother, who said that she already knew. She had been waiting for Íso to tell her. Her mother saw the world as a place you walked through in your own way, and as long as you cared for others and yourself, no matter what difficulties you encountered, you took what was given to you, and you accepted it. She asked if Doctor Mann knew about the baby.
    He doesn’t, Íso said.
    Her mother asked if she would tell him.
    If he wants to know, I’ll tell him.
    How will you know what he wants?
    He’ll let me know.
    S EÑORA Perdido had never spoken to Íso of her life between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one, when she walked away from her home on the shores of the lake. But one evening, she closed the tienda early, and she sat across from Íso at the table in their small kitchen, and she said that she had a story to tell her. It was an important story for Íso to hear, because it would reveal to her something about the ways of the world, and it would give herinformation with which she might make her own decisions. Señora Perdido said that some of it Íso had heard before, but that now she would tell Íso everything, even if what she said might sound too intimate or even wrong and unfortunate.
    At that time, she said, I was a few years younger than you are now. She said that her own father had been very handsome and tall, and her mother pretty