the same understanding and support she’d been giving for the last couple of months. Gail was leaving the decision up to her.

“Somebody else needs my bed, right?” asked Sasha. “Somebody who is really battered? Who is really afraid for her life?”

“We’ll hold that off for as long as possible,” said Gail, but she did not deny Sasha’s allegation.

“I gotta own this decision, like you always say in group,” said Sasha. “So, I’m gonna call mama. And I’m gonna call the baby’s daddy.”

“Yes.”

“Okay, then,” said Sasha, nodding her head. “You can go. I’ll do it.”

“I’m proud of you,” said Gail, rising for the second time. “Dial nine for an outside line.”

She left the room, closing the door behind her.

Sasha eyed the desk phone as though it was a large rodent. Fear and loathing for the uncertain future threatened to choke her. Then she took another deep breath, exhaled and picked up the receiver.

Damon

“Thanks, Mr. Tally,” said Damon. He had stayed after school for about four hours to fill out the on line application. Mr. Tally had also given him a packet of available scholarships and given Damon the assignment to report on at least two per week

“You’re welcome, Mr. Hamilton,” said Mr. Tally. “I’ve been hearing good things about you from your teachers.”

“Yeah, I should be getting all A’s in my classes as long as I don’t mess up on the final exams,” said Damon.

“Have you thought anymore about what you might like to major in?” asked Mr. Tally.

“I like political science but there is more money in medicine,” said Damon. “Also, I like the fact that I can help people; either law or medicine.”

Mr. Tally smiled. “Well, the law is good. I think you’d make a great lawyer. But medicine, that’s great too. And it has the added attraction of being a career that you can take anywhere. People always need doctors. Lawyers are not as essential,” said Mr. Tally.

“I never thought about it like that,” said Damon, much struck. “I’ll give it serious consideration.”

He turned to leave Mr. Tally’s office, clutching the papers to his chest.

“There is no real hurry,” said Mr. Tally. “How about we get you into a school first, huh?”

Damon flashed his smile and waved. He was taking the first step out of Lansing and into his future. He couldn’t wait to tell Brielle.

Sasha

“Mama, can I come home?”

“Sasha is that you?”

“Yeah, it’s me, mama.”

Sasha sat with the receiver to her ear and listened to her mother burst into tears. She waited stunned, until her mother got herself under control. The last thing she expected was for her mother to be relieved to hear from her. Eight weeks in a shelter had taught her caution and cynicism.

“Girl, I’ve been looking for you for two months,” said Evangeline. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“I have been so worried.”

Sasha kept quiet.

“Where you been, girl? The police wouldn’t even look for you because you are over eighteen.”

Sasha started to get nasty, but thought the better of it.

“I’ve been staying in a shelter, mama.” There was a long pause.

“I thought your daddy was lying when he told me he hadn’t heard from you.”

“I talked to him,” said Sasha. “His wife wanted me gone so I got gone.”

“That is so trifling.”

“Whatever.”

“Excuse me?”

Sasha was exhausted. She reached down and rubbed her stomach. She was hungry and junior was doing gymnastics in her belly in protest. She had thirty dollars to her name and no place else to go.

“Nothing. Mama, look I’m calling from the shelter. They’ll give me a greyhound ticket.”

“Okay.”

“I got no place else to go,” admitted Sasha, hating the helpless defeated tone in her voice. “Mama, can I come home?”

“You still pregnant?”

“Yes, ma’am, almost seven months.”

“That’s nothing to be proud of.”

“I know, mama.”

“So, you got no place else to go, huh? Should have thought about that before you gapped your legs open for some boy.”

“Yeah.”

“There’s gonna be some rules.”

Sasha closed her eyes in relief.

“I know.”

“No,” said Evangeline. “These you are gonna follow.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The greyhound bus was designed to kill her. Or else was God’s way of trying to shake her into a thousand pieces, to punish her further. She could almost hear the tiny voice in the back of her head preaching in her mother’s strident self-righteous voice. Maybe she would not make it back into Lansing in one piece and the bus driver would find little pieces of Sasha confetti all over the back seat of the bus when he finally stopped. In addition to being flung about like a milkshake, Sasha was nauseous from the stench emanating from the miniscule bathroom that she was sitting across the aisle from. Earlier, she’d moved to the seat across from the bathroom because her almost seven months pregnant bladder was the size of a walnut, and so she wouldn’t have to sit next to the stinking derelicts in the first few rows who kept trying to talk to her.

“Hey little mama, can I talk to you,” the one with snaggled teeth had lisped at her. He had a greasy blue and white bandana wrapped around his even greasier shoulder length hair.

Sasha rolled her eyes at him. He persisted in his arrogance, taking silence for acceptance of his come on.

“If you was my woman, you wouldn’t be riding the iron pimp, mami,” he said. He kept on until Sasha, goaded by her nausea and ever-straining bladder finally clapped her hand over her mouth, jumped up and ran to the back of the bus. After a few moments of trying to hold her breath while trying to pee without touching anything, she was lightheaded. She held down the bile with only the most strenuous effort. When she finally emerged from the bathroom, she stomped up to the front and grabbed her backpack off the seat.

“Hey, mami, you want a mint or something?”

“Leave me alone,” she said to bandana, glaring at him with hatred.

“What?” Bandana looked slightly wounded.

The bus driver finally intervened.

“You want to get off and wait for the next bus?”

Bandana held up

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