Edna stood up with a heavy sigh. “Oh, for pity’s sake,” she said. “You won’t get your money back, you know.” Her sweet grandmotherly demeanor had suddenly disappeared.
“I don’t care.” I didn’t look at her as I climbed awkwardly from the table, my stomach turning at the sight of the basin. The spoke. How could I have thought I could go through with this? “I can’t do it.” In spite of the fact that I knew I was ruining my life for good, forever, I felt weak with relief. Yes, this spelled the end of my engagement. Yes, it was the end of my future with Vincent. But I had not harmed my child.
Edna stared at me as I looked around the room, unable to remember where I’d put my panties. “Meet me in the foyer when you’re dressed,” she said after a moment.
I found my panties beneath the table and pulled them on. I could hear Edna talking to the driver—most likely her brother—but couldn’t make out their words. Both of them met me in the foyer.
“You can find your own way back to your friend,” the man said. He was drinking a beer.
“You have my money,” I said, lifting my coat from the chair in the corner and putting it on. I’d stopped shaking. Stopped crying. I felt suddenly strong. “You owe me a ride back,” I said to him.
“Take her,” Edna said.
With a sour look, he handed her his beer, opened a closet near the front door, and grudgingly got into his coat.
Once settled in the passenger seat of the car, I slipped my hand inside my coat to rest on my belly. I would not have this baby only for it to be put up for adoption. This was my child. My son or daughter. I’d saved its life and I was going to be with it, always. I would have to move away from Baltimore. Someplace where no one knew me. Someplace where I wouldn’t be the object of scorn and shame or have to worry about bumping into Vincent or his family. I would start a fresh life. I would tell people my husband was overseas. No one would be any the wiser. The only thing standing in my way was my lack of money. I had a hundred and seventy dollars in my bank account that I’d earned when I’d worked at the grocer’s to make money for school. Hardly enough to start a new life.
I thought of Henry Kraft and his well-tailored suit. He owned a furniture factory and had government contracts. He would have to give me money. I hoped it would be out of a sense of responsibility, but at that moment, when I felt I could move heaven and earth to protect the life inside me, I was not above threatening to tell everyone he knew that he’d impregnated me and then left me high and dry. I would do whatever it took to protect my baby.
Henry Kraft. I whispered the name to myself. Hickory, North Carolina. Wherever that was.
9
The grueling journey from Baltimore to Hickory involved three packed trains and one miserable night. I sat up all that night, my head knocking against the window each time I drifted into an uneasy sleep. At least I’d had a seat. A few soldiers had to stand the entire time.
The third train, a short trip from Salisbury to Hickory, was the worst. I was beyond exhaustion by that point. The heat wasn’t working properly and I couldn’t stop shivering as my anxiety mounted with each passing mile. In spite of the chill, my palms were sweating and the hankie I clutched for most of the trip was damp. I’d told my mother I was visiting a friend from nursing school who was ill. She’d asked many questions about my friend, expressing concern, and my lies mounted as I invented this girl and her troubles. I couldn’t look my mother in the eye as I talked to her. I didn’t like the dishonest, calculating person I’d become.
Gina thought I’d lost my mind. She cried when I told her my plan. “You’re going to move away?” she asked, incredulous. “Please don’t! I don’t think I can stand it if both you and Mac are gone.” She promised me she wouldn’t breathe a word about my plan, though, and even offered to skip work and go with me to Hickory. I told her no. This was something I needed to do on my own.
Although I’d brought a book with me to study for my licensing exam while on the trains, I never even cracked it open. Instead, I rehearsed what I would say to Henry Kraft, smoking the occasional cigarette to calm my nerves. I had no intention of milking Henry dry. I only wanted enough money to support myself and a child in a modest lifestyle. I worried he might react with anger instead of civility or that he might not believe that the baby was his. I’d left my engagement ring in my top dresser drawer, hoping Henry wouldn’t recall that I was engaged. I didn’t want him to guess the baby might be Vincent’s. I couldn’t turn off my worries and they mounted steadily as the third train traveled through North Carolina and I smoked the last of my cigarettes.
It wasn’t until we were close to Hickory that I began to think about how I would find Henry Kraft’s furniture factory. I didn’t know the name of it. I knew Hickory was a small town, though. I would also have to find a place to spend the night. The first train I could take out of Hickory wasn’t until the following afternoon.
When I got off the train with my handbag and small suitcase, my legs were wobbly from nerves and exhaustion. The cold air was numbing and I wished I had a more substantial hat than my little tricorner beret. The wind cut through my coat and I tugged it tighter around me as I walked out to the curb where a cab was parked. The driver waved me over as if he’d been expecting me.
“Lookin’ for a ride, young lady?” he asked as I walked toward him. He reminded me of the abortionist’s brother, round and bespectacled. I didn’t want to remember that man or anything else about that day. It was behind me. I needed to move on.
“Well, I have to figure out where I’m going first,” I said, offering him a tired smile. “Is there a phone booth around here?”
“Ain’t a big town,” he said. “What are you lookin’ for?”
“A furniture factory.”
“We got plenty of them,” he said. “Hickory Chair. Kraft Furniture.”
“That one!” I said. “Kraft Furniture. Can you take me there?”
“Ain’t far.” He looked me up and down. “You look like you need to go to a hotel first, though, miss. With that suitcase and all? Want me to take you to one?”
“No, thank you. I need to see someone who works at the factory first.”
“Ain’t none of my business,” he said with a shrug. He took the suitcase from me and put it in the taxi’s trunk and I got into the backseat.