Pregnant at 17

by Christine Conradt

  “Good night, Chelsea.”

  “Good night.” Caught up in a surge of emotion, Chelsea unlocked the door and went inside. She gave him a little wave. Without moving the curtain, she watched him through the window as he got into his car, tried twice to start it before the engine took, and chugged off down the street. Damn, she thought. Just when she thought life couldn’t possibly throw her another curveball, it had.

  As Chelsea climbed into bed and pulled the covers over her shoulders, her thoughts turned back to her baby. She’d had no idea that Adam was adopted. No one had ever mentioned it. She could tell he loved his parents and was grateful for all they’d given him. They’d sent him to college and bought him a car and had always bragged about how good he was at Little League and in school. She wondered why his birth mother gave him up. Had she been young and scared and with someone like Jeff who didn’t want her to have the baby? Or had she been a good student with big plans to go to college and have an important career, and she figured having a baby would derail those dreams? Keeping the baby is what Chelsea believed was best, but was it? Was she being selfish? If her baby was adopted by people like Adam’s parents who could afford to give it every advantage in life, wouldn’t it be better off with them than with her?

  Thoughts of adoption were still floating around in Chelsea’s mind when she woke up the next morning. Luckily her morning sickness hadn’t returned, so as she scarfed down a bowl of cereal, she researched more about the process on her phone. There were two types of adoption: open and closed. A closed adoption meant she would have to say good-bye to her child and never see it again. No one would tell the baby who she was. She could have no contact with it unless someday her kid came looking for her.

  An open adoption meant she could still see it, visit the family, maybe even join them for holidays and birthdays. She could watch her baby grow up even if she wasn’t the one raising it herself. There was so much to think about, so many decisions to make, it made Chelsea’s head swim. What if she gave the baby up and regretted it later? What if she kept the baby and it ended up hating the life she gave it? She needed a woman to talk to. She thought about Liz, but she’d seen Liz’s reaction when she found out Chelsea was pregnant. She already knew Liz’s advice would be to give up the baby. There was Dr. Shollenbrook and the lady at the community center, but they didn’t feel like people she could really sit down and talk to. Never more than this moment had Chelsea wished her mother was still alive.

  Lauren steadied her foot on the brake of Greg’s truck and swung into a parking space on the west side of the prison. It was a monstrosity of a complex, all brick, situated behind a sixteen-foot fence topped with coiled razor wire. Above the gray steel door was a sign that read Release.

  Today was the day her brother would walk through that door a free man. In a fucked-up system, at least the parole board had gotten it right. Lauren looked down at her phone: 10:23 a.m. Greg had said they would release him sometime between ten thirty and noon. She was early. She was never early. That’s how anxious she was to see him.

  When the heavy door swung open and Greg exited in the same white shirt and dark blue pants he’d worn the day he was sentenced and taken away in a sheriff’s van to serve what they thought would be half a decade, Lauren blew out a sigh. It was as if she had just exhaled all the hardship and pain her family had survived in the past three years. Now that Greg was out, things would get better. They’d go back to normal. Well, soon anyway. First, they had a score to settle.

  “Where’s Amber?” Greg asked as he climbed into the cab of the pickup.

  “Still at her mom’s in Altoona. She wanted to see the baby.”

  Greg grimaced. “My baby,” he said tightly.

  Lauren could hear the anger in his voice. She could understand why he was upset that Amber would choose to take their kid halfway across the state to see her mother on the day he was getting out. She knew Greg desperately wanted to meet his little girl, Lilah, who was now a year and a half old. Amber had refused to bring Lilah to the prison, so even though she frequently sent pictures, Greg had never seen the child in person. But she could also see Amber’s side. When Greg was carted off to prison, it left her all alone to have and raise the baby by herself. All the plans they’d made had been ripped apart. Amber had moved in with Lauren and her mother and lived rent-free in Greg’s room. It allowed their mom to spend time with her granddaughter, and Amber helped out by getting a part-time job as a cashier at a nearby grocery store on the weekends when Lauren could babysit.

  About a year ago, Amber’s mother inherited some money when a family member died, and bought a little row house in Calvert Hills. She’d begged Amber to leave Greg and relocate with Lilah, but Amber, knowing Lilah would eventually want to spend time with Greg after his release, opted to stay. Lauren surmised that Amber’s absence on the day Greg got out was payback for the resentment she felt that he was arrested in the first place. Unlike Lauren and her mother, Amber didn’t believe that Greg was innocent.

  “Mom’s making a big lunch for you. She got a roast and made an apple pie from scratch last night.” Greg nodded. She could tell he was only half listening. “Did you want to stop somewhere on the way home?” She expected he’d want to swing by Roy’s house for a beer or maybe take a drive over to the Delaware and just sit on the hood of the truck and look out at the calm waters like he used to do, but he didn’t.

  “I wanna see that guy’s place,” he said. Lauren wasn’t sure who he was talking about.

  “Whose place?”

  “Her sugar daddy’s.”

  Chelsea was busy making waffle cones for the next influx of customers when the bell over the door chimed and the lady from the thrift store entered. She had an oversize brown leather bag slung over her shoulder that matched her chunky brown wedges. Chelsea smiled, happy to see a friendly face.

  “Hi there,” Chelsea said as the woman stepped up to the counter.

  “Hi. A small basil, please.”

  “Got you hooked on that one, didn’t I?” Chelsea grinned proudly as she grabbed a spoon and cup.

  “I crave it now,” the lady said, and lifted her dark sunglasses to the top of her head. “Um, by the way . . . I got you something.” The woman reached into the designer purse and pulled out something square and weighty wrapped up in a plastic bag. “It’s nothing, really,” she said as she handed it to Chelsea over the counter. Curious, Chelsea opened the bag and pulled out two books: 5,000 Baby Names and Their Meanings and The First Nine Months: A Working Woman’s Guide to Pregnancy. The books were brand-new, glossy, and expensive. Chelsea looked up at her, shocked.

  “These are for me?”

  “Unless you already have them or something. I just thought you might . . . well, I found them useful.” Useful? Didn’t she mention in the thrift store that she didn’t have any kids of her own?

  “No, no I don’t. Wow, um, I don’t know what to say. These are terrific. Thank you so much!” Chelsea could feel her heart swelling in her chest. She was usually the one doing sweet things for people, not the other way around.

  “You’re welcome,” the woman said, more relaxed.

  “I don’t even know your name,” Chelsea said, realizing she should by now.

  “I’m Sonia,” the woman said, and pulled out her wallet to pay for the gelato Chelsea hadn’t even started scooping yet.

  “No, no,” Chelsea said and plopped a big scoop of creamy basil gelato into the cup. “Put your money away. This one’s on me.” Chelsea scooped a few dollars out of her tip jar to put in the register.

  “It just blows my mind how expensive everything is for kids . . .” Chelsea said as she and Sonia sat at a table by the window. There was no one else in the shop and Chelsea knew Liz wouldn’t mind if she sat for a bit and drank a cup of decaf coffee.

  “Yep.” Sonia nodded. “They say it costs two hundred fifty thousand dollars to raise a child from birth to adulthood.”

  “Unreal.” Chelsea sighed. “My friend Adam got me t
hinking about adoption.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. He was adopted and his parents gave him a great life. The best. They’re even paying for his college. Well, the school gave him some money too because his grades are so good, but they’re paying for most of it.”

  “I thought you wanted to keep the baby. You were going to take parenting classes. . . .” Sonia leaned back in her chair.

  “I do. I really do want to keep it. But Jeff—that’s the father I’m not with anymore—he said I won’t be able to make enough money cuz I only make minimum wage. I didn’t believe him at first but I started looking up the prices of stuff. It’s going to be hard to give the baby what it needs.” Chelsea could see Sonia bristle a little. There I go again, she thought. I’m making Jeff look like an asshole without even trying.

  “I don’t think you’ll be working here forever,” Sonia said. Chelsea appreciated her positivity. She knew so little about this lady and yet she never felt judged by her in any way. Still, that didn’t change her reality.

  “Where else am I going to work? I didn’t even graduate high school.”

  “You dropped out? Why?” Again, just a question. No judgment.

  “My grades were okay and all that but . . . it was hard to get a ride with my dad gone so much and when he was home, we were always out late. Plus, there was this whole other situation with a girl at my school—” Chelsea suddenly froze. Her eyes locked on a figure standing on the other side of the street. Terror gripped her throat. It couldn’t be. No, no, no . . . She slowly stood up to get a better look.

  “Oh my god,” Chelsea murmured, so horrified she could barely manage to form the words.

  “What?” Sonia asked, alarmed, as she turned to try to see what Chelsea was staring at.

  “I know that guy. . . .” Fear gripped Chelsea and she could feel her hands start to shake. She quickly set her coffee down on the table and looked back out at the man in the hoodie who stared squarely at them. Greg Foster. He’d come back for her!

  “I gotta go.” Chelsea turned so quickly, she bumped the table, knocking over her coffee. Sonia grabbed some napkins to wipe up the mess.

  “What are you talking about? Who is that?” Sonia asked. But Chelsea was already on her way back to the counter.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t stay here. . . .” Chelsea’s mind raced. What should she do? How could she get away without him knowing? Would he come into the store? “I’m gonna skip out the back and try to catch the bus before it gets dark.” Chelsea gasped. She grabbed her purse tucked under the counter and the plastic bag containing Sonia’s books.

  “Um, why don’t you let me drive you?”

  Chelsea stopped. Was Sonia seriously offering to give her a ride home? It would be much safer than the bus. What if Greg was waiting for her at the bus stop? Still, she couldn’t ask this woman who was practically a stranger to do that.

  Chelsea looked back out the window. A city bus idled in the street in front of where he was standing. The hairs on her arm stood on end as she waited for it to pass.

  “I live pretty far,” Chelsea uttered, hoping Sonia would insist anyway.

  “I don’t mind. Really.” In a cloud of exhaust the bus pulled away. Greg was no longer standing at the curb. Had he gotten on that bus? Where was he? Her eyes darted back and forth, scanning the pedestrians moving along the sidewalk. No sign of him. Maybe getting a ride from Sonia would be a better plan after all.

  “You sure? I mean, it’s, like, forty minutes,” she said.

  “It’s fine,” Sonia assured her.

  Chelsea locked the front door and turned the Open sign to Closed. “Let’s go. Fast.”

  Eleven

  An Unnatural Ally

  Sonia’s Lexus SUV sped down the street, driving through the long afternoon shadows. From the passenger seat, Chelsea watched the side mirror vigilantly, hoping she wouldn’t spot Greg following them. She had no idea what his car looked like, or if he even still had one after he got out of prison. Every time she glimpsed a twentysomething guy she thought for a split second that it was him. What did he want from her? She wondered. To scare her? To kill her? When he was behind bars, she at least felt safe. Now that he was out, nothing would keep him from slipping out of the dark shadows on her walk home from the bus stop or breaking in as she slept. She had no idea how she would be able to sleep at all, alone in that trailer, knowing he could come for her at any time. She wished her father were home. She wondered if she should call Adam in Ohio or even ask Sonia to drop her off at Mikey’s store after she packed some things, but would that put them both in danger? Chelsea was pretty sure that Greg wasn’t as upset with Mikey as he was with her. After all, she’s the one who testified against him. All Mikey could say on the stand was that a guy in a mask robbed and shot him.

  “Who was that guy?” Sonia asked.

  “Someone I . . . I put in prison. . . . He got paroled early.” Chelsea twisted around to look through the back window. She didn’t see any sign of him.

  “What happened?”

  Chelsea wasn’t sure how much of the Mikey/Greg/Lauren story she should tell. She didn’t want to involve a stranger in her problems.

  “Chelsea, I want to help you. I’m pretty sure I can but you have to tell me what’s going on. Why was he in prison?”

  Chelsea felt strange opening up to Sonia, but she seemed so kind and sincere in her offer to help that Chelsea found herself explaining the whole thing. How she’d witnessed Greg come out of the convenience store after shooting Mikey, how she’d called the police and testified against him, and how the harassment at school from Lauren and her friends got so bad that she decided to leave for good.

  “Mikey warned me Greg was getting out, but I didn’t think he’d come looking for me,” Chelsea lamented, still scanning the drivers of other cars.

  “Sweetie, where’s your father?” Sonia demanded to know.

  “Working on a crab boat.”

  “Can you contact him?”

  “I tried a couple times to call his cell but I don’t think he’s getting the messages, because he hasn’t called me back. There might not be any service out on the water. That must be it cuz if something bad happened to him, they would tell me. Someone would tell me.” She didn’t want Sonia to think her dad was a bad father who had just abandoned her and she didn’t want to believe that something terrible had happened to him.

  “Honey, I think instead of taking you home, I should take you to the police. Tell them what’s going on.”

  The police. Chelsea hadn’t thought of that. Would that just piss off Greg even more? And how could they do anything? Standing on the street staring at a public business wasn’t exactly a crime. Besides, it wasn’t just her this time. She had to think about the safety of her baby.

  “How are they going to help?”

  “If this guy is on parole, they’re already keeping tabs on him. They can protect you.”

  Chelsea wasn’t sure if that was true. No one had protected Mikey from Greg when he’d robbed the store, and Greg had been arrested a few times before that. But at this point, she had only two choices. Go it alone and hope Greg would give up, or tell the police. At least if she ended up dead or missing, they’d have a suspect.

  “Okay,” Chelsea said. “Let’s go to the cops.”

  “Can you point out the man you saw?” Detective Miggs leaned forward as she slid a lineup card toward Chelsea. There were six photos of men side by side. Chelsea looked down at the card. All the men looked fairly similar, but there was only one person she recognized. Greg. His mug shot was second from the right.

  “Greg Foster.” Chelsea tapped Greg’s picture. Miggs nodded, her tightly woven black bun bouncing up and down.

  “As a condition of his parole, he can’t make contact,” she explained. “Did it seem like he was going to?”

  “We didn’t give him the chance,” Sonia chimed in. Miggs looked from Sonia back to Chelsea.

  “Okay. I’ll let his parole officer know
. In the meantime, Chelsea, do you have someplace else you can stay? Relatives or friends?” Chelsea sat back, unsure how to answer. She didn’t have any relatives and she’d lost touch with most of her friends from school. There was Liz, but she didn’t want to tell her about any of this. First the pregnancy, now a parolee after her . . . it would seem like she brought drama everywhere she went.

  “She can stay with me,” she heard Sonia say. Chelsea looked up, stunned. “I live out in Huntington Heights. We have a security system.”

  “We?” the detective asked.

  “My husband and I, but . . . we’re separated, so . . . it’s just me.” Sonia looked down as she finished the sentence, her voice becoming strained as if she were embarrassed to admit she was on the verge of a divorce. Chelsea saw Miggs raise an eyebrow as if to run the idea past her. Staying far away in Huntington Heights in a house with a security system was the best possible scenario. Chelsea nodded, relieved. She couldn’t believe how nice Sonia was. First the pregnancy books, then the ride, now this? Why would this woman want to get involved in something so messy for someone she barely knew? Are there really people in the world who are just this generous? Regardless of Sonia’s reasons, Chelsea was glad that she’d be staying someplace that safe. It wouldn’t take much to break into the flimsy, cheap windows at the mobile home. Whatever this woman’s place was like, it had to be better than that.

  “Good. You see Foster lurking around again, call me. If he does anything that allows me to arrest him on a violation, I will. Here’s my card.” She handed one to each of them.

  “Thank you,” Chelsea replied, and tucked the card into her purse. She and Sonia stood up. “I need to get a few things from my house first,” she told Sonia. “Is that all right?” She hated to inconvenience Sonia again but she needed a few changes of clothes and her makeup. It seemed a bigger inconvenience to ask Sonia if she could borrow hers once she got to the house.

  “Of course,” Sonia said. “Let’s go now and be done before dark.”