The Heist

Now that I’ve made all the arrangements for the adoption of my young, unborn child, assuming I manage to carry it to term, I can talk to my father about the whole ordeal. Hopefully he’ll take it better than Jonathan. The stupid ass left my place in a rage after I told him. I was sure he’d tell our parents. I’m not unsure now, but I don’t know. It didn’t seem like he’d spill.

Hmm, I just had an idea. Maybe I’ll open a trust fund for my child so the adoptive parents don’t have to worry. It’ll only be for the child, and only he or she may take money out. But he or she must be eighteen.

Now that I’ve decided what I am going to do, I must figure out which bank I want the account to be. It must be a well-trusted, well-organized, well-run bank. I don’t want the child’s money to be in a horrible place. It’s for him or her to decide what to do with the money. Hopefully the kid winds up in a good home. I’m just not ready, yet. Then again, I still have nine months...

*~*~*~*

I can’t tell my sister how I know her physics teacher’s husband. One would think she’d get it, though. All she has to do is think back to three years ago. The guy helped me out. Elizabeth should know this.

I think I’ll go visit Ma at the hospital (hopefully she’s still there).

As I walked through the door, several patients waiting for the ER nurses to triage them glared at me, as if they didn’t want me to take their place in line. Like I’d actually be here for medical help. I’m always in the best of health. Even back in the pen.

One woman with dark hair seemed to recognize me, probably from some news flash about a young rapist and murderer being recently let out of prison. I smiled at her, and she looked away. Maybe I shouldn’t have smiled. She’s now talking to the girl beside her, probably about me.

“Hey, excuse me,” I say to the scarlet-haired girl at the ER counter. “Can you help me, Sammie?”

Sammie, the nurse, looked at me cautiously. Then she looked me up and down. “Maybe,” she replied, with a look on her face that said the way she wanted to help me was intimately…in the bedroom. Or elsewhere, depending on one’s preferences.

“I’m looking for someone.”

“Am I that someone?” she asked, in a husky voice in which she must have thought was seductive.

“If you’re my mother, then yes,” I replied. Sammie blushed in a not-so-subtle way. She must have been extremely embarrassed; then again, nobody would blame her for feeling so.

“And what’s her name?” Sammie asked me, sounding more professional. Finally.

“Farah Neufeld. You won’t find her in the patients’ section. She’s a nurse here.”

“Oh,” Sammie replied. “I know her. Sorry, she’s unavailable right now. She’s making a call to a patient that came in a couple days ago.”

“Oh, okay. Tell her to call her son, Erik, right away. Thank you,” I told the nurse this, and quickly turned to walk away. I didn’t want her to recognize my name and suddenly realize, with or without a light bulb, who I was.

~*~*~*~*~

“Yes, thank you, Missus Neufeld. I’ve already made plans.”

“Are you sure? There are many alternatives. I understand your situation perfectly, Miss Miller.”

“Yes, thanks. I have made up my mind,” I told her over the phone. She understood my situation? How? Of course she knew what it was; I had blabbed it to her. But how could this beautiful, perfect woman understand my circumstances?

“It’s none of my concern, Miss Miller, but it would ease my mind if you’d consider other options. You’re a young, single, unemployed woman. I don’t mean it to sound quite so…derogatory, but I still think you should think it over.”

“I understand your concern, Missus Neufeld. I don’t plan to keep the child. I’m going to put him or her up for adoption. I also appreciate your concern.” I did. But I didn’t want some nurse telling me what to do.

“That’s what we all say, Miss Miller. We all say we’re going to put them up for adoption…” she suddenly stopped, as if she’d already said too much.

“Missus Neufeld, I don’t completely understand what you’re saying, how could I…? But I appreciate your concern. I’ve already made up my mind.”

“I don’t mean it to sound as if I’m trying to change your mind. I just wish you’d think it over more.”

After talking like this, for what seemed like hours, she finally gave me a break. She said she had to go, and hoped I would think it over. I really did appreciate the nurse’s concern, but she was in no place to tell me what to do.

She was a nice woman, so I wasn’t going to report her to her supervisor — what good would it do anyway? It wouldn’t put that man in prison. It wouldn’t make it so that it hadn’t happened. It wasn’t her fault that this was happening to me. Plus, she seemed more motherly to me than my own mother. Not that my own mother isn’t a bad one. It’s just…she was never there for me.

- - - - -

I really shouldn’t have said all of that. How could I do that? No, Farah, of course Ashlee Miller hasn’t figured it out. I was very vague. She couldn’t have figured it out, could she?