LITMIR.BIZ

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apart. “It’s a baby—or it will be. It’s my baby, and it’s real, and it’s defenseless, and I’m going to be a great mother.”

      But it wasn’t that simple. She was too scared and confused to see the real problem. “We don’t have a soul for him, Melanie.”

      “Or her. It could be a girl.” Her words came out in broken, halting syllables half choked by wrenching sobs.

      “The gender doesn’t matter if the baby doesn’t live.”

      “Maybe Mom will …” She couldn’t finish the sentence, and I couldn’t finish it for her. The thought was too horrible to voice.

      “You know she won’t.” Our mother was only thirty-nine years old, and I couldn’t say for sure why she’d ever had kids in the first place. The chances of her giving up her life—miserable as it was lately—for an illegally conceived grandchild she would never see were slim to none.

      “One of Adam’s parents, then. They love him. They won’t want his baby to die.”

      She was right. But Adam’s parents weren’t much older than our mom, and … “Do you really want to take one of his parents away from him? Away from Penny?” Adam’s little sister was only twelve—way too young to lose one of her parents and half of the family’s income. “Would you really make them decide who should die to pay for a mistake you and Adam made?”

      She looked crushed by the realization that that was exactly what she’d be doing. “What about the public registry?”

      “Melanie, that’s no guarantee!” And I wasn’t even sure they’d put her baby on the list if the Church declared her unfit to procreate. They would never make her end the pregnancy—in fact, they wouldn’t let her—but they wouldn’t hesitate to let the child die a natural, soulless death.

      “Then I’ll pledge to the Church!” she cried, swiping tears from her cheeks with both hands, and I glanced nervously at the closed laundry room door. We couldn’t hide forever, but we couldn’t afford to be discovered before we had a plan. And my sister pledging to join the Church was not a good plan.

      Sure, if she pledged, they’d put her baby on the very short, very elite Church registry—a list of elderly Church officials who were ready to give up their souls to support the next generation of life. But then they’d take the baby, not as a ward, like the orphans, but as an ecclesiastic dedication. A human tithe. In another town. She would never see him again, and at eighteen, he would be ordained without choice, his soul to be paid for with lifelong service to the Church by both mother and child.

      “You don’t want to pledge, Mellie,” I said, though I couldn’t make myself voice the reasons.

      She wiped her eyes again and looked at me with more determination than I’d ever seen from her. “What I don’t want is to let this baby die.”

      I stared at her. I wasn’t sure I recognized my own sister in that moment. Melanie had changed in the hour since we’d walked to school. She was still young and impulsive, and still wasn’t quite thinking things through, but at some point she’d come to value her unborn child’s life more than her own, and that made her a better mother than ours had ever been.

      “I can do this, Nina,” she said, and that determination I’d seen in her eyes echoed in her voice. “I know you think I never take anything seriously, and I mess everything up, but I can do this, and if you’ll help me, I may not have to join the Church. I’ll do whatever you say.” She took my hand in both of hers. “I’ll do all the laundry, and the dishes, and anything else you need me to do, if you’ll just help me keep my baby. Please, Nina!”

      She was too young. We couldn’t guarantee her baby a soul. Even if it lived and the Church let her keep it, we couldn’t afford to feed and clothe a baby. And I wouldn’t be able to pledge and become a teacher, because Melanie couldn’t do this on her own. To give her baby even a chance at life, I would have to spend the rest of mine in a factory.

      I knew I should say no. But I couldn’t.

      “Okay. I’ll help you. But you have to understand that there are no guarantees. If the Church decides to prosecute”—and they would if Deacon Bennett saw her as an embarrassment to the town—”you could serve serious time.” Unpaid prison workers were the nation’s largest source of factory labor, producing everything from paper cups and clothing to car parts and traffic signals, in every plant that had survived the war. “And even if you don’t go to jail, you’ll have at least two convictions on your record.” One for fornication, one for conceiving a child without a license. “Those’ll keep you out of college.” Which was a real shame, because Melanie was smart. She had a head for numbers and a memory for facts and dates. “And they may still take the baby. But I’ll do the best I can.”

      My sister threw her arms around me, sobbing her thanks onto my shoulder, where her tears and snot mixed with the rainwater already soaked into my shirt.

      I held her for a moment, trying to squelch the sudden certainty that I’d just nominated us both for execution. Then I let her go, hyperaware of the clock ticking over the door. We’d been sequestered in the laundry room for ten minutes. It didn’t seem possible for so much to have changed in less than a quarter of an hour, but clocks don’t lie.

      Melanie sniffled. “So … now what?”

      “You go home.” That was the only part of the plan I had worked out so far. I waved one hand at the utility sink in the corner. “Wash your face, and don’t cry anymore or you’ll attract attention. Go out through the admin building so you won’t have to climb the fence, but do not get caught in here. Follow the tracks home so no one will see you on the street either. I’ll tell Anabelle you’re sick—that you ran out so you wouldn’t throw up on the floor—and see if she can buy us some time by scheduling a makeup physical. But they’re going to find out, Melanie.”

      We’d just have to make sure they found out on our terms.

      My sister and I parted ways in the hall, where I watched her sneak around a corner, and then I headed in the other direction, letting my wet shoes squeak on the tile floor in an attempt to cover the sound of hers. If I got caught, I could say I was looking for her. If she got caught …

      She couldn’t get caught.

      When I got to the quad again, the rain had almost stopped, but poor Matthew Mercer was still soaked, and this time he didn’t look up when I passed him or when a neat line of second graders filed past us both on the way to the worship center.

      Back in the gym, I pulled Anabelle aside and told her that Melanie was sick, and that I’d told her to go home and rest. When I asked if she could schedule a makeup physical, she looked suspicious but promised to try.

      I wanted to sneak out and follow my sister home, where I could consider our options without the distraction of teachers and classes and other students whispering—some outright asking—about Melanie’s breakdown. But if I snuck out, my absence would be just as obvious as my sister’s.

      During third period, the front office sent a note for me to deliver to her after school. It was a formal notice for her to present herself for discipline first thing in the morning.

      After school, I stuffed the discipline notice into my satchel along with my books and walked home the long way, which led me past the Grab-n-Go. I stood across the street for several minutes, watching through the window for Dale, the assistant manager, to take his afternoon break. That would leave Ruth at the register, and Ruth never looked up from her crossword puzzle long enough to notice that I’d paid for the gum on the counter but not the food in my satchel.

      I hadn’t come for food this time, and that fact made me even more determined to avoid Dale.

      When he disappeared into the back room, I jogged across the street and into the store, wishing for the millionth time that there was no bell to announce my presence. Ruth looked up, focused on me for

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