I was waiting for her, no TV, phone silent, but I still almost missed her. She knocked so timidly, she could have been a moth fluttering around the light. She had taken a few steps back toward the stairwell when I opened the door and silently motioned for her to come on in. I offered her the only seat, a cheap plastic chair, and I sat on the bed, facing her. It seemed like half an hour before she was able to push the question out of her mouth.

"Did you… kill… your baby?"

"Yes, sweetie." She looked down as I rubbed my belly. "That little girl you played with in here is dead, dead. They put a needle in my belly and stabbed her in the heart. I watched her die right there on the sonogram machine."

"Wh… why?"

"Because that's what I wanted! I wanted to get pregnant, watch my baby grow, and then watch my baby die."

She had a confused look. "But, but you're still…"

"Oh yes, sweetie, I'm still pregnant. In a few hours, I'll deliver my stillborn daughter." She was still puzzled, so I pointed behind me. "Right there, in the bathtub." I laughed, "A water birth, just like the fancy white ladies!"

My laugh is contagious. She put her hand up to her mouth to stifle a giggle, but it didn't work. She started laughing until she had to put her hands over her belly.

"Ow, that made her start jum-Hup!" she hiccuped. "Oh my God not tha-Hup! Dammit! That hu-Hup!"

I got up and offered her a bottle of room-temperature water from the broken fridge. When her hiccups quieted down, she looked at me, as if really seeing me for the first time.

"I can't kill my baby," she said.

"Why not?"

"Because I love her."

I rubbed my quiet, still belly. "I loved my little girl, too, sweetie. I loved her from the first moment of her life," I grinned, "while I was getting pounded from behind in a bathroom stall." The girl gasped at the image, and I had her full attention now.

"She wasn't an accident, honey. I only go to the bars for one thing, to get myself knocked up." I laughed. "I don't even know what he looked like. He coulda been your daddy for all I know!" She snorted and pushed hard on the top of her belly to keep her baby from starting a new round of hiccups.

"My daddy's a preacher," she said, rolling her eyes. "He wouldn't have gone to a place like that."

"Oh sugar, you don't know a lot about preachers, then!" We both cracked up again, but fortunately her baby didn't get up under her ribs this time. Our laughter faded, and we sat in silence again.

"You loved your baby, but you… you…"

I looked at the girl's pale face, splotched with pregnancy pimples and framed by her thin brown hair. I leaned in, as much as my belly would let me, and looked her right in the eyes. "Do you want to kill your little girl?"

Her eyes got wide, like when I whispered to her on the sidewalk. Her breath came in shallow puffs. "Yes," she said, softly but clearly. "But…"

I tilted my head. "But what?" I whispered.

Now her eyes lost focus, and she looked past me, through the wall, and across the river. I knew that what was coming next would be from the deepest part of her soul.

"I want to die, too."