The Baby They Killed Was Her Only Hope

I went back to my parents' place for the holiday. At dinner, I made a point of avoiding the shellfish.

Mom noticed right away. "Are you pregnant?"

I was about to nod when she snatched up her chopsticks and hurled them at my face. "What do you think you're doing having a baby? Get rid of it!"

"If you don't have time, take a day off work. Getting rid of a baby doesn't take that long!"

I stared at her, stunned, and asked her why.

That only made her angrier. She flipped the entire table over. "You're seriously asking me why?!"

"You know perfectly well I'm having surgery in September, and you just had to go and get yourself a due date right then. You did this on purpose!"

"Your father's getting old. He can't handle the strain, so don't even think about dumping this on him!"

"And your brother and Daisy Lawrence just booked their trip. You can't expect them to cancel and waste that money!"

"But you? All you have to do is get rid of the baby and take care of me. Simple!"

A wave of nausea crawled up my throat. It took me a long time to realize she wasn't joking.

What she didn't seem to know was that her rare blood disease surgery depended on one thing: my baby's cord blood.

...

"Look at the state Mom's in, and you're just sitting there playing deaf and dumb?" Cornelius Dickerson tapped his finger against the table, the rhythm sharp, impatient, dripping with condescension. "You're young. You can have as many kids as you want."

"But you only get one mother. How is this even something you need to think about?"

Think about?

Even if the cord blood weren't the thing that could save Mom, this was still my child.

Was I not allowed to think about it?

I pulled myself together, looked Cornelius dead in the eye, and said, word by word: "What about you? Can't you just cancel the trip?"

"Is Mom's surgery really less important than your vacation?"

Before Cornelius could fire back, Daisy shot to her feet. "What's that supposed to mean, Sylvia Dickerson?"

"That's our belated honeymoon trip!"

"I bet you've hated me from the start. You don't want Cornelius going anywhere with me, so you got pregnant now on purpose!"

"Fine. If you won't even let me have a honeymoon, then we're getting a divorce!"

The word divorce drained the color from Mom's face.

She yanked me aside, her voice a furious hiss. "What is wrong with you? Why can't you just want what's best for your brother?"

"Are you not going to stop until you've driven him into a divorce?"

Then she swiped at her tears. "I'm going to be living with your brother when I'm old. This one time I need you to take care of me, and you can't even do that?"

"Your father's health is bad. I had no other choice but to ask you."

"No, that's not it!" I cut her off. "Mom, I can't terminate this pregnancy. The baby can—"

Before I could finish, Daisy rolled her eyes and let out a laugh. "A married-off daughter who comes back here every chance she gets to mooch off the family."

"Now the second someone asks her to pitch in and look after her own mother, suddenly she's not interested."

"Wants everything, gives nothing. How shameless can you get?"

Shameless.

The word landed in my ears, and something inside me surged upward, hot and violent.

I thought of the night six months ago when Mom had come home with that diagnosis report.

This same living room. I'd sat here the entire night without eating or drinking, scrolling through my phone until the screen burned my fingers, searching for any treatment, any path forward for a rare blood disease.

Cornelius had glanced at the report and said, light as air, that if it couldn't be cured, then don't bother trying.

I was the one who fought him. Screamed myself hoarse saying no.

And I was the one who, every two or three days after that, made the trip back here, never once walking through that door with less than five hundred dollars' worth of fruit and supplements in my hands.

I kept telling myself that if Mom could absorb even a little more nutrition, if her body could feel even the slightest bit better, it would all be worth it.