TNT ... Chicago 22
1 She envied Gabriella as she slept, what with her adorable tiny scrunched up face and her darling little clenched fists. 2 Her needs were basic ... and were, for the most part, met.
3 Maria wondered if her daughter's baby brain had any thoughts or troubles at all. 4 Did she use the downtime to ponder why she came into the world ... or who the people were that fawned over her? 5 Did she fantasize about what she'd eat in a month or two when she'd be allowed solid foods? 6 Did she reflect on what she'd seen that day, processing the information and filing it away to be recalled as needed?
7 Or worse -- was baby sleepy time actually the only chance the tiny human had to escape her surroundings? 8 Could it be that she absorbed any of the adult anxiety that was around her all day long? 9 Did she see her mother crying and feel any sense of guilt about the pressures she added to her with her arrival? 10 Did she absorb any of the tension between her mother and her uncle when they discussed how difficult it was to pay the bills when the priorities changed to put her immediate safety, health and welfare above all else -- even if it meant inexplicably jeopardizing the long term?
11 She was most definitely too little to understand that when cash flow was a constant worry, the little bills manage to get paid at the expense of the big dollar items ... because there was never quite enough left over to cover something of that big amount. 12 Rent was the largest line item on her budget, and even though Zar did his best to contribute, in the first few months of this new year, every extra dollar had been going to "baby this" and "baby that".
13 Now she was two months late, the landlord had started using the e-word in the messages he was leaving on her phone. 14 She thought it strange that Mr. Kissinger hadn't tried to catch her in a face to face meeting -- unless she was somehow successfully evading him at every turn. 15 The stress of living in fear that the next knock would be him at the door with papers setting up a timeline that would end with her and hers on the street was starting to wear on her.
16 Complicating matters was the fact that the one year anniversary of her dirtiest little secret was just around the corner -- that time the previous April when she was in a similar financial bind. 17 That time she traded herself for forgiveness of a month's rent. 18 That decision from long ago also weighed heavy on her mind.
19 She envied little three month old Gabriella as she slept ... for she didn't have to make the hard decisions like her mother did.
