Chosen by Chandra Hoffman

Heather hefts herself into the passenger seat, her hand over her stomach, twisting to get comfortable under the safety belt.
    “Did you eat breakfast?” Heather is too skinny. The rare times Chloe has seen her without her signature baggy gray sweats, her arms were like branches, her belly barely a volleyball.
    “Michael had Cheerios, right, honey?”
    “Ohs!” Michael cries from the back. Chloe checks him in the rearview mirror as she merges onto 205.
    “Listen, we sent you a check for prenatal vitamins last week, and you cashed it. I hope you got them.”
    “You know, I really meant to, but it was Michael’s birthday, and the prenatals make me sick. I’m eating really good, though, lots of salad. I swear.” Heather is seventeen, but she looks about twelve when she holds her fingers up in a Scout’s honor sign and grins.
    “So, listen.” Heather changes the subject. “Not to be nosy, but the other people with your agency, in eight? Penny and Jason?”
    “Yeah?” Chloe doesn’t know how she knows this, but she’s not surprised. Other clients in the building have had intimate knowledge of one another’s lives. Maybe the common walls are thin, or there is a local, grandmotherly gossip.
    “So, did I look at their portfolio, the people they chose for their baby, I mean?”
    “I don’t remember.” Chloe turns off the interstate.
    “I mean, are they a nice family? Who they chose?”
    “Why are you asking?”
    “Can you just tell me who it is?”
    “Heather…” Chloe sighs.
    “Just tell me. I remember all the portfolios. God, I studied them for like forever .”
    “It’s John and Francie,” Chloe says, though she shouldn’t.
    “The rich old couple with the cheesy wedding pictures at the coast, the ones who put in there that he makes like half a million a year?”
    “You think they look old?”
    “He does. He looks like a grandpa, and she’s as old as my mom! She looks good, you know, like she’d be a young kind of mom, but I did the math. Their wedding date was stamped on one of their photos, and she said in her bio they met when she was thirty-three, so—”
    “Yes, that’s them.”
    “Oh.” Heather looks out the window as they pull into the parking lot at the clinic.
    “What? Heather, what?”
    “It’s nothing, really. I mean, you know that his brother moved in, right? And his girlfriend too, the Indian one who’s like twelve with all the crank craters?”
    “What does this have to do with anything, Heather?”
    Heather looks at Chloe, then in the backseat, where they both see Michael has fallen asleep.
    “The brother, Jason’s brother? He’s a total candy man, and they say he pimps out that girl.”
    “Really?”
    “Don’t say I said. It’s none of my business. I just wanted to know if it was a nice couple getting their baby.”
    “Does Penny do it?”
    “Crank? I don’t think so. Nah; she’s no tweaker. I think she’s just like that.”
    “Like what?” Chloe has cut the engine. Rain quickly covers the windshield, obscuring their view of the doctor’s office. It is so dark out, it could be night.
    “You know,” Heather is peeling her fuchsia fingernail polish in wormy shards. “I think she’s just a little messed up naturally, you know?”
    Chloe nods; she knows.
    “Don’t say I said, okay? The guy, Jason? They say don’t cross him.”
     
    I N THE WAITING ROOM , Chloe holds sleeping Michael, a chubby warm weight across her thighs, while Heather checks in.
    “I can take him now.” Heather offers her arms when she comes back to sit down.
    “On what lap? I’m not giving this up.”
    Heather smiles and wraps her arms around her stomach bulge, tapping her wet gray sneaker on the industrial carpet, rubbing her arms with her hands.
    “My mom thinks I’m totally crazy not to make Michael sleep in a crib. But I love to sleep with him, we both just curl up around the baby here.” Heather looks down, her voice breaks. “I just, I want him to know, the baby, that