Someone to Watch Over Me by Michelle Stimpson Page B

She rushed over to the window, pushed the lace curtain back, pulled the cord, and the old-fashioned canvas shade flopped down over the pane.
    Ever heard of blinds?
    She set the largest suitcase on the oblong rug, a coil of thick rope, in the center of the floor. I put the others on the bed, which required a great deal of effort seeing as the bed was a good two or three feet off the floor.
    â€œDon’t swing your arms like that!” Aunt Dottie snapped. “You’ll choke the baby with the cord—so they say.” Then she laughed at herself. “Whew, chile, I don’t know nothin’ ’bout having babies. All I can tell you is what I’ve heard other people say.”
    My eyes bugged out and I lost my breath. Was she actually referring to it? The baby?
    This woman (not even my blood relative), whom I knew only from pictures and the occasional family reunion, had in an instant let me know that I wasn’t out of my mind. That it really was happening and that I wasn’t the only one who could see the basketball sitting at the top of my legs. She stopped for a second, peered down at me above the rim of her glasses and asked, “What’s the matter with you, sweetie? You look like you seen a ghost.”
    â€œNothing . . . ma’am.”
    â€œEverybody calls me Aunt Dottie, precious.”
    Aunt Dottie hung up the last of my maternity dresses and dismissed herself. “I’ll give you some time to yourself. When you’re ready, you can come to the kitchen and eat you some breakfast. I’ll be leaving in a little while so I can go open up the store.” She shuffled herself out of the room on a pair of worn-out ruby red slippers.
    A store? I’d overheard my stepfather talking about the store and how it didn’t matter that Aunt Dottie couldn’t watch me since I was already pregnant. They just needed me out of town for now.
    I unzipped my book bag and searched the room for a suitable home for my best friends, my novels. My mother asked why I’d packed books she knew I’d already read. I shrugged, knowing full well it would have been impossible to leave behind the only people I had left in the world. When I could find no resting place for Carolina, Beatrice, Maxine, and the others, I settled them onto the floor, just to the right of the bed, in eight stacks of five. The last book I pulled from the bag was the Bible. Try as I might, I couldn’t get it to line up with the others. It was too thick. Where am I gonna put this? More importantly, I wondered, what exactly am I supposed to do with the Word of God now? I was fifteen and pregnant, had been all but kicked out of my home, and was sent out to the middle of nowhere to live with an old lady who didn’t know diddly-squat about being an expectant mother. I was facing an inevitably painful experience, and after all that was over, all I could do was turn the baby over to my Aunt Vivian, whom I knew just about as well as I knew Aunt Dottie at that point.
    I put the Bible back into my bag and stuffed the bag to the back corner of the closet. Momma had said there was no use in crying out now—I wasn’t crying then. I guess I just figured I was on my own so far as God was concerned.
    I finished unpacking my things and placing them throughout the ancient room. The walls were perfect for a baby’s nursery: light blue wallpaper with pastel flowers from the midpoint up. The top and bottom were separated by a white, raised wooden bar. Beneath the bar was wood paneling that had obviously been painted white. With some stuffed animals, a bassinet, and a few rugs, it would be the perfect place to nurse a baby. But who was I kidding? If things continued on the way they had been—with arrangements being made on my behalf—I’d be lucky to see the baby’s face before my mother and Mr. James shipped him or her off to be adopted by my mother’s cousin in Iowa.

Chapter 7
    A major