“You need to tell this man you’re pregnant with his baby,” Mom scolded.

“What you need to do is drink this water so it can help with the cough,” I instructed and gripped her chin to keep her head in place.

“I don’t want any damned water,” she argued and slapped my hand away.

“Mom!” I all but shouted. I sighed and sank back. “This is all I can do for now. Let me do this.”

The weight of being there every day crushed me, and it didn’t help that she kept trying to force me to return to Raymond. I would have aborted the baby if I had the money to do it because I couldn’t raise a child while I lived in a poor house.

She muttered something under her breath and leaned forward. “Okay. Give it to me,” she said and pointed at the cup I held in my lap. I placed the cup to her lips, and she sipped a little before she sputtered into a cough.

“Mom!” I cried and pulled back hurriedly so the water wouldn’t get my dirty clothes wet.

I caught movement through the corner of my eye and turned. My mouth fell open, and I felt weak at the same time the cup fell from my hand. It clattered to the floor, and I barely noticed the water as it made a trail until I felt it settling around my knee. I blinked several times, thinking it must be my imagination—Raymond could not be here. He started walking forward, and I looked back at Mom. Her eyes were wide, and I wasn’t the only one who’d seen him. She did too.

I stood and immediately felt conscious of the painted, stained, ripped, and worn jeans I wore, and of the numerous holes decorating the front of the once white tee. I wanted to slip between the cracks of the floorboards, out of his sight, and I rubbed my hands nervously along my legs before I folded them across my chest.

“What are you doing here?” I tried to smooth my hair as I looked uncomfortably around me. The other persons nearby were watching, curious about this man in the fancy suit and tie. People like him didn’t come around often, so he attracted a lot of unwanted attention. And by extension, the gazes shifted between him and me. I couldn’t stand still, shifting my weight between my legs, and shoved my hands into my pockets.

“I came to see you,” he said softly.

I was dumbstruck. “Me?”

He sighed and stepped closer, which I wished he hadn’t done that. My heart drummed uncomfortably loud, and I could actually see it pumping in my chest as my shirt rose and fell. I was suffocating with him so close, and everything I had felt for him and that I thought had disappeared over the month rushed to memory.

“I came to apologize,” he began.

He was right in front of me now, and my hand went involuntarily to my stomach. I wasn’t showing yet, but our baby was inside and I felt like I needed to hold onto something real.

“For what?” I folded my hands across my chest.

“For judging you. Anna, this wasn’t easy for me,” he said forcibly, and his face twisted as he forced words.

I looked everywhere but at him as I rocked on my heels. “I know. I was wrong to do what I did, and I’m sorry. But you didn’t need to come here for that.”

“No, I didn’t,” he said with a sigh. “You know, I had my lawyer draw up divorce papers.”

It was hard not to look at him as the pangs of pain tore across my chest. I gulped and waited for him to ask me to his car to sign on the dotted line—my mark that what we had was over, legally and in all other ways.

“I expected that,” I whispered and hung my head. “Where are they?”

“I didn’t bring them,” he replied. “I didn’t sign them either.”

“Look, Raymond, we don’t have to do this here. You’re causing a scene now. Can we go to the car or something?”

“I didn’t drive, and what I want to do, I can do right here,” he retorted.

He was so stubborn, and with my emotions swirling like smoke above a dying bonfire, I was not in the mood for games. I wanted to forget this man, not have him show up whenever he felt like it and dredge up feelings.

“What do you want? You asked me to leave, and I did. I didn’t take anything from you. But you can search if you like. Everything I have is over there and—”

He shut me up with his lips on mine. My eyes widened and my hands fell to my side as I froze. I didn’t understand what was happening, and the pressure in my head expanded.

“Wait!” I stepped away from him, shocked. “What is this?”

“Don’t you get it, Anna? I want you,” he said. His eyes were filled with pain and confusion, and he turned around and ran his hand through his hair. “Since you left—”

“You mean since you threw me out,” I interrupted.

“Yes,” he said and turned around sharply. “I thought…I don’t know what I was thinking. Things haven’t been the same since you left, and I realized it really doesn’t matter what…that you don’t have any money, and live in a place like this…” He stopped to look around, and he really did look scared the building would fall on top of him. I’d felt that way many times.

I never expected him to come to the shelter or to say what he was saying. I didn’t know what to do. I was carrying his child, the child he had wanted even more than me. What would he do when he found out?

My mother was reading my mind. “Tell him,” she whispered hoarsely.

“Mom!” I snapped and balled my fists against my thighs as I whipped my head around to shut her up.

“Anna, you need to…”

“Mom!” I said more forcefully and stomped my foot. “Just leave it alone.”

“Tell me what?” Raymond wanted to know.

“Nothing,” I lied, my eyes staring anywhere but at him. “There’s nothing to say.” My hand moved to my stomach again, an involuntary confession I hadn’t realized I’d made until I saw his eyes widen.

“Anna, what is it?” he pressed, and he stepped close to me again.

When he was in my personal space, I was his slave, and like all the times before, I was weak to him. “I don’t want you to think I did this deliberately, but I found out before you threw me out, and I wanted to tell you, but I was angry and I left. And after, I did try to come back, but I panicked…”

“Anna!” he said and grabbed me by the shoulders. “What is it?”

My eyes burned as the tears seeped from the corners. “I’m pregnant.”

I didn’t look at him after the words I wasn’t mentally or emotionally prepared to say rolled off my tongue as if we were having an ordinary conversation like two ordinary people. I didn’t know what to expect. Technically, he was still my husband, so at least there was that. I simply wasn’t sure what would happen next.

“What?” he asked as he let go. “Are you serious?” I nodded. “Goddamn!” he muttered and wiped his hands over his mouth. His face lit up. “You’re pregnant?” His eyes dropped to my stomach and his hand moved. “I’ve got a baby growing in there?”

“Yes,” I answered timidly. “You’re not angry?”

“Why the hell would I be angry?” he asked through a laugh. “This is unbelievable.” He looked happy and overwhelmed by the news. “Okay, that’s it. You’re coming home with me.”

I looked at my mother, who had begun to cough again. “I can’t leave my mother and sister here. I left before, and it…it was unbearable. She’s sick and…”

Raymond smiled. “Anna, you can take them with you. I have more than enough room for everyone.”

“Are you sure?” I asked as excitement filled me slowly.

Teresa wandered over and hugged me around the middle, unaware, as children often are, of the situation. “Anna, I’m hungry,” she wailed. “Do you have any chips?”

Raymond answered before I did. “I bet this is Teresa,” he said. I was alarmed that he knew her name, but he had enough money to buy any piece of information he wanted.

“It is,” I replied and smoothed the top of her head.

Raymond bowed to her level. “I know a great cheeseburger place,” he offered.

Her eyes widened. “Really?” Then she looked at me. “Can I go?”

It was hard to resist those eyes, and I felt a pang of guilt because I had never been able to take her to any of the nice places children often went.

Before I could answer, she turned to Raymond again. “I’ll go if Anna can go,” she said innocently.

Raymond looked up at me. “Well?”

“Fine. But we are a mess,” I told him, which was a fact. We didn’t look like we were supposed to be in the same company, and I didn’t want to look like his charity case.

“I can take you to get cleaned up,” he suggested.

“I don’t want you to feel like you have to do these things,” I hurried to say.

“But I do,” he replied adamantly. “You’re my wife.”

That was the first time he had addressed me as such, and it stopped the next words dead on my lips. The tears started again.

“Anna, you’re crying again?” Teresa asked in shock, and the way she said it made us laugh.

“When you’re older, you’ll cry all the time too,” I told her and stroked her cheek with my thumb.

“No. I’m going to be tough,” she declared resolutely.

I looked at Mom, who was all but beaming. “There’s someone else you need to meet,” I told him. “This is my mom.”

She jumped to her feet, the cough no longer a meddlesome bother. “Pleased to meet you. I told her she should go to you about the baby, but she didn’t listen, and—”

“Mom!” I cried again as she launched again into an embarrassing onslaught of words.

Raymond found it amusing. “It’s a pleasure,” he said and gripped her hand firmly.

He wasn’t as rude as he had been at first, treating my poverty like it was a kind of contagion. He was more relaxed and seemed almost oblivious to his current environment. He scooped Teresa into his arms like it was the most natural thing and led the way from the shelter and, into a brighter future. Or so I hoped. But in that moment, I couldn’t have been happier.