Grace

     Grace carried her bag of groceries up the stairs to the apartment she shared with her husband of ten years. The crying she heard was painful and lonely. It came from the neighbor’s across the hall. A girl lived there who was pregnant and engaged to a tattoo artist. The girl was always smiling when Grace saw her and the sounds concerned her. She set her groceries inside her own door, closing it before one of the cats could make an escape, and knocked on the girl’s door. Nothing. The crying was loud, perhaps she didn’t hear. Knock knock knock.

     Nothing.

     The water running in the bathroom was all Grace could hear along with muffled cries. Is the baby okay? Grace thought. The girl was still in the range where a miscarriage was possible. How terrible to be alone if such a thing happened. Knock knock knock… Please, answer.   

     The apartment manager came up the stairs, keys jingling, a look of surprise when he saw Grace knocking.

     “I heard crying,” she said.

     “Eddie called and asked me to check on her.”

     “She’s not answering the door. I’ve been knocking the last ten or fifteen minutes now.”

     The manager put the key in the door, cracking it open. “Hello? Are you okay, Lily?”

     The girl appeared, tears streaming, eyes red. Grace didn’t wait for an okay. She walked in and put her arms around her and let her cry into the shoulder of her dry-clean only blazer.

     “Sweetheart, are you okay?”

     The girl cried. “I’m so lonely! I don’t want to be pregnant, it’s so hard!”

     Grace held her and rubbed the back of her head tenderly. “There now, what’s happened? Are you okay?”

     She sniffled into Grace’s shoulder, pulling herself closer into the embrace of an almost stranger. “He’s never home and I have no friends. I’m so lonely and I can’t do anything because I’m pregnant.”

     Grace swallowed. Loneliness. “Take a deep breath, love. There, now. Breathe.” She held the girl until she calmed down, feeling the baby between them against her own belly.

     The manager picked up his phone, then said, “Eddie says your grandmother is on her way to pick you up.”

     “Eddie can eat shit.”  She put her head back on Grace’s shoulder.

     “Listen, I’m right there across the hall, okay? You come over and I’ll make you some tea, give you hugs, conversation, okay? You don’t have to feel alone, I’m right there.”

     Lily looked up at Grace, her eyes sopping. “Okay.” 

     Grace gave her another hug and whispered, “You’re beautiful and loved and not alone.”

     Lily responded by crying again.

     Lily's grandmother came and picked her up, taking her away for the evening. Grace returned to her bag of groceries; the milk was a little warm, but would survive. She sat in her chair by the window, watching the cats sleep. She touched her own belly that would always be flat. She loved her husband. He was a good man.