“The Safety of Newborn children Law”, the screen says, “Offers parents a safe place to leave a newborn infant.”

Confidentially.

Without fear of punishment.

She rubs the fading bruise on her shoulder. It’s turned yellow-green in the last week. Soon it will dissipate only into memory. Eventually it will fade even from that sinuous, shifting world. Replaced by something brighter, more immediate.

The child tugs in her belly and stretches its tiny knees. Feet thump and run in her insides. She imagines a dimpled little toe poking through her belly button, a leg uncurling behind it, and a wet, tiny body behind that. The child would walk, impossibly, on flat, fat feet down her swollen thighs and out the door. To a fire station, a hospital, to bequeath itself into the care of a “Qualified Person.”

Namely, not her.

She remembers her last visit to a Qualified Person.

The stark white curtains and sheets, the blinding shame. Concerned blue eyes, furrowed brows. Her own insistence that no, nothing was wrong, she tried to imitate the look of dumb not-knowing. Eyes blank and wide open, a smile small enough to hide her chipped tooth. The one she can’t afford to fix.

She knew what her record said on the screen: cracked ribs six months ago, a broken foot before that. Too many injuries too close together.  Concern faded into impatience on the doctor’s face.  With a quick wave of the hand he dismissed the conversation, “Ok, put your feet in the stirrups.  We’re looking at your baby today.”

She feels him moving in the other room. Grumbling at the tv. Opening a beer.

Rapture out-shone pain for just one moment when she saw the black and white shape on the monitor, “That’s your baby. There’s the head, the arms.” Wa-wump, wa-wump, “That’s her heart beat.”

And she smiled, showing the chipped tooth. Her heart leapt into her throat, choking out the air and she breathed, “That’s her heart beat.”

In bold black letters on the computer screen, “Unharmed” is the guarantee of anonymity and immunity. Unharmed.

He coughs and his belt jingles open. There’s the sound of piss arching into the porcelain bowl.

Tiny feet kick at bladder, crashing into every organ within reach. Tantrum in-utero.

He’s shouting at the tv again. His voice echoes and reverberates through the apartment. Children scream and play outside, hollering in the late-afternoon light.