Kyla POV

[chicating]

Getting to the point where I have to decide which track I want this tale on.
KYLA
If I had gotten pregnant in high school, I might have pictured that my mother could read it in my face. Maybe especially because I was lingering behind, trying to imagine why someone might want a tongue in her mouth. I lay awake all night, for once considering my options.I never had a lot of choices, but this seemed like another one without a best answer. If I didn’t believe in miracles, anyway. If I did, how could I turn this down?

Even if I walked away, as it were, it was hard to see what I’d be choosing instead in a tiny roster of freelance writing clients(one of whom I still needed to get the money from…God, I hated to ask) and a largely-online social life, that, while better than a poke I the eye, hardly left me buzzing like either Anna Wintour in fashion week or the little gadget I got at a college friend’s bachelorette. There was activism, too, but left-wing or not, I couldn’t fool myself that I was on some picket line in Harlan County or on Radio Free Europe in 1942. I sometimes was busy, but I was an extra for democracy; the fight would go on if I couldn’t.

My life was…fine. And I knew that a lot of effort and sweat from previous generations as well as my own had come together to build me this little slot in the corner. Which, ironically, made it feel less great rather than more. It didn’t seem like enough, even if the only thing I knew I was psyched about in my change in circumstances was the chance to say “Why me?” without being self-indulgent. Just in case an answer came in while I hashed this out, I asked again. For the first time in a long time, the voice in my head sounded small. But I didn’t hear anything but the usual middle-of-the-night house noises.

Maybe something would speak in my heart, I thought then(I had tried just as hard to ace Sunday School as much as regular school, but was able to toss the project aside once I was no longer fresh-faced and eleven.) My heart just beat, with no solution to my many puzzles. As usual.

My last attempt at knowing what I would say came when I called my mother, fresh from her quarterly trip to the garden store. I thought when she came to the phone I’d know what to say, especially as it took more rings than usual for her to pick up. I didn’t, and couldn’t muster my usual blurting of the Big News, even if I knew if it was good.
Mom got a deal on mulch and found some other plants which she would rescue with her green thumb skills. I didn’t want to leave that behind today…it was easier than what I needed to talk about.
“Mom,” I said. “Remember all those fliers about getting my tubes tied the health plan sent me. Wasn’t thinking I wanted kids, but after you get thirty flyers, it’s hard not to take that personally. Like I was the only one that got them, or something.”