It was a quiet night in our Utah home as I was taking out the trash when a young woman approached me. She was carrying a baby. As she got closer I recognised her as a girl I had helped at the rehab clinic I had worked at. Her fine blond hair looked all frazzled, I could tell from her face that she was using again.

"Hey Angela" she said,

"Deidre." I said, surprised, "What are you doing here?"

"I need some money." She replied hastily, and I invited her inside.

She followed me inside, still clinging to her child. He looked about ten months old, and undernourished. Seeing her with a child saddened me slightly, my husband and I were unable to have a child of our own.

My husband was very surprised to see that Deidre had come to visit, and stood in the lounge rather stunned as I went to the kitchen and got her a glass of water.

"Here, drink this." I said as I handed her the glass. She drank the water quickly, all the time keeping a tight grip on her baby. The child began to whimper slightly,

"You're using again aren't you?" I asked her as politely as I could,

"No," she responded quickly, "I just, um, I just got to get some food for my baby and some other stuff."

"Well if you're baby's hungry I can take you down the market and we can buy some food for him." I replied, knowing full well that she was using again.

"I- I can shop for my own baby!" she almost yelled at me and the child began to fret.

She became desperate at this point,

"Quiet! I can't think. See this watch? It's worth a lot. I'll give it to you for fifty bucks." She said, with a tone of desperation to her voice.

"She's not giving you money." My husband replied, a firm tone to his voice,

"Do you mind?" she snapped at him, "Angela, you're the only one at the clinic who treated me like a human." She pleaded with me, "Okay? Don't stop now."

"I'm sorry," I said as I walked across the room and opened the front door so that I could ask Deidre to leave.

"I'll sell you my baby!" she almost yelled at me in desperation.

My secret pain of going to a fertility clinic just to find out I couldn't bear children came washing back over me, a pain I had fought to try and hide.

"What?" I said surprised

"I heard you talking and I know you can't have your own. It's been killing you." She told me, the desperation in her eyes and her offer was looking to be very lucrative.

"I think it's time you left." My husband told her

"No, I, I'm thinking about Dana. You'll give him a good home. Okay? He'll be better off. Okay?" she tried to make up excuses to my husband, then to Dana "Shh, quiet. Quiet!"

"Honey!" my husband started and I held up my hand to silence him.

"How much money do you have in the house?" Deidre asked me.

Dana began to cry as I closed the front door.