A few days later…

Natalia walked into a fruit & vegetable market and saw a man by the counter.

"Hello, my name's Natalia. I'm here to see Mr Wilson?"

"Oh yes! I almost forgot you were coming. I'm Arthur Wilson" he said, holding out his hand.

"Natalia Kovalska" she replied, shaking his hand.

"Perfect. So we'll go in my office and talk about a couple of things, is it okay with you?"

"No problem"

In Mr Wilson's office…

"I noticed an accent" Mr Wilson said with a smile. "Where does it come from?"

"It's from Poland. I'm from Poland, I moved here a couple of days ago"

"My, my, my, I hope you didn't come all this way just to work for me" he joked as Natalia giggled. "Your English is perfect though"

"Thank you, Sir" she said, blushing.

She was glad to know that she could be understood even though she still had a hard time with her verb tenses.

"So. What I need is someone to run the cashier from time to time and help the guys putting the merchandise on the display stands"

"I can do that" Natalia said with confidence.

"I'm sure you can. Let's just say… I'm gonna let you try for a week or two and if everything's going fine then I'll keep you permanently, how's that sound?"

"Terrific" she replied, smiling big.

"Great! So I'll see you on Monday morning, 8 o'clock?"

"Perfect. Thank you, Sir, you won't regret your decision"

She shook his hand and left. Natalia was moving in her new apartment the next day and she was proud to say that she already found a job after only a few days in America.

Friday morning, in Natalia's apartment…

Natalia woke up in her bed, nauseous. She stayed in her bed for a while, hoping it would pass, but it didn't. She walked to the bathroom, holding her stomach, and sat next to the toilet. She hadn't felt absolutely great since the 'seasick' episode. She took her hair in one hand, resting the other on the side of the toilet, and she threw up. She panted a little then threw up a second time. When everything seemed under control, she stood up and looked at herself in the mirror. See her reflection was still weird. She hadn't seen herself for about two years.

She thought that going to the doctor's office would be a great idea since she had been sick for the last few days and it could be serious. She would go on Monday after her first day of work.

Monday…

Her first day of work went perfectly well. The guys were all kind and nice and they treated her like a normal person, not inferiorly because she was a woman. She liked the people and the work too. She was now sitting in the waiting room at the doctor's office.

"Natalia Kovalska?" the doctor called as he walked into the room.

Natalia stood up and followed him in his office.

"What can I do for you, my dear?"

"Well, uhm, I crossed the Atlantic Ocean last week and got sea sick. Since I got back, I keep feeling dizzy and I throw up sometimes. I'm nauseous most of the time" Natalia explained.

"Alright…" he said as he wrote everything down on a document. "We'll run some tests and see what's going on"

A week later…

Natalia was waiting in the doctor's office, again, for her tests results.

"Good afternoon Mrs Kovalska" the doctor greeted her when he entered his office, holding a folder.

"Good afternoon. Is it serious?" she asked quickly. "You know, doctor, I got some of these nauseas a few days this week"

"Don't worry, it's perfectly normal, my dear" he reassured.

"It is?" she asked, confused.

"Morning sickness is usual in the first months of pregnancy"

Natalia looked at him with distress. The doctor didn't seem to notice her reaction. He couldn't suspect anything anyway, she had a ring on her left hand, didn't she?

"Congratulations" he simply said, instead.

She faked a smile and left the building. She ran as fast as she could, crying profusely. People were turning around when she ran passed them but she couldn't care less. Never turn around.

At the apartment…

Natalia locked herself in the bedroom. She stared at her reflection in the mirror then screamed with distress and culpability. Then, she punched herself in the stomach, using both her fists, for a few minutes. She didn't want this baby, it was way too much for her to handle right now.

"Die! Die!" she repeated to the little thing inside of her.

She finally let herself fall against the wall and buried her face in her hands before screaming again.

That night, at Emily's…

The phone rang after the two girls finished eating their dinner.

"It must be Zachary" Emily exclaimed. "Do you want to talk to him?" she asked Natalia.

Natalia nodded and barely listened when Emily talked to her son through the phone.

"Natalia? Zachary wants to talk to you. You can go in the den if you want to talk privately" Emily proposed.

"Thanks" she said, forcing a smile.

She walked to the den and sat on the black chair then took the phone.

"Hello?"

"Hey, how are you?" Zachary asked, happy to hear her voice.

He hadn't talked to her since she left Poland, two weeks before. Natalia didn't reply anything. She was too busy trying to keep her emotions inside.

"What is it, Talia? My mother said that you went to the doctor today?"

Talia. That was how her mother used to call her and nobody ever used that name except her. And she didn't tell Emily why she went to the doctor.

"It's nothing, I'm fine" she lied.

"I can tell when you're lying, Natalia. What is it?" he asked again.

"I need you, Zachary" she said, holding back her tears.

Zachary could tell, just by hearing her voice, that she was about to burst into tears. He panicked a little and ran a hand in his hair.

"Natalia, beautiful, tell me what happened at the doctor's office. What did he say to make you feel like that?"

"I'm pregnant" she admitted, bursting into tears.

She told him in Polish so his mother couldn't understand if she ever heard. Zachary stopped breathing for what seemed to be eternity. He fisted his hair and pulled, trying to keep himself awake, his feet firmly on the ground. He asked himself so many questions about Josef and Natalia and with what she just told him, she answered probably half of them.

"I can't come back now, I'll be home in about a month or so"

"I don't want this thing" she said with disgust. "I just wish it'd die" she sobbed.

Zachary didn't know why but he felt anger inside of him.

"You're going to keep this child, is that clear?" he said angrily.

"No! I can't!"

"You can and you will"

"It's mine, I'm gonna do what I want with it"

"You don't touch this baby!" he yelled through the phone.

"I can't take care of a baby. I'm only twenty, I can barely take care of myself. I don't know anything about life" she justified.

"Natalia" Zachary began, more calm. "You know I'll always be there for you, and if it means that I have to be there for a child too, then I will. Listen to me, this baby didn't ask to be there so you can't just kill it as if everything that happened was its fault. I know what you feel Natalia, believe me, because I lost the person I loved the most in the world and it hurts like hell" he explained, tearing up. "You have a 2,000$ ring on your finger but it's nothing but material. This ring will never have feelings for you!"

"You don't understand anything, Zachary! You think you do but you don't!"

"Oh yeah? You know, in the fall of 1939, I met this amazing girl and I fell in love with her. And then, one day, I saw her leave and even though I did everything I could to help her, when I found her, she had replaced me and was engaged"

Natalia said nothing but she bit her lip, holding back the new batch of tears that were threatening to escape.

"But I forgive her because, like I said, I love her. I just want to say that, one day, you might regret what you've done to this kid if you allow yourself to get rid of it. That little baby that you're going to give life to, it's gonna love you no matter what you're doing, even in your mistakes. It's going to give you a hard time but you're gonna forget everything as soon as it's gonna wrap its little arms around your neck, apologizing. And most of all, it's gonna call you 'mommy' and that, you wouldn't trade it for anything because you'll never feel something as satisfying in your whole life"

"I'm scared" she confessed, crying softly.

"I know it's a huge responsibility but you're not gonna be alone, that I can promise you"

How would people look at her? In 1944, you had to be married to have children. Or sex for that matter. She would be the neighborhood's whore. That's how she felt anyway.

"I'm just a slut. My sister even told me once" she sobbed.

"Hey! I don't want to hear you say that about yourself ever again, alright? It's not true and you know it. You were in love and it's ok to be, you did nothing wrong"

"Yeah, I did! I sinned! And more than just once"

"Listen, I sinned too, everybody did once in their life. People did things way more serious than you did. Just promise me that you won't do something you would regret to this baby. Promise me, alright?"

"I promise" she muttered.

"Fine. I'll talk to you next week, ok?"

"Sure"

"Could you put my mom back on the phone, please?"

"Yeah"

She told Emily that Zachary wanted to talk to her again. She thanked her for dinner and left. Once she was at her apartment, she took a long and hot bath to relax. She lay down, looked at her flat stomach and cried softly, thinking about the life that was growing there.