Chapter Six: Decision of a Lifetime

Oh God. Oh good lord. How, how, how? Okay, obviously while Shelia was raping me she got pregnant, but WHY ME!? I tried very hard to not panic. I kept telling myself mentally to calm down while Shelia and the baby- no, her baby, no, our baby, no, MY baby- stood there, waiting for a reaction.

"Oh God, I'm a father?' I said. Shelia nodded. She looked extremely ticked off. "Hey, you were he one that raped me-"

"No kidding! My pill failed, okay?" she said.

"Why are you back here in Toyama now?" I asked. "Did you want to find me and tell me about this?!"

"No, not really," said Shelia. "Once I realized my monthly friend was late, I had a feeling that your best swimmer got a home run." Monthly friend? Oh, so that's what Hiroko meant by Sheila's friend was "missing". Hmm, Hiroko really was a ditz, she assumed that Sheila's "friend" was an actual person.

I took in a deep breath. "So why are you here again?"

"The brat's going in the orphanage," said Shelia.

My mouth must've dropped to the floor. She was going to do WHAT!? "You're going to put our baby in THAT dump?" I said.

"Yes, you have a problem with that?" said Shelia. "I don't care what happens to her, and sure as heck the lady doesn't care much more, so-"

"Well maybe I give a care about her!" I said.

Shelia looked at me for a few seconds and started to laugh. "Yeah right, Cye, you think you could take care of her?"

"Yes I do," I said. Shelia was silenced. So was I. What had I just said?!

"Really, you're willing to take on this responsibility?" asked Shelia.

I nodded. "Maybe she wasn't conceived in the most pleasant manner for one of us, but she's still our flesh and blood, still a human being. No one, and certainly not a newborn, deserves that," I said, jerking my thumb at the orphanage.

"So what you're saying is that you're willing to give up your freedom to tend to the spore?" said Shelia.

My eyes narrowed. "How can you call her a spore?!"

"Hey, I didn't see you skip town because you had a huge beach ball stomach," said Shelia. "Don't think this is my fault, the pill failed."

"Shelia, if you'd respected my wishes-" Before I could finish Shelia slapped me across the face, startling me so I fell into a trashcan. She stared down at me as I stood up.

Her eyes were dead serious. "So, are you going to take her back to your friends? How do you plan on explaining how you got the child without telling me off?" she said.

I thought about that. I could always explain that I'd found her on the street, but I didn't have the heart to tell such a serious lie, especially about my own child, no matter what the situation. "May I hold her?" I asked.

"Why not? I'm not the one stuck with her after this," said Shelia, handing her over. I accepted the baby, and was instantly filled with wonderment. This tiny baby was mine? I'd given her life? I lightly touched her face, feeling the soft, smooth skin on my bare fingertips. "So, what are you going to do now?"

"I, I can't give her to you, you'll just send her off to the orphanage," I said.

"Yeah, so?"

"You know the rumors, you know they're true," I said. "I can't go back, because if I tell the others, they'll place my odd behavior, the baby, and you together and figure out what happened that night, and this time you might not kill me, but you might kill the baby."

"Why didn't I think of that?" asked Shelia. "I should have-"

I backed away from Shelia, holding the child closer to me than I had before. "I don't think so," I said.

"So, where you gonna go?" asked Shelia teasingly. "You could always skip town."

Skip town. I could always go to Tokyo. I'd probably get a chance to start over there, and it was such a big city, there must be dozens of kids in my situation, so I wouldn't be such an outcast. "I'll go to Tokyo."

"You're nuts," said Shelia. "But, well, that's one way to get rid of her. Okay, let me get her birth certificate, you need to sign it being you're her father, and then you fill in the name, and I don't have to ever see either of you ever again." She reached into her backpack and pulled out a manila folder.

"You're just leaving?" I said. "You mean you're not going to even call or write to see how she's doing?"

Shelia snorted. "Heck no! Good bye, DADDY," she said mockingly as she waltzed down the street. I watched her until she disappeared over the horizon. I heard the sounds of someone coming down the stairs and to the front door of the orphanage. I had to get out of there before Madame Himishi found us. I turned a corner and just barley missed her. I let out a sigh of relief and looked down at my daughter.

"Well, now what?" I asked. No answer. Fast asleep. Looked comfortable. "Yeah, that's what I thought you'd say. Come on, let's get out of here."

No more than a half-hour later I was on a bus headed for Tokyo. The bus was nearly deserted with only a few other people on. I was in the back, trying to avoid as much contact as possible. The bus stopped and a few people got on. A woman in her late twenties with a baby and a diaper bag started towards the back. "Oh crap, I'm gonna get one mother of a lecture-"

"Hi there!" the woman said in a friendly voice as she sat next to us. "That your baby sister?"

I looked down at my feet. "No," I said. The next phrase was a bit unsettling. I wasn't used to it. "She's my daughter."

"Oh, how old are you young man?"

"Sixteen," I said. "How'd you know she was a girl?"

"Pink blankets, but how'd you get the kid? Most teenage boys I know that conceive with their girlfriends usually leave them and-"

"Reversed roles this time, sort of. If I got pregnant I would've already been all over the newspapers," I said, "but, she left me and the baby, and her mom isn't exactly in the right mind, either."

"What do you mean?"

"She either wants to put her in an orphanage or dispose of her permanently," I said.

"Oh good lord, no offense, but you have terrible taste in women," said the woman.

I half laughed. "Yeah, I guess you can say that, ma'am."

The woman looked her over. "How old is she?"

"I don't know," I said. "I think her birth certificate is in the folder. I just found out that my girlfriend even got pregnant in the first place just an hour ago, she skipped town before she started to show." The woman picked up the folder and started flipping through the documentation.

"July 18, that's my mother's birthday," said the woman thoughtfully. She looked at the baby. "You have anything to feed her with?"

"No," I said. The woman reached into her diaper bag and pulled out a bottle. "Feed her this when she wakes up, which will probably be soon, I'll show you how feed her-"

"WAH!" I looked down at my daughter to see that she'd started to wail.

"I think she's up," I said. The woman showed me how to hold my daughter and the bottle, and soon she was peacefully drinking the milk.

"She's a beautiful baby," said the woman.

"Thank you, uh, what's your name?" I asked.

"My name is Ami Yukuo, and this is my son Yoshio," she said. She looked up at me, smiling. "You look like you're going to make a great father."

"For her sake I hope so," I said.