He told her.

Her eyes widened and slowly, she brought a hand to her mouth. She shook her head. "Do the test again," she said.

"We did it twice, just to be sure," he said. "That's why you're so weak. You see, you're anemic. But don't worry, it's very common in the early stages of pregnancy."

"No!" she said. "I was on the pill!"

He made a note on his chart. "Uh huh, the pill's only 97 effective."

"But…I can't have a baby. I'm only 20! And I'm in nursing school! I can't have a baby."

He sighed. "Then I suppose you won't have it."

"Oh," she said. "You mean…abortion? I guess…maybe…"

"Miss Marquez, I don't want you rushing into anything. Now, you're only a few weeks along. There's still plenty of time if you decide not to have this baby. But I really want you to think about this. I gave you some meds to help with the anemia and you should be fine, so I'm going to send you home now. Is that okay with you?"

She nodded. "I guess so."

Then he said, "Just in case you decide to keep it, I'm going to put you on Nevirapine. It helps some babies with HIV positive mothers to not get the disease. It doesn't always work." Her HIV. She hadn't even thought about that.

He removed the I.V. from her hand and covered it with a Snoopy band-aid. "Should I send your boyfriend in?"

"No!" she said without thinking. She calmed herself down. "Give me a couple of minutes to process this, okay?"

"How's 10 minutes sound? Then I'll send him in. I'll tell him the nurse is with you." She nodded and he left her alone.

She just sat there for a few moments. She put her hand on her middle. A little…thing was growing in there and getting bigger with every minute. Like a parasite. She would have to drop out of school to take care of it. She'd never get her nursing degree. Roger would be mad at her. They both new she hadn't been as responsible with the pill as she should have. She forgot to take it sometimes. And he'd been amazingly accountable. He never forgot to use a condom. He never protested against it like the other guys she'd dated. Plus, he was 26. 26 is a good age for starting a family. Not 20. Hell, she was wearing a Snoopy band-aid! People who wear Snoopy band-aids shouldn't have babies!

And what if he wanted to get married? She hated the idea of marriage. As much as she loved him, she simply thought that marriage was the dumbest idea on the planet. Who says you have to marry your partner? Ducks mate for life and they don't have weddings. Roger was responsible. He'd want to marry her. All signs were pointing to an abortion.

Then she remembered the little girl at the funeral. The little girl who had been born with the virus and was going to die before she reached the third grade because her parents had HIV. The little girl who now had to spend the last part of her life without her mother.

Joanne and once said that about 30 of babies born to HIV infected mothers got the disease. When she'd told her that, it didn't seem like that much. But now that there was a thing growing inside of her, it sure seemed like a lot. 30. She pictured a room full of 100 happy babes. Then she pictured someone coming in and taking THIRTY of those babies and throwing them into the Nile like they did back in Moses' time. And one of those babies was hers. She started to cry again. There was no way she'd be able to go through with this. She would have the abortion in a week or so and she wouldn't tell Roger. That would be that. It wouldn't be that big of a deal. All she would be doing was saving the world from having more people with AIDS and saving one child from a miserable life. Look at how miserable the little girl had been. She would have the abortion and her conscious would be clear. Or so she hoped.

She heard footsteps. Roger was coming back. She caught her breath and wiped away her tears. "Meems?"

"…Yeah?"

He pulled back the curtain around her bed and closed it behind him. "Hey, baby." She flinched. Baby. "Hey, have you been crying? Your eyes are all red. "

"No," she said a little too quickly. "I'm just tired, don't worry." She tried to look him in the eye, but she couldn't. "Could you help me with the hospital gown? The doctor said I could go home, so I guess I should change."

She was happy not to be looking at him as he undid the ties on the gown. "So, is that all the doctor had to say?" He asked.

"He said I have anemia. I'll be fine."

"See?" he said, pulling off the gown. "I told you you'd be fine!" He kissed her on the cheek. She turned back around, but when she looked at him, the closest she could look to his eyes was his forehead. She put on her bra and dress. As she did so, she remembered the funeral.

"Where's everyone else?" She asked.

"I guess they don't know you're here," he said. "They were in the church when you fainted. I guess I should have called them."

"No," she said, crumpling the tights she didn't feel like wearing in a ball and shoving them in her purse. "It's good you didn't call them. They just would have worried, and that doesn't do any good."

"Yeah," he laughed, "And I did enough worrying for the both of us." She gave him as real a smile as she could manage and started putting her shoes back on. "No way," he said, snatching them away from her. "You aint walking those things. Look at you're feet! I'm calling us a cab." She tried to protest. They couldn't afford cabs. He insisted, though. I can't afford a cab. How am I going to afford a baby? I'm doing the right thing.

The days passed slowly. She took the Nevirapine and told Roger it was for her anemia. She made the appointment at the abortion clinic without telling a soul. She couldn't face Roger. She was too guilty. She wouldn't come home from school until late, saying that she was having trouble in chemistry and was staying late for tutoring. She'd leave early for work at the Cat Scratch saying that now that she was waiting tables instead of dancing (Roger had wanted it that way), she had to get their a lot earlier. (Another reason not to have the baby. She'd loose her job. No one fantasies about fat pregnant women.) When she got home from work late at night and Roger would make a move or something, she'd say she was still exhausted from the anemia, kiss him lightly, and pretend to fall asleep when she was really lying awake in guilt. She wanted to tell him. They'd promised to always be honest. But it was too late now. He might be mad at her for waiting so long to tell the truth. Besides, she'd already scheduled the appointment. And what if he wanted the baby? She gripped her stomach and cried herself to sleep without making a sound.

The night before the abortion, she couldn't sleep at all. She left a note on her pillow for Roger saying that one of her friends was having a problem and needed her, and she left. Still wearing the sweats she'd worn to bed that night, she walked down the street covered in her fleece blanket. She used the key Maureen had given her and walked right into her and Joanne's apartment. "Hello?" she whispered.

A voice came from inside the dark room. "Put your hands up where I can see them! I am armed. I repeat, I AM armed! Make one single move and I'll attack!"

"Joanne, it's me, Mimi." The light turned on. She looked at Joanne who was holding a loaf of French bread, with Maureen cowering behind her. "Eek." She said, laughing. "Bread. God help me." The couple sighed in relief. "Sorry," she continued, "I'm cynical when I'm tired."

"No worries," said Joanne. "I'm cynical when I'm breathing. Babe, what are you doing here? It's the middle of the night!"

"Did you and Roger have another fight?" Maureen asked. They sat on the couch and motioned for Mimi to join them. She sat by Joanne, and Maureen grabbed her legs and stretched them across both their laps. "Comfy?"

"Yes," she said.

"Yes what?"

"Yes, I'm comfy."

"So you didn't have a fight?"

"No," Mimi said. "Roger's been great." They looked at her in confusion. She didn't know what to say, so she just came out and said it. "I'm pregnant."

She watched as both their eyes became big round balls in their faces. Then Maureen started squealing, "Oh my God! A baby! That's great! Oh, what are we going to name it? Is it a boy or girl? How far a long are you? A baby! A—" Joanne covered Maureen's mouth when she saw that Mimi wasn't clapping along with them.

She tried to smile. "I'm having an abortion tomorrow."

"Oh," said Maureen. Then she got it. "Oh." Mimi nodded. "What does Roger think?"

She frowned. "That's why I'm here. I…well, he doesn't know."

Joanne sighed. "Oh, sweetie," she said, "He's the father. Don't you think he has a right to know?"

"Don't give me your lawyer talk!"

"It isn't lawyer talk. It's moral talk. He's the father, Mimi. It's his child, too."

"Well," she said, "tomorrow it will be no one's child. I can't tell him. It would break his heart. I can't have this baby." She began to list her reasons. "I'm poor, I'm too young, and I'm finally in school. I'd have to drop out. I'd loose my job. We can't afford it. I'm not ready. I want to enjoy what's left of my life with Roger! I can't do that if I'm taking care of some brat. And what if it has HIV? I can't. I won't! I'll be dead before it's out of elementary school. That's not fair to it. I can't go through with it." She felt herself beginning to cry again.

Maureen thought it over and said finally, "I guess…it's probably best, then. Don't worry, babe. We'll be here to talk all night."

"That's…not why I'm here." She said. "I was wondering…if maybe you guys could go with me tomorrow. I don't want to do this alone. I'm so scared."

Maureen covered her mouth to keep from crying. "Of course we will, sweetie."

"I have to represent a client," Joanne said, but Maureen gave her the are you kidding me! look and she said, "But of course I can postpone it. My client's stupid appeal on the death penalty can wait for you."

Mimi smiled and laughed through her tears. "Thanks," she managed to say, before she became lost to her sobs. They held her and rocked her and cried with her until she calmed down. Maureen asked if she wanted to crash with them for the night.

"No," she replied. "I kind of want to be close to Roger right now."

Joanne nodded. "I'll drive you home. We'll pick you up tomorrow at noon and take you to the clinic. Just tell him we're going out to lunch."

When Mimi got home, she kicked off her shoes and fell into bed, crumbling the unread note up and throwing it in the trash. She got under the covers and wrapped her arms around Roger and rested her head on his chest. He stirred under her weight. "Hey," he said gently.

"Roger," she said. Her throat was tight. "You love me, right?"

He kissed her. "Of course."

"And you'll always love me? No matter what?"

He kissed her again. "You know I will. I swear. Is something up?"

"No," she said. "I just want you to hold me tonight. Is that okay?"

He kissed her one more time. "Of course." Mimi fell asleep that night to the sound of her nervous heart pounding.

When Joanne and Maureen came to pick Mimi up for "lunch" the next day, Roger had no idea that the reason Mimi was holding him so close was because she was about to do the hardest thing she would ever have to do. Mimi was just glad that she'd been able to keep her tears in until she got out the door. Maureen looked at her with a heavy heart. She couldn't imagine this girl's pain. "I'm so glad I'm a lesbian," she said.

Joanne hit her on the shoulder, but Mimi's sobs turned into laughter. "Thank you," she said, "For making a joke. I love you guys. It means so much that you're coming with me for…" her voice trailed off and she started to cry again.

The clinic's small waiting room was full of young weeping women and their boyfriends and best friends. It was abortion day. Today just plain sucked.

Every now and then, a nurse came in and called in another woman. Mimi watched them. One of them ran out of the clinic. The rest came into the doctor's exam room pregnant and came out…well…not. She started shaking. "Are you sure you want to do this?" Joanne kept asking. She just nodded and went right on shaking.

After the forth or fifth girl's appointment, the nurse came out and said, "Marquez? Mimi Marquez?" If there had been anything in her intestines, Mimi would have shat herself. She stood up and was shaking very violently.

"Mimi!" Joanne said. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Yes!" She moaned, sobbing harder than she's ever sobbed in her life. "What other choice do I have?"

A crying Maureen stood up and hugged her. "Can we go in with her?" She asked the nurse.

"No." The nurse's voice was angry. Mimi followed the nurse into the exam room. A few minutes later, she came out. She fell, crying, into both their arms.

"It was awful!" She bawled. "They were mean! And they put my legs in these stirrups and it hurt! And then they had this machine…it was like a vacuum cleaner! They said it would suck the baby out and I asked if it would hurt! They said yes." She cried and cried.

Maureen held her tightly against her chest. "Did it?" she asked.

"Maureen," she said. She looked up at her and tried to stop crying long enough to get the words out. "I didn't go through with it!"

Maureen and Joanne smiled and started crying, too. "Sweetie," she cooed. "It's okay. It will all be fine."

"What made you change your mind?" asked Joanne.

"I don't know. But…" she caught her breath. "I can feel it living inside me. It's Roger's baby and I love him! I love him so much! I can't do this to him! And…"

"What?"

"I think I might love this baby already, too."