Page 13 of Worth of Waste

She didn’t take “No” for an answer.

Karen waited another minute or two before Bess finally reappeared in her doorway, a white envelope in her hands. The scrawl across the front was not familiar, but her name and address was still perfectly written in block letters.

“The mail man must have shoved it into my box by accident,” Bess said, handing the envelope over to Karen.

For a long while, Karen stared at the envelope, not moving or even speaking to thank Bess for the mail. Maybe it was the largely written DO NOT RETURN TO SENDER in the top left-hand corner that made Karen pause. The money Dino had sent to her months ago had arrived with the same message in the return address spot.

Had he sent her something else?

The handwriting was not the same as Dino’s, of that Karen was sure, but that didn’t stop her from wondering.

“It came about two and a half weeks ago,” Bess said, “but I kept forgetting to bring it to you.”

Karen waved off Bess’s concerns. “It’s fine.”

Why was her voice so faint?

Bess took note of Karen’s sudden change in demeanor, asking, “Are you okay, dear? I couldn’t help but notice I haven’t been seeing a lot of you, coming and going like you usually do around the building lately. Probably one of the reasons why I kept forgetting I had your mail.”

Only an elderly person could be nosy and not be rude about it at the same time.

Karen appreciated Bess’s concern, but she didn’t want to weigh her old neighbor down with details of her life she wasn’t even sure she was supposed to share. Never mind the fact she just wasn’t in the mood to talk lately.

“I’m fine,” Karen said, flashing Bess a smile she hoped was enough to ward off any further worries the woman might have. “Thank you for this.”

She waved the envelope high, and Bess nodded in response.

“I’m just across the hall if you need anything, dear,” Bess said.

“And the same goes for you.”

One quick hug that Bess had given with no questions asked later, and the old woman was gone, disappearing back into her apartment and shutting the door. Karen was left alone in the hall, and it took her far longer than she wanted to admit before she realized she was free to hide away in her own apartment like she had wanted to all damn day.

Closing her apartment door, latching the deadbolt, and taking off her boots and jacket had never felt better. Karen tried not to dwell on the odd envelope sitting on her kitchen table as she readied a cup of ginger tea. She was less likely to have a spell of morning sickness after she ate dinner, if she drank the tea while she ate.

Also, morning sickness was a complete and total myth.

That curse came and went whenever it felt like it.

Given she was well into her second trimester of pregnancy, it should have started to wane a bit. Maybe it had a little, considering instead of every day—sometimes twice a day—she only experienced it a couple times a week now.

That was something to be grateful for, right?

The small business card reminder on her fridge caught her attention as she opened the door to pull out leftovers from the night before to reheat.

21 week ultrasound appointment, it read.

Karen stared at the date scrawled in the timeslot, realizing how soon that was approaching. She would find out the gender of the baby, and be reassured everything was looking normal as far as development went. And she would finally be able to see her baby.

She’d had an ultrasound early in the pregnancy, due to the fact she was approaching thirty years of age and this was her first pregnancy. Although the ultrasound had gone quite well, and the tech praised the baby and pointed it out on the screen for her to see, all Karen could distinguish was a tiny peanut-shaped blob.

A blob that was sucking the energy out of her, giving her emotional whiplash, and making her sick on a regular basis.

Then again, at that point, she really hadn’t connected to the fact she was pregnant. That, or she hadn’t been ready to at that time.

The bigger problem was the fact that Karen didn’t have a whole lot of money to be throwing away on doctor’s appointments because healthcare was fucking expensive and she didn’t have a damn job. Her savings were already gone, but her rent was paid for another two months.

You do have money, her mind reminded her, right under your bed in a shoebox.