“Can you help me?” I ask, once the silence has stretched out long enough for me to know that staying is really not an option. “I need a quiet town. Somewhere I can have my baby.”
“How long are you planning on staying?” he asks.
“I don’t know. A few months, maybe longer,” I answer. “I just need somewhere quiet and safe.”
“There aren’t many places like that for a young single mother,” he tells me. “But if that’s what you’re looking for, take this bus.”
He points to the red line bus that leaves in an hour and ten minutes.
“It is not the most glamorous place in the world,” he admits. “But there are a few women’s shelters there. They’ll take you in, baby and all.”
“It’s the only place I can think of that doesn’t require paying rent.”
I wish desperately that I could just stay here. It isn
