7 Months - Regan

It was cold and raining. Typical day for Scotland. Along the mud trodden, wet, brick streets creeps a young woman. Hunched over, wrapped in a shawl and dripping with rain, she clutches a child to her chest. She’s searching for a door with an overhang that will keep the baby dry until someone has the chance to find her. Light pours out of balcony windows, the sound of drunken laughter ringing in the streets.  She bends to lay down the silently screaming child, too cold and hungry to really cry, and she wraps her a bit tighter in the shrinking blanket. And then she leaves. 

There’s clattering in the allies as people stumble out of the bars. Thick Scottish accents reverberate off the otherwise deserted street. The child wriggles slightly in the chill air. Not so much as a knock on the door, or a call for help to protect the baby girl. Her mother left her for dead. Indeed why should she care? She has to get back to her lovers. Lovers that frequent this part of town, where the poor and ill thrive and the rich stay away. Lovers that pay her well but not well enough to keep an unwanted child alive. 

She’d been starving for those past nine months. No one wants a pregnant escort, even the desperate. And that night in the dirty kitchen of the crowded boarding house, the squalls of a baby sounded like freedom to the young woman. She knew she had to be rid of her. But no one she knew would take her. Not the other women in the house. None of the ladies at the market. Everyone had a family too big for comfort, or was in no place or mood to take on children. So she took to the streets. Kindness was not going to pay her bills so she could no longer be picky about who the child’s parents were. A doorstep seemed as good as any place. 

A sweep of her cloak in the dark and the daughter of this nameless woman was orphaned. As if understanding her fate the baby manages one good cry. A door creaks open above her head, kitchen light pouring across her raw and reddened cheeks. A gentle scoop and she’s brought inside, never to know her real mother and not to end up with the same fate.