At the front of the classroom, Brianna arches into a graceful yogic stretch, her thin ponytail tracing down her spine. Then she swings her enormous backpack over her shoulder.
“You okay, Angel?”
Angel is surprised to find her chin trembling, and then her eyes spill over.
“Hey. What’s up?” Brianna moves swiftly toward her and places a hand on her back, peers into her face.
“I don’t have my game plan.” Angel brushes a tear off her cheek with the back of her hand. “My mom won’t even call me.” The baby twists in her womb.
Brianna is watching her, holding her in her attention, and the sadness in her expression sends a shock of fear through Angel. “I know.” But then she seems to rouse herself. “Listen,” she says with urgency. Her smile has vanished. She sets her backpack on the carpet. “I need to say something. I know that what you’re doing is fucking terrifying.”
Angel is surprised by the swearword, but more by the vehemence in her tone.
“But you’re doing it, and I know you’ll continue to do it. I know that your living situation has changed, Angel. But you need to make a commitment to yourself that when the people around you let you down, you will not believe you are a person who deserves to be let down, that you will not in turn let yourself down.” Brianna stands with her hand clamped on Angel’s shoulder, and Angel can’t meet her teacher’s eyes. She stares at her journal, her words smeared.
“You’re already making good choices. You’re here, aren’t you? You’re staying away from drugs and alcohol, you’re eating well and getting good sleep for that baby, you’re making plans for a future that’s worthy of you both.”
“But I made bad choices.”
Brianna laughs. “Everyone has. You’re a good kid, Angel. I like you.” She gestures around the classroom. “Your friends like you.”
Brianna’s kindness is like the too-rich chocolate lava cake Angel had once with her mom and Mike in Santa Fe, when things were still good, delicious and too sweet to take in. She nods, her throat clotted with sadness and joy and fear and exhilaration.
Brianna squeezes Angel’s shoulder again. “But now it’s time to go home.”
Angel places a hand at the top of her stomach, right where the baby’s rump is wedged. Seeing her goals listed there, on the notebook in front of her, it all seems manageable. Not easy, of course—Angel is no fool—but manageable. She has her learner’s permit, after all, and just needs to take her test for her license. And she’s well on her way to a GED right this minute. She thinks about the day when she’ll be able to cross each item off her list.
And number nine: my mom. The baby will be born soon, and then her mother will have to come find Angel. She’ll be so happy to see the baby that she will see how wrong she was about Mike. She’ll scoop Angel up and bring her home, bring both of them home. The chasm of silence will close over. Her mother will teach her what she needs to know to raise this baby. Angel just needs to hold out until then.
She shuts her journal and tucks it into her purse. She’s still blinking away tears, but her spirits are high. There were times in this last year when she’d lie in bed at night, rigid with worry because she couldn’t imagine knowing how to do adult things like balance a checkbook or get a lease, much less find a job or go to college in Albuquerque or in some other, bigger city she knows even less. But everything she needs is enumerated in nine points on a piece of ruled paper in her composition book, and the list seems only barely more daunting than a grocery list. In Brianna’s class, the forbidding requirements of adulthood—and not just adulthood, but parenthood—are a matter of incremental, deliberate steps.
Brianna. Brianna will be her baby’s godmother. Angel is amazed that this hasn’t occurred to her until now. Brianna is inspiring. She knows everything about babies and about The Practicals, she’s childless, and she likes Angel. And in choosing her, Angel will lay claim to her, make her more hers than any of the other girls’， ensuring that Brianna will stay in her baby’s—and by extension, Angel’s—life forever.