She’d been on the bus for an hour and a half, staring out the window, feeling like she was about to throw up. The woman beside her smelled like day-old enchiladas, and the baby on her lap kept tugging at Trina’s sleeve, grinning her toothless smile while drool ran down her chin. The viscous liquid soaked into the baby’s collar, a scalloped powder pink with embroidered elephants and tigers.

“She like you,” the woman said, leaning in. Trina could see bits of sesame seeds in her teeth from the candy she’d been eating. They were black, and made Trina think of bugs. “You want to hold—?” The baby’s arms reached toward Trina, the grubby fingers grasping at air. Trina shook her head and pressed her body to the window, pinning her elbow to her ribs. Her position wouldn’t hold for a six-hour bus ride, and she suspected the woman was heading farther south than she was. “Please, you hold while I—?” The woman motioned toward the back of the bus.

Trina bit her lip. “Okay.” She helped lift the baby from the mother’s lap to her own. The woman grinned and climbed over the shopping bags she had crammed beneath her seat, stumbling into the aisle as her daughter watched her, worried. “Hola,” Trina said, doing her best to distract the baby. “No, don’t do that,” she scolded, pulling back her head as wet fingers grabbed her hair. “That hurts.” Softly, she added, “You’re here to torment me, aren’t you?” Warm and solid in Trina’s arms, the baby was too much like her own—the one she’d left behind—to ignore. Trina wanted to return her to her mother right away before everything she’d blocked out came flooding back: before the suffocating sensation surfaced. “Where is your mommy?” Trina muttered, moving into the woman’s seat and glancing down the aisle. The mother paced in front of the bathroom door, pulling at the ends of her ponytail. When she spotted Trina she smiled and stuck her tongue out at her daughter. The baby giggled and buried her head in Trina’s neck, her moist breath tickling Trina’s skin. “No.” Trina wasn’t going to be sucked in, wasn’t going to be charmed by another baby’s behavior. “I can’t play with you,” she whispered. “Please don’t make me play with you.” The baby watched her curiously, her black eyes uncomprehending. “I’m telling you, I can’t.”

The bus stopped in front of a small brick building, and the baby’s mother raced to the front, pointed out the window and nodded at Trina. Shifting the baby on her thighs, Trina moved back to her seat and faced the tinted glass. Only three people besides the mother got off the bus. Most of Trina’s seatmates had settled into the musty cushions and were adjusting headphones, checking watches, stifling yawns. After 90 uncomfortable minutes, they were only in Oxnard. Her father could have covered the distance in less than an hour. She had thought that before, that her father was faster; it had occurred to her in front of this very brick box. That time, Oxnard had been her main destination, part of a round-trip to procure what she was too embarrassed to buy in town. She couldn’t see why now, the point of being so hung-up. People got pregnant every day, and if she caused rumors with the purchase of a test, she couldn’t exactly hide the result.

That August afternoon, walking through the streets of old town Oxnard past unfamiliar palm trees and roads she didn’t recognize, she’d tried to sort out how she’d feel if the test revealed a plus. Walking through the aisles of Rite-Aid, examining the same products that lined the shelves at home, she tried to sort out what she’d do. Even while reading the fine print on the back of the First Response box, the one called e.p.t., and another called “Clear Blue” (that one sounded nicest, she’d thought, as though pregnancy were no more daunting than a zit), she’d known how things would turn out, knew her body had betrayed her. Beneath the bars of fluorescent light, listening to the Muzak version of a song she used to love—hadn’t it been “Here Comes the Sun”?—Trina was already two months in. During the seven-week stretch of denial and procrastination that preceded the bus ride, she’d hoped she could starve the thing, expel it through sheer will.

After she’d paid and the clerk had dropped the box in a see-through Rite-Aid bag—he’d rung it up like it was dish soap, or kitty litter—Trina found the bathroom in the back of the store. Crumpled paper towels covered the tiles near the sink, and as she crouched over the toilet, trying to steady the plastic stick in her hand, the doorknob jiggled. “Somebody’s in here,” she had called, her heart beating in her ears. With the icy porcelain against the back of her thighs and her jeans around her ankles, she had looked to the bulb in the center of the ceiling and prayed: “Dear God, if you only do one thing for me ever, please make that person go away. Amen.” Her legs trembled and her hair fell in her eyes, but as the “amen” left her lips the doorknob was still; heavy footsteps faded off down the hall. “Thank you thank you thank you,” Trina breathed, but as she turned back to the tester she realized her mistake: she had wasted her prayer on a trifle. She had squandered divine intervention on a one-off situation, and chances were He wouldn’t work a miracle for her twice.

With slippery fingers—she hadn’t expected such sweat—Trina struggled to stay still long enough to saturate the stick. She had always hated urine samples, those tiny cups so cumbersome between her legs, the liquid waste warm in her hand. The Rite-Aid bathroom had the same effect on her body as the doctor’s office: despite the Big Gulp she’d downed on the bus her bladder seized with shyness; she couldn’t get herself to go. It’s all wrong, she had thought. I’m not supposed to be here. The chain of events that had led her to this moment of undignified squatting, uncontrollable shaking, the certainty that there really was another body growing in her own, had been all wrong, a bad dream. If she could only pinch herself awake, walk down the hall to find her father alive, and at the table, coffee at his side, the paper in his hands—he would look up at her, grin, ask if she knew the French for “without,” four letters.

“Sans,” she whispered, releasing the Big Gulp. “S. A. N. S.” With the back of her free hand she wiped water from her cheek; she hadn’t noticed the tears until a drop landed on the purplish skin of her knee. The bulb flickered and Trina pulled up her jeans, carefully laid the stick beside the stopped-up sink. The instructions advised a result could be clear within 40 seconds, but Trina looked away, examined the scratchings on the paper towel dispenser. While she was deciphering a name beneath a tiny crooked heart, someone approached the door again and tried the knob. Trina held her breath, worrying that this time a manager would get involved. She’d been in the bathroom a long time; hours and hours, it felt like. The person probably thought she’d fallen asleep, was seriously ill, shooting up. She eyed the stick on the counter, and wished, for a second, that she was there because of drugs.

When she received the sign she had expected, the one she’d waited weeks to see, Trina returned the tester to the box and tossed the whole thing in the trash. She knew for certain; that was enough. No need to carry the evidence around; soon there’d be more evidence than anyone wanted, evidence that would require doctor’s visits and bigger pants. Hitting up the ice cream counter on her way out of the store, Trina ordered a cookies and cream and considered that she could start eating normally again, now that starvation hadn’t produced the desired effect. With the cone in her hand she sat outside on an empty cement planter, regarding her abdomen warily. A little boy in cowboy boots walked up to her, watched her eat in silence. “Jacob!” His father crossed the parking lot gripping the wrist of a blonde-haired girl. “It’s not polite to stare.” He glanced at Trina. “Sorry,” he said. She liked the look of the father’s scruffy chin, the muscled calves beneath his cargo shorts. Gently, he lifted the girl to his shoulders and took his son’s hand, guiding him through the automatic doors. Sitting there on the planter, a desperate desire overtook her: she wanted to be that little girl on her father’s shoulders. She wanted to feel strong hands on her shins, the safety of his grip. When the family emerged with cones of their own, Trina stared as they settled at the curb, feeling the few feet that separated them from her were miles.

Staying on the bus this time, balancing her feet on the broken footrest and trying to contain a squirming baby that wasn’t hers, Trina did her best to imagine the future. The fuzzy pictures in her mind wouldn’t come into focus; a large-headed infant kept calling her away, sucking up seconds that were supposed to be her own. Her seatmate’s baby was poking at her chin, going for her nostrils with saliva-soaked fists. “What?” Trina’s voice was harsh. “What do you want?” The bald man in the seat across the aisle lowered his newspaper and glared. “Where is your mother? Why isn’t she back yet?”

“The poor thing.” The woman in the seat behind Trina leaned over to coo at the baby, whose fussing was on the brink of something worse. “Hand her over, hon. I’ve had three and am on grandkid number four. Don’t blame you for not knowing how to handle them. It’s one of those things that comes with experience, with having them yourself.” It was like she was talking about puppies, parakeets, cars. Trina couldn’t make out what the woman wanted until she reached over the headrest and plucked the baby from Trina’s lap.

“Wait—” Trina turned to face the woman and instinctively shrank back: the space she had claimed stank of cigarettes and powdered donuts, and the backs of her thighs spread across the cushions of both seats. Her peach-colored tracksuit clung to her chest, and there was something in her manner that reminded Trina of her mother. When Trina had tried to give her baby a bottle that first night home from the hospital (when she had failed at breastfeeding too many times to go on), quietly her mother took over, reciting words of encouragement, a knowing look in her eye. “See,” she seemed to say, “It’s not really so hard.” And Trina had been grateful, glad to give it up. But there was something in this woman that made Trina wish she hadn’t, and suddenly she knew she had to get the baby back.

A steady heat inflamed Trina’s forehead, and as she glanced out the window she saw the mother emerge, wiping her hands on her jeans. “You’d better let me have her now,” Trina said to the woman. “I promised her mom I’d watch her.”

Through a series of clucking noises the woman addressed the baby. “You’re fine with me, aren’t you precious? I’m sure your mommy won’t mind.” She withdrew into her seat, holding the infant to her chest like a shield.

“Really.” Trina kneeled, her torso flush against the seatback, her arms reaching into the woman’s space. “Her mother entrusted her to me; I’m the one who’s taking care of her. I’m asking you nicely: please hand her back.” Trina saw the bald man put down his paper, cross his legs and turn to watch.

The woman rolled her eyes. “I’m doing you a favor, here, honey. Don’t worry about it; her mom will be all right.”

“I don’t think you understand.” Trina liked the frosty tone in her voice. Her hands twitched with the urge to lunge at the woman’s throat, squeeze the layers of drapey skin. The woman scoffed and pursed her lips in an impatient pout, as though they were children fighting over a toy. Trina’s heart pulsed in her fingertips; she strained to see through the water that blurred her eyes. I won’t be underestimated, she told herself. I won’t let her push me down.

The passengers in their area paused conversations and peeked over their seats. On the other side of the window, Trina saw the mother approach the door of the bus. “If you don’t give her back—”

“What? You’re going to take her? A few minutes ago you were ready to lose her. I’m helping you out, dear.” The woman shook her head, catching the eye of the bald observer and sharing an exasperated smile.

“Give. Her. Back.” The words were sharp, almost a growl. Trina’s hands curled into fists. Her eyes narrowed and she prepared to pounce, to reclaim what was hers, what had been left to her.

Someone in front called the driver; Trina heard him grumble as he climbed onto his bus. She was three quarters over her seatback, losing her balance as she lurched toward the woman who twisted away, clinging to the infant, smothering the child’s face in her breasts. A weak voice in Trina’s head told her to give up, but she had gone so far she had to continue: everything depended on who won the baby. If she lost, it would mean her mother was right; it would mean Trina couldn’t handle a child of her own.

“She’s crazy!” the woman called as Trina tugged at the baby. “Get her away from me! Call the police!”

Trina felt her weight shift; panicked, she pulled back. In the aisle, staring at them with her eyes wide, her jaw dropped, was the mother. “Inés,” she whispered, her hand on her mouth.

Trina hadn’t noticed it before, but the mother was wearing a fitted black and white Audrey Hepburn t-shirt, the kind that was popular sophomore year. As she turned in her seat, Trina realized that the mother wasn’t much older than she was: her skin still had that adolescent sheen; her eyes conveyed the uncertainty Trina noticed in her own. “I’m sorry,” Trina tried to tell her as she took her crying daughter, collected her things and retreated to the back of the bus. “I’m so sorry.” The woman in peach whimpered and crossed her arms, her face to the window.

Trina slouched in her seat, hoping the bus would start up again and everyone would forget what had happened, but a firm hand grabbed Trina’s arm.

“Get off.” The voice was less gruff than resigned, as though the driver had been awaiting her screw up. “You have to find another ride.”

Trina rubbed her arm and glared at the woman, who reapplied her lipstick, a rusty shade of orange. “What about her? She gets to stay?” The woman snorted without looking up. The driver arched his unkempt brows. His uniform barely buttoned around his belly, and Trina noticed the crimped edge of a Snickers wrapper in his shirt pocket. “Please. Don’t make me get off.”

“Sorry, kid. It’s policy; nothing I can do.” He licked chocolate from the corner of his mouth and took her by the elbow; his hands were sweaty, unexpectedly soft. Trina saw the man across the aisle pick up his paper, smirking as she passed.

“Can’t you at least give me a refund? We’ve hardly started.”

The driver escorted her to the parking lot, pointed out the station and adjusted his belt. “Next time, bring a magazine.” He turned to the people milling by the benches in the courtyard. “San Diego! San Diego?” No one paid attention. Trina bit her lip and reached for his sleeve, searching for the words that would make him forgive her, let her back on his bus. He glanced down at her and shook his head.

“Please!” Trina called after him, trying one more time. “Please?” Her voice cracked. The driver kept walking and held up his hand as if to say, better luck next time.

It was as if the driver had shut the door on the rest of her life, on the life she’d been imagining since she woke up. The life, she realized, bus disappearing down the street, that she’d imagined since getting pregnant. Motionless, Trina stood at the curb, feeling the eyes of other passengers on her. When an incoming bus angled past her, toward the parking lot, she forced herself to move, settling herself on the greenest patch of grass. The lawn was damp, as if the morning dew had yet to evaporate; she ran her fingers through the waxy blades and sniffed her hand, hoping the moisture wasn’t canine-caused. Satisfied she wasn’t sitting on a bathroom-site, Trina glanced around to make sure no one was looking before taking her coin purse from her backpack, unsnapping the clasp and counting the thin roll inside. Twenty-six dollars and seventy-two cents. That was it. Before she’d left, she’d located a youth hostel in Escondido that charged ten bucks a night plus chores; she’d planned to stay there, take the first job she found and slowly build up her savings. But now, she couldn’t even afford a way back to Gull Bay: the next bus left in five hours, and a taxi was out of the question. There was no one to call, no one to turn to, except her mother: the one person she most wanted to avoid. Life, she thought, kept narrowing down her choices until there was no choice at all.