Part Seventy-Eight

Three months later …

Milana looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes looked hollow, her cheeks sunken in. Her hair had lost its luster and her stomach was so big she couldn’t even see her feet. The last five months had not been easy.

She still worked for Clean and Shine and she still had the weekend shifts. Her utilities were expensive and for the last three months she went without electricity for the last four days of the month. She’d tried to be careful with her money but her well had dried up two months ago.

In the beginning she’s supplemented her income by waitressing during the day but they had let her go last month. Her lethargic state of mind, the size of her pregnant belly and the fact that she struggled to carry the heavy trays had all counted against her.

She took all the coupon pages from the newspapers in the office building she cleaned but even with all those coupons her budget was limited. She realized with a start that she wasn’t ready for this baby, didn’t have nearly