*******139:

Kylie was already on the examination table, she looked frightened and Tracy's heart went out to her. She hurried to her side, accepting the clipboard a nurse thrust at her and signing automatically. Then she reached for Kylie's hand and began to explain the procedures that were about to take place. Tears had squeezed out of Kylie's eyes.

"I'm not sure I want to stay here alone."

"You won't be completely alone, dear, I'll get you a roommate, someone in the same kind of situation as you, the girls here support each other. I have the perfect person to help you, her name is Emma."

Kylie's smile reappeared. "Are you sure?"

Tracy nodded. "Now, let's take a look at this baby. Turn so you can see the screen. The doctor is going to touch your legs, just let them rest naturally... that a girl...."

The sonogram showed a more developed baby than Kylie had let on, and Tracy exchanged a look with the midwife. A few more pertinent questions affirmed that Kylie had been raped by her step-brother five months ago while living in her father's house in Santa Ana. But she didn't tell anybody, afraid to anger her step-mother, or her father, or especially her own brother. But when Deano and Philippe decided to be a part of The Wolverines, a small chapter of a very much larger territorial gang, called a club, but a gang nevertheless, part of their initiation fee was Kylie.

Kylie did look at her baby. She was told the baby was a girl. Tracy had expected a small amount of astonishment at the life inside her, or even an exclamation, but she was met with a stony-faced silence, and Kylie turned her face away. More tears. Tracy squeezed her hand.

"You may not want her right now, Kylie, but in time.... She may become an important part of your healing." Tracy whispered.

"It's not her fault." Kylie whispered back, her voice breaking on constrained tears. "It's not her fault I don't want her."

Tracy patted her hand, seeing the anguished look in Kylie's eyes, the pleading for understanding. All my pain has been because of loss, she thought, her pain is also because of loss, but because of betrayal as well. Loss can be a form of betrayal, she realized. Subconsciously a person could blame another for leaving them, even if it wasn't their fault. But Kylie's loss was virtue and childhood, and betrayal by those entrusted with her safety and childhood. In that moment, a new pain seared Tracy.... I can't take her pain. No, but you can share it.....

Tracy looked up at the screen where the doctor was measuring the fetus of an unwanted child. What about her pain? What about her little spirit right now, realizing that no matter that conception wasn't her doing, the womb she resided in was loveless?

"Kylie....." Tracy whispered through her realization and her own choked tears. "If it turns out that I can't convince you to love her, then I'll take her and love her, okay?"

The midwife's eyes snapped up to Tracy's, and she was aware of the scrutiny, but she didn't break contact with Kylie. "You would do that for me?" Kylie asked, hope through the tears.

Tracy nodded. "I will do everything in my power to help you heal, to help you.... But if at the end of all I can do, you still don't want her, I'll be her mommy."

A throat was cleared nearby, a jostling meant to get their attention. But Tracy held Kylie's hand hard, so unconventional, so not protocol. But so right.....

"Tonight you go stay with Emma. I'll call her right now and tell her you're coming, and she can make up the spare bedroom for you." She gave another squeeze and then let that thin hand go with a smile and a swipe at tears. Another throat clearing meant to get her attention as she walked out the door.

"Not now,  have some compassion for this girl," Tracy said as Midwife Williams followed her out to the hall.

"You can't be promising things like that. You don't know where this will go, or how it will turn out, and you can't just collect stray children like you would a stray cat."

Tracy pushed her hair out of her face and looked the midwife in the eye. "There's professionalism, and there's compassion." She said tightly, realizing it right now more than any other time, sensing decisions made many years ago in her own behalf swirling in her subconscious. Mine was a professional adoption, she thought briefly, in the split second it took to comprehend it, not a compassionate one. "But when I saw that screen, Jane, I saw the face of my daughter. I know what I'm doing."

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