Laura’s Promise

Laura’s Promise

And the little black book

There where a hundred pages of promises bond in Italian leather. The bookmark fasten to the book forever forgiving laid on the ink tear stained page of her worst unkept promise.

It was the most important one she made to herself and her unborn child. This would be the one that Laura would regret for all eternity.

On the dusty table next to the book was a gold coin. She though about when she found it that it would be funny to flip it to make some of the important life decisions.

It was something that she had struggled with her whole life.

She even joked about with Jess when she found it.

"This coin will forever make all my decisions."

The ancient coin was kept as a souvenir from a long weekend she spent with Jess walking on the cliffs and Beaches of La Jolla.

It sparkles in the sun on the edge of cliff and it was this if it was calling to her.

She loved Southern California and most the time she loved Jess.

Jess who she missed and missed treated was her only hope for redemption.

Most of the promises she told herself she we keep in the leather bound book that was given to her on her 21st birthday. They was mostly silly and empty promises.

I promise to stop eating chocolate. I promised to lose 10 pounds. I promise to finish school. I promise never to scream at Jess. I promise, I promise, I promise.

Over and over again she casually wrote down each promise till the book was full.

She bookmarked the one page; the one promise that she believed in a heart she would keep. It was to keep the baby.

It was almost summer when she headed back to New York. She told Jess she would be back to finish school. She told him she loved him. She told him that she wanted to have his baby but she couldn't never get pregnant even though she already was.

She got on a plane and head back to New York with big dreams of making it on her own.

Without her parents help and without Jess.

She would have the baby on her own. She promised in her book, she promised to keep it forever.

When she couldn't find work and her belly got bigger and bigger and emptier in the noisy roach infested apartment.

She broke the promise she broke her promise and gave her newborn baby away.

She took the $20,000 in cash.

She put the money in a paper bag in a locker at Grand Central Station went home to pack her bags.

She never even asked what their names were. She took one photograph of the child before she gave the little girl away.

She didn't even cry, she just flipped a coin and let it made the decision.

It had made the decision for her to move back to New York. To leave and lie to Jess.

Ever since she picked up the coin she had let it make every decision.

Now it seemed to her as she packed her bag, that they were all bad decisions.

But is too late. The baby was gone. She would never seen or know it. She could never find it.

She didn't even know what they wanted it for. They look more like hustlers then loving parents who couldn't have a child of their own.

Laura became terrified of what she had done. She became frightening for the baby- the baby that she made in her body.

The baby! She cried.

The baby was now in hands of people who would sell it or hurt it.

Laura began to scream. She took the coin out of her pocket and ran up to the roof.

She flung it as far she could into the heavy rush hour traffic.

It flipped and turned and with each flipping turn as it tumble to the earth it sparkled with life.

She felt it separating from her as she felt the baby separating.

But they were both attach by some strange invisible umbilical cord that was pulling at her.

She thought about getting the money in hopes of finding the couple and the baby.

She would give all of the money back for the baby.

She would call Jess and tell him he was a father.

She would get on the plane with the baby he would be waiting for them.

But the truth was it was one promise that she needed to keep.

The truth was she was too weak in her mind and too frivolous with her body.

The truth was she could make any of this right and just as the coin hit the pavement, Laura jumped.

As she tumbled down to the earth, her last thought was, that It was the first true decision she made on her own.

The End

By JD Helfert