She received the pills from Star Pharmacy just around the corner, gripped the small white paper bag close to her chest, warding off gossips' eyes, made a straight line for her family's small cramped rent-controlled apartment. Nine floors above Upper Manhattan's urban sprawl, Mariposa sat, examining the pill bottle that she withdrew from the bag.
They were Misoprostol pills, procured without a prescription, dispensed by a phamarcist with discretion. She had told him she had missing periods and needed something for it. He understood. The word "abortion" was not uttered. It was a conservative neighbhorhood after all and she was an unwed mother of seventeen. The original use of the pills were for something she could not remember, but what Mariposa knew, or was told, was that if she took all of them, she would no longer be pregnant. They cost forty dollars, a weeks worth of babysitting for families as well off as her own, which is to say they were not.
She felt sick shortly after, like a tornado ripping through her insides. It was three in the afternoon, three hours before her mother would be home in time for a short rest before her next job. Tomas would be home at any time from school. She squatted on the toilet, sweating profusely, cursing, gritting her teeth.
When it passed, she flushed. She cleaned herself, plopped down on the couch, exhausted and in a daze. Tomas came through the door then, jumped onto the couch next to her, dumped his backpack on the floor, and turned on some cartoons.
"You're home early," he said.
"Mm hmm," she said wearily and laid her head on his small shoulder while he stared at the television unperturbed.
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