The Crib Under My Mother’s Window

But I could give that baby something. I could give it a real place to sleep.

It was my money in my own account. Nobody else’s name was on it.

Once the school had my tuition, there would be nothing left to argue about, and nobody would have to be the bad guy at the supper table again.

I went back in, set my phone alarm for four thirty, and slept better than I had in a week.

I left before the rooster on Monday. I let myself out quiet and drove my old car down the gravel road with the headlights on, past the Baptist church and the feed store and onto the highway south.

It is two and a half hours from our place to Fort Smith if you do not stop.

I stopped once, at a gas station in Alma, for coffee and a sausage biscuit, and I sat in the parking lot and almost turned around.

I thought about Mama at the kitchen table with her face in her hands. I thought about the van.

I thought about what Daddy’s face would look like when he found out, and I very nearly went home.

Then I thought about Mrs. Abbott at that school clinic, talking to me like I was worth talking to.

And I thought about Lettie, twelve years old, watching me to learn how a woman in our family is supposed to act.

I drove the rest of the way with the radio off.

The business office at the college opened at eight. I was in the parking lot at seven forty, and I was the first one through the door.

The woman behind the counter had reading glasses on a beaded chain and a mug that said nothing at all.

“I’m starting the dental hygiene program in August,” I said. “I’d like to pay my tuition.”

She typed in my student number and looked at the screen. “Fall’s not billed yet, hon. Most of our students pay by the semester, a few weeks before classes start.”

“Can I pay ahead?” I asked. “Both semesters. The whole first year.”

She looked at me over the glasses. “You can put money on your account any time,” she said. “It sits there as a credit and gets applied when the bills post. It’s not refundable to anybody but you, and only if you withdraw.”

“That’s fine,” I said. “That’s what I want.”

She worked it out on paper because the system would not show next year’s numbers yet.

Tuition, the program fee, the clinic fee, the lab fee, and the instrument kit deposit for both semesters came to $9,380.

I had a cashier’s check from the bank in Harrison already in my purse.

I had gotten it on Saturday, before Easter, to have it ready for May. I had not told anybody that either.

I signed the back of it. She stamped it and fed it into a machine, and the printer under the counter hummed and pushed out a receipt. She tore it off and asked if I wanted an envelope.

“No, ma’am,” I said. “I’ll hold it.”