one.” He paused again, maybe waiting for me to respond, but there was nothing to say. “You know your mom and I were in the same position when we found out about you, except we were in our teens. And, you know, it wasn’t perfect. I don’t know if it was ever even close. We didn’t know what we were doing, or if we were doing the right thing. But you, your brother, me, and your mom—we’re all okay. We turned out okay. And I know you, Jamie, and this baby will be okay, too, even if it’s not what you think it’s going to be.”
After that call, I sat and looked out the window. I tried not to let my current surroundings—the camper sitting next to a large shop in the woods—distract me from envisioning my future. I started speaking differently to myself, quelling my doubts. Maybe Jamie would come around. Maybe it would just take some time. If he didn’t, I decided I could deal with that, even though I had no idea how. I couldn’t base my decisions on him, to have a baby with him, but I knew I had to at least give him the opportunity to be a dad. My kid deserved that. Though it wasn’t an ideal situation, I would do what parents do, what parents had done for generations—I’d make it work. There was no questioning. No other option. I was a mother now. I would honor that responsibility for the rest of my life. I got up, and on my way out, I ripped up my college application and went to work.
3
TRANSITIONAL HOUSING
My parents moved us out of Washington when I was seven, away from all of our relatives. We lived in a home tucked into the foothills of the Chugach mountain range in Anchorage, Alaska. The church we went to then had several outreach programs for homeless and low-income communities. As a child, my favorite was giving to families in need during the holidays. After Sunday service, Mom would let my brother and me select a paper angel off a Christmas tree in the church lobby. We’d go to the mall after brunch to select the listed items for a nameless girl or boy close to our age whom we’d give new toys, pajamas, socks, and shoes.
One year, I went with my mom to deliver dinner to a family. I waited until it was my turn to give my delicately wrapped presents to the man who opened the door of a damp apartment. He had thick, dark hair and leather-tanned skin under a white t-shirt. After I gave him my bag of presents, my mom handed him a box with a turkey, potatoes, and canned vegetables. He nodded and then quietly closed his door. I walked away disappointed. I thought he’d invite us in so I could help his little girl open the presents I had handpicked, wanting to see how happy my presents made her. “The new shiny shoes were the prettiest in the store,” I would tell her. I wondered why her father wasn’t happier to give them to her.
As a teenager, I spent some afternoons in downtown Anchorage handing out bagged lunches to homeless people. We were there to “witness” and share the gospel with them. In exchange for their listening ears, we fed them apples and sandwiches. I’d say Jesus loves you, though one man smiled at me and said, “He seems to love you a little more.” I washed cars to fund-raise for our travel to orphanages in Baja Mexico or to do Bible camps for children in Chicago. Looking back on those efforts and the place I was now, scrambling to find work and safe housing, those efforts, though noble, were charity and Band-Aid work that made poor people into caricatures—anonymous paper angels on a tree. I thought back to the man who’d answered the door, the one I had given a small bag of gifts. Now I’d be opening the door, accepting charity. Accepting that I couldn’t provide for my family. Accepting their small token—a new pair of gloves, a toy—in their impulse to feel good. But there wasn’t any way to put “health care” or “childcare” on a list.
Since my parents raised my brother and me thousands of miles away from our roots in Northwest Washington where my grandparents lived, my upbringing became what most think of as middle-class American. We didn’t lack for any basic needs, but my parents couldn’t afford