bye-bye, little one

I didn't intend to come upon it. It just happened. I was trimming the grass for my landlord.  She'd promised me 50 bucks off my rent if I did so.  I'm not much of a mower, so it was taking longer than you'd expect.

Anyway, there it was in the higher grass by the fence post -- dull as old snow and yet vivid enough to make the heart race.  I was sure it belonged to a puppy or a rabbit or maybe a small fox.  But my true self -- the doctor in me -- knew it wasn't so.  

This was the bone of a baby.

And I didn't have to stop to think for even an instant to know from whence it had come. Mirelda.  The 15-year-old punk girl liked to sit on the flat rock near the woods' edge and smoke her cigarettes.  The bad-crowd girl.  She always had a different boy around.

I took out my phone to call the authorities, but something made me hesitate.  I knew the Mirelda type -- bad genes, bad home, bad future.  You could say she made bad choices, but I know better.  Society had made them for her.  They had been determined for her long before she was even born.

She wasn't a killer.  She was doing what she could with what she had and what she knew. Can't punish a person for acting within their limitations.  Mistakes are made, condoms broken, parents resistant to unwelcome news.  

I put my phone back in my pocket, kicked open a small hole in the dirt at my feet, and buried that little bone in a shallow grave.  After all, no one would miss it, and who am I to ruin another life?  

The sun was hot that day.