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I imagine the baby I killed had red hair. I can't say for certain since I was nineteen, and that was a long time ago. I only saw him on the monitor at the abortion clinic, and I didn't want to embarrass either of us by staring.

Heath had red hair with ends that were split and curled from being whipped around in the wind. Always once, during every motorcycle ride through the back roads, a lock of hair would catch the corner of my mouth. I'd spit it out and laugh in his ear, and we'd ride.

Five years after I left him, I confessed my sin on a short line next to the question 'Is the your first pregnancy?' Sitting in the doctor's office, watching the receptionist eye The Price is Right while waiting for a copy of my insurance card to slide out of the printer, I felt certain that question was one of those 'true or false' questions; otherwise, the line would have been longer.

For the next six months, people I didn't know rubbed my swollen belly and asked if the baby was my first. I smiled, asked them if they could feel the baby kicking, and lied like the Virgin Mary to save myself.

I imagine the baby I killed had red hair like Heath’s other baby. I saw her at Christmas one year. His mother had put a bow in her long red curls. She jumped off the curb outside the mall, and the wind picked up a lock of her hair, whipping it over her shoulder. I stood at the corner, holding hands with my blond headed son, and watched them ride away.