Five hours. That’s how long Noa carried dirty plates and took orders. Until her red sneakers walked her out into the narrow hallway of the Comedy Cellar. Her curly hair has flattened on top, the lids under her eyes feel heavy, and her voice has become husky. Damn these tough soles, she mutters, her words drowned out by the muffled sounds coming from the main room. She brushes her forehead with the back of her hand, breathes out deeply. Her feet pulsate. She pushes her entire weight, heavy with the brick nestled deeply inside of her, on the wooden railing. A baby roach catches her eye and she follows it into a crack in a wall. When it disappears, she scampers down the stairs and pushes against the heavy wooden door, back into the main room.

She worms her way through thrusting arms and streams of laughter. The comedian on stage is complaining about his ex wives and the mouths in the room hang open with amusement. A speck of spittle lands on Noa’s forearm and she looks at it. Fingers curl into waves and tug at her. C’mere hun, a stubby patron with bleached hair and stew colored lipstick calls before she accidentally scratches her wrist. Noa stops and gazes at the mark left behind by the acrylic nail. The lady apologizes and tries to order another dirty martini, but Noa doesn’t listen. Instead, she walks in a straight line to the little room next to the stage and throws the door shut.

A scratched up bar stool supports her weight. One of the comedians stubs out his cigarette. His cheeks form two large knobs as his mouth pushes into a smile. He sees her bulge and cries out with pleasure. Teeth chattering as he asks her the usual questions in between sips of beer.

Is it—

Girl.

When—

November.

First?

Yes. She gives him the usual responses.

She is tired. Her shift started an hour ago but already she feels the urge to return home and make sure the money is still there. She’s hidden the red bandana pregnant with bills twice already today. Not good enough, she thinks, I should’ve brought it with me. She pictures her husband pulling cracked tiles loose and checking under the soles of her shoes, with hands that tremble with want. Looking. He’s always looking, and he always finds it. Today, she woke up extra early, thankful for the nausea that has accompanied her these past months. Her husband lay stiffly on the floor. She checked his pulse and checked for her bandana. It was still there, taped underneath the drawer that holds the cutlery. When he woke up, he carried out a conversation from the other room. He tried to make his voice sound casual, but she could hear him going through her clothes, shifting furniture, lifting up plates. Whenever he went to relieve himself. She quietly moved her bandana to a new hiding place. Eventually, his glassy-eyed and slow- moving friends called for him, and he was gone. But now he could be back, and the money could be gone.

She notices the comedian just as he steps closer and places his hand on her swelling. He insists he must bless this child. Too tired to wave him away, she responds by pursing her lips. May this child be blessed with a sense of humor, he begins. His voice quavers dramatically, like a preacher’s, and she snickers. He leans closer to her belly and whispers, Never pick a fight with an ugly person, they’ve got nothing to lose. Assuming a tone of solidarity, he winks and tells the belly, Sometimes, in life, you’ll have to specifically go out of your way to get into trouble. It’s called having fun.

He says more things. Things that make her smile, then laugh. Together, they sit in the dark room, his face next to her stomach, whispering jokes to the child that is to be. Her insides warm as she laughs, and for a moment she forgets. Until her belly makes her the coins in her apron shake. And she remembers the bandana she should’ve taken from the empty video case in her living room.

She thinks of her apartment, naked except for the mattress on the floor. Colored only by the shadow left by the TV, dragged out and sold by her husband while she was at work. When she came home and saw the empty space and her husband lying besides it, she knew that the proceeds had long been absorbed by his body. Inhaled through a foggy glass pipe. Her kitchen cabinets, taken over by a family of roaches. They breed there, crawl over cans of beans, and nest into packets of rice. They fall out of the bag of dirty clothes she can’t afford to wash. She likes to watch them crash to the floor, relieved that they’re no longer burrowing in her underwear.

She remembers her husband’s cheeks, how sunken they are. His eyes that no longer speak to her. His animated voice that used to make her feel calm, but now makes her stomach curl with nervousness. When she peed on the stick and saw two stripes, she knew she couldn’t keep the child. There wasn’t enough money, she had no green card. She couldn’t ask her mother for help.

Is he Jewish? Noa’s mother asked her when she called to announce her marriage.

No.

Oh, her mother said. And he’s-

Jamaican, remember?

Yes, yes. Her mother paused. When are you coming home?

I don’t know. We’ll visit soon.

But if it becomes difficult, you can always—

I’m staying here, Noa said, I’ll be fine.

She hung up and didn’t tell her about the work that only paid for a small room in an apartment shared with six other people. Boarding a plane to New York and falling in love had been the easy part. He held her tight by the small of her back. She inhaled his always-clean scent. They ignored the stares of people who didn’t know them. They tacked pictures on their bedroom wall and put notes in their jean pockets. They chose each other. Then she got pregnant.

She had hesitated, worried about work and money. He had convinced her to keep the child. Said he wished for nothing more than a little baby girl who looked just like her. That was before he became a shriveled up version of her husband. Before he allowed his tongue to touch the white powder that he would come to love so hard that he wanted to be close to it at all times. Being near to it wasn’t enough, he needed it on him, in him. She tried to fix it by purging the apartment. All of their packets of weed and bottles of wine were donated to friends. Except for that one line she snorted before she knew, she’d been clean. She waited for him to do the same.

She waited patiently while he stayed out later each night. She tried to unlock his jaw and feed him. When he came home high, she sometimes yelled at him. Other times she pushed the black and white picture of their unborn baby against his forehead, tapping it each time his eyes rolled back. She threatened to leave and begged him to stop. He could not escape his urge.

Now, when people spit at the sight of them holding hands together—him, dark with long dreadlocks, and her, blonde coils framing her pale face—he turns around viciously. Fuck you asshole, yeah this is my wife! he screams before his fingers unwrap from hers and he scans the sidewalk for stones to smash into skulls. She wonders what the child will go through. Will store clerks sneer at the child as they do at her and her husband? Will she know her grandparents? The first time Noa met her mother-in-law, she was walking with her husband in the Lower East Side. A woman with neatly pressed hair stopped and looked at him with eyes that were moist around the rims. I thought you were dead, she hissed. He left the apartment that night and didn’t come back until three days later. Pale, thin, and hungry.

A father must be strong and stern, Noa thinks, not gaunt and weak. Her own father taught her that. She had been an obedient child. When she wasn’t, the leather belt would wrap around his knuckles and flail at her skin. He was strict, but she loved him still. When she couldn’t sleep at night, she listened quietly for his deep cough. The sound of rising phlegm assuring her that he was just next door. He caught the cough when he was a teenager, hiding from the Schutzstaffel during the war in Germany. He hid in a hospital and later in a morgue. The cold made him sick, but he had to stay and act dead to prevent being discovered. Raids happened frequently, and when he heard the sound of leather boots slapping the floor and sharp voices yelling orders, he breathed in and out as slow as possible. As if he had to preserve the little bit of oxygen in the room that was left. After inhaling the cold morgue air for a long time, his chest scratched and he started to cough. A deep, gargling cough that would stay with him for the rest of his life, until he died from it. There was a time when he had been weak, and thin and hungry too, but he wasn’t needy like her husband.

Consumed by his want, Noa’s husband has given up. When she comes home after work, their apartment no longer smells like saltfish and sautéed vegetables. Roach droppings line the countertop. I’m gonna get my shit together, her husband keeps promising. The cracked kisses on her forehead almost feel the same as before, but the rest is all wrong. The addicts nodding off in her living room, the money that keeps disappearing, the man who is no longer a husband and can’t be a father.

What’s right is just what’s left after you do everything else wrong, the comedian shares with Noa’s curve. Noa grips her stomach. Making sure that her child is all right has been the only constant in her life, the only thing she is sure of. It’s what’s left after everything else went wrong. She studies the comedian’s eyes. Kind blue irises surrounded by sharply creased skin. He’s nice, she thinks, but he’s also on his fourth beer since they’ve been sitting together. He looks out to the main stage. It’s packed out there, he says, hope you’ll have a good night. Noa rubs her money through her apron. She must think of a new place to hide the bandana tonight. How useless, she thinks, her husband will find it anyway. This makes her laugh out loud. The comedian laughs back. He winks at her and waves at her belly, before he licks at his beer and walks on stage.