Sixteen-year-old Barbara Naomi Collins leapt out of her bed and ran for the basement's tiny half-bathroom. Reaching it, she dropped to her knees and vomited into the toilet bowl as quietly as she could.

Minutes later, she sat back from the toilet with a stifled sob. Sitting still and silent in the dark, she strained to hear any sound from the main floor of the house. After an eternity she stood, still on guard, and turned to the sink. With a near silent trickle of water, she rinsed her face and mouth. At the thought that there was some benefit to having the only bedroom in the finished basement, she clapped a hand over her mouth to suppress a hysterical laugh.

Finding a measure of safety in the small room, she eased the door closed and sat on the fluffy bathroom mat. Wrapping her arms around her pajama clad legs, she tried to make sense of her most recent dream.

All week long she'd been having vivid dreams, dreams she thought her Grandma Sandburg might have called 'true dreams'. Until tonight they had featured glimpses of a young woman and a bright-eyed, curly-haired boy. Most had been pleasant, a few sad... And with her period two months overdue, she'd begun to suspect that she might be meeting that child in another 6 or 7 months. That in itself was frightening, but tonight's dream had been horrifying.

She couldn't understand why.

It was no different than what her father did with her. Of course she didn't like it, at first she'd even begged him to stop. But her father was a good man. He'd explained that it was just her duty, as the oldest daughter, to help her parents this way. It was no different than washing the dishes or changing a diaper, or anything else she didn't care to do. Except it was better, because it was also a way to prove to her father that she loved him.

So why did the bile rise in her throat at the thought that she might expect the same duty of her son? And why did she cower at the thought of her father descending the stairs to her bedroom?

Barbara spent the night trying to make sense of her conflicting thoughts and emotions. Her mind told her to be a good daughter, but her heart wanted the sick feeling inside to go away. And what if she was pregnant? She couldn't get her mind around everything that might mean, but she felt an almost overwhelming desire to get as far away as she could, and quickly.

By the time her mother called down the stairs for her to get ready for school, she'd made a decision. After dressing for school, she quickly exchanged the books in her satchel with as many of the clothes from her dresser as she could make fit. The baby-sitting money she had hidden in the lining of her jewelry box, as well as her jewelry, fit easily into the pocket of her school uniform.

An hour later and less than a mile past the school, Barbara climbed into the back of a battered station wagon. "Hey, I'm Lisa and this's Tom," the young woman in the front seat introduced herself and the driver. "We're going to L.A., where're you headed?"

Barbara considered the question for less than a moment, and smiled. "Hi, I'm Naomi. And I think California will do just fine, for now."

An End.