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Class was in session at the university, which was a short drive
or a decent walk up South College Avenue, over the bridge crossing the
train tracks. In November, freshmen are pretty much acclimated, pretty
much beginning to feel at home. Of course, there are always exceptions.

One girl was having a particularly rough time, though un-
known to me. She was a stranger to most people, the same way we all
are, passing one another on the sidewalk or supermarket aisle without
so much as a glance to acknowledge our mutual existence. We only
decided we knew her after the News Journal, the Philadelphia Inquirer
and the New York Times introduced us. Her high school boyfriend had
gotten her pregnant. He went to college in Gettysburg and she went to
Delaware, all the more alone for the person always with her, growing in-
side of her. She was Amy Grossberg and he was Brian Peterson. If those
names don't ring a bell, these two words probably will: dumpster baby.

Amy had been suffering from a serious case of toxemia,
pregnancy induced hypertension. It causes headaches, abdominal pain,
and messes with your urine. All those things can be mistaken for just a
bad pregnancy, especially if you've never been pregnant before. For Amy
it was particularly bad because she didn't want the damned baby. She
didn't want to acknowledge it, but the physical burden must have been
hard to ignore. No one ever found out until after. She was upper-middle
class,with a loving circle of family and friends, all of whom could have
supported her. The problem with close family and friends, though, is
you don't want to lose them over a scandal.

When Amy went into labor, she left her dormitory building
and checked into room 220 at the Comfort Inn, away from her friends,
a little sanctuary with cable television and complimentary shampoo. She
called Brian. It's happening, she said. Get down here. So he did. It was
four in the morning.

The baby was six pounds and two ounces. It's a wonder
nobody noticed the girl was pregnant. I guess that's the advantage of
November-loose sweaters, bigjackets-and of suburban teenage
life-avoidance of difficult situations. Amy and Brian put it in a plastic
bag and tossed it in the garbage receptacle outside the motel. The couple
said they thought it was stillborn, but autopsy reports showed it died of
head fractures and brain damage in line with Shaken Baby Syndrome.

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