When I awoke the morning after I’d unknowingly smoked a drugged cigarette, not only did I have to burden the memory of smoking, but I was also in the grips of preterm labor. And no one will claim what prematurely ruptured my membranes or caused my water to break too early in the pregnancy, but the bottom line is that my child, it seemed, was already receiving the short end of things because of my deeds and sins. Had I asked Bentley Cain to kidnap me, drug me, or do whatever in the hell he did to my body to leave the marks that were left behind? No. I did not.
I just knew, without a shadow of a doubt, if my child and I made it out of this alive, I would run and never let any of this touch my precious baby again.
At first, I believed I was at the compound. I think I remember seeing Butch, SOS’s doc, but I can’t be certain. I do remember not being able to breathe. I recall fear, feeling like I was suffocating, and then I think I remember my father resting his hand on my forehead before telling me to breathe. That he’d take me to a real hospital. Then I don’t remember anything. Not a single thing.
Other than waking up on the labor unit at Mt. Sinai and the petite, blond doctor from before leaning over me, glaring knives at me.
“What are you trying to do, get yourself killed? You already signed out of my care against medical advice once with this pregnancy. In this very same hospital to boot! I shouldn’t even be in here.” She flips a chart open and thumbs through it. “You’re not even term. Your water broke, you were in preterm labor, but thankfully, we were able to slow it with the proper medications. However, the damage has been done. You’re practically a ticking time bomb now, so any thoughts you may have this time on skipping out need to stop immediately. This is your child’s life you’re risking, Ms. O’Malley.” She slams the file shut and pins her gaze to mine again.
But I can’t even tell you what color they were. I was crying too hard. “I know…” I sobbed.
Have you ever cried so hard that, when it’s time to breathe, you swear every inhale is cracking your heart open even more?
’Cause that’s what was happening inside my chest as this woman practically told me that I’d failed as a mother to a child who wasn’t even born yet.
“I fucking know…” I muttered around the tears and sobs.
I cried. She cried. We cried for forever. And I knew, to the marrow of my bones, two things: I trusted this woman, and I trusted her to take care of me and my baby. I wasn’t leaving her until we’d both made it safely out of this pregnancy.
And, after the tears had all dried, we settled on counseling, I promised to stay under her care and not attempt to sign out against her advice, and she would discharge me when the baby and I were in the clear.
And, if you’ve learned anything about me, it’s that I may be a woman who has to learn things the hard way, but I’m at least a woman of my word—’cause I kept every single one of my promises to Dr. Lily. I kept my counseling sessions, not that I could skip the damn things. They came to you at Mt. Sinai, especially when you’re in preterm labor. They don’t like women who can possibly birth another human being at any given moment on the behavioral medicine floor.
Over the last few weeks of my pregnancy, goddammit, I talked. I talked to anyone and everyone. And not because I wanted to, but because I was forced to. I talked to family. I talked to friends both old and new. I talked to doctors. I talked to drug counselors, who thankfully verified I am not an addict. I’ve just been roofied an obnoxious amount of times with the good shit. I talked to my mother, I talked to my father, and I talked to Philip—that sneaky bastard. He is in deep shit, and not only with my father, but me. When I can freaking do something about it, anyway.
I also talked to Ty and Lauryn. But those were good talks. Those conversations built me up. They made me feel almost whole again. They didn’t make me question myself to the very core. Not like the ones with my family. And Dreads—God, I fucking hated the counseling session with Dreads.
You wanna know why? ’Cause that was the session I was supposed to meet with the father of my child. Okay, maybe not meet. Maybe confront is the more accurate term. However, it’s like Dr. Lily explained. It was mine. It was my session to bring up issues, issues only Jacques could help me resolve, and he took it from me. He sent Dreads in his place, said if there was anything I needed to know, Dreads could provide the information—but that he was too busy. “Club shit,” he claimed in his text just before I deleted not only it, but his name and number as a contact.
Meaning he was too busy to be bothered by me or even try to remember why he would be bothered by me…
My stomach ate my heart the moment Dreads walked in and Jacques really wasn’t behind him. I couldn’t even swallow the lump in my throat. And I tried. I’m telling you I tried.
“’Sup, Pipsqueak. You look like a million fucking bucks, ya know it! Pregnant and everything. Dayum, girl.”
I was facing the window when he walked in, ’cause even though I was in preterm labor, I couldn’t stand to stay in bed. Plus, Dr. Lily said that it was better for me to move around and I was far enough along anyway.
“Dat ass though!” He chuckled.
But the longer I waited, peeking over my shoulder looking for Jacques to follow in behind him and he didn’t, the faster the funny wore off Dreads’ comments. The smile took no time at all to slide from my face when I finally settled my eyes on Dreads.
“He’s not coming, is he? Is that why you’re complimenting me so much? It can’t be ’cause you missed me. You haven’t been here. None of you have. Other than DDDs…” I’m not sure why this fact hurt at the time, but it did.
Even after I’d made peace with the knowledge that I couldn’t continue weaving the threads of my life with Jacques Cain’s anymore, it still hurt. If our child wanted that, then they would have to be the one to initiate it. But it wouldn’t be my doing. Or my undoing. He just simply wouldn’t be. Not anymore.
“Ahh…” Dreads tugged at the nape of his neck under the dreads in his hair. “Pipsqueak, come on. You know I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be.” His straight teeth contrasted against his tanned face when he smiled. “And Jacques has been up to his neck with club shit. He barely sleeps. He’ll make it up here when he can. He told me to tell you that, actually.” He pulled a half-ass folded piece of paper from his back pocket and handed it to me. “He said for you to read this when the doc leaves.” After Dreads looked from side to side, his brow furrowed. “Wait, ain’t we supposed to be talking with a doc here? This is like AA, right? That’s what Clutch said.”
I couldn’t cut my eyes at the man any harder. “No. This isn’t AA. AA is like AA. This is therapy for all the bullshit I’ve been dragged through! This is for my shitty childhood and my even shittier adulthood! This is because I’m fucking twenty-seven years old and the only thing I have to my name besides the car I drive is the unclaimed child inside my womb! Not ’cause I’m addicted to alcohol! And this shit does NOT sit well with me! None of it!” I shook the piece of paper he’d handed in my raised fist. “And THIS does NOT sit well with me! Why didn’t he fucking come?!” I shrieked when I felt my heart swell just before the dam broke and the tears fell.
Dreads’ arms surrounded me, and his smell enveloped me. Leather and fuel and something mechanical that reminded me of Jacques mixed and caused my heart to squeeze and shatter at the same time. I sank my nose closer into the crook of my friend’s neck and cried, sobbing around every stupid muttered confession that never should have left my lips. “Why can’t he just be normal, Dreads? Why can’t I just love someone normal?” I sobbed ’cause of the pain, and then I sobbed ’cause of the embarrassment of the words caused by the pain, and then I just couldn’t fucking stop.
Have you ever sobbed because you’re sobbing and you can’t stop?
“Shh…” he whispered into my hair and cradled me until we were close enough to sit on the little loveseat by the window in the room. “He’s remembering, Vagabond. Okay? Is that what you want to hear? Because I’ll tell you if it’ll help you chill out. He’s remembering, and it’s fucking killing him. Not only the migraines that happen when he remembers, but the fact that they happened...that you happened. And, instead of fighting for you, he listened to Rox and not you. Let him figure this shit out first, okay, Pipsqueak? Then he’ll be ready to figure y’all’s shit out, yeah?” He winked as his hands cupped my face. “Remember I once told you you’re his Jacqueline? I was serious, and one day, when you realize how big of a deal that is, then you’ll know everything you need to know. But I can’t explain it if you can’t grasp it. Do you understand?”
Did I understand? Did I understand WHAT?
I shook my head back and forth, pissed, “No. No, I don’t. I never understand any of you! ’Cause all you fucking do is speak in riddles, the whole lot of you!” I slapped at him even though he was still sweetly cupping my face until he raised both hands and stepped away. “Get the hell away from me!” I shouted, tearing the note into pieces and shoving it at him. “And take this shit with you! Tell him I said I’m done. I don’t want him to remember. I don’t want him in my life. I don’t want YOU in my life! I don’t even know you!” I shrieked at him, allowing that anger and that fury to swell and gain momentum underneath my very being. “Get the hell out, Dreads. I don’t want anything to do with any of you! Ever again!”
The doctor and a few security officers rushed in behind Dreads, shoving the door open behind him. It slammed into his back. His hands came out almost like he was trying to usher me away from the people intruding, but I ducked and stepped out of his reach, off to the side of the room.
Finally, everyone in the room was still. Dreads’ hands remained in the air when one of the security officers unsnapped the holster at his gun.
“I was just leaving,” Dreads said. “I don’t want any trouble. I didn’t want to fucking come here in the first place. I told Jacques this was a bad damn idea!” He finished scanning the other people in the room and then landed his gaze on mine. “Pipsqueak—”
“Don’t call me that. It’s not my name,” I growled, stepping closer to the doctor.
“Va—”
“Neither is Vagabond. Dreads, it’s time you leave. Tell Jacques it’s fine. Tell him, as far as he needs to be concerned…” The words momentarily got hung up in my throat as the pain, a pain I’d not felt before, not once in my twenty-seven years, shredded the rest of its way through my heart. “This child died. I died the moment he wasn’t there when we needed him.”
I’ll probably witness plenty of things in this life, plenty of poignant moments in time or sideways glances that will always stick with me.
But I’ll never remember them as sharply as I’ll remember the sad smile that crossed Dreads’ face before he nodded and said over his shoulder on his way out, “Yeah...that’s what he said you’d say. Jacques knew you were pissed. I guess I just hoped…” His smile brightened a bit, but not much, and then he left, but not before finishing his words. “I just hoped you were different, I guess.”
After Dreads left, there was a follow-up counseling session, where I described how the entire situation made me feel. I mainly focused on my anger when I described it. Not ’cause I was afraid of the pain and the hurt. I’d felt pain. I could handle it.
I just didn’t see the point at the time. Not when I was so busy trying to heal before this baby was born. So, this time, to be a better mother, I focused on my anger versus my pain.
I hope you can understand my decision.
It was a Monday—the hottest day of the year, so I was told by my father—when I woke up and knew a baby was going to be born that day. And I would be the one doing the birthing. It was the same old labor pains I remembered having in the middle of Ben Cain’s RV floor, only they weren’t just crippling pain on top of crippling pain. Not this time. This time, the pain never fucking stopped.
And the next thing I knew, there was blood fucking everywhere.
Blood. Running down my legs in rivulets. After somehow stumbling into the bathroom—I think I may have been headed to clean myself up—I felt the first dose of fear. Fear that decapitated my anger and shook me so violently that my hands trembled. For a moment, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to use them much longer. What if the fucking fear froze me up and no one knew I’d started bleeding? Then what?
Without thinking much beyond the horrid thought, I grasped the call bell hanging next to the toilet with one hand while I grasped the crucifix around my neck with the other. I hardly remember much as the first few words of my longtime favorite prayer began filtering through my waning consciousness. I just remember being cold and in pain.
Now, I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. May angels stay with me through the night. And wake me with the morning light. But, if I should die before I wake…
This time as I finished my prayer...I didn’t automatically say, “Amen.” I added a silent prayer as the nurses and doctors transferred me onto a stretcher and yelled out orders about an operating room.
“She’s bleeding out. We don’t have time for a spinal. Just sleep her…”
I couldn’t focus too much on what was being said, not that I could understand a damn thing they were saying. I was trying so hard to concentrate on my words, on the last part of my prayer. I had to ask God, ’cause if I didn’t, he wouldn’t know. That’s what Grams always told me.
I repeated the last bit of the prayer, hoping it would remind me what was so vital. There was something important, and I had to ask him…For reasons I can’t explain, I suddenly needed something of a little higher power. I couldn’t keep fighting this invisible war inside me alone. I couldn’t.
But, if I should die before I wake...I pray the Lord my soul to take.
Please, Lord...keep this baby safe. If I should die, you don’t have to take my soul...just please, take hers. Don’t take care of me, just make sure my baby is safe. Make sure she’s safe. If not with me, then with you.
I’m not sure how I knew, but something told me. Maybe it was Grams; maybe it was Eden. Maybe it was that higher power I desperately searched for as they wheeled me down the hall of the hospital towards the OR. But something told me I was having a baby girl that day…
On that hot-as-hell day in the middle of September, I’ll be damned—I had a baby girl. Her name was Apple Of’May O’Malley, and she weighed five pounds and one ounce and had hair as dark as coal, eyes as blue as the sea, and the sweetest pouty, little, red lips I’d ever seen.
And she was healthy. She was perfect. And, on the day she was born, I devoted the rest of my life to making her an awesome human being. And, of course, everyone else also fell in love with her too as soon as they met her.