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Authors: Cynthia D. Grant

The White Horse (12 page)

BOOK: The White Horse
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“I don't know.”

“I'd choose Ashley. That's my baby's name. My little boy's Troy.”

“He's darling,” Raina said.

“He's a doll baby.” The girl's hair gleamed golden. Everyone else in the room looked gray. “How'd you end up here?”

“It's a long story.”

“Tell me about it.” Jenny rolled her eyes. She told Raina how she'd planned to move back to Indiana and had saved up the money but her friend had ripped her off. “My friend, can you believe it?” Then the landlord kicked her out and didn't even give her notice. Which was totally illegal. And it wasn't her fault; she'd let some friends stay with her, and they got rowdy and the neighbors told the landlord they were selling dope. Which was totally untrue. But he kicked her out anyway and kept her deposit. As soon as she could afford a lawyer, she'd sue. Then she'd met this guy, Joey, and moved in with him. He was real sweet at first and he loved her kids. But he started getting drunk and beating her up. So she got another place and fixed it up real cute; painted it and always paid her rent on time. But for no reason at all, she hadn't done nothing wrong, the landlord threw her out.…

Raina could tell when people were lying; she stopped looking in their eyes because she felt embarrassed, like she was watching them do something sad and private that they didn't even know about themselves.

She's a speedfreak, she realized, wondering how she could've missed it. But the girl was fooling herself too.

Jenny said what she wanted more than anything in the world was to make a nice home for her family. Nothing big, nothing fancy: a little house with a yard so the kids could have their own room and play outside. Then she'd get a job and get off welfare, and when the kids went to school she'd join the PTA and maybe lead a Campfire troop. She'd been a Campfire Girl when she was little. In fact, her mom was still a leader back home.

“Here's my mom and dad.” She showed Raina the picture.

“They look real nice.”

The girl smiled. “They are. Do you got any family?”

“No.”

“What're you gonna do when the baby comes? You can't stay here more than two weeks.”

“Who'd want to?”

“It's not that bad. I was in one place where they let in all these winos. They howled all night, kept the babies awake.”

Raina told her she was going to get an apartment, as soon as her AFDC came through. “Can't you get one too?”

Jenny explained that there'd been some big mix-up; they claimed she'd gotten more money than she should've, so they'd cut off her aid until she paid it back. Or something like that. It was complicated. Now she had to make sure they didn't grab her kids, because, “Once they get your kids it's real hard to get them back.” They were her kids; no one else was gonna raise them. They weren't going to no foster homes. Some of them weren't too good.

“Yeah, I know.”

All around them, people were getting ready for bed, herding kids back and forth from the showers and the bathroom.

“Boy,” Jenny said. “I could use a smoke. Too bad you can't smoke here. It's just as well. Whenever I do, Troy says, ‘Mommy, don't.' It's cute how he says it, kind of wagging his finger.”

“What time do the lights go off?”

“They don't.” Jenny shrugged. “That's the way it is.”

Raina knew what the girl was going to say next, before she even knew it herself.

“Maybe we could get a place together,” Jenny said. “I get food stamps. That helps. You'll get food stamps too. You could watch the kids, and I could get a job. I used to be a waitress. Made real good tips; one night I made sixty bucks! We could help each other out, take good care of our kids. They could kinda be like cousins or something.”

“Maybe,” Raina said. It wasn't a bad idea. You couldn't live on welfare, just starve. Jenny didn't seem lazy or crazy or mean. She loved her kids. Their clothes and faces were clean. Maybe she would love Raina's baby too. They could have Christmases together, with Santa Claus and stockings, and presents for the kids piled under the tree. And Thanksgiving dinners, around a big crowded table, with plenty to be thankful for, and eat; their kids grown up and happily married, with children of their own playing at her feet. She and Jenny would smile across the table and say, “And to think it all started in a homeless shelter!”

Was it so much to ask? Was it such a big dream?

“All right,” she finally said.

“Well, all right! That's great!” Jenny laughed and they shook hands. “One thing for sure, though: I don't want no druggies around. The last place we lived, I had to keep Troy inside. There were needles all over; in the halls, in the park. I don't want my babies around that stuff.”

“Me neither.”

“You'll see.” Jenny smiled. “It'll work out good.”

At ten o'clock, the lights dimmed. Jenny turned on her side. Raina thought she was asleep, but then she said, “We got to find a place near good schools.”

“Right.”

“Troy's supposed to start kindergarten next fall. But I'm not gonna send him unless he's ready. Some people put their kids in school too soon. That's not good.”

“No. Then they have to struggle to keep up.”

“Exactly.”

Jenny's breathing got soft and slow.

It felt odd to lie among so many strangers. What if someone went nuts and tried to hurt her? But even nuts need rest. The baby stood on its head. She rubbed her belly and whispered, “Go to sleep, little acrobat baby.”

Night settled upon the rows of beds. A man coughed on the other side of the wall behind her head. A few women cried, but the kids were pretty quiet. Soon she was alone in a room full of dreams.

Chapter Twenty-One

When she got up one morning something warm ran down her legs and a wave of pain washed from her head to her feet.

Jenny said, “Your water's broke! The baby's coming.”

The puddle was pink. Jenny said, “There's blood.”

Was that supposed to happen? She couldn't speak. Pain had always been outside, trying to break through her skin, but this was twisting deep inside her belly, her brain.

Jenny disappeared down the row of beds, then crouched beside her, rubbing her neck.

“Don't worry, honey. An ambulance is coming.”

People crowded around, but she didn't care. She was alone in a place where there was only pain like she had never known.

“Try to relax. Take long, deep breaths.”

Jenny sounded far away. A baby cried somewhere. Raina curled into a ball around a jagged stone of tearing, pounding, drowning fear.

Her brother's girlfriend had said it was like cramps, kind of achy and slow, then the baby popped out. I'm made to have babies, she'd added proudly. Yeah, like a cow, Raina's mother had said.

Jenny smoothed back Raina's hair. “Don't be scared, honey. The baby's in a hurry, that's all that's happening.” A kid's voice said, “What's wrong with the lady?” Jenny turned away and shouted, “Where's the ambulance?”

Two men came with a gurney. They strapped her on it and wheeled her down the aisle, Jenny's face beside her. “Don't worry,” she was saying. “Everything'll be fine. We'll get a place together soon as you get out.”

Wheels clattered on the sidewalk. She was rolled inside a van, a man in a white suit busy beside her. A siren blared, or maybe she was screaming. The man attached something to her belly, her arms.

Then long white halls, doors exploding open, dark tunnels with lights flashing overhead, an elevator ride, then a small bright room, masked faces peering at her, fingers peeling off her clothes.

She had never felt so cold. She could not stop trembling. She clamped her teeth together, but the words squeezed out. “I can't do this! I gotta get out of here!”

“You should've thought of that sooner,” a man's voice said.

They lifted up her legs, plunged something deep inside her. She fought them. The man said, “You've got to lie still!”

“Can't we give her something, Bill?”

“It's too late.”

Was she dying? A woman's voice in her ear: “Can you pant, sweetie? Pant.”

She'd forgotten what that word meant. Something gripped her arms.

“Prolonged deceleration.”

“Get her over on her side.”

“You've got to turn over, sweetie.”

“I can't! It hurts!” Pain clawed at every secret place. Hands lifted her. She screamed. She faced a TV set. A green line stitched across the dark screen, bleeping.

“Down to eighty … seventy.”

Something covered her nose. Bobby held out his arms to her, he looked so sleepy. He was closing his eyes.

“Wake up, Bobby! No!”

“It's oxygen, Raina.” The nurse's voice. “We're trying to help you, but you've got to help too.”

“Get her arm, will you—damn it!”

She'd knocked off the doctor's glasses. She tried to say, I didn't mean to.

“Nurse, do you mind? Are we on the same team here?”

“Sorry, doctor.” The woman's urgent whisper in her ear again. “I know it's hard, Raina, but try to focus on your breathing.”

She'd forgotten how to breathe.

“Will you hold her still?”

“I'll take over here, Bill.” Another man's voice.

“Where the hell have you been?”

“In the john, do you mind?”

The doctors were talking, voices rising and falling like waves of roaring white-tipped pain that smashed her on an airless shore, then dragged her back to crash again.

The new doctor bent down and looked in her face. His mouth and nose were masked, but his eyes were kind. “I'm Dr. Green, Raina.”

“Where's Dr. Ramirez?”

“In surgery this morning. I'm taking her calls.”

“She's all yours.” The angry doctor left the room.

Dr. Green snapped on some gloves. “Raina, you'll have to forgive Dr. Miller. He hasn't been the same since his leeches died. He doesn't think little girls should have babies. Which is rather beside the point at this time.”

The nurse laughed and said, “You're awful.”

The doctor ducked behind the tent draped over her legs.

“I'm going to examine you, Raina. Try to relax.”

“I can't! It hurts!”

“I'm not surprised. I can see the baby's suitcase.”

“What do you mean?”

“I'm just joking, trying to put you at ease. Is it working?”

“No.” But she was glad that he was there.

“I studied to be a comedian, but my grades weren't too good, so I transferred to medical school. Relax your knees, please. You're breaking my wrist. How long have you been a professional wrestler?”

“All my life,” she moaned.

“You're doing good. Try to breathe through your nose. You're hyperventilating.”

“What's that?”

“Freaking out.” Then his hand was inside her, turning the whole world around.

“I'm gonna be sick!”

“You're doing just fine.”

“It hurts so bad. Can't you give me something?”

“The baby's coming too soon. We don't want to dope it up.”

“How soon?”

“An hour. Maybe less.”

“You call that soon?”

The way she said it made them laugh. Her legs had stopped shaking, and there were breaks in the pain when she could catch her breath, then the pain would roll in again and overwhelm her. The nurse patted her arm and said, “You're doing great.”

“I can't, I can't—”

It was a song she was singing. The others were speaking a foreign language: presentation, dilation, scalpel, appease—

“I'm going to do an episiotomy, Raina.”

“What's that?” she gasped.

“Widen the opening so the baby can come out.”

“You mean cut me?”

“There's so much pressure there, you won't even feel it.”

“I can't, I can't—” She was on the ceiling, looking down at the girl lying on the bed, thinking: What's she gonna do? She can't escape. Then the pain pulled her down, wrapped its red arms around her, sinking its teeth into her bones, her brain.

She was blind, she was dying. Her mind tried to hide, to find someplace safe where there was no more pain. But it got there first, opening every door for her. She could only go where the pain was taking her.

Then it stopped. Like that. Was she dead? A baby cried. She'd forgotten the baby. Was the baby all right?

She was too scared to look. “Is the baby okay?” What if it was nothing but a knot of flesh, a tangled mess of alcohol and cigarettes and meth? And it was all her fault, she was the one who'd done it—

Dr. Green laid something warm on her chest.

“She's fine, Raina,” he said. “Open your eyes.

So little. So red. Eyes scrunched closed, skin all wet. But alive and warm and blindly turning her head. The nurse helped the baby find Raina's small breast.

“She's okay? Are you sure?” She could not stop smiling, marveling at the miniature body, the delicate perfection of the fingers and toes. “Her face kinda looks like she's from outer space.”

Dr. Green laughed. “They all look like that. She's a beautiful baby, Raina.”

The nurse took the baby to a corner of the room and rubbed her with a towel and put drops in her eyes. The baby wailed, a tiny piping sound that stirred in Raina's heart and made her laugh and cry.

The doctor was busy behind the drape. He said, “You're delivering the placenta now.”

She felt a cramp, then something big slid out.

“I'm going to stitch you up a bit. I promise it won't hurt.”

She felt only joy, her eyes full of the baby. Her daughter, her little girl.

She shared a room with a big, friendly woman who'd just had her fourth boy. “I'll trade you,” she said.

BOOK: The White Horse
11.01Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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