“You won’t. Chill.”
He eases me onto his lap, tickling the back of my neck with kisses.
“I don’t even know where Brooklyn Tech is.”
“I got you, babe. I won’t let you get lost, no need for an Amber Alert.”
I laugh. Ted remembers everything, like how I hate being lost, afraid I’ll never be found. He keeps me safe, warm and grounded, even when I want the earth to swallow me up.
During that first week at Greenview, I could feel Ted watching me. In the halls, in the kitchen, and patients’ rooms, staring, heat in his eyes. I mean, I was curious about him too. I kept thinking, is this what boys do, make you feel naked with all your clothes on? And the way he smiled at me, like he was honestly happy to see me, reminded me of a time when someone wanted me. I would have given anything to have that again.
The next week, in the dining hall, he planted himself at my table without asking, slurping up soup and crackers. His presence was like a space heater, the feeling confusing. Too nervous to hold a spoon steady, I rubbed my feet against the carpet, desperate to run and hide. This went on for a week, every day him sitting next to me, calmly eating his food, me frozen in terror. Maybe it was the way he didn’t push me to talk, but by the next week, my muscles, tense and hardened from baby jail, began to ease. I started eating again, enjoying his silent company, no questions, just the comfort of knowing he was there and didn’t want a thing from me. Then one day, he slid his milk onto my tray without looking up and said, “I love your eyes.”
It was the nicest thing anyone had said to me in years . . . and I panicked. Always alone in my cell, I didn’t know how to talk to people. I mean, how do you tell someone you’re a mute for Christ’s sake? But for some reason, with him, I couldn’t just say nothing either. So I stared at his knuckles and blurted out the first thing I thought of.
“What did you do?”
I’d slapped my mouth shut, horrified. Shit, what a stupid thing to say!
He’d smiled and said, “So how long you been out?”
And then my whole universe had opened up and he became my sun.
Saturday comes fast. I leave the house at six thirty in the morning to meet Ted at the station. I lied and told Reba I volunteered for extra hours so she’d unlock the door for me. We take a bus to the L train, transfer to the C train, and get off at Lafayette.
Ted holds my hand as we walk down the brownstone-lined block, under giant trees toward the park. Momma told me only millionaires live in these brownstones. I didn’t believe her. Why would rich folks want to live in Brooklyn? But it’s so pretty and clean over here, the houses so huge. No crack heads, no bodegas, not even a liquor store. Just wine shops. So maybe she’s right.
Brooklyn Tech is big. I mean, it takes up a whole city block; it’s the biggest school I’ve ever seen. The roof touches the clouds. The windows, maybe a thousand of them, are covered in mesh metal . . . no escape. There are other kids, like me, walking through big metal doors that slam hard behind them. My chest feels funny. I try to pull my hand away but Ted grips it tighter.
Big like hospitals . . . Big like baby jail . . . White rooms . . . Don’t leave me . . .
“I have to throw up.”
Ted lets go of my hand as I rush in between two parked cars and puke everything out of my stomach. I recognize the blueberry muffin and cranberry juice I had on the train ride over. Two dollars and twenty-five cents. I wipe my mouth with the tissue in my bag and rub my hands with sanitizer, free from the nursing home. Ted watches, his face a stone. I know what he’s thinking. Still no period.
Ted clears his throat. “Maybe . . . we should come back another day.”
chapter three
It’s Tuesday. Now twenty-five days and still no period, so I’m pretty sure I’m pregnant. I’ve never missed before. Never even been a day late. It always came on time. Punctual. Just like Momma.
I didn’t tell Ted I used my savings to buy a pregnancy test. Thirteen dollars and forty-nine cents for a generic one at Duane Reade. But the only private place to take it is in one of the patient’s bathrooms at the nursing home.
The lady in room 408 sobs in the corner, talking in circles. I close the door so no one would hear and change her piss-soaked sheets for the third time this week. Poor lady is not ready for the fifth floor just yet.
Before Ted, I didn’t know anything about sex but what it sounded like. Momma had lots of sex with Ray and a bunch of other guys. She used to make all these wild noises, like someone was hurting her. Ray would talk to her in Spanish, she would holler back in English. Our last neighbor, Mr. Middlebury, was the worst of them. Sweaty, lumpy, and smelled like he bathed in Head & Shoulders shampoo. Soon as he’d walk in, I’d run in my room and close the door before the smell could seep in. He’d scream like a girl in Momma’s room and the whole house would stink for days. Every time I saw his wife, I’d wondered how she could stand it.
Ted and I talked about sex a lot. He kept saying I didn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to, but I was ready to chase the numbness away. And I wanted Ted to be my first. If it had been up to the devil, I would’ve lost my virginity to Ray a long time ago. But I fought back. And that made me crazy, impulsive, and my favorite misdiagnosis, “hyperactive.” Go figure.
We decided to do it during dinnertime, while the nurses were busy making sure no one choked. The only free bed was in a room share on the second floor, with a patient that never ate in the dining room. So we waited, made sure he was asleep, snuck in, and pulled the curtain closed around us. Ted had been with girls before. But the way his big eyes searched my face, gently moving, making sure I was okay, made it feel like it was his first time too. His lips soft, sweet like pancake syrup, skin smelled like cocoa butter and soap, his arms locked around me like handcuffs; I never wanted to escape his prison. I was better than okay. Not like I am now, in this bathroom.
It took four minutes to confirm what I already knew with two blue lines. I wrap the test in 408’s pissy sheets and throw them in the trash so no one will know either of our secrets.
For the rest of the day, I avoid Ted, hiding on the fifth floor. The look on his face when I threw up in front of the school . . . I don’t know how he’s going to react. Other than Alyssa, I haven’t kept anything from him. I’m sick just thinking of telling him that secret too.
What if I just got rid of it? He would never know.
But an abortion would make me a baby killer. Again.
New York Police Department First Responders Report—Officer Ricardo Hernandez—
67th Precinct, Brooklyn
On December 11th, at approximately 19:17 hours, I was dispatched to 330 E 18th Street in reference to a home disturbance. As I arrived on scene, I observed a woman, later identified as Dawn Cooper, screaming in the front yard. When questioned, she said a baby wasn’t breathing.
The smell of eggs frying in butter makes my stomach heave. I run, but can’t make it to the toilet before throwing up last night’s dinner in the sink. Morning sickness. This is it. I really am pregnant.
“Kisha, hurry it up or you’ll be late,” Ms. Stein barks downstairs. “And where’s Mary?”
“She still upstairs.”
“That lazy brat! Mary! Mary! Reby, go get her.”
Shit!
I scoop up the chunks and slime with my hands quick, shaking them off in the toilet. Reba knocks on the door.
“Mary!”
Flush, down my secret goes. I use half a roll of toilet paper and wipe the sink clean.
“Come on, Mary! Let’s go! Now.”
My forehead is wet, hair sticking to my neck. Ain’t no air in here to help me breathe right. I wash my hands, change for school, and head downstairs.
“Hey, what’s wrong with you?” Ms. Stein snaps. “Why you look like that?”
One whiff of the girls eating fried eggs, sucking and mashing on them like cows, and I hurl by the stairs. SPLAT!
“Ew, Mary! That’s disgusting! What’s wrong with
you?”
The girls scatter like roaches. I drop to my knees, frantically sopping up chunks with a rag, like I can make it all disappear. But it’s too late. They’ve already seen.
“Are you pregnant?”
Shit.
Ms. Stein is the last damn person I want to know. I shake my head.
“Are you lying?”
“No?” I say.
“Get in here now!”
I follow her to the half bathroom, the girls whispering behind us. She pulls out a pregnancy test, the mad professional kind, and makes me pee in front of her.
Five minutes later, she confirms what I already know.
“See. I knew it! Dumb little girl can’t keep her damn legs closed. Get to school! I’ll deal with you later.”
Continued—First Responders Report—
Officer Ricardo Hernandez
I was led to a back bedroom in the house. Upon entrance, I found a Caucasian female infant wearing a pink onesie and lying face up on a bed. I asked Cooper the baby’s name and she identified her as Alyssa. Cooper stated the baby was not hers. I alerted dispatch, brought the baby into the living room, and began CPR.
Ted is mopping in the community room on the fifth floor, his back to the patients. I watch from the door, my chocolate prince. Should I really ruin his life with this? Could I be this cruel?
Ted turns, but is unrecognizable. Under his dark skin, a black eye is forming. His lip is split open and it looks like a cheese grater cut across his cheek. I run across the room.
“What happened?”
“Long fucking story,” he snaps, pushing my hand away, his eyes another shade darker. I flinch. Same way I used to when Momma got mad at me.
Alyssa . . . he knows? But how?
Blood rushes to my feet, heart pumping the life out of me while Ted barely looks at me. I don’t know this Ted; he’s never snapped at me before. I feel like a moon drifting farther away from my sun, lost and growing colder. He pinches his eyes closed and with a groan drops the mop, wrapping his arm around me.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean that,” he whispers. We rock slow for a minute and he kisses the top of my head. “I always feel better when you’re around.”
“Me too,” I say into his chest, relief washing over me. And it’s true. He dulls the pain of missing someone who doesn’t want me.
It’s okay. He’s not Momma. He won’t hurt me.
Letting my heart slow down, I focus on his sneakers. Once blue, now blackened from wear, the laces frilled at the ends.
“I’m pregnant.”
Ted stops breathing and freezes. I was afraid of this. If this is the last time he’ll ever speak to me again, I want to remember and touch every part of him, so I hold him tighter. He untangles himself, stepping back with this tense stare, his hands cupping my face.
“It’s okay, babe. Aight, we’ll . . . figure it out.”
I relax and melt back into his arms. He inhales deep.
“Don’t worry. You’ll make a great mom. You won’t let anything happen to our baby.”
I stare back down at his sneakers, at the dried mud crusting around the bottom.
If he only knew the real me.
Continued—First Responders Report—Officer Ricardo Hernandez
Shortly after moving the baby, Officer Robin Blake arrived on the scene. A young girl wearing pink and white pajamas with no shoes, later identified as Cooper’s daughter, Mary Addison, ran into the living room from the back entrance of the house. I observed her running toward the infant’s room. The front of Addison’s clothes appeared to be wet and covered in black mud. She was visibly shocked to see us. Brooklyn EMT arrived and took over CPR. They pronounced the child dead on scene.
On the bus ride back to the group home, some kids jump on near the high school and I pretend to be invisible, dipping lower in my seat. Normal teenagers. Boys in baseball hats, baggy jeans, dreads, short cuts, and boots. Girls in expensive sneakers, purple book bags, straight hair, long braids, and pink lips. They’re loud, talking about some football game they just came from, midterm projects, and music. Eating Rice Krispies Treats, drinking soda, laughing and smiling. Going home to their mothers or fathers, maybe both. They don’t have to worry about cells with no windows or COs raping them. They probably never had to worry about money for soap or deodorant or taking pills until they can hardly taste the rat shit slipped into their oatmeal. They don’t have to worry about group homes, fat foster mothers, or turning eighteen. There are no social workers hating them, roommates trying to kill them, or parole officers looking for any excuse to throw them back into baby jail. And they don’t have to worry about having a baby at sixteen. Wish I could be them, but I’m not.
I’m gonna have a baby.
And Ms. Stein knows, which means everyone is going to know soon enough. This makes my stomach turn. Where the hell am I going to live with a baby? The group home? It’s too dangerous. Strollers, diapers, baby food . . . where am I going to get money for all of that?
I’m gonna have a baby. A real baby . . . like Alyssa.
It’s going to grow and come out of me. I’ll be its momma and can make all the rules. I’ll be able to do all the things I couldn’t do with Alyssa; hold her, feed her, change her diaper, read to her, play with her all the time, all day long, whenever I want. Ted and I, we’ll be real parents, like Alyssa’s momma and daddy. They were the best parents. I used to wish they were my parents. If they were, then maybe I wouldn’t be here.
One of the kids starts talking about the SATs and my ears perk up. It’s the one thing I have in common with them, the only thing that keeps me normal and separates me from the animals. I can’t help but smile.
I’m gonna have a baby.
When I get back to the group home, social services is parked out front. Right on time. Ms. Stein is an award-winning snitch. Ms. Carmen and Winters are in the visitors’ room, waiting. I sit and take one hard look at Ms. Stein, who pretends not to notice.
“So,” Winters starts. “How the hell did this happen?”
This doesn’t seem like the type of talk I can keep quiet for but I shrug anyways.
“Ha. Sure. You have noooo idea,” he says.
“Do you even know who the father is?” Ms. Carmen says, rolling her eyes.
This is a tricky question. Ted is eighteen. I’m fifteen. I shake my head no.
“Of course not,” Ms. Stein mumbles. “So . . . what do I do with her?”
“What do you mean?” Ms. Carmen snaps. “You keep her, until the baby is born! You’ll have to move her to a bottom bunk though.”
Ms. Stein purses her lips. She wanted to get rid of me.
“We’ll start the adoption proceedings immediately,” Ms. Carmen says to Winters. “Make this quick.”
“Adoption? Someone’s going to adopt me?” I blurt out. I’m surprised at how quickly the thought sparks hope in me. Like, me, adopted, someone actually wanting me.
Winters does a double take then leans back in his chair, the wind knocked out of him. Ms. Carmen, momentarily shocked by the sound of my voice, turns my way, irritated and disgusted, as if she forgot I was still in the room.
“No, no, adoption for your baby.”
There is a brief pause as the world comes crashing around me. Windows break, buildings collapse, people screaming and drowning in the rising sea, and yet somehow I still hear Herbert, buzzing nearby.
“What?”
“Mary, you are still a ward of the state, which means your baby is now a ward of the state. Both Winters and I have the final say in what happens to your baby. And given your crime . . . we cannot in good conscience put another life at risk.”
A tightness pinches around my lungs, face hot and tingly. My baby, my Alyssa, they want to take her away from me?
“You don’t get to keep your baby in prison,” Winters says.
Is this prison or a group home? I guess they’re one and the same. But I didn’t do anything. I’ve been good! That’s why they let me out, right?
“But I . . . I’ve been—”
“Now, we can’t make you do anything you don’t want to,” Ms. Carmen says. “If terminating the pregnancy is something you’d like to explore instead, we can schedule that. But if not, we will have to make adoption arrangements.”
I’m dizzy from holding my breath for so long, maybe for years. And something ugly, hidden deep inside me is threatening to erupt. I can’t hold it back anymore. How do I make it stop before it’s too late?
“Well, Mary? What you got to say for yourself?” Ms. Carmen asks.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. My lungs are about to bust, body shaking.
“What is it, Mary? Spit it out.”
The hot stingy sensation on my face makes my head hurt, the buzzing louder. I can’t keep my baby? All ’cause of Alyssa? But Momma said . . . damn, should I tell them? No, it’s too late. You can’t! But it’s MY baby. It’s me and Ted’s baby, NOT theirs. They can’t do this. It’s not fair. It wasn’t my fault.
I didn’t mean to throw her . . .
“I didn’t do it.”
“Didn’t do what?” Winters snaps.
A dam opens and I realize what the sensation is. Hot tears, dripping down my face, eyes a leaking facet. I am crying. I never cry. And everything clinched up inside me releases before I say her name out loud for the first time in years.
“I didn’t kill Alyssa.”
Winters scoffs. “I’m sure.”
No one moves or says anything, but their faces all say the same thing: they don’t believe me.
“Mary, would you excuse us? I’d like to talk to Winters and Ms. Stein alone,” Ms. Carmen says.
Still can’t feel my legs, but somehow I walk out, every breath wheezing. I stand in the hall and listen.
“Well, this is a fucking mess,” Winters says.
“That girl has been trouble from the start! I told you it was too soon to let that animal out,” Ms. Stein barks.
“You were supposed to be keeping an eye on her!” he screams.
“Don’t tell me how to do my job! You don’t think I know—”
“Would you calm down,” Ms. Carmen snaps. “Nobody is blaming you!”
Allegedly Page 5
