The Enemy

by JJ Knight

  I quickly look down at my knee as we move into a floor stretch.

  I’m not really sure how long we work out. The lights never flicker, and no hour is ever counted down. New people arrive in other corners, others leave.

  Finally, Blitz comes over. “I’m apparently no longer safe to lift a ham sandwich,” he says to me, looking over the girls. “I totally need to buy you one of those naked leotards.”

  My cheeks burn and a couple of the other girls laugh a little. We continue our stretch, and Blitz sits down next to me to follow our lead.

  Eventually Ingrid stands. “Tomorrow, we do pointe, so bring your shoes.”

  I guess we’re done.

  When I stand up, my legs are wobbly. Blitz notices and laughs. “You too, Princess?”

  He helps pull me up as Jenica comes over.

  “I think you had a good first day,” she says. “We expect you tomorrow. We’ll work out the soreness you will feel.”

  Blitz rolls his shoulders. “Yeah, this is gonna burn,” he says. He nudges me. “Race you to the masseuse.”

  Jenica shakes her head. “Young people with money,” she says. “You are spoiled. We’ll get you in proper dance shape.”

  Blitz waves at her as we collect my bag and head to the door. I’m too tired to even bend down and change my shoes, so I just shove my Crocs on over my slippers.

  We pass by Weeza, who sits glaring at Blitz from behind her desk. He blows her a kiss. “Miss you,” he says.

  She slams her phone on the desktop. “Don’t speak to me, Hollywood scum,” she says.

  “Please let me punch her, just once,” I say.

  Blitz leads me out the door. “Eh, she’ll just make you go viral on Twitter. I’m saving that for when you give birth to Blitz, Jr.”

  I stop in my tracks. “What?”

  He turns back to me and reaches for my hand. “Sorry, that was a really bad joke. I think all the lactic acid in my worn-out muscles has gone to my brain.”

  We head for the gray Mazda. My head is spinning. One, that Blitz wants a kid. Two, with me. And third, has he forgotten what we’re going through right now?

  I buckle in, not sure what to say. Blitz starts the car, then realizes I’m still quiet. He takes my hand and lifts my fingers to his lips. “I’m sorry, Livia. It was a boneheaded thing to say. I really wasn’t thinking.”

  I nod at him and look out the side window. How easy it is for him to forget where I’ve been, the things I’ve had to do.

  Gabriella’s birth was the best and worst day of my life.

  ~*´`*~

  Dad went to my first prenatal visit, where we confirmed the pregnancy. He hadn’t spoken to me in the weeks since he sent Denham back to his aunt. He acted like I didn’t exist.

  Dad transformed completely. Angry. Quick to judgment. I was forbidden from going to school. My mom had to do the homeschool paperwork and get me unenrolled.

  During a television show one night, two teenagers kissed and he grossly overreacted, yanking the plug from the wall and declaring no one in the family was going to watch that trash. He shoved the TV into the hall closet and took away my ancient desktop computer I once used for homework.

  When the doctor suggested that I was still eligible for a first-trimester abortion, Dad stormed out. Within two days, he had resigned his job and ordered my mother to pack the house. We were moving.

  The computer and television didn’t move with us.

  In San Antonio, Dad chose an elderly man to oversee my prenatal care, but he didn’t come to appointments. Mom and I heard the heartbeat and saw the blips of the baby’s shape on my sonograms.

  Dad had ordered Mom to sit outside while I saw the doctor, but on this, she didn’t listen to him and came in the exam room with me. They did, however, instruct everyone in the office not to tell me if I was having a boy or a girl. I didn’t argue. At fifteen, I had no voice.

  I was utterly alone for most of that year. Mom bought homeschool materials and expected me to be self-paced. I fell behind, but nobody pushed me right away. Andy was still young, of course, and stayed at home as well, but he kept calling me “fat” and nobody corrected him. I understood that he wasn’t to be told the truth.

  I’m sure other mothers feel wonder at the baby moving inside them, and there is a quiet joy in the kicks and the progression of their bellies from flat to beach ball.

  But I had no one to be happy with. Only two upset parents and a little boy who didn’t know. I sometimes thought of Denham and how differently I could have handled that night. But now we were in a new town, and I couldn’t go anywhere. I was to be seen by no one.

  I remember when my water broke. I’d felt contractions for weeks, random cramps that rippled across my belly. At first I was terrified, but when I told my parents, my father told me I deserved every pain I felt. Mom explained they were just for practice. I only hoped when the time came, I could tell the difference between those and the real ones.

  I did. When the first labor contraction came three days after I was due, I called Mom in. It was mid-afternoon, and Dad was at work. She sat by me to time them, but it was almost half an hour before another one came. She said we’d wait until Dad came home to watch Andy, and then she’d take me up to the hospital.

  With the third one, I felt warm and wet. I tried to stand up to avoid drenching my bed, but the pain was sharp and intense. I started huffing like I’d seen on sitcoms. I hadn’t done a birthing class, as my father wouldn’t let me out of the house other than for doctor visits. And even then, he’d always stood guard on the porch, making sure none of the neighbors saw me as I hurried from the house to the car. He ensured nobody in our new city knew, especially the neighbors.

  Mom called him to come home early, but he said I could damn well live with the pain until he was good and ready to get there. He stayed an extra half hour, just to spite us.

  I was crying with the pain by then. I barely weighed one hundred pounds even at nine months pregnant, young and small. I had trouble gaining weight. The whole ordeal was more than I could bear, and I was terribly scared.

  Mom had finally loaded Andy in the car. He was whimpering with fear every time I cried out, when Dad drove up. They got in an awful fight over her disobeying him, but he took Andy and let us leave.

  By the time we got to the hospital, I was too close to delivery to get an epidural. And still, the pushing went on and on. Mom wiped my forehead with washcloths. The nurses clucked over how young I was, so even between the rounds of pushing, I cried from embarrassment and shame.

  When the baby’s head started to come out, the nurse got the doctor and he sat at my knees to deliver the baby. I noticed another woman in the room, tall and sharp nosed, holding a folder flattened against her chest. She waited like a hawk.

  The moment the baby was out, she stepped forward. I was trying to listen to the baby’s first cry, to sit up and get a peek, when the woman’s deadpan voice said, “Your parents have informed me you don’t want to see the baby or know the gender.”

  My vision was a red haze of pain and exhaustion and relief. I ignored her. “Is it a boy or a girl?” I asked the doctor.

  But the woman stepped forward again. “We really recommend you not see or hold the baby or know the gender prior to transfer to the adoptive parents. It makes the transition easier.”

  I looked over at Mom. She was biting her lip.

  “Mom?” I asked her.

  “You had to know we weren’t going to keep it,” she said.

  I looked at the doctor, who had passed the baby on to a team who was wiping her down on a little table beneath a bright light.

  “I want to know,” I said. “Boy or girl?”

  “Initial here that you acknowledged our consultation and chose not to follow our instructions.” The woman stepped forward with the folder and a pen.

  “Is this really the best way to go about it?” the doctor asked. “The poor girl has just had a baby!”

  One of the nurses touched his arm
. “It’s how some of them do it,” she said.

  He shook his head. “Not on any of the deliveries I’ve done.” He turned back to me. “Nurse, delivery of the placenta,” he said.

  I felt another push and a gush down below. I looked over at the table. The baby was crying, her face red. I could see she was a girl as they cleaned her. I sat back.

  The doctor lowered my legs from the metal holders. “Time of birth, 8:52 p.m. Healthy baby girl.” He glared up at the woman as he said it and stood up.

  “Apgar is 6,” one of the nurses with the baby said.

  The doctor patted my leg. “You did all right.”

  “The couple is waiting downstairs,” the tall woman said, still holding out her folder. “They wanted to be here for the birth. We just need the signatures so we can transfer parental rights.”

  I ignored her, looking over at the baby. They were wrapping her in a striped blanket. One of the nurses placed a small stretchy cap on her head.

  “I want to hold her,” I said. “I get to do that, right?”

  The nurses looked at each other, frowning.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” the woman said.

  I pushed myself higher on the bed. “I want to hold her,” I insisted.

  One of the nurse aides, a short one with dark curly hair, brought her over to me. “Here you go,” she said.

  The moment I felt the featherlight weight of her, I was filled with wonder.

  I couldn’t see much of her, just her little face. She yawned sleepily, and it was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen. How did she know how to yawn?

  Her cheeks were pinker than her forehead and her chin. She had short stubby lashes and almond-shaped eyes. I could have stared at her forever.

  I looked up at Mom, to see if she felt the same awe, but she was sitting in the corner, focused on the parking lot outside the window instead.

  I gazed back down. Her eyes were slate blue. I thought I could see his nose on her, but it was so small and round.

  I couldn’t hold her hands or see her feet in her burrito bundle, but it was enough to look at her face. A string on her little hat had unraveled, and I smoothed it down.

  Such tiny ears. Little wisps of dark hair.

  “We need to take her to be assessed,” a nurse said. “Weighed and measured and a more thorough cleaning.” She held out her arms.

  I didn’t want to let her go. I looked at her again. What if this was it? The only time I would see her? I desperately wished for a camera, a cell phone, anything that would capture this moment. But I had nothing, and no one in the room would do it for me. Not under these circumstances.

  My throat tightened so hard that I could barely breathe. They couldn’t take her. They just couldn’t!

  The woman with the folder cleared her throat. A stern-faced nurse, the one who told the doctor that this was all normal, forcibly took the baby from me. I wanted to hold on and tensed my arms, but she warned, “The baby is fragile.”

  So I let go.

  I let go.

  They placed her in a plastic crib on a rolling cart.

  “She’s losing her hat,” one said, but they wheeled her out anyway.

  She was gone.

  “I have all the paperwork right here,” the woman with the folder said.

  “Mom?” I asked again. “Is this what you decided?”

  “We can’t keep the baby,” she said. “It’s an abomination.”

  Tears flowed down my face. She was not. She was perfect.

  The woman held out the folder but I turned my face away.

  “Just bring it here,” Mom said.

  “She’s a minor,” the woman said. “Here is where your signatures go. But we still want her to sign.”

  “I won’t,” I said.

  A rumbling voice came from the doorway. It was my father, holding my brother Andy. “You will.”

  My insides quaked. He looked large and formidable in the stark room.

  My joy at seeing the baby, and my resolve to fight them, crumbled. Andy squirmed in his arms, trying to get down to me, but my father held him tight.

  “I’m just here to sign those papers, and then we’ll leave,” my father said.

  He passed Andy to Mom and took the pages from her. He scribbled his name and brought the paper to me.

  “Sign right here, Livia,” he said.

  My hands trembled on the sheets. I was coming down off the high of seeing the baby, and exhaustion was setting in. I wanted to be alone to cry.

  I took the papers and found the line with “Birth mother” below it. I scrawled my name.

  The woman flipped the page. “Also here and here, and initial these three places.”

  I did what I was told. There was nothing I could do anyway. Where does a fifteen-year-old go with a baby if she’s kicked out of her house?

  “Leave the baby’s name blank,” the woman said. “I’ll get that from the adoptive family.”

  “I don’t get to name her?” I asked.

  “You should detach yourself as quickly as possible,” the woman said. “It’s for the best.”

  I lay back, starting to feel all the places in my body that throbbed. My boobs felt funny too, hot and tingly. If they were all going to stare at me like I was a monster, I would just as soon all of them leave.

  “Are we square on the paperwork?” my dad asked.

  The woman flipped through the pages again. “Yes, I already had most of it filled in.” She picked up her bag from the corner. “I’ll be in touch if I need anything else.”

  She whisked herself from the room.

  “Come on, Dorothy,” my dad said. “We can pick her up when they discharge her.” He turned to the curly-haired aide, who had returned to quietly pick up the bedding and trays. “When will she get out?”

  “Probably tomorrow,” she said. “She’s a minor. Are you sure you should leave her?”

  “She’s old enough to get in this situation,” he said. “She’s old enough to get through it on her own.”

  The aide bit her lip and flashed me a sympathetic glance. “We’ll keep an eye on her.”

  My mom hadn’t moved from the chair, her face grave. “Ray, are you sure? She’s our daughter, alone in a hospital.”

  “You will obey me,” my father said. “Not a lick of you in this family knows how to handle themselves.”

  “A social worker will be coming,” the aide said. “Standard procedure when a girl this young has a child.”

  My father turned to her. “I do NOT consent to anyone talking to her. Do you hear me? Nobody.”

  The aide bit her lip again, but didn’t say a word.

  “Come on, Dorothy,” Dad said. He took Andy from her. “It’s late and we need to get our son to bed.”

  Mom picked up her sweater and purse. “Your overnight bag is here,” she said, patting the red duffel. “I’ll call later and see how you are.”

  Dad grunted at that, striding for the door without a backward glance. Mom gave me a quick hug and followed him out.

  When they were gone, the aide turned to me and helped me change into a new gown. “The social worker is required by law to come. If you’ve been abused or harmed, that would be the time to speak up.”

  When I was dressed again, I sank down in the bed. They were worried the baby was my father’s, I guessed. I would assure them that wasn’t true, and that everything that happened was my own decision.

  But I would never ever tell them the truth. That part of the secret was something I agreed with my dad about. No one needed to know about Denham.

  Chapter 20

  Blitz and I wake up Tuesday morning with groans and whimpers.

  “I can’t move my arms,” Blitz says with a laugh. “Jenica killed me.”

  “My butt will never be the same,” I tell him. “We did too many arabesques for a week, much less a day.”

  Blitz turns to me and rolls me onto my belly. “Well, rubbing your butt with my sore hands should help both of us,
right?”

  I laugh. “Maybe. Wait. Oww!” The pressure is like a bruise being punched. I reach and grab his upper arm and squeeze. “How is that?”

  “Hurts so good,” he says, collapsing back down on the bed. “We need a hot tub in our room.”

  I lean up on one elbow. Even that sends a howl through my midsection. “Why don’t we have a hot tub in our room? Did you get cheap on me?”

  His chest rumbles with a throaty chuckle. “I think there are jets in the bathtub, actually.”

  I drop back on the pillow. “Then call somebody to come fill it,” I say.

  Blitz drops a kiss on my forehead. “Being spoiled agrees with you,” he says. “How about I go get a steaming, jet-powered bath going for us?”

  I drag myself to sitting. “I’ll help,” I say, grimacing at all the places that hurt. “Are we really going back to Jenica’s today?”

  “It was fun,” Blitz says. “But it didn’t feel quite right. Did it for you?”

  I want to collapse with relief. “No. I missed Betsy something awful.”

  “They were killing each other for the sake of doing it,” Blitz says. “I’ve had trainers like that. They think it’s noble to sacrifice your body.” He stretches his arms and winces. “I’m the first to want a hard, solid workout, but being unable to function the next day is no good in my business.”

  “Or getting injured,” I say. “That would be the worst.”

  “Yeah, we were pushing it,” Blitz says. “So, okay, we’ll figure something else out.”

  “Even if that means you never get to see your super fan Weeza again?” I tease.

  “I’ll have to live with that.” He drops another kiss on my hair.

  “To the bath?” I say.

  Blitz nuzzles my neck. “Definitely.”

  After an hour’s soak, among other things, we start to feel human again. Blitz calls up a simple breakfast with healthy pressed juice and carbs, and we prepare to head to Dreamcatcher for the wheelchair ballerina class.

  “You think BD will be there today?” Blitz asks. “Or did he get enough charge out of his outburst on Friday?”