Love, Always

by Yessi Smith

“Yeah, thanks for this,” I tell them. “I hope it didn’t interrupt your vacations.”

  “It was nothing,” my mom tells me, clearly pleased with herself.

  2

  “I’m glad you could finally come down here.” My body tenses because I know I’m egging her on, but can’t stop myself. I don’t hate my parents, but I don’t like them either. They hurt me and because I don’t know how to let anything go, I want to hurt them back. “I’m glad it only took five months after my baby’s father died for you to pay me a visit.”

  My mom’s eyes widen momentarily before she narrows them at me.

  And 1. Blast off…

  “Don’t you think this pity party has gone on long enough?”

  “Nah,” I shake my head. “I was thinking about milking it for a few more years.”

  “You think you’re honoring Josh’s memory with your hysterics?” She tsks at me. “I’m sure he’s pleased to know you still manage to cry for him when you’re not sleeping with his best friend.”

  I stand up shaking. “You,” I shout, “know nothing!”

  Adam pushes people out the door while my mom runs her fingers over my cushions. “Did Josh enjoy your silly tantrums? I can’t imagine any man would, but he was still just a child as you’re proving to be. Maybe a nanny would be better for my grandbaby.” She looks up at my father who is glaring at me, and I don’t understand why my parents hate me.

  “Don’t you dare,” my voice is barely a whisper. “You don’t get to talk about Josh. And you sure as hell don’t get to make decisions about my baby.”

  “You live under my roof, dear. I pay for all your expenses. I do get to speak, and you will mind your manners.” My mom is on her feet, grabbing my arms so roughly I want to cry out in pain.

  “No!” I yell at her, shaking my arms free. “You never liked Josh! He wasn’t up to your asinine standards, so you don’t get to speak about him. This apartment,” I wave my arms, “I’ll burn it to the ground before I ever speak to you again.”

  I turn away from her, but am thrown backwards when the palm of my dad’s hand meets my cheek. I put my hand to my cheek, ignoring the tears streaming down my face as I prepare to fight a fight I have no energy for. Before I have time to say another word, Adam crashes into my father’s body and they fall to the ground. I step back in horror as they roll on the ground, both of them landing punches in the other’s face. This can’t be happening!

  I look for help, but his idiot bandmate, Ricky is laughing at them as they tear each other apart. I hear my mom call the police, and I’m too tired to do anything else, so I lie down on the floor, and with my knees pressed to my chest, I cry.

  I try not to remember the countless times my parents left me to fend for myself while they traveled the world in the pursuit of their perceived happiness. All the while chastising me for being less than perfect. For receiving B’s instead of A’s until I no longer cared and dropped out of school. For screaming at them when what I really needed to do was cry. For hurting myself to relieve some of the pain their neglect caused me.

  I try not to think about the horrible things they called Josh and their constant disapproval of both of us. How they accused him of selling drugs because no one with his lack of education could amount to anything any other way. How they told me he was only with me for their money, because seriously, why would anyone want me?

  I try not to think about Josh and everything he’s left behind.

  I try not to think at all.

  “Ma’am, are you hurt?” a voice says from behind me.

  I open my eyes to the chaos around me and once again wish I had died with Josh. I don’t know how long I’ve been lying on my side, but the condo is swarming with EMTs and the police.

  “Miss?” I look up at the young man’s face. He’s about my age, but his eyes eager to help, tell me that my experiences in life make me far older than him. I pity his ignorance; he has no idea how cruel life can be.

  “I’m fine,” I tell him.

  “We should take you to the hospital just to make sure.” His smile is genuine and I’m touched by his concern.

  I want to reassure him I’m fine, but from the corner of my eye I see Adam in handcuffs and I rush to his side.

  “What’s going on?” I demand.

  “Not now.” Adam shakes his head at me. His right eyebrow and lip are bleeding, and I hate myself for my weaknesses and inability to protect those I care about.

  “Please,” I ask the police officer holding Adam upright. “Please, why is he handcuffed?”

  The man looks at me as if I’m stupid. Maybe I am.

  “Stop,” I cry when he ushers Adam around me. “He didn’t do anything.”

  “He didn’t do anything?” my father spits at me, and I turn around to see him in much worse condition than Adam. “Look at this place.”

  “You did this!” I shout at him. “He did this.” I grab the officer by his arm. “My father hit me,” I tell him, touching the cheek he had slapped. “My boyfriend,” the word sticks in my throat so I clear it. “My boyfriend reacted to his pregnant girlfriend being attacked by her father. Please don’t take him to jail.” My eyes swim with tears, and I wonder if they’ll ever dry up. A drought would be a nice change of pace.

  The officers speak amongst themselves as I look at Adam, my sweet, sturdy Adam, who doesn’t deserve any of this.

  “Do you want to press charges?” one of them asks me.

  “No,” I reply. “I just want to get out of here.”

  The police eventually leave, escorting my parents as they go. Once the condo is empty of everyone but Adam and me, I crawl into bed and take Adam with me. He puts his arms around me and I burrow my face into his chest.

  “I don’t know where to go,” I tell him between sobs.

  “Go?” he asks as he smooths my hair back. “Why would you leave?”

  “I don’t want to live here anymore. It’s my parent’s place,” I confess. “And I don’t wanna owe them anything.”

  “It’s yours, sweetie.” I shake my head at him; he doesn’t understand. “It’s yours. Shhh, listen. I bought it from your parents months ago.”

  I look up at him, not understanding. “You - what?”

  He kisses the top of my head and pulls me closer to him. “It’s yours, sweetie. You don’t have to worry.”

  For the first time in months, sleep finds me, and I drift off while Adam sings softly by my side and brushes my hair back with his fingers.

  I wake up the next morning with Adam still by my side and am appalled by what I see. As usual, Adam’s needs went unattended and the cuts and bruises on his face are even more pronounced by the blood that was never wiped clean. I move away from him and try to slip out of bed without waking him, but because I’m an enormous whale that fails at subtleties, my attempts are quickly noticed.

  “You okay, Dee?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I nod. “Stay here.”

  I ignore my bladder as I waddle my way to the kitchen so that I can fill a bowl with warm water and find a dish rag. Maternal instincts are foreign to me, and I’m uncomfortable at the idea of cleaning Adam’s cuts, but I ignore that as well. I want to give because I take so much.

  “What’s this?” he asks when I set the bowl on the nightstand beside him.

  “Shut it,” I respond, and he smartly closes his mouth and hides his smile behind a fake cough. “Scoot.”

  I playfully shove him until I have enough room to sit on the side of the bed. I feel clumsy as I clean his face with the dish towel. I try to be careful and not apply too much pressure to the cuts. He never winces or complains, but keeps his eyes focused on my face. Well, eye, because his left eye is swollen shut. I sigh as I trace my finger around his eye.

  “I don’t think ice will do much for you now.”

  “Don’t need it.” He smiles. “I’m all better now.”

  I shake my head and laugh at him. “A dork is what you are.”

  “Yeah, well, this dork needs
a shower.”

  “A shower? If I had known that, I wouldn’t have cleaned your face,” I tease.

  “Which is why I stayed quiet,” he laughs.

  He hops in my shower so I go to his, and from the walls I can hear him singing. I love Adam’s voice. It’s soothing yet has always sent my heart in a whirlwind of pitter-patters. Having him back home means the condo will be full of music, and for a short time the darkness in my heart will be fought off by the light Adam holds in him.

  After drying off, I put my hair in a bun on the top of my head and slip into a beach dress I hardly fit into anymore. I grab a bowl of grapes from the refrigerator and go to the couch to find Adam lying across it.

  “You gonna feed me grapes too?”

  I snort. “Not in this lifetime.”

  Adam lifts his head so I can sit on the couch with him and then places his head on my lap. I run my fingers through his hair and listen to him hum a song he must be working on. The baby kicks in response and Adam laughs when he feels it.

  “She knows your voice,” I tell him, and he looks at me with his eyebrows raised. “She always kicks when you sing.”

  “I didn’t know that.” He flashes me a smile before he kisses my belly and starts to sing with his mouth hovering directly over my stomach. My breath catches while my heart pounds in my chest at his unconditional love for a child he has decided to take on as his own.

  My baby will never know the voice or love of her real daddy, but she has Adam.

  “She knows she’s yours,” I whisper to him as I stroke his hair.

  I will never hear Josh’s voice or feel his love again, but I’m his.

  Adam

  The anger I felt over her dad striking her is nothing compared to the joy I felt when Dee told me the baby was mine. She’s my daughter, my little girl, in every sense that matters.

  Her fingers in my hair awakens me until I am nothing but pulsating nerves, and I have to push the need and desire down because I know Dee, and I know that’s not what she wants. It’s hard to remember that when she looks at me the way she did this morning as she cleaned the cuts and scrapes on my face. She’s so insecure and scared and sad. I want to hold her in my arms for the rest of eternity until all she feels is the love I have burning inside of me.

  I want to be with her. I want to hold her in my arms like I did last night. I want to be hers.

  But she won’t take me; she knows I’m not good enough. But I’m trying. I’m really trying.

  Six years old

  Mom walks into my room quietly, and I only pretend to be asleep for a second so she could wake me, but then I remember my baby brother. I open my eyes quickly and shoot out of bed, no longer worried about the needle in my arm.

  I run to Mom and she kneels down so she could hug me.

  “When can I meet him?” I ask, bouncing with happiness, but Mom shakes her head at me.

  Although I’m grown, I let Mom pick me up and carry me back to bed where she lays me down. She lays down next to me and pulls me close to her. I feel her tears fall on my cheek, so I pat her face until she smiles back at me.

  “Tommy’s with your daddy,” she whispers to me.

  “When are they coming?”

  Mom shakes her head again and more tears come out of her eyes.

  “Do you remember what happened last night, baby boy?”

  I look back at her and I shake my head no although I do. I remember the nightmare, but it isn’t true. It was just a bad dream.

  “Daddy was shot by a bad man last night,” she says between her cries, and I cover my ears, not wanting to hear anymore. She takes my hands and holds them in her own before she continues, “Daddy’s in heaven now, watching over us like a real superhero.” I look away when her tears fall faster. “Tommy went with him last night.”

  “Because of the bad man?” I ask, and Mom’s cries shake the bed we’re both lying on.

  I can’t focus on anything but the pain. The pain in my lower back, the cramps that tighten my stomach so hard I’m afraid to even breathe. But I have to breathe; long inhales and slow exhales.

  Adam rubs my back on the ride to the hospital, but all it does is infuriate me. I don’t want his hands drawing circles on my back. I don’t want his words of comfort. I want this baby pulled out of my vagina now.

  I go to move his hands, but stop when I feel like I've wet myself. An uncontrollable gush of fluid flows from my stupid vagina until I am covered in a disgusting liquid that smells like come.

  “My truck!” Adam shouts in horror.

  His truck? The pain in my back radiates upward until my brain tingles as the dam between my legs continues to flow, and all he can think about his stupid truck? I slam my fist against the car door repeatedly while I try to restrain myself from attacking Adam. I will beat the ever-loving shit out of his precious truck if he mentions it again.

  Adam puts his hands on my lap and squeezes gently. I glare at him, unsure if he’s going to ask me to put a plug up my vagina or if he’s offering some half-assed form of sympathy.

  “Touch me again and I will break your damned fingers off.”

  He lifts his hand from my lap, an exaggerated lift in the air as if he is declaring surrender. He continues to weave in out and out traffic, but I see the smirk on his face. Glad to see my current situation is such an amusement to him. Jack ass.

  I grunt in pain when Adam breaks too hard in front of the emergency room entrance and I do my best to not cause irreparable damage to his fingers when he helps me out of the truck. He’s only trying to help after all. But unless we can suddenly trade bodies, there isn’t an awful lot he can do to help me.

  A nurse wheels me into my delivery room where my vagina is put on display for the enjoyment of anyone with gloves. I’m close to begging them to just stick their hands inside of me and drag this baby out when a nurse asks me if I’d like an epidural.

  “Yes.” I breathe a sigh of relief that the pain will soon be over.

  “Are you sure?” she asks. Am I sure? Are you insane? I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life. “You’re already five centimeters dilated, almost there.”

  “If you don’t give me something for this pain I’m gonna stab you in the heart.” I look around for a sharp object so I can make my threat more attainable.

  “She’s sure,” Adam tells her as he takes my hands and puts them in his own. Probably wants to keep my hands away from anything that resembles a weapon.

  The nurse pulls out a needle the length of a small sword and I swallow at the sight of it. I close my eyes and focus on my breathing rather than my heart constricting in my chest. I try not to jump when I feel the needle’s pinch on my back and reassure myself this will all be over soon. Not soon enough.

  “How far along are you?” she asks.

  “Full term,” Adam responds for me as I focus on the next set of contractions. “She was scheduled to be induced in a couple days.”

  “The baby’s coming today,” she chuckles to herself, the only one privy to her ridiculous sense of humor.

  I am only granted a few moments of solace once the shot takes effect, because my body and this world enjoy seeing me suffer. I shake, every one of my limbs tremble. I have no control over them, over anything really.

  Adam stands beside me, rubbing his hands over my arms. “Do you want another blanket?” he asks, his eyes wide with worry.

  “I’m not cold,” I say through trembling lips.

  “You’re already five centimeters, almost there.” His words of comfort roll off of me, weightless and without any true depth or definition.

  I clench my jaw shut and close my eyes, waiting to dilate even further. But whoever is in charge of my life is a ruthless bitch who hates my very existence. The first wave of nausea hits me so hard I don’t have time to complain. My mouth becomes an open faucet of acid and bile. I feel Adam press a damp cloth to my forehead before replacing my covers that are now full of vomit with fresh clean covers. The smell of my vomit nauseates
me further, and I close my eyes as I focus on my breathing in the hopes that I will keep whatever wants out, in.

  “It’s okay, Dee.” Adam helps me sit up and rubs my back as I hold a plastic bag he brought me by my mouth. “It’s gonna be okay.”

  Like a punch to the gut, I remember my own reassuring words while Josh lied helpless under the rubble. If I had helped search for him…if I hadn’t admitted defeat while Josh was still breathing…

  I gasp for air as I obsess on the images of Josh’s battered, lifeless body. The room begins to spin and tilt, so I put the bag by my lips and open my mouth as I dry heave. The pain in my stomach returns as it convulses with each attempt to vomit. I can’t stop my tears as they fall down my face. I am held hostage by my shaking body, by my desolate life, by the depression I only pretended had left me.

  The nurses rush in while alarms go off in a shrill around my room. I want to cover my ears and shut the world out, but I am afraid to move the bag away from my mouth. I spit in the bag several times and turn away ice chips. I don’t flinch when they check me and feel numb when a nurse tells me I’m eight centimeters dilated.

  I turn away from my doctor when she comes in, but listen to her closely as she gives me instructions. With Dr. Armas situated below me and Adam standing by my side holding my hand, I focus on Josh, on what should have been his moment, and push.

  I hear my baby cry. It’s a distant cry, one I don’t recognize. I should feel something. Excitement? Joy? I’d settle for content.

  I close my eyes, shutting Adam out when he brings me my baby for the first time. I was right; I don’t want her. My limbs continue to shake as I vomit in a pink basin the nurse gave me while pushing.

  “She’s perfect, Dee.” Adam holds her close to his chest as he runs a finger down her nose. “What are we gonna name her?”

  I turn over, away from Adam and my baby, and watch the nurse fill my IV with antibiotics that will bring down my fever. The nurse pats me on my shoulder when she finishes checking my IV and blood pressure.

  “You’ll feel better soon.”