I walk back to the nurse’s office with Ms. Lee to take my morning vitamins. She unlocks a file cabinet and opens a drawer filled with all kinds of prescription medicines, vitamins, and over-the-counter pills and lotions. She pulls out a plastic baggie labeled “Autumn Grant,” and places three different kinds of vitamin capsules into my outstretched palm. She hands me a paper cup filled with water and watches as I swallow what Grams would have referred to as “horse pills.”
“Dr. Singh called this morning to say that your blood test shows that you’re slightly anemic. It’s not serious, but you’ll need to start taking iron capsules, too.”
“I hate taking pills! Can’t I get everything in a multi-vitamin?”
Ms. Lee shakes her head.
“It’s very important that you get the added iron. You want the baby to be healthy.”
I stare at a spot on the floor. In my vocabulary, “want,” and “baby” are two words that definitely do not go together.
“Autumn . . .”
Ms. Lee waits until I look up.
“You’ve got to face your situation. You’re more than six months pregnant! You’re going to have a baby!”
Chapter
10
I’m sitting by myself at lunchtime when Madison brings her tray to my table and plops down across from me.
“When’s your baby due?”
I keep chewing my turkey sandwich as if I haven’t heard.
“What?? You think you’re in a home for the blind and retarded, and no one’s noticed?”
I stop chewing and look up.
“It’s that obvious?”
Madison hoots with laughter.
“Ms. Lee wants me to go to a school for pregnant girls,” I say.
“Damn! I wish I was pregnant so I could go to that school!”
“Why?”
“So I could get out of this place every day—at least get a look at the outside world!”
“But Ms. Fenton says we can walk out anytime we want to.”
This time Madison laughs so hard she has to clamp her hand over her mouth to keep from spewing food out.
“What?”
“The old ‘We hope you won’t leave, but you can walk right through that door any time you want to? This is not a jail,’” she says, wiping her mouth.
“Yeah.”
“Here’s the deal. The minute you walk out that door, they call the cops. The cops find you and bring you back. We’re all minors. We have to be under the care of our parents or guardians. We can leave, but we’re not legal.”
Madison looks longingly at the chocolate cake still sitting on my tray. I pass it across to her.
“If you go to Teen Moms you’ll at least get out every day. And you’ll see different people. Do you know how boring it’s going to get, seeing the same old faces at school, at every meal, at recreation, in the dorm?”
Madison licks her finger and dabs up every last crumb on the plate.
“Everywhere you go, the same old faces, except in the shower room. Then you see the same old butts!”
After lunch, we go outside to sort of a combination soccer / baseball field for “recreation.” Someone named Edna leads the group in “calisthenics.” If Nikki could see what they call calisthenics here, she’d laugh her head off. As easy as they are though, I’m excused from doing them because of my “condition.” If not everyone knew before that I was pregnant, they do now.
After calisthenics we do five laps around the perimeter of the high-fenced field. Walking is supposed to be good for pregnant women, so I do the laps. Then we’re excused back to our dorms for forty-five minutes of homework. Since I don’t have any homework, I pick up the copy of Gone with the Wind again.
A woman, Ms. Solano, goes from one girl to the next, checking their homework and offering help. She’s sitting next to me, telling me how Gone with the Wind was the first book she ever liked, when Dericia calls her.
“Hey, Solano! I don’t get this stupid question!”
“Try reading it again, carefully,” Ms. Solano says.
A few minutes later Dericia calls out, “I still don’t get this fuckin’ question!”
Ms. Solano goes over to Dericia’s table and sits down beside her. I’m trying to concentrate on Gone with the Wind, but I keep hearing Dericia. She starts to read a question, stumbles, stops, then starts over again.
“Let’s work on this word,” Ms. Solano says.
I keep my eyes on my book, listening to Dericia try to figure out what some word says. After a lot of help—“Look at the first syllable, ‘re.’ How might that sound? Now try the second syllable. Now put them together . . .” etc., etc., etc., Dericia finally figures out the word is “remained.”
Another girl, Jessie, asks for help and Ms. Solano goes over to her desk. I glance at Dericia, her head bent over the book, frowning, moving her lips as she reads, or tries to read. How awful is that, to be seventeen and still be reading like a little second grader? I feel sorry for her—no wonder she’s such a witch.
Later in the afternoon, we go to something called Group. There are five of us—the same five as are in our dorm section. Madison, Dericia, and I are all seventeen. The other two, Amanda and Jessie, are fifteen. We sit in a circle on metal folding chairs in a small “counseling” room. Ms. Fenton, who everyone calls “Miss F,” leads the group. We go around the circle for a quick check-in, how are we feeling, anything bothering us, etc.
It’s okay to listen to other people’s problems, but I don’t like to talk about my own. The only people I’ve ever talked over my problems with are either dead or unavailable but they’re still the only ones I’d want to talk to. The trouble is, everybody’s supposed to talk in group.
During the check in, Dericia complains that she’s still on Level Three.
“Why do you think that is?” Miss F. asks.
“Because my asshole father makes me puke buffalo turds!”
“Is there another way to say that?” Miss F. asks.
“Yeah, but you won’t like that either!”
“Can any of you help Dericia come up with another way to talk about what’s bothering her?
No one says anything.
Miss F. sits quietly, looking from one to another of us. I guess the silence finally gets to Amanda because she says, “Well . . . Dericia . . . Can’t you just say that you’re really angry with your father, without all the bad words?”
“No! I fuckin’ can’t! Because that wouldn’t say enough!”
Here’s some of the stuff I learn in this group session.
Jessie doesn’t like to talk in group, either.
Madison’s worried about her two younger sisters who’re in a foster home over near the airport. She’s trying to figure out a way to see them, but even though she’s a “Level One,” she can’t go off on her own on a bus.
Both of Amanda’s parents are in jail and her twenty-five-year-old boyfriend is trying to adopt her.
Dericia hates her dad because he beats up on her and her mom and her little brother. She talks more than anyone else. Well . . . she more yells than talks.
The last time her dad beat up on Dericia, he hurt her so bad she had to go to the hospital. When she told the Emergency Room doctor she got her bruises and broken ribs from falling down the stairs at school, he said her injuries were more consistent with battery than with a fall.
“Why didn’t you just tell the doctor what happened?” I ask.
“And why don’t you just put your head back up your butthole?”
A flash of anger rises in me and I say, “Sure, I’ll put my head up my butthole, if you can spell butthole for me!”
It’s like Dericia doesn’t get what I’ve just said. Then she does. She flashes a look of pure hatred at me—a look way worse than anything that ever came my way across the volleyball net, or anywhere else for that matter.
Miss F. threatens to take points away from both of us. Then she goes on to tell Dericia, “Autumn asked a reasonable question. Why
didn’t you tell the doctor what really happened?”
“Because if I tell them my mother-fucking dad beat me up, they’d put me in some hellhole like this for my own protection! Which is what happened anyway, but it wouldn’t have if the doctor hadn’t bugged my mom so much he got her to say that my dad kicked me in the ribs with his steel-toed work boots. If my mom’d stayed with my story, I’d still be home. But no! I’m here, and he’s home! They take the kid away and leave the asshole wife-beater and kid-beater guy at home!”
Dericia’s half-screaming, half-crying, now.
“And when I’m not there, he goes after my little brother worse than anything!”
She runs from the room, pushing out of her chair with such force that it falls backward.
Miss F. uses her cell phone to report that Dericia’s left group, upset, then asks the rest of us how we feel about what just happened. When it’s my turn all I can think to say is “Bad.”
“Bad?” Miss F. says. “What is it you feel bad about?”
“I feel bad about what just happened,” I say, not looking up.
“Can you say more about that?” Miss F. asks.
I shake my head. She keeps looking at me and waiting. Luckily, the timer on Miss F.’s watch beeps and the session’s over.
I stop in at Miss F.’s office later in the day to tell her I’ve decided to sign up for the Teen Moms school.
“Have a seat,” she says, motioning to the big, soft chair at the side of her desk.
“Want a kiss?” she asks, handing me a bowl of foil wrapped candies.
“No, thanks.”
“I’m glad you’ve decided to take our advice,” she says. “Teen Moms will offer you more academically than you would get here in our basic on-site program, plus, of course, the specialized pregnancy/ parenting program and the advantage of being with girls who are going through some of the same things you are.”
I nod. I don’t have the heart to tell her my decision was based on Madison’s advice, not hers.
“I’ll call Brenda Miller, the Sterling School District’s teen pregnancy/parenting director, and get things set up for you.”
“Okay,” I say.
Miss F. gives me her broad, friendly smile, and I force a smile back. I like her and I know she’s trying to help, but it’s hard to be enthused about going to a school that’s only for pregnant girls, or teen moms, or whatever, when only a few months ago I went to a real school, and had real friends, and lived in a real home, with a real family, and had a real future.
It turns out that the Teen Moms program is in the middle of some kind of standardized testing, so I won’t be starting there until next week. In the meantime, the on-site teacher, Ms. Guerra, sets me up with an American Government textbook and a senior English text, both classes I need to complete for graduation.
“Could I read my book from Hamilton High for English credit?” I ask.
“What’s the book?”
“Ordinary People.”
“I don’t have a copy of that,” she says.
“There’s one in my backpack, in the storage closet.”
She shakes her head. “I’m sorry. . . I can pick one up from the library for you next week, though.”
“I’ll be at the other school next week,” I tell her.
I hate all of the stupid rules they have here. Like, we can’t have our own cell phones here and we can’t use their phones unless we’ve got signed permission from our parents or guardians, which sure leaves me out. So last night I started a letter to Danni. I’m worried, because everything seems so weird with Carole right now. But I’d just started pouring my heart out in the first paragraph when Madison asked what I was doing.
“Writing to a friend,” I said.
“Is your friend on the approved list?”
“What approved list?”
“You know. It’s the same as the telephone. No communication unless with someone on the approved list.”
“Shite!” I said, crumpling the paper.
“Someday you’re going to have to learn to talk like a big girl,” Madison told me.
I’ve been getting points for good behavior since I’ve been here, but I can’t move up to Level One without Group points. Everybody’s supposed to talk in Group. If you don’t talk, you don’t get any points. Friday, walking into the counseling room, I’m thinking I’ve got to come up with some pretend problem to talk about, so I can keep my private problems private. Maybe I’ll talk about how unfair it is that I don’t get to read Ordinary People. That’ll be easy.
How lame is this? Two weeks ago I was working on getting caught up in my classes, so I’d keep my scholarship, and play volleyball on a top college team, and now I’m working on points so I can go to the bathroom when I want?
Today is another day of Dericia venting. I hate when she goes nuts at night, in our room, but I like when she carries on in Group because there’s less time for the rest of us to be put on the hot seat. The only trouble is that today she gets so mad, so fast, she slams out of the room before the session is halfway over. Again, Miss F. calls security on her cell phone, and then continues the check-in.
When Miss F. gets to me with the “How are you feeling, anything bothering you” question, instead of my usual one word “okay” answer, I say how unfair it is that I can’t even read the book from my old high school. I tell her how I was in the middle of it, and it had great meaning for me, and I’m totally bored in the classroom, and there’s a perfectly good book locked away three doors down the hall and I hate these stupid rules!
The rest of the girls sit looking at me, surprised, I guess, since they’ve never heard me say more than a few words in any Group session. I don’t care, I should at least get points for participation today. Maybe next time I’ll tell how I was abducted by aliens. That should be good for a few points, too.
On the afternoons when we don’t have group therapy, I meet with Dr. K., the psychologist. Next week I’m supposed to start a “grief group.” Dr. K. says it’s for people who have “lost” loved ones. And, since I’ve not been under a doctor’s care for my whole pregnancy, they’ll be taking me once a week to Planned Parenthood for prenatal care, too. It’s like I’ve landed in this giant repair shop and everyone’s trying to fix me and everyone else who’s here. Except some things aren’t fixable.
Madison sits with me at dinner again. I don’t know if it’s because we’re getting to be friends, or because she likes my desserts. Either way, I’m glad not to eat alone.
Tonight, as soon as she sits down, she tells me Dericia ran.
“You know. She ran away. Right after group. I heard the housemother talking to Dr. K.”
“Good. I can do without her screaming fits. She’s such a bitch!”
Madison bursts out laughing.
“What?”
She points at me, still laughing.
“What?”
“It’s just. . . you’ve finally . . . learned to say bitch with a B.”
“Well, she is a bitch!”
“You know what Amanda said about you?”
“What?”
“She said, ‘That Autumn chick wouldn’t say shit if she had a mouthful.’”
“Shit,” I say. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”
Madison laughs even harder.
“Seriously, I can stand a good night’s sleep.”
“You want your dessert?” Madison says, her fork poised over my applesauce cake.
“You can have it,” I say, sliding the plate across to her. “I don’t even like this stuff.”
She takes a big bite of my cake and this look of pure pleasure comes over her face. She chews slowly, as if that’s all in the world she’s thinking about. Then she gets back to me.
“Dericia’s pretty smart. Not like, smart in the way that she can spell ‘butthole,’ but smart in the way that she knows how to stay away from the law.”
“Yeah, well I hope she can stay away for a long, long time.”
“Sooner or later she’ll show up at home and then they’ll catch up with her.”
“She hates home. Why would she ever go back there?”
“She’s always worried about her little brother. Besides, after a while she’ll want to get caught.”
“Why??”
“Because it’s so fucking hard on the streets! She’ll get hungry, and she’ll need a bath, and a bed,” Madison says. “For a smart girl you sure don’t know much.”
I hate when Madison acts like such a know-it-all. I reach across the table and pull my dessert plate back. I take a bite of my cake.
“I thought you didn’t like that kind of cake!”
“I’m developing a taste for it.”
She watches as I force another bite of cake down.
“So, okay. I’m sorry about the smart girl remark.”
I push the plate back across the table to her.
“The thing is, for a lot of us in here, this is the only place we’ve felt safe in our whole lives.”
Madison sits quietly chewing the last bite of cake, then she tells me, “I was seven the first time I came here. A neighbor called a child abuse hot line about me and my sisters.”
“Who was abusing you?”
“We weren’t being abused. We just weren’t being taken care of. My mom and her boyfriend would leave us alone for days, looking for drugs I guess. The house was filthy. There was no food. I was trying to take care of my little sisters, but I was only seven so I wasn’t doing a great job.
“This was the first time I ever had a new pair of shoes. I slept in a warm, clean bed, I got clean clothes, and for the first time I could ever remember. I didn’t go to sleep hungry.”
I think about the cheap shoes they gave me the day I arrived here. They would have seemed pretty special if they were the first new shoes I’d ever had.
By the time Madison is finished with it, my dessert plate looks as clean as if it has just come out of the dishwasher. I guess maybe she’s still trying to make up for all those years of going to bed hungry. I decide never again to take back a dessert, even if I’m mad at her.
By now everyone knows my family was killed in that accident and they know I’m pregnant. They know about my family because of the “grief group,” and they all know I’m pregnant because it’s obvious.
No More Sad Goodbyes Page 9