by Pepper Pace
He nodded, semi conscious. “Juicy…”
“Juicy? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Juicy Hyden, Jasmine Hyden…”
***
Juicy loved placing her hand on her belly and feeling the baby kicking back against it. She tried to imagine her baby but couldn’t picture a mixture between her and Troy. He was tall and lanky with blonde hair and grey eyes, and she had black skin and black eyes. Their baby could be caramel, dark chocolate, even vanilla. She chuckled and thought about how freaked her mother would have been by the fact that she was in love with a white man. She quickly shook her head and thought about something other than Momma.
She got out of bed and walked to the spare room. She was so anxious to decorate it. It would be a wonderful baby’s room. She imagined yellow paint on the walls and pretty willowy white curtains. She had once seen a room that had pretty butterflies hanging from the ceiling with nylon wings and papier-mâché bodies. She wanted white furniture and a princess bed.
Her face slowly fell. That is what she had always wanted for herself. Instead, her bedroom had been a sagging couch and when she got old enough her feet hung off the ends. They had been poor, but…
She turned away from the room with a frown. She went to the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea. She did not want to think about Momma. There used to be a time when thinking about her brought a smile to her face. But since discovering that she was pregnant, the idea of being a Momma meant something different then what she’d associated to Jassmina Robinson.
She mechanically went through the motions of putting on the tea kettle and getting the tea bag, a mug and honey. She placed them neatly on the table.
“When I was a kid, I used to clean your house from top to bottom.” She said absently, speaking out loud to an empty room. She turned the mug until the handle faced to the right then she turned the honey until the label faced the chair. She unwrapped the teabag and placed it neatly into the mug with the little paper tag hanging to the right. She threw the wrapping into the trash.
“On Sundays I’d scrub the bathroom floor with a scrub brush, and then use the mop to wax. I took all of the things off your dresser once a week and waxed your dresser. I changed the sheets on your big bed and then when I did the laundry I folded all of your clothes and put them into your bureau.”
Juicy moved to the kitchen drawer, opened it and removed a tea spoon. “Every week it was the same routine. After school I did hair until I got tired. I was too tired to do homework. When I went to school I didn’t know what they were talking about. I felt stupid, so I didn’t go to school.”
She placed the spoon next to the teacup directly on top of a neatly folded napkin. “Momma, how come you didn’t move us to a bigger apartment so that I could have something? I don’t remember ever having anything except for you.” She stood in front of the stove and watched the simmering teapot, contemplating it as if it were a puzzle, though it wasn’t actually the teapot that she was seeing.
“You didn’t…” She was frowning as she thought. “You didn’t take care of me. I took care of you. You didn’t cook for me. You just brought home food that was bad for me and turned me into a fat…” She turned off the burner, picked up the potholder and carefully carried the teapot to the table where she poured water into her mug. She paused.
“You…” She returned the teapot to the stove and stood there. “You were just trying to go through the motions to get through life; like I did when Troy was gone. Except you never had anything to bring you back to life, not even me. You didn’t really think about me, how I looked, where I slept, that I was by myself unless I was with Felix. You really didn’t care that you were teaching me to go through life and hate what you hated. You didn’t teach me about god, you didn’t teach me about love, you didn’t teach me about myself. You just let me be your ear when you wanted to scream about what you hated, and your maid when you needed your hair done and your house cleaned, your ATM machine when I could bring in money! But, you weren’t really a Momma to me.” She felt her lungs become tight as her eyes began to sting.
“I think a Momma is someone who would eat nasty spinach when they want butta butta cake. And a Momma is going to fix up her baby’s room so that she can be a princess. A Momma is going to work extra hard so that her baby has what they need. A Momma does my hair and not the other way around! Momma’s cook dinner instead of bringing home fish and french fries for dinner every other day! And a Momma should say, Juicy you are not alone; even though Felix is dead now, you are not alone!” Her hands were balled into tight fists and she looked down at them suddenly.
“No.” She took several deep breaths and the stinging in her eyes cleared. “No…I don’t think this, I know what a mother is! That is the mother that I have to be. I don’t want to be like you…I don’t want to be like you! Losing a man won’t push me to forget what I am. I will never let that happen again! I will never lose myself because of someone else! I will never forget that I am my baby’s Momma! I am my baby’s god!
She sat down at the table and sniffed back the unshed tears. “Jasmine,” she said to her baby, “Momma is going to take care of herself, so that she can take care of you.” She stirred her tea, closed her eyes and smelled the fragrant aroma of the herbal tea blend that Troy had picked out for her.
She smiled when she thought about Troy. If not for him, she would never have understood what it meant to have unconditional love.
She was half done with the tea when the phone rang; home phone not cell. Only customers pissed off at her called the cell. She rarely answered it. She would one day have to face them but not right now. She had a lifetime of rest to get caught up on.
She did hurry to the home phone though. Only doctors called on it, or Ebonique when she wanted to speak to either her or Troy.
“Hello?”
“Hello, is this Juicy Hyden?”
“What? Um, yeah…who is this?”
“Mrs. Hyden, this is Dr. Janet Peters. I’m your husband’s doctor-”
“Is Troy okay?!” Juicy felt herself panic and shake. God, not like my Momma, not like my Momma…
“Troy is ok. But he did have a bad reaction to a stress test that we administered today. He went into a migraine-”
“Oh no…”
“Well we gave him medication to help with the pain. However it does make him very sleepy. We can keep him here but I’m sure you’re aware that his recuperation period after a migraine is lengthy.” He’d slept twelve hours easy after one. “So we can admit him, or if you prefer we can release him to you. Now I will warn you that he’s out cold. But he can be awakened enough to follow simple tasks. And the medicine I have him on will have knocked out the pain, but again, it will make him very sleepy.”
“Okay. I understand.” She’d never bothered him while he was sleeping through a migraine before, but if the doctor said he could be awakened then she’d do it. “I’ll come get him now. Where is he?”
It was the same place that she went for her prenatal visits; Tri Health Alliance. Juicy hurried into the bedroom and pulled off her lounging clothes and slipped on sweatpants that she rolled down past her belly. Next she pulled on a shirt that while normally was one of her looser fitting ones, still clung to her belly. She hadn’t gotten around to buying maternity clothes; especially since the plus sizes were the exact same clothes as the maternity section had!
She was reaching for her keys when she heard a whooshing sound. Moments later her pants were soaking wet and water was splashing the floor. She looked down in shock and then felt the first stab of pain. It was immediate and extreme enough to cause her to double over.
“No…”
CHAPTER 19
Troy opened his eyes and then squinted. The difference between waking up after a horrible migraine and waking up after a horrible migraine while on painkillers was a totally different experience. Usually, he was alert and invigorated. But now he was drowsy and unclear. He looked around the darkened room, pulling himse
lf up into a sitting position.
He came to his feet and reached for the window blinds. “What the-?” He was on the fifth floor. This he could easily judge by the distance from the window to the parking lot below. Yet Tri Health Alliance only had two floors…
Now that the room was illuminated by the light shining through the window he could clearly see that he was in a hospital room. “Shit!” He hurried to the door. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and he touched his chest and suddenly looked around. His shirt was folded neatly on a small table and he quickly pulled it on and patted his pocket for his cell phone, keys and wallet. He had them. He hurried out of the room, darting past the receptionist desk.
“Hey!” The woman sitting behind the desk yelled. “Mr. Hyden!” He stopped and hurried back to her.
“What time is it? How long have I been here?!”
“Mr. Hyden, your doctor is here. Let me call her.”
“Janet?”
The receptionist already had the phone to her ear and nodded to him, holding up one finger to wait. Troy reached into his pocket for his cell phone. It was 8:07 am. Shit! He’d been here all night. He started dialing the apartment. The phone rang and rang but there was no answer. His mouth went dry. Juicy would answer. There was no reason for her not to answer now that they weren’t fighting. He tried to remember what had happened yesterday. It was so hard to think. Janet said she’d call Juicy…he rubbed his forehead.
“She’ll be right here, Mr. Hyden. Have a seat over in the lounge-”
“I have to get home-” He bounced on his feet anxiously, wanting to leave, but wanting to know what Janet could tell him about the call she’d made.
Janet came hurrying around the corner. “Troy!”
“Janet, I gotta go! My baby’s mother is sick-”
“She’s here Troy.”
“Here? In this hospital?”
“Yes, she was admitted yesterday.” Janet grabbed his hand. “Follow me. I’m going to take you to her.”
She was admitted yesterday. “Is she okay? Is the baby okay?” Janet didn’t answer. “Janet?”
They got into the elevator. Janet looked at him. “They’re working on her now Troy. They were trying to stop the labor. But the baby just came a few minutes ago. I was just there.” He was blinking. Working on her…but the baby had just come…
“What do you mean?”
“She’s very sick.”
He was nodding his head. His mouth felt like sandpaper.
“And I’m sorry, Troy. They couldn’t save the baby. It was just too small. The lungs hadn’t developed at all…”
He stared at her as the elevator stopped. The world had stopped for Troy. He couldn’t hear and he could not understand what he was seeing. His mind was filled with the idea that his baby had died.
And did that mean that he was the cause? He had left Juicy to worry, not just about the fact that he’d left town like a damned idiot, but also that she’d had to receive an emergency call that he was freaking sick with a migraine! And what about the fact that they’d made love the other night? His head could not move past anything but these facts. He’d killed his baby…
Janet took his hand again and carefully pulled him from the small compartment. He was led through a set of double doors and then a hospital gown was pulled over his street clothes. Janet led him to a sink and though she spoke he had no idea what she said, but he began to wash his hands while she used the foot paddles to control the water. When that was done he felt her drying his hands.
She was suddenly in his face and the white noise that was his world suddenly crashed down and he heard her say, “She is still in delivery, they are trying to stop the bleeding. She is in a coma. There is going to be blood. Can you handle it?”
He nodded slowly. But no, he couldn’t handle it. He wasn’t handling it.
Janet led him into a surgical room and there were several people with machines and masks and more movement then his brain could easily register. But there was Juicy with her legs still resting on the metal stirrups, her arms folded over herself and her eyes closed. A tube was taped to her mouth and a monitor beeped steadily beside her.
He ran to her. “Juicy?” He put his lips on her forehead and gripped her hand. She was cold. His head whipped around to look behind him at his doctor. “Janet?!” he said in a panic.
“She’s alive. She’s in a coma.”
He let his forehead press against hers. “I’m here.” He whispered. “You’re not alone. I’m here.” He said the same words over and over until Janet placed her hand on his shoulder. He looked at her quickly.
“Troy, they’re going to take the baby out of the room now. Do you want to see him before they do?” His eyes darted around frantically until they rested on an incubator. He squeezed Juicy’s hand once again and then moved to the still figure that lay with tubes and lines still running from his small body. His tiny little chest was supposed to be moving up and down, but it didn’t. The baby was beige and pink and its little fingers were like brush strokes…his lips, his nose, the teeny little penis and scrotum, was all so very perfect. Troy’s vision blurred. A nurse was removing the things from his child’s body and she wrapped him in a blanket, lifting the neat bundle carefully.
“You can hold him.”
Troy reached out and took the tiny bundle from her. It was like holding a delicate kitten…and he remembered once describing Juicy in just that way. He pressed his lips to the pale head, there was light down covering the top--HIS???
He looked at the nurse in confusion. “We’re supposed to have a girl.”
“A girl?” The nurse repeated.
“The ultrasound pictures showed a girl.”
She gave him a sympathetic look and spoke to him as if he was in the kindergarten. “Well, ultrasounds can be hard to read-”
“There was no penis. How hard is that to read?”
Her eyes blinked. “THERE’S A TWIN!!!” She screamed.
Two doctors pushed Troy back until he was almost against the wall. The activity was rapid. Someone was wheeling in a machine and within seconds he could see that someone else was using a wand to press over Juicy’s exposed belly. All eyes were on the machine. The room was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. And then suddenly there was a loud woosh woosh woosh.
Troy cradled his unbreathing infant son as he watched the monitor that showed his living infant daughter.
***
Troy was sitting in the hospital room next to Juicy’s bed. He still held the small bundle of his son, even though it had been hours since his birth. He wondered if that was the appropriate word to use when a baby was born, having already died. Birth was supposed to mark the beginning of one’s life, but for him it had marked the end.
They had been able to stop Juicy’s labor, for now, and she had been moved to a private room, still in a coma, and heavily monitored. Janet had been kind enough to phone his family who were taking a flight in to Cincinnati.
Janet came into the room and pulled up a chair next to Troy’s. He didn’t look at her. She looked down at the baby in his arms.
“Troy. You haven’t eaten and you haven’t taken your medicine. You need to take a few moments to do these things.”
“I’m not hungry.” He mumbled.
“I’ll hold the baby for you.” He looked at her slowly.
“You won’t let th-them t-take h-him?”
“Are you planning to hold him forever?”
“No. Just until I’m ready to let h-him g-go.”
“No, I won’t let them take him.” She held out her hands. He sighed and passed the baby to her.