After

by Amy Efaw

  Cheryl steps closer to Devon, rubs her back softly.

  Dr. Klein adjusts her glasses. “And I’ll be damned before I’m going to have some foolish girl die under my care. I want to be able to go home tonight and crawl under my blankies and sleep well. So, don’t make this harder on yourself—or me—than it needs to be.”

  Devon hugs her legs to her chest, her arms shaking. She can feel the needle from the IV tugging at her wrist. “You can’t make me do this,” Devon whispers.

  “Now, I want you to lie back down,” Dr. Klein says, ignoring Devon’s protest, “and Cheryl and I are going to remove your pants—”

  Cheryl gently unwraps Devon’s arms from around her legs and slowly pushes her down onto her back. Dr. Klein steps forward, reaches for the waistband of Devon’s sweats.

  “No . . . doctor . . . ” Devon pleads. “I want to go home.” Devon reaches down and clutches the elastic waistband with her fingers.

  “Don’t do this,” Dr. Klein says. “Don’t make this ugly.”

  Cheryl plucks Devon’s fingers from the waistband. At the same time, Dr. Klein tugs the sweatpants down over Devon’s thighs, off her legs.

  “Okay, I’m going to remove your underpants now.” Dr. Klein nods at Cheryl. “I’ll have to cut them off.”

  Cheryl hands Dr. Klein a small pair of scissors, and Devon hears two quick snips. Devon squeezes her eyes shut as the doctor pulls away the soaked fabric and carefully pushes Devon’s knees apart, spreading her thighs.

  Devon is too weak—too sore—down there to resist much. She turns her face into her shoulder, whimpering softly.

  “You’re doing fine,” Dr. Klein says, lowering herself to the stool at the foot of the gurney again. “Now I’m just going to take a quick look.”

  Dr. Klein’s rubbered fingers gently probe toward Devon’s private place, spread its skin apart.

  Devon bites her lip.

  “Oh,” Dr. Klein says suddenly. “The umbilical cord. It’s still here, Cheryl.” She takes a deep breath. “She’s shoved it up inside herself.”

  “So, the placenta hasn’t been delivered,” Cheryl states matter-of-factly.

  Devon raises her head, her heart pounding. What? She looks between Cheryl and Dr. Klein. They are staring at each other, both thinking hard.

  What! What do they see?

  “We’ve got to get her to the Birthing Center’s OR immediately,” Dr. Klein tells Cheryl, her voice tense.

  “Yes,” Cheryl agrees.

  Birth Center? Oh, God! No!

  “Devon”—Dr. Klein is standing now, leaning forward—“we’re going to move you—”

  Devon shakes her head. “No.”

  “You have something inside of you that we have to remove or you could die—”

  “No!” Devon screams, pulling her naked legs toward herself.

  “Devon! We know you’ve just delivered a baby—”

  “NO!”

  And with her thighs, Devon thrusts up and out.

  Devon’s right knee connects solidly with Dr. Klein’s face.

  The black rectangular glasses clatter to the floor.

  chapter three

  Two police officers lock Devon in the back of a squad car that smells of sweat and filth and stale cigarette smoke.

  But first they handcuffed her. They walked into the hospital room where she’d lived for the past three days, sitting under the sheets with the two white pillows supporting her back. Devon noticed how they wouldn’t look directly into her eyes when they told her to stand, cuffing her right there beside the bed. Matt Lauer was left giggling with some sitcom star on the TV in the corner of the room when they escorted Devon down the quiet hallway with all the nurses watching.

  The squad car drives the two blocks up Martin Luther King Way and turns left. Devon knows the street; during the off-season she’d sometimes jog this very route coming out of Wright Park. From her seat, she can hear the dispatcher over the police radio, a sudden static spurt before the voice. The two police officers sit up front, sipping coffee from Styrofoam cups.

  Devon looks out the window. The sky is a flat, brooding gray. Familiar buildings pass. Farley’s Florist. The Dollar Store. The Salvation Army Thrift Store. Sunriser Restaurant. Jason Lee Middle School, newly remodeled and pretty now. The sight always surprises Devon, even though it’s been a long time since it’s changed.

  A sign outside a church proclaims:

  LOVE

  IS GOD’S WILL

  IN ACTION

  Love. Devon feels empty and numb and a little sorry for herself. She looks down at her hands, cuffed together on her lap, and waits for the ride to be over.

  The squad car stops at red lights and crosses intersections, then turns right, up a short hill that leads to the juvenile detention center at Remann Hall—a complex of squat white buildings not far, Devon realizes, from the Morgan Family YMCA, where she had learned to swim when she was four. Unlike today, her mom had been with her then. Standing there in the waist-deep water, making sure that Devon wouldn’t sink when the teacher wanted her to float. Singing along with Devon and the class the “I’m a Little Teapot Short and Stout” song that ended every lesson.

  The squad car stops in a parking space. The police officer who’d been riding shotgun heads for the nearest building. The one behind the wheel cuts the ignition, then moves around the car to open Devon’s door for her. Devon stares at him standing there, remembering the only other guy who had ever opened a car door for her.

  Last summer. The sky was bright blue mirroring the water, the sun warm. A perfect day. He had smiled down at her; he’d had That Look in his eyes—warm and eager and a little bit vulnerable. When he’d look at her in that way, and smile that tilted smile, her body would tingle with an electric tension that robbed her breath away.

  That was then. And now?

  Now she is here.

  The police officer is waiting. “Come on, miss,” he says. “Time to get out.”

  Devon nods, swings her legs to the outside. Stands. Waits for the officer to close the car door. Follows slowly behind as he strides toward the building his partner just entered. He turns back to Devon, notices her slight limp and takes her elbow as they continue to cross the asphalt.

  Devon says, “Thank you,” because she knows it’s the expected response, and because she’s relieved for his support. Her pelvis feels so unstable it scares her—a throbbing, leaking hollowness between her legs.

  But the soreness doesn’t worry her much. She’s done soccer tournaments where she’d played back-to-back games in summer heat without ever being subbed out. Lead thighs, aching tightness through the calves and ankles and feet, bruises on shoulders and ribs are all part of the game, consequences that Devon has come to expect, sometimes lasting for days afterward.

  Devon knows the soreness always goes away . . . eventually.

  And even what happened to her That Night. That nightmare. The sweat, the intense pressure, the haggard uncontrolled breathing, the involuntary shaking, the gruesome ripping—Devon halts the images, actually squeezes her eyes shut to stop them. What she went through those lonely hours—while outside her bathroom window nighttime slowly turned to day—was more physical, more excruciating, than anything she had ever experienced. When she lay on the cool linoleum covered with her own gore—after it was over and done—she knew she’d feel it later. But even then, she realized the pain wouldn’t last forever.

  The blood, however, is something altogether different. Something unexpected. The constant seeping through thick hospital-issued sanitary pads and disposable underwear, the sickening sweet smell of it. She’d hated asking the nurses to bring her fresh things, afraid of the avoiding eyes and tight nods some of them had given her when she finally brought herself to do it. Devon can’t help but suspect that all the blood must be a sort of never-ending punishment—some kind of twisted reminder—for what had happened to her That Night.

  The police officer opens the door they’d been moving toward, w
aits for Devon to step inside.

  The other officer is already there, leaning up against a counter, relating information to a frizzy-haired woman behind a desk, a shield of bulletproof glass between them.

  “But you should already have the police report,” the police officer is saying to the woman through the glass. “She’s been at Tacoma General the past three days. They just released her to us about a half hour ago.”

  Devon can’t make out much of the woman’s response because of the glass. And anyway, the other police officer is nudging her toward a long wooden bench backed against a line of windows with a view of the parking lot.

  “Sit,” he tells her, then drops to the bench himself, crossing his arms, as if expecting a laborious wait.

  Devon stops at the window. A white minivan so dirty it looks gray creeps by. The woman behind the wheel hunches forward, her nose nearly touching the windshield—peering left, then right—like she’s lost.

  Devon turns away and eases herself down onto the bench. She feels a strange pulling on her breasts as she bends, a definite tenderness that she hadn’t felt before. One of the nurses had told her this would happen, that it was a normal part of the postpartum process. Her body only doing what it’s designed to do.

  “Her discharge papers? Yeah, I got them right here,” the police officer is saying to the frizzy-haired woman as he pushes a file through a slot in the glass. “Uh, no. They said they’d forward her medical records later on.”

  Devon drops her head, fixes her eyes on the scuffed floor without actually seeing it. She hears the police officer’s voice, still talking to the woman, without really processing his words. Devon’s straight black hair falls across her face, but she doesn’t brush it aside. She’s careful to think of nothing; she just waits, waits to carry out the next action required of her here.

  Finally, the police officer turns from the woman behind the glass. He says something. Hesitates. Then says it again.

  Then yells, “Hell-o!”

  Devon jerks, looks up. That police officer—he’s talking to her. Staring at her, impatient.

  “Sorry,” she whispers.

  He continues to study her. “This is your first time here. Isn’t it, kid?”

  Devon swallows, nods her head. “Yes.”

  “Yeah. Well. Piece of advice? Stay alert. You can’t be zoning around in la-la land here. You gotta know what’s going on every minute.”

  Devon nods again. “I’m sorry.”

  The police officer is still watching her. Devon looks down at her hands. She doesn’t like him watching her, afraid of what he thinks he sees.

  “All right then,” he says finally. “You need to step over here now. This lady has a couple questions for you before you go inside and finish getting inprocessed.”

  Devon pushes herself off the bench and walks up to the glass, her stomach twitching. Questions. What do they want to know? What will they make her say? A woman had come to talk to her at the hospital, but Devon had said nothing. Devon holds her hands in front of her because of the cuffs.

  The frizzy-haired woman observes Devon’s approach without much interest, then asks for her name, date of birth, address, and next of kin. Is she currently taking any medication?

  Devon answers all of the questions completely.

  The woman types everything into her computer, raising her eyebrows slightly at Devon’s middle name. “Devon Sky Davenport,” she repeats. “Sky? S-k-y?”

  “Yes,” Devon says, addressing the back of the computer monitor now rather than the woman’s face directly. “S-k-y. As in”—she swallows—“as in, ‘the sky’s the limit.’”

  But Devon doesn’t volunteer any further explanation, doesn’t explain to the woman the story behind the name. That, in fact, “the sky’s the limit” is how Devon’s mom has always defined Devon and her supposed potential in life. Her mom would say it when Devon brought home a flawless report card or when Devon received a stellar postseason evaluation from her coach or when a complete stranger commented on Devon’s exceptional manners or after the Latest Loser packed his stuff and walked out. “You’ll be Somebody for both of us,” her mom would say.

  Not anymore, Mom. Everything’s changed. Now, for me, “the sky” isn’t anything but flat and gray and too far away to ever reach. She takes a deep breath. If you were here with me, you’d see it for yourself.

  But her mom isn’t here. She hasn’t come to see Devon at all. Those long hours Devon spent alone between the bleach-white sheets, watching the door to her hospital room and hoping her mom would cross the threshold. It never happened; she never came.

  Devon closes her eyes, bites her lip to stop the trembling. She won’t cry in front of this woman. No—she won’t cry in front of anyone.

  “All right, Sky Girl,” the woman says, “I’m going to have you come inside now. You’ve got a court appointment at one this afternoon, and we’ve got a number of things to get accomplished before then.”

  Devon nods, suddenly exhausted.

  She walks through the door the woman’s opened for her.

  “Davenport, Devon,” calls out a petite woman with frosty blonde hair, short and stiff with hairspray in that wispy, windblown look.

  Devon hears her name, and an adrenaline jolt jazzes her heart. Her eyes lock on the woman, but Devon doesn’t answer, doesn’t move. She’d taken a shower during Intake, but sweat pricks anew along her still-damp hairline, across her upper lip. Under her arms.

  This is it. Her name being called. It nails her to this place.

  The woman scans the line of molded plastic seats against the wall. Eleven kids sit there with their hands uncuffed and waiting to get called into court. They are all dressed alike in their stiff polyester jumpsuits with leg irons pinching their ankles, white tube socks, and cheap rubber slides. The girls wear orange and the guys wear blue, and Devon in her own orange jumpsuit is sitting right there with them, third plastic seat from the end.

  “Uh . . . ” The woman checks her clipboard again, just to make sure. “Davenport?” She looks uncertainly at the guard sitting at a desk behind her.

  Devon knows she’s now bordering on disrespect, but she can’t make herself respond. And how should she respond, anyway? Raise her hand, like she would in honors world history when Ms. Guggenheim is standing up front, wanting the date the Magna Carta was signed?

  Devon swallows; her spit is paste. The kids beside her—the guy with the dreads and long scar crossing his face, the girl with her completely shaved head and piercing blue eyes—do not look the types who’d ever raise their hands in class. Or, for that matter, even go to class.

  And this woman, as small as she is, scares Devon. She has this sort of authoritative aura about her and a hard-looking face. From the moment the guard with the Motorola on his hip led Devon from the inprocessing area to this room and told her to wait for her name to be called, Devon has watched this woman. She’s been coming in and out a door at intervals with that clipboard she’s holding, calling jumpsuited kids forth. None looked thrilled to be following her, and none came back through the door after they had. The makings for a teen scream summer thriller.

  The woman crosses her arms, the clipboard hugged to her chest, annoyance gathering in her eyes.

  Devon could run. She could just jump up and sprint out of there. But how far would she get? Not very—the leg irons locked around her ankles and the throb deep between her legs and the guard who’s posted near the door with the handcuffs clipped to his back belt loop and the other one who’s sitting at the desk near the front and the maze of hallways that brought her here would all conspire together and prevent it.

  The other kids fidget in their plastic seats, start looking around.

  Devon finally raises her hand halfway. “Here,” she whispers.

  The woman studies Devon, humorless. “Oh, okay,” she finally says. “I get it—you forgot your name . . . temporarily. Nice.”

  Devon shakes her head, No.

  Someone off to Devon�
�s right—maybe the guy with the dreads—laughs under his breath.

  Devon stares down at the woman’s feet, careful to see nothing else. Black wedge sandals, an intricate design of thin straps weaving around her feet and toes. Devon had wanted some like them herself; the memory is there suddenly. How she’d once lingered at the display at Nordstrom’s, touched the smooth leather. Imagining them on her feet, she’d picked up each sandal, feeling its feather weight. But they’d been expensive. She couldn’t buy them herself because she had to save up every dollar of her babysitting money to offset Regional camp fees and the never-ending need for that new pair of keeper gloves. And she hadn’t wanted to set her mom up just to have to say no, so she never asked.

  Kait, her best friend then, had stood there at the shoe display with her. She’d prodded Devon to buy them. “Trust me, Dev,” she’d said, “you’ll definitely regret not getting them. You’ll look back and wish that you did.” Devon pushes the memory out of her mind; that was before the two of them had slowly drifted apart. Devon hasn’t allowed herself to dwell on the specifics for a long time now. Can’t really remember the details anyway. And then Kait wrote that letter, and everything got ruined.

  “Well?” The woman sticks her clipboard under her arm, her tone beyond irritated now. “Come on, then, Davenport. You’re up.”

  Devon slowly pushes herself to her feet, wincing slightly. Sitting all this time has made her body stiff—her pelvis, her hips, even her back aches. But especially her breasts; they throb like she’s just absorbed a corner kick full in the chest.

  Devon feels the woman’s eyes on her. Does she guess? About why she’s here? Is it written on that clipboard of hers? Devon stands a little straighter, keeps her eyes on the floor in front of her.

  The woman turns and moves toward the door.