If I Lose

by Kelsey D. Garmendia

  “Sorry,” Keturah says. “It was my fault.”

  Is that my nurse? I watch her return to a seated position and cross her legs into a pretzel. Her chest rises and falls in a steady pattern. Isha said she was—what was it?Moved down. Could that be—I shake the thought from my head. That’s just stupid. Why would I think like that?

  Keturah and I sit in silence for the remainder of the class. As we make our way to the front of the building, Isha walks through the doorway.

  “Ah, Hayley, Keturah,” he says. “I’ve been looking for you both.”

  “Sorry,” Keturah responds. “I went to early morning yoga and then napped until meditation.”

  “Ah, I see,” he responds nodding his head. “Well, I’m here to bring you to your appointment.”

  Keturah smiles and squeals. She turns and attempts to hug me. We eventually agree on a halfway embrace.

  “I want Hayley to be there,” she says to Isha. “She’s the Godmother!”

  “I apologize Keturah, but Hayley cannot be in the maternity wing,” Isha responds. He looks at me with a blank stare. “Standard procedure.”

  “Darn,” Keturah responds. “Well, you’ll be the first one to meet her. I promise.”

  Keturah smiles and gives me another sideways hug. I think she says, I’ll see you soon, but I can’t really hear. All I can concentrate on is Isha’s deep blue glare. He only locks onto my eyes for a second before shifting his gaze downward.

  Something isn’t being said—something that’s making my heart sputter in my chest.

  September, Please Be Over

  I don’t sleep.

  Every time I close my eyes, Isha’s dark glare projects onto the back of my eyelids. Why couldn’t he look at me? What was he hiding?

  When I went to where the hypnotist usually meets Keturah and I, no one was there. It only surprised me a little, but then, I remembered Isha was prepping for delivery. Of course the hypnotist wouldn’t be there.

  I hear the water running in the kitchen and then, the shattering of a glass. “Shit!”

  “Aisley?” I push myself out of bed and waddle to the kitchen. She huddles over the broken glass and flinches when the light flicks on. A towel is wrapped around one of her hands while she sweeps the shards of glass into a neat pile. The glass is painted with a deep red.

  “Did you hurt yourself?” I ask grabbing the broom from behind fridge.

  “Yeah, but I’m fine now,” she responds raising her wrapped hand. I sweep the pile up, and Aisley dumps the dustpan into the trashcan. “Sorry for waking you up.”

  “You didn’t,” I respond. “Can’t sleep.”

  “Neither can I.”

  I spot a bruise on Aisley’s cheekbone—it’s a deep blue and is puffy around the edges. Still fresh. “Where did you get that?” I ask pushing Aisley’s wispy bangs from her face.

  “I can’t talk about it,” she sighs.

  “The hell you can’t!” I respond. “I’m your mother, you can tell me what happened.”

  Aisley looks up at me from the trashcan. She straightens her lips into a thin line and clenches her jaw. She shakes her head once and then, sits at the kitchen table.

  I take in a deep breath of the stale air and join her. “I know what the higher ups want you to do, but Aisley, I can’t take you lying to me anymore.” She looks at me from underneath her eyelids and shakes her head again.

  “School stays at school,” she responds. “And it’s better that way.”

  “How?”

  “Because you have enough on your plate already!” she yells. “I don’t want to add anymore stress to your life. You don’t need any of that with a baby only a weeks away.”

  “You’re ten years old, Aisley,” I say. “You shouldn’t be worrying about me. You should be going to school and playing with kids. The fact that I’m having multiple adult conversations with you is scaring me.” Her lips tremble and eyes fill with tears. “Not only that, but the fact that you know how to disassemble a rifle, and you can’t kick around a soccer ball for fun.”

  I sit back in my chair. A ten-year-old making sure I’m not stressed. Aisley taps her foot making the table vibrate. I reach for her hand, but she pulls them away before I can touch them.

  I stand from the chair and pull a sweater off the hook by the front door. “Come on,” I say. “We’re going for a walk.”

  “But it’s after curfew—”

  “Who cares?” I say. “What are they going to do your seriously pregnant mother who wants to take a walk?” She smiles and takes my hand as we walk out of our front door.

  The Fort’s courtyard is completely silent. The September air is heavy with humidity as we sludge our way through the silence.

  The moon is glowing a deep orange. There was a belief that the moon being this color was a warning; an omen that something bad would come. I watch Aisley looking up at the moon and can’t help but wonder if she’s thinking the same thing. We walk to our usual spot next to the first class buildings.

  “School isn’t really what it’s supposed to be,” she says after a couple of moments of staring at the bloody moon. “It’s not like learning your ABCs and science. More closer to a military academy than anything. We learn about the weapons, the techniques—”

  “Techniques?”

  “War strategies,” she says. “Past battles all the way back to ancient civilizations. What was good in what they did, what was bad.”

  I nod my head to show her I’m listening while I try to swallow the nausea down. I remember history class when we made paper maché mummies and learned about victory gardens when I was her age.

  “I think we’re in some type of like officer training. That’s what Tristan thinks.”

  “Tristan couldn’t possibly know something like that.” I ask.

  “Well, I believe him,” Aisley says. “He’s my friend and we look out for each other.”

  “And how old is he again?”

  “Twelve.”

  I laugh—a 12-year-old is “looking out” for a 10-year old. That makes perfect sense.

  “I’m serious,” she responds. “If you think a black eye on me is bad, you should see him.” I frown. “He’s gotten punched, whipped, had clean up duty multiple times just so I wouldn’t have to do it.”

  Tears well up on her bottom lid, but she looks away before they fall. We sit in silence listening to the crickets echo inside the walls that tower over us. I always loved the fall in New York. I remember Xavier, Cassie and I sitting on our back porch watching the lightning bugs create a show in the fields in front of our house. There was something magical about it; a bug as small as a grain of rice could bring the tiniest bit of light into the world making something so dark and unknown, so very spectacular.

  But in the Fort, the constant feeling of being in a room with shrinking walls seems to breath down your neck.

  The lightning bugs don’t make it over them, and there’s nothing magical here at all.

  I look up at the moon and let out a long sigh. I don’t know why I’m so calm over what Aisley just told me. Maybe I’m actually furious but can’t find a way to express it. Or maybe it’s because, even if I know what they’re doing to these children—my child—there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m just an insignificant pawn in the Fort’s plastic bubble of society.

  “Once I can actually run on my own again,” I say. “I will march right up to your teachers and bop them in their faces.”

  Aisley laughs, filling the Fort with a booming echo. “You promise?” she asks smiling.

  “I promise,” I say laughing at my ridiculous response. Aisley laughs again and leans her head on my chest.

  The night seems to go by in patches. The stars glint off its midnight background like tiny beacons of hope. I point out constellations that I remember from a star guide book Xavier bought me for one of my birthdays.

  “What’s that one?” Aisley asks.

  “That’s Andromeda,” I say pointing out the stars. “She was th
e Daughter of Cassiopeia. Her father tied her to a rock at sea as a sacrifice. But she was rescued by Perseus.”

  “He’s another constellation, right?”

  “Right,” I respond.

  “You know,” Aisley says after she follows the zig-zag pattern of the stars with her hand. “You’re kinda smart.”

  I laugh at her deduction. “Before all this happened, I used to be an actual person,” I respond.

  “What were you like back then?”

  “I—uh,” I say. The truth is, I don’t really remember the old version of myself. I know that I’m here now—that I exist. I remember not being able to do much of anything without Xavier’s help. But besides that, I didn’t have much else going on.

  ‘What was your life like?” Aisley asks trying to help me out.

  “Well, I lived in the city—”

  “New York City!” Aisley squeaks. I nod my head and smile. “Woah! I’ve never been there!”

  You probably never will, I think, but instead I say, “Yeah, I lived in Queens.”

  “How did you know Xavier? Were you guys always together?”

  “No, actually,” I say. “My sister and him were supposed to get married.”

  “Oh,” Aisley’s looking at the dirt beneath our feet. “Did cannibals get her?”

  I shake my head. “Her and I were driving to a party after Thanksgiving about two years ago,” I say. My eyes burn, and my cheeks fill with heat. “I came up from the city to surprise them all. Xavier and my twin were engaged, my parents were perfectly happy. I was miserably excited for them.”

  “Huh?”

  “Well, Cassie and Xavier were happy together. They had been dating since we were all in high school, and even though I was so in love with Xavier, I let it go—”

  “How?” Aisley asks. “You two were one person when we out there running.”

  “Because I guess that’s who I was back then,” I say. “I put everyone else before myself. I wanted to make other people happy, not ruin things.”

  “Is that why you lived in the city?”

  “Yeah,” I respond. “I thought time away from Xavier would stifle whatever feelings I had for him.

  I dated a handful of guys, none of them ever worked out, but when I visited that Thanksgiving, I thought my feelings for Xavier were gone—”

  “But they weren’t, were they?” Aisley says.

  I nod my head. Aisley goes quiet and sags her head into a nod. “Anyway, Cassie and I were driving to a party, and we were fighting about my moving, about how distant I had gotten and before I knew it, we crashed,” I say choking the last words out. “I woke up from a coma a couple of days later.”

  “Did you know she was dead?” Aisley says after a long silence.

  I swallow and nod my head. “I didn’t want to admit it, but there was a part of me that could feel it.”

  We sit and watch the night sky in silence. The temperature drops with each minute until both Aisley and I are shivering against each other. “I used to dance,” Aisley whispers. She looks up at me—I can’t quite tell if her cheeks are red from the cold or embarrassment. “I was the best in my age group too.”

  “What did you dance?”

  “Ballet.”

  “No way,” I say. “My 10-year-old who can shoot a gunsmith under the table was a ballerina?”

  Aisley smirks and nods her head. “How else can I explain how graceful I am?” she asks. “Besides, shooting

  was my dad’s fault—he never thought I would get hooked on it.”

  “Miss Aisley!” a husky female voice says. Aisley springs from our boxes to attention. “It is past curfew hours! What are you doing out here?”

  Aisley shakes much worse now and flinches when the soldier takes a step closer to her. “I’m sorry, ma’am—”

  “This is the third time I’ve caught you out past curfew!”

  Aisley flashes me a look. Third time? She was sneaking out at night? She turns back to the soldier with her back stiff. “I’m—”

  The soldier’s hand hits the side of Aisley’s face quickly, I only know it happened because of the echo.

  “Hey!” I scream. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Ms. Henderson, please stay out of this—”

  “The hell I am!”

  The soldier turns towards me and puts a hand on her hip. “I’m tired of this,” she starts. “Doctor Isha may have some crush on you or whatever, but I’m tired of this little shit thinking that she can do whatever she likes.” She points a finger down at Aisley who is still at attention with tears running down her face. The side of her face is swelling where the bruises were.

  “She’s my daughter,” I say. “You have no right to hit her. It was my idea to break your stupid curfew—”

  The soldier grinds her teeth and grips her M16 tighter. “You seem pretty confident,” she says. “But you’re not the one with the power here. And I’m sure you don’t want to end up losing both children.”

  I should be scared. I should be grabbing Aisley’s arm and running away. I should be calling for help across the Fort. Those are the things I should be.

  “You must be real tough to point that gun at a 10-year-old and her pregnant mother,” I say through my teeth.

  Her eyes look away from me for a second. Then, she laughs at my response. “Wouldn’t be wasting much,” she says.

  I feel a fire consume me. I grind my teeth until I feel like they’ll crack from the pressure. The soldier turns towards Aisley, but I grab her by the shoulder, pull back my fist and slam it into the bridge of her nose. The soldier collapses to the ground in a heap and a puddle of blood mixes into the dirt.

  “Come on, Aisley,” I say grabbing her arm.

  “Mom!” she says. “That was totally badass!”

  September 21, 2013

  “Ms. Henderson,” a voice calls from the kitchen. My eyes struggle to open to the morning sunlight pouring into my bedroom. “Ms. Hende—Hayley?”

  Isha. I push myself from my bed and throw on my terrycloth slippers before I face whatever’s coming to me. He’s just setting down his doctor’s bag when I walk through my bedroom door.

  “Morning,” he says. His face is stiff, the muscles in his jaw are flexed. I don’t move. Each time he reaches into his bag, I think he’s going to pull out a tranquilizer gun and pop me square in the chest. “You can sit down,” he says. “This is your house.”

  “You’re not here to take me in?”

  He laughs and flashes a grim smile. “For hitting a patrolling soldier and breaking her nose,” Isha says. “It’s going to take more than that to get sent away. That just needs a reasonable explanation and a good word from the supervising doctor.”

  I inch my way to the table and lower myself when I feel that what he said is true. He sits in the chair across from me and drums his fingers on our kitchen table.

  “So,” I start, folding my hands over my stomach.

  “I’m waiting for a reasonable explanation,” he says crossing his arms across his chest.

  “She hit Aisley,” I say. “And I’m pregnant.”

  Isha scoffs and rubs the bridge of his nose. “There’s an order to things here, Hayley,” he responds. “You keep messing with it, somebody will do something about it. And odds are that person will be much higher in the chain of command than myself.”

  “So you’re asking me to ignore the bruises, ignore the bandages over another ‘science class’ injury, the hollowed look in her eyes that makes her less and less of a kid with everyday that passes by,” I say, my voice increasing until I’m shouting. “What’s too far here, huh?”

  “Please, Hayley,” he says. “Keep your voice down.”

  I grip the table until my fingers throb. The silence keeps my heart rate down. I push myself up and grab a glass from the cabinets above the sink. I fill the water up to the rim and gulp it down before I say anything that will incriminate me.

  “I came to take your vitals and escort you to
morning yoga,” Isha says pulling his stethoscope from his bag.

  “Morning yoga?” I say. “I thought it wasn’t mandatory—”

  “It is when you knock out an officer,” he says motioning for me to sit in the seat across from him.

  I hold my arm out and let Isha place the blood pressure cuff around my bicep. He fits the stethoscope into his ears and presses the small metal circle end just under the cuff.

  “I couldn’t just sit back, Isha,” I say. “They keep hurting her, I’ll do much worse than lay out a soldier.”

  “Officer,” he corrects. “And I understand. I would’ve done the same thing I presume if I was in your situation. But Hayley—” He reaches for my hand and squeezes. “I’m not kidding when I say that someone will do much worse to you. You’ll never see either of your children grow up—they will make sure of it.”

  I shudder when his gaze doesn’t falter in the slightest. He places the stethoscope back into his ears and presses the end against my arm. “I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he says in between listening. “I care for you in more than one way.”

  “And what other way is that?” I say leaning back in my chair.

  “A friend, of course.” His eyes stay focused on something else. He lifts the stethoscope from my arm and stows it away in his bag. He takes both of my hands in his and squeezes. “This right here, is more important to me than anything. You’re alive, healthy, safe,” he says. “It’s my job as a doctor to keep you healthy. It’s my job as a friend to make sure it stays that way.” He packs up the rest of his supplies and holds out his hand.

  We make our way across the grounds with minimal talking. The heat is unbearable and even Isha is sweating

  by the time we reach the wellness center. “I’m sorry, Isha,” I say once we reach the overhang.