by Nicole Fox
“Or her.” I still haven’t found out what the sex of the baby is. I’ve had chances, but every time, I decline.
“Oh, that reminds me,” Gabby says with a snap of her fingers. “I have an extra baby blanket you can have if you want.”
“An extra one?” I ask. “Won’t you need it for your little guy?”
“I’m stitching a new one for her,” Gabby tells me.
“Her?”
Gabby nods and rings. “We found out yesterday. Another girl.”
“Wow!” I smile. “Congratulations.”
“I hate saying it, but it does make things easier in terms of hand-me-downs,” she admits.
“Are you sure? You could probably still use it,” I point out, knowing that there is no way Gabby would ever just discard a perfectly good blanket.
“I’d rather you have it.”
I feel my heart swell as she gives me a kind smile. It’s amazing how many little kindnesses have gotten me through the last few months.
“Thank you, Gabby.”
“Of course. Stay right there. I’ll go grab it.”
“Oh, you don’t have to—”
But she’s already gone, shuffling through the cracked-open door of her apartment a few units down.
I sigh and lean against the wall. She’s back a moment later, sans laundry basket but with the blanket in her hands.
It’s a soft yellow fabric that would have been a bright, sunshiny yellow in its heyday. The years have robbed it of its thickness and most of its color, but the worn-down love spots just make me smile. There’s even a little bee embroidered into one corner.
“Aw, Gabby, it’s beautiful,” I purr. “Did you stitch it yourself?”
She nods. “When Juanita was born. So it’s over eight years old now. I wish I could give you something a little more fresh.”
I put my hand on her arm. “I love it,” I insist. “It’s beautiful and sentimental. I’ll always keep it.”
She beams. I have to resist the urge to give her a hug. I don’t want this to seem like a goodbye. Gabby is already plenty suspicious.
And the fewer people who know I’m leaving, the better.
“See you tomorrow,” I say. Then I slip into my apartment.
The moment I’m inside, I start making a list of what few possessions I have to my name. It’s depressingly short.
First, I grab the large duffel bag that I’ve stored underneath the sofa. I wrench it open and move around the apartment, assessing what I can take with me and what needs to be left behind.
I had been preparing to bring my baby back to this apartment, so I’ve been buying little things over the last couple of months whenever I had a little cash to spare.
A travel basinet, a load of diapers, a few onesies that I’d brought from a secondhand store.
The baby’s stuff takes up most of the space in the duffel bag. I pack my things on top. A few threadbare dresses, a tiny bag of makeup. And a small velvet pouch containing the wedding ring that Artem gave me.
Once the contents of my life have been packed away into a single bag, I hoist it onto my shoulder and look around the space.
Water-stained walls and a rickety table look back at me.
At least there won’t be anything about this place to miss.
But the moment I think it, I realize that it’s not the place I’ll miss, but the people.
Gabby and her daughters.
Cranky old Ruby, surly Jose, kind Marti.
And Sara, with sapphire eyes like Cillian’s.
I’ll never see any of them again.
16
Esme
I turn off the lights and head downstairs. My only plan is to get out of this town as fast as possible. I don’t even know where I’m headed.
I start walking towards the bus stop. It’s about a twenty-minute walk and in my condition, I know it’ll take me longer.
But it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to waste money on a cab.
The streets have emptied out. Only a handful people walking around, a few already drunk after a long day of work.
This town is filled with sad outcasts like me. Day drinking and desperation follows them around like homeless animals.
I try not to judge. After all, I’m a homeless animal myself at the moment.
I start cramping halfway to the bus station, so I’m forced to stop and sit at a park bench to wince and stretch out my legs as best as I can.
But the second I sink onto the bench, the voice starts up.
You’re weak.
You’re pathetic.
You’re naïve. Can’t even save your own baby.
Lately, my head is filled with thoughts like these. Always in Papa’s voice. Like he lives in my head and lurks. A parasite. A virus. A taunting spirit that chimes in whenever I find a moment of silence.
I force myself to stand. The cramps start up again with a vengeance, but this time, I ignore them.
Fuck that voice. Fuck those thoughts.
I limp down the street with a scowl on my face and my hand white-knuckling the straps of the duffel bag to get through the pain.
When I finally turn into the bus station, I’m panting and sweating, but I push myself forward.
The man sitting behind the clerk counter is an older African-American man with an impressive white mustache.
“Good evening, sir,” I say quietly. “Can I have one of the bus schedules please?”
His eyes rake over me through the Plexi-glass. I wait patiently for him to finish his once-over.
“Where you headed, hon?” he asks.
“Um, I don’t know,” I admit. “That’s why I need the bus schedule.”
His expression doesn’t change so much as it softens. Then he pulls out a leaflet and hands it to me.
It’s a maze of weaving colored lines. There are so many bus routes that I know I won’t be able to decide where I’m going by just picking blindly.
“Excuse me a minute,” I tell him, moving to one of the benches a few yards away.
I sit down, relieved to be off my feet even for a few minutes. Then I comb through the bus schedules.
It takes me a minute, especially with the adrenaline still pumping in my system, but eventually I figure out that there are three different buses heading to three different towns in the next hour.
I’ve heard of none of these towns. Somehow, that leaves me feeling deflated. I realize how ill-equipped I am to make this choice at all.
The first bus leaving is in twenty minutes, but its destination is too close for my liking. I cross it off and move on to the second bus. Its destination is two hours away, a little better but it still doesn’t sit right with me for reasons I can’t explain.
But then, none of this does.
“Need some help?”
I look up to see the man who’d handed me the bus schedule. He sits down next to me, glancing at my duffel bag.
“There’s only one reason a young girl such as yourself would leave town in the night without a plan,” he tells me. I freeze instantly as he finishes, “You’ve run into a spot of trouble.”
I glance at his face, searching for a threat. But I can see only concern and perhaps a desire to help.
I give him a nervous smile and look back down at the bus schedule.
“It’s more like trouble seems to run into me,” I tell him.
He chuckles and sighs. “That’s true for some people,” he agrees. “Forgive me for saying this, but you’re in no condition to be travelling.”
I rest my hands on my huge belly and I feel an answering kick. A strong kick.
I bite down on my tongue to keep the emotion at bay.
“I’d rather not be traveling at all,” I concede. “But I don’t really have a choice.”
“I thought as much. Are you running from the father?” he asks bluntly.
I glance at him, my jaw tight. But I say nothing.
“You don’t have to tell me anything,” he tells me. “I know this
isn’t my place and you probably don’t want an old man’s advice anyhow. But I tried running once. It’s no way to live.”
His words are hitting a little too close to home. I really don’t need to doubt my next move, but I can’t stop him, either.
Or maybe I just don’t want to.
“You gotta stand your ground and fight back,” he continues. “That’s the only way to do it.”
I sigh bitterly. “My situation is complicated.”
“It always seems that way,” he says. “Especially when you’re young. How old are you—nineteen, twenty?”
“Almost twenty-three.”
He waves a hand. “Too young to run.”
“You don’t know what I’m running from.”
“Perhaps.” He falls silent.
“Can you help me?” I ask, once the silence has stretched out long enough for me to know that staying is really not an option. “I need a quiet town. Somewhere I can have my baby.”
“How long are you planning on staying?” he asks.
“I don’t know. A few months, maybe longer,” I answer. “I just need somewhere quiet and safe.”
“There aren’t many places like that for a young single mother,” he tells me. “But if that’s what you’re looking for, take this bus.”
He points to the red line bus that leaves in an hour and ten minutes.
“It is not the most glamorous place in the world,” he admits. “But there are a few women’s shelters there. They’ll take you in, baby and all.”
“Women’s shelters,” I repeat.
“It’s the only place I can think of that doesn’t require paying rent.”
“Thank you,” I whisper.
I wish desperately that I could just stay here. It isn’t perfect in this town by any means. But I’ve grown comfortable here, I have friends, and there’s a comfort that comes with familiarity.
I won’t have any of that if I leave.
“What’s your name?” I ask, because for some reason, I don’t want to stop talking.
Or rather, I don’t want to be alone.
“Geoffrey,” he replies. “And yours?”
My real name slips out before I can stop myself. “Esme.”
“It’s lovely to meet you, Esme,” he says genuinely. “You know, no matter how bad life gets, there’s always a way out of it.”
“I wish I had your kind of faith,” I sigh. “But my life has changed so much in less than a year. It feels surreal, and not in a good way.”
He nods. “I know what you mean. I was living on the streets when I was fifteen. A year later, I was dealing drugs. Soon after, I was using. It took years before I was strong and brave enough to get sober. And even then, I can’t take all the credit.”
“You fell in love?” I guess.
“Yes, I did,” he replies with a distant smile. “She was the most beautiful girl in the world. She still is.”
“What’s her name?”
“Olive,” Geoffrey tells me. “She’s thirty-three years old now. Has two boys of her own, too.”
I frown. Geoffrey must be at least sixty, if not older.
He sees my confusion and smiles. “She’s my daughter,” he explains.
“Oh!”
“I was in my twenties when she was born, and I was too fucked up to be her dad,” he tells me. “When her mother stopped me from seeing her, I was angry, but I understood.”
He rubs the back of his neck like he’s going through the emotions all over again.
“I vowed to get clean. It wasn’t easy. I fell off the wagon a few times. But when Olive was about eleven, I finally managed to make it stick. It took a while longer to make her trust me again. To make her mother trust me again. But it was worth it.”
Someone shuffles into the bus station and heads towards the booth. Geoffrey stands with a muted groan and pats me on the shoulder in a fatherly way.
Then he goes back to the ticket office. He has a small limp and a hunched back, but his shadow stretches on for miles beneath the lone fluorescent light high overhead.
I look down at my map, at the new town that I’m to make my home.
I feel resigned to the decision. It’s not perfect, but this isn’t about things being perfect. It’s about survival.
I stand up, steadying myself on the armrest of the bench, and take one step towards the ticket booth. The shooting pain is there, but I ignore it.
Until, one step later, it doubles.
Triples.
Suddenly, it’s all I can feel, sharp and insistent and glaring. Then—moisture between my legs. A trickle of something that catches me off guard.
For one horrible second, I think it’s blood. Like all the stress my body has been through in the last few hours is finally taking its toll.
But when I look down at the concrete floor, it’s not blood I see.
It’s water.
My water just broke.
Oh God.
I’m having this baby.
I’m having this baby now.
“Esme?”
The other passenger has moved off to a far corner. Geoffrey is looking at me from behind the glass of the ticket office with his eyebrows knitted together in concern.
I meet his gaze. The world spins. I feel my knees shake a little but I will myself to keep standing.
“I… need to get… hospital,” I choke out. Another wave of pain has me wincing.
I hear footsteps, fast, but with a discernable limp. Then I feel a hand on my arm, strong and firm.
I lean into his weight at my side to stop from falling over. I have to trust him. I don’t have any other choice.
“Hold on, girl,” Geoffrey orders. His voice is so deep and soothing that for a moment, it actually succeeds in calming me.
“I… I can’t,” I gasp. White light streaks across my eyes like shooting stars. “This baby is coming…”
And then, one by one, the stars snuff out.
All that’s left is darkness.
17
Artem
A SMALL FARM OUTSIDE OF PICACHO DEL DIABLO, MEXICO
“Señor!” Guillermo greets, giving me a smile that I’m sure he thinks is convincing. “Nice to see you.”
I don’t bother with the fucking small talk.
Or with any talk.
I just punch him square in the face.
The weapons dealer stumbles back with a yell of pain. Blood spout from his nostrils.
“Keep in mind—the next punch will break your nose,” I tell him calmly.
“What the fuck?” Guillermo stammers as he tries to get his bearings. The blood is thick in his hands now.
He’s stumbled right into a murky puddle of mud and horse shit. His black rubber boots are mired in it.
“That was a warning,” I tell him. “A taster of what I will do to you if you don’t give me the information I need.”
“I… information?” Guillermo stammers. “I have no information. Just guns.”
“I have enough of your fucking guns,” I remind him. “I’ve kept your fucking side business going for the past few months. Which is why you owe me.”
Guillermo’s wipes the blood off his upper lip and spits on the earth.
“Fuck, it hurts,” he complains. “I think it’s broken.”
I narrow my eyes. “If I wanted to break your nose, trust me, it would be fucking broken right now. You’re fine. Be a fucking man and shake it off.”
He looks up at me, new fear tainting his expression.
“Mira, cabrón,” he says, straightening up. “I’m just the gun supplier around these parts okay? I’m not involved in the politics.”
“Like fuck you’re not,” I say. I feint closer.
He lunges backwards like I’d shocked him with a cattle prod. Ends up even deeper in the pile of shit.
Good. That’s where trash like him belongs anyway.
“Now, you’re gonna answer my questions,” I tell him, with a meaningful glance over his shoulder. In the
distance behind him, two young boys are playing in the field. His sons, I presume. “Or Papa won’t be joining the boys for dinner.”
He gulps visibly and nods. “Sí, sí, sí. What do you wanna know?”
“My cabin was ransacked. No more than a few hours ago,” I say. “What do you know about that?”
“Nothing.”
I sigh and take a casual half-pivot, as if I’m going to walk away. Which is probably why he doesn’t see my fist coming.
He hits the ground hard, with a squelch. Shit flies everywhere. The blood is pouring even faster now. His lip is busted, too.
I stand over him, one foot planted on either side of his fat legs like sausages encased in denim.
“You wanna try that again?” I ask conversationally.
“Now it’s broken!” he cries out.
“I did promise that,” I tell him. “And I’m a man of my word. The next time you piss me off, I’m gonna have to break a leg.”
“What…?”
“Or a hand,” I say with a shrug. “I’ll let you pick. Start thinking now about which way you’re leaning.”
“All right, all right!” Guillermo protests. He’s glaring up at me, mud and shit and blood streaking his face. “I may know something. But I’m just mostly guessing here. Keep that in mind.”
“Noted.” I squat down so that I’m at eye level with the farmer. “Go on.”
“A few months ago, Lobo came around here asking to buy weapons,” he sighs. “He seemed pretty fucking upset because his father has been missing for a while.”
“Lobo?” I repeat. “Am I supposed to know who the fuck that is?”
“Razor’s boy.”
The name sounds familiar, but I can’t figure out why.
“Razor?”
“He is—was—a narcotraficante,” Guillermo replies. A drug dealer. “He controls the trade routes on this side of town.”
That connects the dots for me. The memory resurfaces like an unwelcome ghost from my past.
Razor is the motherfucker who thought he could come for me.
The one who’s bones are still rotting somewhere in the ravine by the cabin.
I see his face in my mind’s eye. That stupid snarling expression that had quickly turned to fear once he’d realized that he was no match for me.