“I haven’t said the words out loud to anyone,” I sputtered. “I haven’t had my period in four months.” It was impossible to hide it, physically, anyway, so there was little point denying the truth.
“Well, hon,” Jo said, completely unfazed. “Let’s talk to Kate. You’re in your second trimester by your calculations. Best she sets you up with a doctor’s visit sooner than later, Mia — and then you’ll know for sure.”
Marybeth and Malcolm had wanted to take me to a doctor the afternoon of the accident and my escape. I’d said no way, for fear of being touched so soon, interrogated, prodded and pushed around against my will. If I wanted to stay put at Grace Place a while yet, I had no choice but to face up to things and cooperate. And it was only fair to the kid.
We continued with our tinkering a while longer. Neither of us spoke another word on the subject until later on. Kate met us in the kitchen and we three talked it over in our indoor voices before the rest of the girls came in for their supper.
Chapter 27
Jazmin
It was back in early December when Jose Luis drove me, blindfolded, out of the compound and down from the mountaintop, warning me over and over that Jefe Hombre would chop the head off my stupid fucking girlfriend if either of us so much as made a wrong move. If I’d known it was gonna be the middle of February before I would finally muster the courage to escape I would have had an even harder time making it through those long, miserable weeks without Mia.
The hairs on my arm stood on end as he’d brushed my cheek with the back of his hand. “Hey, don’t worry chica,” he said, his voice cloying. “You are the smart one. You know what’s good for you.”
Jose Luis took deposited me in a new spot that was over an hour’s drive from where I was forced to leave Mia. I was to wait out the winter there, he told me, matter-of-fact. Meantime, the cold fucker informed me he was headed home to Mexico for Christmas.
“But don’t you worry, I’ll be back,” he promised, taking my two hands in his and kissing them as a departing gesture. As if I was going to miss a second of the sadistic bastard’s company.
I’d scrawled a desperate, hurried, handwritten note for Mia as soon as I’d learned I was leaving. They’d kept us apart even then. Valeria sneaked it to her, the stub of a pencil hidden in her pocket. Mia wrote back: “Bide your time, J, then RUN. Don’t stop. Don’t worry about me and don’t look back. I WILL find you.”
The smaller compound in the lower elevation consisted of a cluster of crappy old portable cabins, located closer to the ocean. I never saw the waves for the trees, but I could smell the proximity of the surf, the Pacific. I was one step closer to home. Each night I dreamed of my parents, the little ones, of Miguel. I was made painfully aware of a series of deadly booby trap explosives on the property having been told that trip wires would trigger a blast if I so much as tried to make a run for it.
A growly old German shepherd dog lay in the doorway day and night, keeping watch, always with at least one eye half open, even when he was fast asleep.
This time there were no other girls to keep me company in my imprisonment on a southern slope of a steep hillside, surrounded by brush. I cooked up cauldron after cauldron of rice and beans on the propane stove. Jose Luis had made it clear to the handful of mostly younger guys who were to stay there with me over the winter, that I was not to be touched.
As far as they were concerned, I was his property and his alone. His nephew, Mario, a pimply-faced, unschooled kid younger than me, was put in charge of keeping a personal watch.
“Best not forget,” Jose Luis reminded me as he’d prepared to leave. “You run, she, your little friend, she dies.”
Still, I figured if I did get out I would have to make it to the cops before he got news of it. Lead them to where Mia was at before he took me up on his word.
If I were to rewind a CCTV recording of the weeks I was there, it would make for pretty boring viewing. I played the innocent, attended to my domestic duties without complaint. Slowly, over the days and weeks that passed, I made more of an effort to clean myself up. I washed and brushed my hair, pinched my cheeks and left the smallish flannel shirt I’d found there unbuttoned just low enough to tease, to give him a preview, Mario. Poor kid, he could not fail to notice. What would you expect out there in the middle of nowhere? If I were pig ugly, it would’ve been a no-brainer. I mean, if you place a young dude with raging hormones in a restricted zone with a girl around his age, the chances are something’s gonna happen. I was the only female in miles. Still, he looked at me not like I was a possession, more like I was Ariana Grande herself.
The more time went by with me keeping up with my subtle flirting, the more he let his guard down. Earliest sign I was making headway came in the form of a pair of cheap white sneakers he brought back from his trip into town, first pair of shoes I’d put on my feet in months and new ones at that. He even figured out the right size. The next week he produced some cheap-ass bottle of drugstore cologne. It was powdery, musky, something about the sweet smell of the fur at the back of a kitten’s neck in the product description on the back label. I almost felt bad for the dude he was so misty-eyed.
On the long days and nights when it was his turn to drive bags of weed to the Bay Area, I forced myself to stay awake. I waited up for him, late into the night, watched over by the mean dog and at least one other young kid. Constant rainstorms and mudslides made driving dicey and exhausting and he was flattered that I seemed to care about his safety enough to await his return.
The dude sampled enough of his own stash it was clouding his head. Conveniently for me, he wasn’t thinking with his brain. He’d been told in no uncertain terms that no one was to touch me and he’d been a man of his word, though he was hardly a man and he was very obviously growing sweeter on me by the minute. His foolish crush was my golden opportunity. I was careful to nurture it.
It was February, the rains relentless. I continued to worry myself sick for Mia, her expecting and all. I forced myself to eat to keep my strength. One rainy night, after Mario returned to the compound to sit beside me and smoke a joint, I told him that I’d missed him. “Take me with you next time,” I said, moving toward him, brushing his lips with the slightest hint of tongue. It was all he could do to pull away, his expression at once all excited, confused, frustrated, pained. “What, you like that?” I whispered. “There’s more where that came from, baby, but we can’t be seen together, not here.”
I’d figured the only way for me to save Mia was to make my move someplace outside of the compound. I had no idea she was already in hiding by then. With Mario and his virginal hard-on behind the wheel, I knew I had a chance to pull it off, my one big escape act. It had better be good.
He was a terrible driver, self-taught, like me, I guessed, though he was soon to find out how much better a driver I was. We were headed south on the Redwood Highway a few days after I had progressed into sticking my entire tongue in his mouth. He could barely contain himself. His plan was to drive to San Francisco, make the delivery and head on back, an eight or nine hour round trip, more given that we would be dodging rivers of mud on the road every few miles. If I was to die doing this, I figured it would have been worth it just to know that after all that I’d been through it was me who had the fucking balls, not them. It gave him an erection just to think of the moment he would pull over some place private and secluded enough to do the deed with me.
The boy was so darn smitten he pretty much straight away started showing off his macho skills behind the wheel, stupid bravado kicking in. He kept on weaving over and back across the centerline, talking up some bullshit or another, cracking jokes, doing his best to impress me. I smiled as sweet as pie as he took up the middle of the highway like he owned the road.
I about choked when a goddamn law enforcement officer played right into my plan, cruising up to the rear and pulling us over, flashing lights and all. The two of us were sitting on 30 pounds of market ready pot stashed in turkey bags under th
e floor of the flatbed. I kept my cool. It was perfect.
Mario, he was all of a panic. The cop stepped out of his vehicle and walked over to the window, real slow. Before I could open my mouth, the dumb kid leapt out of the truck, took an instant swing at the officer dude and knocked him clean onto the rain-slick road.
I stayed where I was, calming myself, thinking fast. “Shit,” I said, “Mario, drag him down the riverbank, tie him to a tree.”
I wasn’t sure how far Mario would go. “Don’t even think of doing him in,” I yelled. “You’re no cop killer.” Mario had no idea that I could drive. Don’t suppose it ever crossed his mind.
Dumb ass did as I said, thank God. And he left the keys in the ignition. The second they were out of sight and I was sure he had dragged the unconscious cop all the way down the riverbank, I slid over into the driver’s seat, chill as could be and I stepped on it, peeling out of there like a bat out of hell.
I passed no more than two or three vehicles that were heading in the opposite direction and, like a bat out of hell, I stopped for no one ‘til I got to Ukiah, first port of civilization where I found myself a police station and fell to the floor.
I turned myself in — not exactly home free. I have a shitload of explaining to do. Still, I’m past being disgraced, done worrying. All I can to do for myself, for Mia and the baby, is talk.
Chapter 28
Mia
Kate piled me into her SUV and drove me up the winding coast road into the small city of Ferndale, my thin disguise, a beanie, scarf and sunglasses. “Little chance we’ll run into anyone problematic, Mia,” she said, “but let’s think of it as an undercover mission, anyway.”
It was the first time I’d set foot in Ferndale with its ornate storefronts and big, old, fancy ass homes. It’s a real nice place, a postcard Victorian town and so way off the main route to anywhere it was no surprise I’d never been there before. We parked as a goodlooking contractor dude helped a cute Aussie shepherd dog into the back of a pickup truck. I watched as a heavily pregnant woman who must have been his wife or his girlfriend emerge from a small grocery store, her arms full of packed brown bags. For a minute or two, I almost forgot why we were there.
On the way into town, Kate asked me if there was anything more I wanted to share before we met with the doctor. It was hard to know where to start on all the shit I could have told her. I mean, who had I ever confided a single word to of a personal nature my whole life to aside from Jazmin?
She kept her eyes on the road while I did my best to give her a brief but brutal enough outline of the bastard who’d held me captive. She’d seen the branding on the back of my neck, they all had, my hair being what is and yet, I still could not speak the word out loud when it came to the nightly torture, the —OK, let’s face it, rape. That’s the truth of it and I had been forced to endure it frequently more than once a night. I knew how bad it was. Kate knew it. Everyone at Grace Place probably knew it. Now, at least it was over.
Kate, especially, never pushes for more than I am willing to tell.
I left the drive to the river out of it, especially the part where I’d left the fucker to his watery grave. At least I hope he is dead. For all I know he might have made it out, somehow. I would like to know once and for all, for peace of mind, but I don’t want to get Kate and Jo into any trouble, so I’m saying nothing. It’s my secret. I earned it.
It was a woman doctor who was waiting for me when we walked in. “Would you like for Kate to stay, Mia?” she asked. I appreciated the fact that she did not seem the type to judge me as one of those sad, tragic cases who must come her way. I know all doctors are supposed to be this way, nonjudgmental, but it’s not always been my experience. Seeing as my mom and me had been without health insurance when I was a kid, we, my mom mostly, grew accustomed to being lectured on how irresponsible it is to live without it. She finally got it, thank God, when the Affordable Care Act she talked about kicked in. If that hadn’t happened, she’d probably be dead by now.
The doctor, a tiny Indian woman in a pale green and pink sari, her big, black eyeglasses filling her face, smeared some clear sticky gel stuff on my tummy as she explained to me what an ultrasound is.
“Your baby is as big as an avocado,” she said. “Look . . . ”
Kate squeezed my hand. I was way too scared to look at the screen, not sure of what I’d see.
“Take a look, Mia,” she urged.
I was nervous and having trouble prying my eyes from a painting of yellow sunflowers in a vase on the beige wall above the screen. The doctor readjusted her latex glove with a curt snap. She asked me if I wanted to know the sex of the baby. She’d obviously been told the basics of my being there. I also guessed she was careful to not come across overly enthusiastic. For all she knew I might not have wanted a single thing to do with this kid that was growing inside of me.
I nodded, wordless, daring myself a sneak peek. Though I’d found it hard to picture the real, mini human being growing behind the bump, whatever it was, whoever it was, he or she was a part of me and I was a part of it and it was all I’d had to hold on to.
“Look, here . . . ” the doctor pointed out the outline of the baby’s neck and head and backbone and . . . “here,” she said, to my astonishment, “your baby is a boy, Mia.”
I swallowed. I hadn’t really allowed myself to think of him as a real person, not while I wasn’t sure I’d be alive to give birth to him, but sitting in that doctor’s office it hit me hard. He’d already learned to turn his head and his heart was pumping away on the screen for all to see.
“His liver is performing its digestive function,” the doctor explained. “Kidneys, bladder, they are every bit as active as we like to see at this stage of his development.”
The baby, she said, was readying for a rapid stage of growth that would make my pregnancy more noticeable on the outside. I burst into tears. Kate held my hand. I was terrified of what was about to happen to my body, to me, to this poor little avocado-size kid who never asked to be here.
“It was nice to meet you, Mia,” the doctor said. She shook my hand firmly, leaving Kate and me alone in the small room. It was all so suddenly, freakishly real. I’d never been to see a doctor without my mom with me. Now, here I was, seeing an obstetrician of all things with someone I barely knew by my side, a baby in my belly, really, truly, frickin’ pregnant.
Kate announced she had a plan for lunch and that we could talk it over if I’d like. She drove me to her and Jo’s favorite diner on Main Street for a bowl of chunky chicken noodle soup with an extra serving of fresh veggies. “Best ever,” she said, this being their regular pit stop when they’re running errands in town.
“We’d best pick out a couple pairs of maternity jeans while we’re near to the stores,” she said. “You’re going to need them.”
I asked her after a couple mouthfuls of the comforting soup, how she’d feel if she was the one who was pregnant. I didn’t think about it being rude to ask; Kate was in her forties, I guessed, Jo around the same age, maybe they didn’t want kids, maybe they were happy as they were, the two of them, taking care of the likes of me.
She said straight out that she and Jo both hoped some day soon they’d be in a position to raise a child or two of their own. “When the time is right,” she said.
We picked out jeans and a bottle of prenatal pills in a funky old department store that looked like something out of a ‘70s movie. I guess Amazon hasn’t made too much of an impact up on the Lost Coast as yet.
Kate talked about my having options as she drove us back to Grace Place. “You’re over 18, Mia,” she said. “It’s entirely your decision when you’re ready to make your mind up as to what you want to do going forward.”
She asked about my family. “Your mother,” she said. “Are you ready to let her know that you’re safe?”
I know it was wrong of me but after being so mad at my mom for being sick and helpless last summer and mad at myself for being so hella stupid and s
elfish since, I confessed that I wouldn’t know where to start in trying to talk to her. “She can’t find out about the baby, yet, Kate,” I said. “She just can’t.”
It all came tumbling out of me in a jumble of strangled words and tears, me staring out of the windshield as Kate kept her eyes on the road. “I was a stupid, spoiled brat, in many respects,” I admitted. “Not that we had anything much at all as far as material things. It’s more that I made things tough for my mom and her boyfriend Bobby for years. I ruled the roost. I was a little bitch, when I think about it now, getting away with whatever shit I could.”
“And your dad?” Kate asked, gently nudging me into one of my most difficult subject matters.
Not in the picture. I explained how Bobby had showed up when I was at an age where what I needed most was my mom to set me straight. For the most part, as I’d grown into my teens, they’d left me to my own devices, at home, alone, while they were at work.
“Don’t get me wrong. There wasn’t any mistreatment, nothing like that. It was just that they never had time for me,” I explained. “I never asked for that life, trapped out there in the wind and the fog and the mud, just another nobody, going nowhere.”
I’ve been thinking more than ever about my mom and how hard it must have been raising a child on her own.
“History repeats itself,” I said, wiping away the tears with tissues from a small pack Kate dug out of her purse with one hand on the wheel. “Isn’t that what they say?”
Kate thought on it a while, her eyes on the road. “We all have the power to take charge of our future, Mia,” she said. “You and your mom are two different people. You don’t have to be defined by her path, or anyone’s for that matter.”
Another seven days went by in a suspended haze. Jo and Kate tried their best to leave me to my business, to let me settle into my own head while at the same time, stick to my schedule of chores set out on a whiteboard in the back hallway. I was confused for sure, but otherwise, I felt good, at least physically better than I had in months. I stopped throwing up in the mornings. I was back to the weight I’d been when I’d left the ranch. I looked for changes in the mirror each morning. My boobs were already too big for the bra I’d picked out when I arrived. I sorted through the box of spare underwear and found a larger one that fit.
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