OUR SECRET BABY

by Paula Cox

  I glance up and down the highway, looking for a gas station. Behind me, there’s nothing but road, cars gliding along the snow. In front of me, there is a station, but I reckon it’s at least a half-mile away. Which means I’m going to lose at least half an hour.

  “Fuck!” I roar, the anger growing like a tumor in my chest. I think back to the anger I felt when that piece of shit old man had his syringe in me, wonder if it was as fierce as this anger. The answer is no, and that shocks me. I’ve always assumed that would be the angriest I felt, but this is different. After spending a night with Kayla, and then learning I had a daughter, and then learning that my daughter was gone—my rage is like hellfire.

  I bow my head to the wind and begin sprinting toward the gas station, not caring when it begins to hail and hard stones lacerate my face. I feel them cutting into my skin, melting in my hair, slicing into my hands. I feel them pounding into me. I feel them whipping into my open mouth and hitting the back of my throat. I choke, but I don’t stop running. I run for my daughter, and I run for Kayla, and I run for the man I once was and the man I am now becoming. I run because there is a little girl out there, fuckin’ terrified, wanting her mother, and she’s mine, too. I think about Ogre, with that little girl in his arms. The image makes me want to vomit. It’s wrong, like a camera out of focus, simply incorrect. Ogre should be six feet under the fuckin’ ground, not holding a kid in his arms.

  I wonder what he’s feeding her, which is how I know there’s been some change in me since I reunited with Kayla. I would never have thought some shit like that before. I wonder how he’s taking care of her. And when I think the worst—that which I can’t even say to myself—I clench my fists so hard my nails dig into my palms.

  Finally, hail-soaked, face covered in innumerable tiny cuts, I push open the gas station door, wind following me, howling. The attendant, a spotty ginger kid with his phone in one hand and a glass of orange juice in the other, looks up in shock.

  “Need something to hold gas,” I snap.

  “Uh, I think we have—yeah, just behind you.”

  The kid watches me warily. When I pace across the room, he jumps up from his seat, spilling his orange juice all over the counter.

  “Woah, man! Woah!”

  “Relax.” I reach into my pocket, take out my wallet, and toss a bunch of notes on the counter. “That’s for the gas. I ain’t coming back in to pay—and for the container, too.”

  “Dude,” the kid says, inching forward and looking down at the money. “This is like—three hundred bucks.”

  “Then it’s your fuckin’ lucky day,” I snap, picking up the green gas container and pushing back out into the cold, to the pumps.

  With the container full, I cork it, and then sprint back down the highway toward the car. The hail stops, and snow begins to fall once again. Somewhere to the west, thunder rumbles. Somewhere further west, lightning strikes. By the time I get back to the car, even my leather is soaked through. But I don’t give a fuck. I don’t feel the cold. I don’t feel anything right now except an animal urgency to find Ogre. As I fill the gas tank, I wonder if this is what Kayla felt for all those years after leaving the Movement: driven by just one urge, an urge that superseded all others. I toss the empty container to the ground and climb back into the car.

  I hotwire it again, and the engine roars to life.

  I return to traffic, having lost a full forty-five minutes, my belly churning now.

  Sandra is an extension of me and Kayla, a part of both of us, something which ties us together and cannot be ignored. Sandra is something I have never been: precious, untouched by the cruelty of the world. Sandra deserves better than me or Kayla had. Sandra deserves a proper father, a proper mother. Sandra deserves a proper life. And Ogre, that sack of fuckin’ shit, is going to try and take that away from her. If he hasn’t already—no, I won’t think that. I won’t let myself.

  I reckon life is a damn joke some of the time. If I’d made this drive some other day, some day when urgency didn’t matter, it would’ve been smooth, easy, no problem. But today life is against me. Maybe that crevice-faced man really was the devil and he’s down there somewhere, playing tricks on me.

  I’ve been driving for about twenty minutes when one the back wheels of the sedan goes pop, causing me to skid a little. Lucky the roads ain’t too full.

  Once again, I pull to the side of the road, temples pulsing, mind overfull with images of Ogre and my daughter.

  I climb from the car, growling deep in my chest without even meaning to, and then reach back into the car and pop the trunk. Then I go to the back, praying that I can have one piece of goddamn luck today. I open the trunk all the way, part of me not wanting to look down just in case. But when I look down, I breathe a sigh of relief—or as much relief as I can with time pressing colder and more urgently around me each second. I take out the wrench, the jack, and the spare tire.

  After changing the tire and leaving the dud on the side of the road—at this rate, there’s going to be a Hansel and Gretel trail followin’ me all the way to the clubhouse—I start the car and drive once again down the highway. Twenty minutes lost to that bullshit, and now the sky is beginning to get winter-dark, clouds closing over what little weak sunlight there was, and a clouds closing inside me, too. I want to believe Sandra is okay. I want to believe I can get to Ogre in time. I want to believe that the police will do their job, even if I’ve never been much of a fan of the police. But the more I drive and the darker the sky gets, the more a weight settles on my chest.

  Maybe I’ve learnt that I have a daughter only to learn later the same goddamn day that she’s been taken away from me—taken permanently, and cruelly. I’ve already missed so much: the pregnancy, the birth, the first months of her life. And now I’m going to miss everything else, too. I’m going to miss her whole life, ’cause Ogre’s going to take it from me, from us, from me and Kayla. Kayla, the woman I love. Yeah, I can’t deny that now. Kayla the woman I love and Sandra, my child.

  I left Missouri a single man on a whim; I return a family man on a mission.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Kayla

  I sit in the back of the ambulance as Macy drifts in and out of consciousness, holding her hand, which feels smaller, more wrinkled, older than it has before. Macy always seems strong, like a proud lioness, but now she really looks like an old woman. But despite Macy’s condition, I’m still finding it difficult to leave my mind, which has become a chamber of tormenting thoughts and images, each one with Ogre doing some horrible thing to my child, our child. I keep thinking about Lennie in Of Mice and Men, and his big hands, and the small things he broke, and how easy it would be for Ogre to do the same.

  I lost one Sandra to the hands of a cruel psychopathic man; now it looks like history is going to repeat itself. But Mom was a grown woman, Mom had lived, even if she’d lived in strict and twisted guidelines. My baby Sandra has not even had a chance at life, and now, and now—

  The tears come quickly, burning warm down my cheeks now I am out of the cold. I let go of Macy’s hand and lean back as the paramedic starts checking her wrist, her pulse. I just lean back and weep, desperate for my baby to be handed to me. I want to hold her. I want to feed her. I want to listen to her baby noises. I want to know she is okay. I can’t function without knowing that much, at least.

  Fine, Ogre, take her, but just let me know she’s alive. Give me that much at least.

  I barely hear the bleating of the ambulance siren, or the paramedic telling Macy to stay awake, or feel the juddering of the vehicle over the bumps in the road. I barely even feel my own heartbeat, which is like the distant booming of some gigantic drum. My hands are coated in sweat, so much sweat that I imagine I am wearing water-filled gloves. My tongue is dry, and stuck to the roof of the mouth. But I do not feel any of it.

  I am somewhere else, in a dark room, watching through the crack in the door as Ogre stands over Sandra. I want to look away, because I have been in this situatio
n before. I have looked through the crack in the door as Master stood over another Sandra, but that time, the door was closed to me. Now, Ogre keeps the door open and I am unable to look away. I stare, wide-eyed, trembling, but unable to move as in dreams which keep you rooted to the spot, as Ogre leans down and picks up my baby. She looks even tinier than usual in his massive hands, a little fresh shred of life pawing at the air, babbling.

  Ogre turns to me. In the—dream? fantasy? hallucination?—in my head, his eyes are not eyes but deep, dark pits, his eye torn away, and his lips are not lips but two thick leeches, bending together to form a sickening smile. I want to run across the room and dig my hands into the pits, to wrench away the leeches. I want Dante to come crashing into the room with his big silver gun and shoot Ogre in the head. I want the world to open and suck away the evil man. But instead, Ogre just says, “Do you remember when you took my jacket, rat girl? Do you remember? You stole my jacket, yes, yes, and that was a bad thing to do, alright, a very bad thing, and now I will pay you back.”

  “You let her go! You let my fucking daughter go!”

  “Ma’am! Ma’am! Ma’am!”

  I open my eyes—I didn’t even realize I’d closed them—and see that I’m in the snow-covered hospital parking lot. Macy is being carried in on a gurney by the paramedics. The man shouting in my face smells of cigarettes. He has dark green eyes and his hand digs into my arm. I look down at his hand, and then down the length of his arm to his blue uniform, his dirty, smudged badge.

  I take a step back. The police, even now, scare the hell out of me. There are police in the Movement. Not a great many, but some, and some is all you need in certain situations. I take another step back, batting the man’s hand away when he makes to grab my arm again.

  “Don’t touch me,” I say. There must be an edge to my voice, because the man stays where he is, hands raised in a peace offering.

  “I am here to help, ma’am,” he says. “My name is Officer Cohen.”

  “I need my daughter back,” I tell him warily.

  “That is why I am here, ma’am.”

  He might be in the Movement, and if he is in the Movement, he will report to Master and sooner or later some Movement men will come and get me, and then I will never see Sandra again. I watch his face carefully. He is around forty, I guess, but with wrinkles around his eyes and mouth as though he’s spent most of his years staying up too late and getting up too early. I watch his eyes especially, for recognition.

  “Master is All, and All is Master, and those who disavow this Creed are living in Deep Sin, in a Pit of Sin, for they have not felt the Truth of these Sacred Words, that Master is All, and All is Master.” I remember chanting these words over and over as a girl, to the point where I would have rather eaten a handful of stones than chant them one more time.

  Officer Cohen looks at me like I’m crazy. It’s the first time in my life I’m glad to be looked at like that.

  “Let’s get you inside,” he says.

  “Okay.”

  We go inside, and I give Officer Cohen my report, doing as Dante said and telling him about Ogre but not about Dante being there. Officer Cohen says that he is going to post a police officer outside Macy’s room. Before he leaves, he pats me on the arm.

  “We’ll find your daughter, ma’am.”

  We are in the waiting room, on our feet, standing next to a vending machine full of candy which makes me want to be sick.

  “Can you promise that?” I ask.

  The officer shifts from foot to foot, and lets his hand drop from my shoulder. “We will try our best.”

  With that, he leaves.

  I go to Macy’s room, which is on the first floor, the window overlooking the parking lot, the glass iced over. The officer who stands outside the room is tall and wide like a football player, with a flat face and dull eyes. He nods shortly to me as I enter. Macy lies on the bed, on her back, asleep, wires and sensors plugged into her all over the place, an IV drip in her arm.

  I sit in the chair in the corner. Somebody has left a sandwich and a glass of water, but I can only drink the water. The sandwich sickens me. Even the idea sickens me. How am I supposed to sit here eating a ham sandwich when Sandra is out there somewhere, terrified? How am I supposed to go through the pathetic routine of chewing, and then swallowing, my food when Sandra is out there screaming for her mother?

  I try and sit back, try and relax, try and focus on the mundane things in the room, like the thin crisp sheets or the fluorescent tube light or the brown door to the bathroom. But the sheets fold as if Sandra is hidden in there, and the lights dance and distort until looking exactly like Ogre’s oversized, cruel body, and behind that bathroom door, I am convinced, lurks a world of torture. I shake my head, shuddering.

  The sky is beginning to get dark when Macy wakes up. “Water,” she mutters.

  I go into the hallway, starling the police officer out of a nap. He sits in the chair, chin on his chest, snoring. When I exit the room, he leaps up and pretends that he’s busy. I shake my head in disgust. I should report him, or complain, but I am still aware that there might be Movement people in the police force, and I can’t risk it. I get Macy a cup of water and return to the hospital room. After she’s drank it down, dribbling some down her chin, she says, “I am sorry I didn’t get out of that closet sooner, Kayla. I was just—”

  “It is not your fault,” I interrupt. “You’re not the psychopath who broke into an old woman’s house. What did he do to you?”

  “Threw me about a bit,” she says, wincing. “Not much more than that, but at my age, that’s all you need.”

  For some reason, this statement provokes another round of tears in me. I bite them back, swallow them, and stop myself from sobbing. Still, a couple of silent tears slide down my cheeks. I wipe them away with the back of my hand.

  “I am so scared for her,” I say. “The police are out there, Dante is out there, but . . . I don’t know, I feel like I should be out there, too.”

  “And do what?” Macy asks softly.

  I take her hand with both of mine, cupping it, feeling the wrinkles, the warmth. It gives me a little strength, and Dante gives me a little strength, and so does Sandra; perhaps with the strength of the three of them combined, I can be strong enough to get through this. It hits me, then, as Macy watches me and waits for an answer. It hits me that I have become something else, somebody else. I am not thinking about how to get out of this situation. I am not afraid for myself. If Ogre were to tell me that he’d return Sandra to safety in exchange for my life, I would gladly give it.

  Macy gives my hand a squeeze. “There’s nothing you can do,” she says, when I don’t answer, “but wait here just in case he makes contact with the police.”

  We don’t say anything for a while, and then Macy comments: “I recall a girl who would rather steal my jewelry than become too close to anybody, Kayla, and I remember late nights when you would tell me about a girl who was even more—how did you put it—rodent-like than that. You told me of a girl who only cared about her own survival, whose only concern was herself. Now here you are, with a man, and a child, and things to care for.”

  I snort, because snorting is less painful than giving away to the ever-present threat to tears. “And look where it’s got me,” I say.

  “You are a person now,” Macy says. “You were never a person before.”

  I hold Macy’s hand until she falls asleep, and then I return to my chair in the corner. My belly grumbles. I ignore it at first, but then it grumbles again. Finally, I give in and eat the sandwich. I will need my strength for when Sandra comes back, I reason. I will have to be strong for her. My mind keeps being tugged to horrible, torturing images, as though by some unseen force, but I keep tugging it back to Sandra, to how I will need to be there when she’s back. She’s young, perhaps she won’t remember much, if anything, of this. But I need to make sure her life is so full of warmth and love that it blots out this cold and hate.

  Yes,
that is what I will focus on. I will not succumb to despair. I will not respond like an animal, a rodent, and sink unthinkingly into self-pity and desperation. Dante is out there; he will find her. The police are out there; they will find her.

  I try to sleep, but I cannot. Instead, I go to the icy window and peer out at the parking lot. The sun has set now, the night black. Dante should be back at the club by now. I wonder if he has already found Ogre, but he would text or call me if that was the case. Maybe Ogre found him first—I shut my mind to that.

  Strength, I remind myself. Not for me, but for Sandra, for Dante, for Macy.

  I will be strong for others because I cannot be strong for myself. I will think of others first because thinking of myself first has never brought me anything but pain. I will be strong because Sandra needs my strength; she will need it more than ever in the coming months.