by MC Webb
Over a year had passed since Matthew had found me, and I would be fourteen in February. I was not blind to the fact he was gorgeous, and my darkness would fade slightly when he was around. Not that any boy would ever have me, I was convinced. I was dirty and spoiled, and Matthew would marry a girl as clean as he was. The thought of it sent ice through me. I hated Daniel for ruining me. I secretly wished I could kill him all over again.
I rode home sad at this thought, the last day before Christmas break. We three rode silently, bouncing our way down the holler road, heading home. I leapt from the truck when Josh let me out, as I always rode in the middle of the bench seat. With a low “Thank you, and see you later,” I walked as quickly as I could to my front door.
I guess they said goodbye, but I wasn’t sure, I was too emotional at that point and needed to get away before I started crying. Josh and Matthew both knew I was weird, so I never bothered to explain my sudden shifts in moods.
I wore my pain and darkness like a coat on the coldest of winter days. I wanted to shut myself in my room and lock myself away from everyone, so I couldn’t contaminate them. As Daniel had said, nobody would ever want me. It was a sad fact, and I might as well get used to it fast.
When I walked in the front door, I was brought up short by someone screaming. I dropped my bag, and ran through the kitchen, following the sounds. I had long since moved to my dad’s old room upstairs, on the second of the three floors. Judging by the noise, the birthing room was back in business.
I stopped outside the door to listen like I always did when someone was about to enter the world, and take his or her first breath. I always waited anxiously for that tiny cry. Nana surprised me when she called from the other side of the closed door.
“Piper? Love? Is that you?” she called sweetly.
I didn’t want to be heard. I figured I would have to leave and give the mother privacy, but then again, it sounded like Nana might need something. I decided to answer.
“Yes, Nana?”
I heard low talking and then the door opened, causing me to jump about three feet.
“Come in and give me a hand, will you?” Nana said, and I stood shocked. I’d never been allowed in the room before, not while a baby was coming. I’d heard dozens through the door, but never been inside, not for a birth.
Nana sat down on a rolling stool, and I stood in the doorway, unable to understand what I was seeing. A woman lay with her feet in the air on the hospital bed that normally was folded in half, tucked away in the corner of the room. The bottom of the bed had been removed and stirrups held her legs apart and in place. The woman was breathing heavily, her chest rising and falling rapidly.
“Come now, dear, you’re nearly there, Just a bit longer, and he’ll be here. Piper?” she said, not looking at me “Come in, and shut the door, please.”
I moved woodenly, not knowing if I wanted to be there or not. Once the door was shut, Nana motioned for me to stand next to her. The woman on the bed tossed her head back, heaving. I suddenly realized she was not a woman at all, but a girl, not much older than I was. Her skin was perfectly tanned in the middle of December, and her jet black was a shade darker than Matthews. Even in the middle of giving birth, I knew this was one of the most beautiful girls I’d even seen.
“That’s a good girl,” Nana said, patting her leg.
“Piper, this is Lana. Lana, this is my granddaughter, Piper.” Nana said properly, as if we’d just ran into each other at church. I looked up into the girl’s face, which was covered in sweat now. Lana cocked her head sideways and grinned at me
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” I replied awkwardly.
I watched her face turn red and screw up in pain. Her breath began to pick up. Despite the circumstances, Lana was completely at ease. Nana got up and pushed me to sit down in her stool.
I shook my head, horrified, “What? I can’t, Nana. I don’t know—”
Nana shushed me and handed me gloves.
“Hush now, you need to be ready. Just listen as I talk. There’s really nothing to it.”
Lana screamed, and I froze, seeing something round bulging from her lower half, which was now in my direct line of vision. I wanted to run from the room, but I was also transfixed by what was happening. I was mortified, but I could not look away. I put on my gloves hurriedly. Nana placed my hand where the baby was crowning.
“Just like baby horses, no?” Nana asked, her beautiful German accent more pronounced.
I wanted to say it was nothing like the horses I’d helped Papaw deliver. Nothing.
“Feel the pressure build with each contraction? That’s when you push through the pain.”
I didn’t want to feel, and yet I wanted nothing more in the world. I placed my hand on the stretching tissue, and watched in amazement at the life within coming forth. Lana began to scream, causing me to start shaking all over.
“It’s going to rip me in two!” she said through gritted teeth.
Judging by what I was seeing, I didn’t think she was too far off with her assessment. The tiny head progressed a little further out, then retreated.
“Doing good, Lana! Next time, I want the biggest push you can give me, okay? Come on now,” Nana coached.
She guided my hands to be ready and began whispering in my ear.
“Here it comes, Piper. Be ready now.”
Tears were filling my eyes, making me blink rapidly. Lana screamed, and bore down, straining with the labor of it. Her knuckles were chalk white from the death grip she had on the bars on either side of the bed.
“Here we go! Piper, keep his head up! He’s coming,” Nana said sweetly.
She sounded far away from me, although I felt her directly beside me. I was fully wrapped in this moment. The baby’s head was out now. I was in shock, but adrenaline was rushing through my body.
I placed my gloved hand under its head, and Nana continued to coach Lana. I tuned everything out. I couldn’t say it was an out of body experience, but I think it was close.
A minute later the baby was out, wailing and balling his fists at me. I held him, slippery with goo, not caring about anything else in the world. I felt hot tears slide down my cheeks. Daniel had not killed everything in me after all.
Nana was beaming with pride, and my heart fluttered wildly with excitement inside my chest. I could feel an overwhelming joy and peace looking in this creature’s eyes. A living, breathing thing was there, and I helped get it there. I looked, with my eyes full of tears, for Nana’s face. She was telling Lana something, and then she looked at me.
“Good girl,” she said winking, and gave me one of her angelic smiles.
I blinked the tears away and watched as Nana cut the cord. She began to tell me what to do. I placed the baby in a blanket rubbed the protective white paste off his face. I suctioned his nose and mouth—just like baby horses, I thought.
After the baby was as clean as I was going to get him, I started toward the mother, but Lana began shaking her head.
“No, he’s not mine,” she said, without an ounce of humor.
I felt my face pinch with confusion. I held the little boy in my arms and watched as Nana sewed Lana up. Nana would turn her head to the side to tell me something, explaining why this and that was necessary. She was coaching me. I didn’t think I’d ever shown interest in the work of a midwife, but she was coaching me nonetheless.
Lana, as Nana later explained as we left her to rest a while, had gotten pregnant by a married man. The baby was going to live with the man and his wife, raising him as their own. Lana didn’t seem to have any concerns about this decision.
Later that evening I checked on her, she openly admitted as much to me.
“I mean, honestly? He’s going to be much better off with his family than with me,” she said sleepily. “And besides,” she added, smiling at me. “I’m going to be an actress. I wouldn’t be able to give him the attention he deserves.”
I just listened, knowing the first rule
of delivering babies is you never, ever judge the mothers. Not their age or color or reasons. Lana and I talked and got to know each other a little as I cleaned around the room, killing time, and enjoying the company, even as odd as it was.
Lana was a high school dropout, who worked at a diner on the edge of our little town. She was saving up her tips and longing for the day she got away from her “drunken whore of a mother” and “super-sized” granny and their tiny trailer in the Westland trailer park. She was going to be a famous actress when she finally got away.
I wished I had some kind of dream, but for now all I knew was Daniel, and my mother had made sure I would never be able to do anything without their presence in my head. They were with me always, along with the awful words they’d said, and the things they’d done.
When it was late, Nana had took the baby somewhere, and Lana had signed a bunch of papers that a lawyer for the family brought over, the adoption was complete. It was practical, but it still made me sad. I went to bed excited that I delivered a baby for the first time but sad that it was gone and that I would not know what he would grow to be. The little pieces of my heart still hurt at the thought of never being loved, and never being clean enough to have a family of my own.
chapter nine
Christmas was a huge deal at the Mitchell home, that year especially, now I was well enough to enjoy it. We cooked and baked for church people and neighbors. Nana and I took food to the less fortunate families that otherwise would not have anything. I loved every minute of it.
When we visited the Logue family with baked pies and homemade fudge, I sat and watched Mickey Mouse Christmas with Josh while Nana and Mrs. Logue talked. Matthew, I assumed, had grown tired of me by now and didn’t feel the need to see me. I sat rigid and upset that he hadn’t at least come to say hello to me.
I could hear Mrs. Logue and Nana gossiping in the kitchen. Leaving Josh to Mickey, I began to wander around the living room, looking at the decorations. The pictures of a happy family sat all over the room, scattered in different places, including pictures of the elder Mrs. Logue who had died a several years before. After she died, Mr. Logue refused to leave, so the family moved to Cosby permanently from Florida to take care of him.
Something caught my eye and I looked out the window. There, setting on the hill was my blue barn, the image that started my dreams of escape from Daniel and the personal hell I was forced to live in. A light was on in its loft. I instantly turned and left the house, telling Nana I’d be back in a few minutes. I shut the door, not waiting for a reply. I climbed the hill quickly to the barn. I loved that thing—blue and ugly, but a symbol of home to me. I opened the doors and looked inside. There was nothing there. Just the dusty inside of a barn. I climbed the steps to the loft and found Matthew propped up on his elbows reading.
“Oh, hey,” he said, with that crooked grin that made me blush. Laying the book down beside him, he sat up
“I’m sorry,” I stammered, and I began to back away.
“No, stay,” he said, getting to his feet. “I was trying get some things caught up.” He nodded toward the papers and books. “I have to stay ahead if I’m going to get into Duke.” He grinned again.
He was so handsome. He had wavy dark hair clipped close to the scalp, and green eyes that caused my brain to go fuzzy every time I looked in them. He was clean and lovely. He stood a whole head taller than me, and I was pretty tall for a girl. The boys at school made sure to tell me all the time. I got lost for a minute in those deep green eyes. I realized he was saying something and tried to tune back in.
“Piper?” he said, and I blinked back to earth.
He was clean, and I was dirty. I would never be a part of his clean happy family, no matter how much I wanted it. The smiling, happy people in the pictures I saw moments ago would never include me.
I swallowed my hurt at the thought and said stupidly, “Right.”
Matthew frowned and asked, “You okay?”
Getting control of myself, I said, “Yes, I just wanted to see the barn. I saw the light and wanted to see it.”
I looked around, sadness starting to bubble up my throat, tears threatening to surface.
“You wanted to see the barn? Why?” he asked, confused.
I remembered he didn’t know my story. He knew I was dirty and unlovable because he found me, but he didn’t realize why I would want to see the blue barn. Matthew didn’t know it was a symbol of hope in a hopeless trailer that had held a little girl prisoner for months. I paused, and thought this was an innocent enough question to answer.
“This is where,” I stopped, and swallowed my emotions and then finished quietly, “I was running to.”
Understanding slowly dawned on him, and his face went soft.
“Anyway,” I said, feeling uncomfortable. “I better get back before Nana misses me.” I turned to go.
“Wait. Hold on just a sec.” I stopped on the top step and turned to see him rummage around in his bag, emerging with something in his hand.
“Three different girls tried to corner me at school, but I dodged them all,” he said sheepishly. “I brought this home, hoping to get a chance to use it.”
He opened his hand to show me a small strand of mistletoe. I looked at it, not understanding.
“Okay,” I said, not catching on.
I was dirty. Not at all kissable, but this clean and beautiful guy placed the mistletoe over my head and said, “May I?” in a nervous whisper.
I was dumbfounded. He wanted to kiss me? Me? Heat rose to my face and I felt suddenly light headed. I just nodded numbly, not knowing I was even moving my head. I wanted nothing more in the world than to taste those pink lips of his.
Matthew stepped down on the step with me, and leaned into me, kissing me so softly. At first it was just him touching my lips with his. I was terrified, and almost shaking with nerves. My cheeks burned, and my head rushed.
Something must have shifted with him because he began to kiss me deeper. Forgetting the mistletoe, he wrapped his arms around my middle. My mouth parted, and our tongues touched. Feeling him press into my body, I jumped back as if he’d burned me. Breathing heavy, I shook all over. Daniel’s face was there for just a second. He had succeeded in ruining that wonderful moment for me. Matthew reached to get my hand, concern on his beautiful face. I began to cry, confused at all I was feeling.
“Piper?”
Something in his voice was gentle, but commanding. I looked up to his face.
“It’s me, Piper. Just me,” he pulled me to him, to hug me.
He smelled like cedar and musk. I loved him, but I was dirty. I wanted to kiss him, but I was diseased. I would never be free from the stranglehold of Daniel. My body and the scars I had would always be a reminder I was not worthy. But damn it, for just a moment I wished to be just that.
chapter ten
Not long after the kiss, I found, by accident, the relief that came from cutting. I absently picked at a scab. I picked at it with so much focus and control, I was relieved when the blood began to flow. This was something I controlled completely, and it released my mind from bonds I didn’t know were there. I began to cut myself daily. I had so many emotions and no control over them. I hurt so badly in my mind, the physical pain relieved me of it and it felt good.
When the first shard of broken glass released blood from my upper arm, I immediately felt better. Not in a soothing way, but in a gratifying way. I could control it. I could cut, and not draw blood, or I could cut, and make myself bleed as much as I thought I needed to. I was dirty and diseased, and therefore I needed to bleed from the sickness.
Escape came to me in bloody droplets. The more I cut, the less I cried. It somehow turned everything off. I now had marks on the outside to match the ones on the inside. I was tempted to cut too deep, but stopped just shy of it. I knew what I was doing was twisted, but I was twisted, so it also made perfect sense to me.
Matthew didn’t try to kiss me again, though we spent hours talking in
person and on the phone. It was months before anything physical took place between us, other than hugging. He just got me. He understood without me saying that I wasn’t ready.
Most girls bragged about the things they would do with boys. It made me feel out of place, but I had just not got to the point of not hearing Daniel’s nasty words in my ear.
I turned fifteen and finished my freshman year of high school with honors. Nana was beside herself with pride. I wasn’t sure, but at times sad thoughts showed in her seraphic face, and I secretly wondered if she was just happy I was semi-normal.
I did have my darkness. That was always there with me. It haunted me most nights. I would wake with dry heaves, thinking of the taste of Daniel, or the smell that rose from his rancid flesh after days of boozing. I hid this as best I could, not wanting to add to the worry I was causing Nana and Papaw already. I went day to day with a smile on my face and a heavy heart.
The summer came fast and furious. Lana began to hang out at my house more and more that year. She would come to eat and watch TV. I knew, as did everyone in the county, that Lana lived with her grandmother and her mom. Her mom, Nicole, was what Nana called a “lot lizard.” Nana said she was the kind of woman who hung out at truck stops and did things with truckers for money to buy drugs and beer.
Nana would check on Lana’s grandmother, old Mrs. Morris from time to time but would never take me with her. She said she was scared to death I’d catch a disease. I thought—but didn’t say—I already had a disease, though it left no physical signs. In my mind, I couldn’t catch anything worse than what I already had.
On days that Nana visited the expectant mothers, she had me stay home or work in the office with Papaw. On a mid-summer’s morning I walked to office to help my favorite Veterinarian and found him sweeping.
“Hi, Papaw,” I said as I walked in.
“Well, hello my Piper,” he said brightly.
I was taller than he was, and I bent my head to kiss his rough cheek. Just as my dad could never seem to keep a smooth face, neither could his dad. Papaw had five o’clock shadow by eleven in the morning. His hair had been chalk white since before I was born.