by Tracy Brown
Jada was sentenced to eighteen months—nine months in prison, and nine months in court-mandated rehab. Her Legal Aid lawyer told her that she should be glad the judge had taken pity on her, because a lot of offenders were getting five years or more for having even small amounts of crack. She’d appeared before a sympathetic judge, whose own daughter was struggling with cocaine addiction. The judge had taken pity on Jada in her pregnant state, when a lot of judges would have sentenced her more harshly because of it. She was lucky. But Jada didn’t feel lucky at all. She was distraught.
She looked around the courtroom at her sentencing, wishing she would see a familiar face in the crowd. Her mother, Ava, Sunny—someone who cared about her. But there was no one, and Jada felt desperate to get out. All she wanted was to get out of jail, and get back to her money, so that she could get back to getting high.
While she was in jail they put her in a drug program. It was like being in rehab in jail. She went to talk to counselors, and to meetings and classes about drug abuse and what it does to an unborn baby. That’s when she learned what she was really doing to her unborn child every single time she got high. They told Jada that once cocaine enters the baby’s blood and tissues, it stays way longer than it does in adults. Jada was getting high for maybe twenty minutes, while her baby would be high for more than an hour. Their undeveloped livers don’t filter the drugs that fast, and the drug gets broken down slower. Jada felt terrible for all the problems that her baby could have. She hadn’t felt guilty up until then, because she had been hoping that she’d have a miscarriage, so that she could rid herself of any traces of Jamari in her life—including the baby. But she hadn’t miscarried. And all throughout her seventh and eighth months of pregnancy, Jada was scared to death. She was worried about what her baby would go through because she had been so selfish.
Prison was not a new experience for Jada, so she knew to watch her back, and not run her mouth. Sometimes bitches would try to test her, and Jada got in her fair share of trouble. Some of the other incarcerated mothers would have given anything to be with their kids. And there Jada was—incarcerated for endangering her child’s welfare by abusing crack cocaine while in her last three months of pregnancy. She wasn’t a favorite among the other inmates. But for the most part, she managed to stay to herself, and she tried to mind her own business. She had enough to deal with in her own life, and had little time for the usual female “she said” shit.
Jada went into labor in August of 1999, at the end of her eighth month of pregnancy. They didn’t rush her to the hospital. They let her pace the jail for a while, until she couldn’t take the pain. This would be no easy delivery, where the pain was lessened by drugs. Instead, she felt every contraction, causing her to stop walking every few minutes, until the contractions subsided. Her water broke on the way to the hospital, and she had a police escort with her the whole time. They even shackled one wrist to the bed rail. Jada felt like an animal. But she stopped thinking about that whenever one of the contractions shook her. She was a mess in there, and she felt so much pain. There was one nurse—an Indian woman—who took pity on the poor young thing with no one to help her through the birth of her first child. The nurse held Jada’s hand and talked to her nicely. She told her to breathe, and to relax between the pains. She probably never realized how much she helped Jada that night. But for Jada, the woman was a godsend. For months she’d become accustomed to C.O.s barking orders and inmates yelling obscenities. For once, it was just nice to have a soothing voice in her ear—especially at a time like this.
Sheldon Marquis Ford was born after putting Jada through ten hours of labor. He was so tiny and so fragile that Jada cried openly when she saw him for the first time. He weighed barely five pounds, and he was pale and scrawny. He cried so much, and they poked many needles into him, hooked him up to a machine, and put him in an incubator. As soon as Jada laid eyes on him, she fell in love.
Jada wanted to stay in that hospital for as long as possible so that she could be close to him. She faked aches and pains that she didn’t have, so that they wouldn’t release her to be returned to jail, and make her leave her baby in that hospital. From the moment she saw him, she stopped thinking of him as Jamari’s baby, and she saw him as her child. Her son.
Jada was determined that they wouldn’t put him in foster care, and she hated herself for what she’d done to him. But the saddest part for her was knowing that if she wasn’t in jail, she would have smoked crack again in order to escape that guilt. That was the point when she finally admitted to herself that she had a problem.
After four days, they told Jada that she was being released in the morning. There was a guard right outside her door. With no place else to turn, Jada called her mother. She had to do something. Jada placed the collect call, and was relieved when Edna accepted the charges. Jada told her the truth of how she’d gotten in trouble. She described how frail and small Sheldon was, and how she had named him after her father—the man in the five-by-seven picture she had stared at every single night before she fell asleep when she was a little girl. Edna listened, and Jada thought it sounded like her mother was crying. Jada begged her to come and get her baby, and help her keep him out of the system. Edna listened, and didn’t say anything for a long time before she answered.
Finally, she said, “Jada, this is terrible, and I’m sorry you gotta go through this. But I can’t get involved in all this mess. God is in control, so you need to let him have his way. It sounds like your baby has the odds stacked against him already. I’ll do what I can to help you. But it sounds like it’s up to the authorities now. They got you up there in—where are you again?”
Jada didn’t answer her. She held the phone, and she just felt like, Damn! Can’t you ever be there for me, even once? Jada just hung up the phone, cried her eyes out, and prayed for a miracle.
Jada sat in her bed and summoned up the nerve to call Sunny’s mother. She hadn’t heard from Sunny in more than a year, and she wasn’t even sure if she would want to hear from Jada. She dialed 411, and asked for the number for Marisol Cruz in Brooklyn, New York, and was relieved that her number wasn’t unlisted. As the telephone rang, Jada prayed that Marisol would accept the collect call. She wasn’t disappointed, and hearing Marisol’s thick accent was like music to her ears.
“Thank you for accepting the charges,” Jada began.
“Don’t worry about it, mami. Are you okay? Where are you?”
“I got bagged—”
“For what?” Sunny’s mother sounded shocked.
“I was getting high, and I got caught. But the thing is, I was pregnant.” Jada’s voice was barely audible. She was embarrassed by her own selfish actions.
Marisol listened, and contained the shock she felt. She held her hand silently over her mouth, as she listened to Jada tell her about how she had gotten kicked out of Born’s life, gotten pregnant by someone else, gotten high, and gotten arrested. Now Jada needed Marisol’s help to get in touch with Sunny, to help her keep her son out of the system. Marisol’s heart broke as she listened to the desperation in Jada’s voice. She took down Jada’s address and prison I.D. number, so that she could try to help.
“Jada, Sunny’s been with my sister in Puerto Rico since a month after Mercedes was born.”
Jada cried silent tears, as she finally learned the sex of her friend’s baby. Sunny had had a baby girl! She could only imagine how beautiful the baby must be.
Marisol continued. “She got a lot of investments and stuff that she cashed in after Dorian died, you know what I’m saying? Insurance and stuff like that.” Marisol knew that Jada would read between the lines, and she did. She knew that Sunny had inherited Dorian’s drug game fortune, and was laying low for the time being. “I will call her and tell her what happened. But for now, mami, you gotta pray for your baby, and ask God to spare his life. He’s strong like you’re strong, Jada. Don’t break down now.” Marisol’s heavy Spanish accent was a comfort to Jada. She knew that Sunny’s mom would d
o her best to help her, and that was a relief to her after so much bad news.
“Thank you, Marisol. You don’t know how much this means to me. Sunny is my last hope. I don’t have nowhere else to turn.” Jada’s voice got caught in her throat as the tears came.
Marisol knew that Jada’s spirit was dampened. “Listen, Jada. Let me tell you something. Don’t go feeling sorry for yourself, and getting all weighed down by negativity. That’s not what you need right now. You are not the first young lady to have a problem like this. Sunny had your same problem once. Right before Dorian died, she was fucked up off that shit. He helped her through it, and she had the baby drug free. But after the baby, she fell back again. Sunny was right back on that shit again. But she went in and got help. Went to a program, you know? You gotta give it a chance. Because Sunny turned it all around, and you gotta see her now, baby girl. She’s a whole different person. She still a pain in the ass …”
Jada laughed, missing Sunny’s one-of-a-kind personality.
“But at least she’s clean now. You stay strong,” Marisol said. “You’re gonna find your way. I will tell Sunny to get in touch with you. You wait to hear from her.”
The line went dead, and Jada cried, feeling helpless. She spent the remainder of that night in prayer, asking for forgiveness, and for mercy.
The next day, Jada went back to jail, and she cried all the way back. Her last time touching Sheldon’s soft hand through the holes in the incubator, she sang to him. Jada sang “Amazing Grace,” and she hoped her son could hear her, even though she sounded bad because she was in tears. Sheldon had to stay in the hospital, because of all of his medical problems. He had stopped breathing twice, and they had managed to bring him back. And now Jada had to leave him there, and hope that he survived. And if he survived, she prayed that someone came in time to claim him before the courts sent him away.
Jada stayed in her bunk crying for days afterward. Jada was severely depressed. They put her on suicide watch, and everything. She found out that a custody hearing had been scheduled, and she felt a glimmer of hope. But still she wanted more. Every day without her baby was a day in hell for her.
35
SINCE I LOST MY BABY
September 1999
The visiting room was filled with kids, and Jada’s eyes lit up at the sight of so many little ones. Her heart ached for her own child, as she looked around for Sunny’s face. She found her friend sitting on one of the orange plastic chairs in the back of the visiting room.
Sunny looked more beautiful than ever. Her brown hair was long and silky, and pressed bone straight, complementing her lovely island-tanned face. When she’d last seen Sunny, her friend had sported a fierce, short haircut that had made her look edgy and sexy. Now her hair was long and beautiful, and she looked absolutely stunning. Jada wished she could have her hair done, since she now wore it in a half-nappy snatch-back ponytail. She was no longer concerned about something as trivial as looks. She hugged Sunny, and realized after so long how much she had truly missed her friend. Sunny began to cry, seeing Jada looking skinny and broken. This wasn’t the friend with whom she’d danced the night away all over the city. She remembered the days when they’d gone on thousand-dollar shopping sprees and to parties with the rich and powerful. And now, Sunny had overcome her battles and was watching Jada losing her own. She hugged Jada for a long time, and when she finally pulled away she wiped her tears and looked at her friend.
“Girl, please don’t hate me for leaving,” Sunny began when they sat down at last. “I’m so sorry. I had to get out of New York after Dorian died. Niggas knew that I was the only one who knew where he kept all his money. Even his brothers and them, they wanted to get their hands on his money. I had to get away, because I was scared. And I was fucked up on that blow, too, Jada. I know my mother told you. When I buried Dorian, I buried a part of me, too. I was a mess. I was depressed, and I wanted to die. I got over that shit, but it wasn’t easy. I’m here to help you do it, too. And you’re gonna do it. And we’re gonna get your baby back.”
Jada smiled. “Thank you, Sunny. I need you to get in touch with my lawyer—”
“I already did. I fired him.” Sunny crossed her legs, as Jada looked at her with surprise etched on her face. “I hired Nelson Doyle. He’s a friend of my family, and he’s helping me to try and get visitation with Sheldon.”
“Visitation? They put him with a foster family already?” Jada was confused, because the custody hearing wasn’t scheduled for two more weeks. When she’d last spoken to her Legal Aid attorney, he had told her that her son was still in the hospital.
Sunny hoped Jada wasn’t going to overreact to what she was about to tell her. “Jada, Jamari stepped up and claimed the baby.”
“What?” Jada was stunned. “What? How could he do that, Sunny? He can’t do that, can he?”
Sunny held Jada’s hand. “He went and had a paternity test done; he got a lawyer, and everything. Nelson’s handling it, but Jamari’s lawyer ain’t making it easy. He proved paternity, and they checked him out, and all that. They went all into his background. I heard that the nigga stopped hustling, and everything. He’s working at Home Depot, or some shit like that, and cooperating with the social workers. He had Sheldon moved to Staten Island Hospital, and he’s got sole custody.”
Jada burst into tears. She felt so much hatred surging through her body toward Jamari at that moment. He was rubbing salt in her wounds, and she fell apart. “He don’t want me to see my own son?” she asked.
Sunny shook her head. “He’s saying some terrible things about you, Jada, He got the doctors on his side, because Sheldon’s had a hard time. He stopped breathing four different times, and he’s been in the hospital for over a month. They had a closed-door hearing that Nelson said they didn’t have to allow you to be present for. He said that since you couldn’t challenge for custody as an inmate, you didn’t need to be there. Jamari has a whole plan for how he’s going to shut you out of Sheldon’s life, but we’re challenging him every step of the way. We’ll be there in court, and we got your mother to come, too. Your mother wants to help you, and she swore she’d do whatever she could. Nelson’s gonna put her on the stand and argue that, as the baby’s grandmother, she should be allowed to visit with the baby. It might work. But I don’t want you to get your hopes up. Jamari’s being a real asshole about all this.” Sunny looked at Jada, unsure. “Jada, how could you get high when you could feel your child moving around inside of you?” Sunny needed to understand what had sent Jada to such a terrible low. When she’d been pregnant with Mercedes, nothing could have made Sunny use cocaine. Nothing could have made her hurt her unborn child.
Jada nodded, and looked away. “I didn’t want to be pregnant anymore. I found out so much about Jamari that made me hate him. And I realized that he only looked out for me in order to make me depend on him. It was all part of some crazy plan. I didn’t want to have his baby. I was hoping I would lose it, and then I could be free of him.” Jada sighed. “But Sheldon hung on, and I am so sorry that I ever hurt him.”
“You should be. ‘Cuz he is the most beautiful little boy I’ve ever seen. He looks just like you. You better thank God every day that Sheldon refused to die. He’s a tough little boy.”
Jada was grateful to Sunny. Even though her words were blunt and matter-of-fact, they were pure truth. She was glad that Sunny knew what to expect when she faced Jamari in court. Jada told Sunny how grateful she was for all of her help. She didn’t know what she’d do without her.
Sunny tilted her head to the side, and looked at her worn-down friend. “How the hell did you get involved with this sucka-ass nigga in the first place? What happened with Born?”
Jada shook her head, and told her how it had all gone wrong. She told Sunny everything she’d been through, from the moment she had lost touch with her friend. She told her how she’d stolen from Born to get high, and how he’d caught her and kicked her out. Jada told Sunny about all the crack she had used, how Jam
ari had given it to her and hadn’t judged her. She told her about the bricks she’d stolen, and the money she’d made, and where she’d stashed it. By the time the visit was over, Jada felt only a glimmer of hope that Sunny might be able to help her to hold on to the child she really hadn’t wanted at all. Now she wanted him with all her might.
Two weeks went by before Jada’s hearing. When she got to court, she saw Sunny and Edna, and was thrilled to have their positive energy on her side. Her lawyer put her on the stand, and Jada cried her way through her testimony, and promised to get clean. Edna got up there and cried, too. But Jada felt that she was crying for all the wrong reasons.
Edna cried, and told the court about how hard it was to see her child as a crackhead. She told them that she wished she could raise Jada all over again, and make up for all the wrong she’d done. Edna felt that she was being given a second chance with the birth of her grandchild. Jada could tell that Edna’s testimony didn’t really make her look like the best person in the world. She was scared to death. But her lawyer said that the judge might take pity on her. He might see Edna’s desire to fix her past mistakes as a reason to grant Edna visitation rights. That was what they wanted. Jamari’s lawyer argued that Sheldon should remain with his father because it was a stable home environment, and he was the child’s biological father. Then they began their attack.