Worth Fighting For| B. Barnes

~June 23, 2014~

Monday
June 23, 2014
8:30 AM

~~~~~

Similarly to her ex husband, Enrieta had a bad habit of casting her burdens onto the bottle when things got hard. As of now her biggest burden, was her own daughter.

The longer Enrieta kept Ivory, the more she felt as if the child was causing her to lose her mind, when in reality her mind had been long gone the day she decided to start picking up the bottle.

It wasn't even 9am that morning and Enrieta had already been on her third glass of wine and her judgement was more askew than it was when she was sober.

"Ivory...STOP IT!" Enrieta-Maria shouted to the child from across the room. Ivory had been laid in her bassinet having another one of her brutal screaming fits and she had been at it for hours.

"I change you, I feed you, and I rock you and that's it! It's time for you to go to sleep!" Enrieta shouted at the helpless infant causing her to scream louder. Having had enough, Enrieta lifted little Ivory out of the car seat, looked the infant right in her face and shouted at her once more.

"I SAID STOP IT! ENOUGH!"

That woman's shouting was enough to make the whole apartment go silent...the sound of a pin dropping could probably be heard because of how quiet it was. Just then there was a knock on the door of Enrieta's apartment and she sighed not sure who could have been visiting at that time of the morning.

After Ivory briefly stopped crying to look at the woman, she immediately belted out screaming and crying before being placed down in her stroller and strapped in.

Seconds later, whoever was on the other side of Enrieta's door knocked even harder.

"Un minut te rog!(One minute please!)" she yelled back in response.

After shuffling around the apartment, she slowly made her way to the apartment door. When she looked through the peephole, she saw a Police officer standing on the other side of the door.

"Rahat...(Shit...)"

Enrieta slowly unlocked and opened the door coming face to face with the officer.

"Good morning, can I help you officer?" Enrieta said trying her best to ignore Ivory crying.

"Good Morning. Are you Enrieta-Maria Lee?" The officer asked looking around Enrieta to see if he could pinpoint the sound of Ivory's crying. There was no doubt in Enrieta's mind that the man caught her screaming at the baby.

"Yes, It's Enrieta-Maria Cristian-Lee...How can I help you Officer?"

"My name is officer Victor Sala, your Mother called saying you haven't been answering the phone and she hasn't seen you or heard from you in three weeks, and she was worried about you and your newborn baby...She asked if I could perform a Welfare check..."

"Oh okay..." Enrieta said, slowly sobering up.

"At the same time we also got an anonymous phone report about a domestic violence disturbance at your address...so for that reason, I'm going to have to enter your home ma'am..." the officer says pulling out a warrant.