Black and Blue Ivy

Imprisoned

I must have slept all day and night because when I awoke mid-afternoon soft light seeped through the cracks in the boarded-up window. The room was cloaked in gray shadows.

So, it's all true.

I sank back on the bed and was almost pulled into another bout of dreamless sleep when the smell of food roused me from the gravity of oblivion. I sat up and rubbed my wrists where the zip-ties had cut into them.

Bastards!

Someone, Mrs. Roche I guessed, had neatly bandaged my hand after I had smashed it through the glass. The window pane had already been replaced and freshly caulked around the edges, the broken glass swept away like the family sins.

Wicked!

I swung my legs around; my feet hit the floor and I nearly toppled over when I tried to stand. Whatever that crazy bitch had jabbed me with certainly did its job. I stumbled to the tray next to the small table and uncovered the dish and set down the silver cloche cover. Such fancy presentation for a prisoner, I thought as I scarfed down a dinner roll in two bites. Then I pulled up the only chair in the room and made quick work of the meatloaf, green beans, and mashed potatoes—all room temp but who was complaining—and washed it all down with a glass of tepid milk.

I ate so fast and so ravenously that I sat back in the chair and let out a loud burp followed by a fit of hysterical laughter.

This can't be happening to me. This is all a horrible nightmare and any minute I'm going to wake up back in Philly. Morningstar will be there fresh from rehab and sober. She'll have a new job and we'll both be back on track. Only Morningstar wouldn't be coming back, not for years and years. Maybe if I had let that judge have his way—

"No!"

Energized by the nutrition, I sprang from the chair to the window. Placing my eye to the glass, I could see a section of the lawn right before the barn but that was all. I stepped back and spent a while staring at the window. If I broke the glass again, maybe, just maybe if I kick at those boards hard enough. ..

I was thinking how I would manage it when I heard the lock turn in the door. Instinctually, I jumped back in bed. But what was I afraid of? What could anyone possibly do to me? After all, I was carrying some precious cargo wasn't I? Bentley's and my child that Gardenia will take for her own? And how long will our child fill her emptiness?

Sick bitch!

The heavy tread on the stairs and laborious breathing told me it was Mrs. Roche.

"I see you still have an appetite," she said standing over the tray. "Don't eat too much or you'll get fat."

"Like you?"

She turned and glared at me with shark-like eyes floating in her white, bloated face. "Better fat that a whore like you."

I sat up straight in the bed, my back against the wall. "What did you say?"

She plodded toward me, hangs on hips. "I said you're a whore, just like your mother."

I sprang from the bed like a pouncing tiger, but she slapped me back down with a heavy arm. "Don't try it, missy, or you'll be tied up again. And this time I won't go easy on you."

Stunned, I could only glare at her.

"I'd hit you harder," Mrs. Roche said with a sneer. "But we don't want to hurt the baby, do we?" Her words dripped with sarcasm. "Oh, don't worry. Once you deliver the little brat, we'll set you free. Then you can go back to whatever cesspool you came from."

Somehow I found my voice. "You can't lock me up like this. I'll go to the police and—"

She stood over me, hands on hips, her thick figure blocking the only light in the room. "I don't think so."

Speechless, I could only stare back at her.

With a victorious smile, she turned, picked up the tray, and trudged back down the stairs.

It was all I could do to restrain myself from springing from the bed and landing a kick on her fat ass and sending her flying down the staircase. But that might make me a double murderer. And what would be worse? A prison for eight months or a prison for eighty years?

I pulled my knees up and squeezed them to my stomach. Is it wrong for me to wish that I could will this baby out of me? It's so tiny now it wouldn't know the difference. I relaxed my knees and burst into tears. Even if I had the option, I couldn't do it. I couldn't take another life. Mrs. Roche is wrong, I thought, turning my face into the pillow and sobbing. I'm not a murderer. I'm not...

I cried myself to sleep and didn't awake till the next morning where, once again, Mrs. Roche stood over me. She had brought another meal on a tray and placed a neatly folded set of pajamas on the foot of the bed.

"Eat, and then get a bath," she barked. "You stink!"

"Fuck you!"

Her thin lips formed into a tight sneer. "Listen, Missy. I'm going to be the only face you'll be seeing for a good long time, so I suggest you make the most of it."

"But what about my education? Bentley was supposed to—"

The laughter that erupted from Mrs. Roche cut me like a knife. "As if the likes of you could ever be educated. That was all a show until the deed was done and the seed was planted. I must say, you held out longer than most of the little whores we've had under this roof. That Bentley can be persuasive."

I steeled myself the way I'd witness Morningstar do when she was confronted with a disgruntled landlord and said, "You know, Mrs. Roche, you really are demented to play along with this charade."

The sudden glint in her steel gray eyes told me I had made an impact.

"How does it feel to able and abet child abuse?"

She huffed indignantly and gaining her composure said, "You just keep your legs closed while that baby cooks. And if you don't watch your mouth, you'll end up like—"

"Like who? Like the ones you murdered? Like Marjorie!" I shouted the name at her retreating figure.

I waited for the key to turn before attacking the breakfast tray. Someday, I thought, forcing myself to slow down lest I choke on the pancakes and sausage, someday I will get my revenge on all of them!