Black and Blue Ivy

Morning Star

Weeks passed. Months passed. My belly grew like a tight basketball beneath the loose pajamas I wore everyday. My hair hung past my shoulders now. Mrs. Roche approached me one morning with a pair of scissors to cut it, and I told her if she did then I'd find a place to hang myself in the room. She cast an anguish glance to the rafters and seeing it was feasible, she and her damned scissors backed off.

I've never known boredom like I did in that room. My face in the mirror was so pallid that at one point, Mrs. Roche, perhaps realizing that a human being could die from lack of sunlight, hauled a ladder up the steps one day, climbed it, and opened a hidden dormer in the ceiling. A shower of dust floated through the shaft of autumn sunlight like fairies in a forest. I was so grateful, I almost thanked Mrs. Roche as she stepped off the ladder and brushed her hands.

"Bathe in that sunlight for a good twenty minutes a day," she instructed me before disappearing down the stairwell.

I did just that, lying on a blanket on the floor, I'd close my eyes and let the sunlight wash over me and for a moment I could pretend I was on my own private island and that I was surrounded by a family who loved me and that my baby had a daddy who loved him or her very much. I'd pull down my pajama pants and let the warmth penetrate my skin, imagining it was reaching the baby and making it grow.

I'd made an idle threat about hanging myself and, believe me, there were times when I really wanted to, but the only thing keeping me from going down that dark path was the baby growing inside me. It was hard to keep track of the days, but I watched the seasons change through the cracks between the boards.

I hate to admit it, but there were times when I'd fantasize that Bentley would come crashing through the door at any moment to save me, that he'd explain to me how it was all a ruse, that he was only playing along to appease Gardenia, and that once he received his promised money on his eighteenth birthday we'd run away together just like we'd discussed. And now that I was carrying his child, we would get married, and start our own family far away from Providence House. But counting the weeks and months from the last time I'd seen him, I realized that Bentley's eighteenth birthday had already come and gone. I wondered if there had been a celebration with balloons, a big cake, and all the children in attendance, including the one he had sired with Marjorie and God knows who else. Any of those kids could have been his. It made me sick to think about it. Or perhaps he was quietly paid off. Mr. Robinson signed the check and off went Bentley like a thief in the night with nary a backward glance at the tower with the boarded up window where I was imprisoned.

I couldn't think on these things too much because if I did, I'd feel sick and I wouldn't be able to eat. Sometimes I'd get the worst headaches and cramps in my lower abdomen. I thought I was going to die or at least lose the baby in a premature birth, but when I complained to Mrs. Roche, my jailer and sadly only human contact, she'd assault me with words like "spoiled" and "stupid." I was easier to just grit my teeth and bare the pain. There were times when I welcomed death. I would lay in the shaft of light pouring in from the ceiling and pray to God to release me from this agony. One morning while gazing at the hazy sky through the clouded windows I saw snowflakes, thick like cotton balls, strike the glass.

It's winter all ready? I thought. My hair, which had grown thick and long thanks to the multi-vitamin Mrs. Roche demand I ingest everyday, now trailed well past my shoulders. It desperately needed a trim, but caring about my appearance seemed the lowest of my priorities now. I barely gazed at my reflection in the small mirror above the sink except to wash my face and brush my teeth, pull my hair back in a tight ponytail, and then trod back to my room to gaze at the narrow bed, the table, chair, and lamp. For reading material I had only the Bible and an outdated encyclopedia Brittanica volume 8 that had somehow escaped Mrs. Roche's eagle eye. I learned all about the subjects Menage to Ottawa catalogued within the worn leather binding.

One morning I observed through the cracks in the board heavy snow on the ground. And then, to my surprise, I saw through the bare forest the light above Luther Black's house. It must be holiday time, I reasoned, and my rock star father had once again erected his mockery to the Christmas spirit with his red inverted cross. So imagine my surprise when I saw he had a new design in its place—a bright star in golden light!

Had the Satanist Luther Black found religion at last, perhaps something he'd pick up at rehab? The idea was so absurd, even for someone like me, who had been living in an upside-down world for eight months, that I broke into hysterical laughter. I laughed so hard, in fact, I couldn't stop laughing. And then, perhaps goaded by the laughter, something snapped inside my brain and I no longer had control, no longer knew who I was or even what I was. The snap in my brain found its double within my lower regions as I was immediately whipped back to reality from the edges of sanity to the very real issue now facing me. I found myself straddling a small puddle of water, slick and slimy. My pajama bottoms were soaked. I stood there in amazement just staring at the golden star blasting through the bare tree branches.

"The morning star," I said and started laughing again, only this time my laughter devolved into screaming howls that didn't stop until Mrs. Roche, and then Gardenia, burst into my room and dragged me to the bed.

* * *

It was over rather quickly and with less pain than I anticipated, although to be honest I was so removed from my body at the point when the baby began coming out and Mrs. Roche grabbed hold of its head and began to pull, that I was floating on the ceiling somewhere observing the insane scene from afar.

No one would believe this, I thought. I don't even believe it and it's happening to me.

The baby, a girl I heard Gardenia pronounce with some disappointment, was whisked away. I was giving a shot which hurt more than the birth itself and blackness enveloped me.