Black and Blue Ivy

Cold Escape

I awoke to the disgusting feeling of Mrs. Roche giving me a sponge bath—down there.

"Get the hell off me!" I growled. I kicked out a weak leg in her direction but missed.

"Feeling feisty today?" asked my jailer with a huff.

I sat up in bed and covered myself with a blanket. My head spun a bit so I took a big breath. I had survived the birth. Now what? Someone had dressed me in a white flannel nightgown. I've never been run over by a truck, but I imagined this is what it feels like. My breasts ached and something else did too, I need to reconnect with a missing piece of me.

"Where's my baby?" I demanded.

"Your baby?" Mrs. Roche crossed the room to toss the bloody sponge she'd been using to clean me in a pail with a look of disgust.

"Yes, my baby. Where is she?"

Mrs. Roche harpooned me with a withering glance and said, "It's being baptized this morning, not that's it's any concern of yours."

"It's not an 'It'!"

The smirk on her face chilled me to the bone. "Why do you care? You'll never see it again."

"What do you mean? Shouldn't I nurse—"

"Gardenia believes formula is best for infants."

"Gardenia is a fucking idiot!"

"Nice language," said Mrs. Roche with a snort.

I don't think it was possible to hate someone more than I hated her at that moment.

Feeling weak suddenly, I turned my face to the wall. "Why don't you just go?"

I heard footsteps and thought she was leaving me in peace, until I felt her cold shadow upon me.

"Ivy," she whispered. I don't think I'd ever heard who use my name.

For a moment I thought, Ivy, who's Ivy? I had been so long divorced from myself I scarcely knew who I was anymore.

I turned to see Mrs. Roche's heavy arm extended toward me. She cupped something in one hand and held a glass of water in the other.

"It's time, Ivy," she said. My gaze flicked from her hand to the empty, dark holes of her eyes.

"Time for what?" A trembling began in my chest and shot through every nerve.

"Time to finish it." The corners of her thin lips twisted into a sinister grin.

Suddenly, I saw the pills, dozen of small white dots, cupped in her hand and I understood.

"The others made the right choice. It will go easier on you if you do the same."

My tongue was thick in the desert of my mouth. It took great effort to speak. "You want me to kill myself?

Mrs. Roche gazed flicked heavenward and it that moment I saw how clearly insane she was. "Think of it as a comfortable transition."

I felt my spine straighten in protest. "And if I refuse?"

My jailer shrugged her wide shoulders. "Then the police will be called."

"Excellent," I said, finding a steely strength inside me I didn't know I possessed. "I'm sure they'd love to hear all about the child abuse and murder that's gone on under this roof. I hope you'll enjoy spending the rest of your miserable life rotting in jail, Mrs. Roche."

The Glasgow grin on her face lengthened as she chuckled. "Then I'll be in good company."

"What do you mean?"