Rescue Nova

A Safe Place

Billie Jo was tense. She had been listening to her preschool-aged daughter cry for hours. Ever since she was evicted from her two bedroom apartment and had moved to this studio apartment, Billie Jo no longer had the luxury of locking Nova in her bedroom, where the screaming was less irritating than it was now that they were always in the same room.

"Shut up!" Billie Jo finally screamed. "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! I don't even know what your problem is! You just ate yesterday! Why are you always so damn hungry?!"

Nova continued to wail. She always tried to tolerate the discomfort of hunger quietly, and often she succeeded, but when the stomach aches became sharp and persistent, the child cried - and continued crying until she was fed.

Billie Jo told herself that she was a good mother. She made sure her child always had an outfit that fit and was suitable for the weather. As soon as Nova outgrew her clothes, Billie Jo bought her a new outfit. That was more than Billie Jo's mother ever did for her.

So Billie Jo felt that Nova had no right to cry when she was forced to go around the apartment naked when her mother was washing the clothes in the bathtub. But since Billie Jo rarely paid the electric bill, and it was the dead of winter, it was cold in the apartment they lived in. So Nova did cry. A lot.

"It's just until they're washed and dried!" Billie Jo had yelled when this last happened just the other day. "You won't freeze to death in that short a time! You just like to complain!"

But Nova had kept crying until she was dressed. She'd learned early on that sobbing was the only way she got what she needed. If she never cried, she'd never have anything. Her mother would get the clothes out of the tub and dry them whenever she felt like it. Nova would freeze for days.

If Nova didn't cry for food, Billie Jo would let her child go hungry until the girl was showing signs of weakness. To Billie Jo, being a good mother simply meant that she kept her daughter dressed and alive - ergo, if the child looked all right, she was all right.

However, now that she'd had this girl for a few years, she was getting tired of being a "good mother." These days, it seemed like Nova was constantly asking for or crying about something. Billie Jo was sick of it. So when an attractive offer presented itself in the form of money and the freedom of being childless again, Billie Jo took it.

A man who Billie Jo did not know well took an interest in her and Nova. He was filling in for her drug dealer, who had been out of town for a family funeral. The substitute dealer was a man by the name of Brian.

As the last of the days of him filling in for the regular dealer came, Brian had asked Billie Jo if she ever thought of giving Nova a better life. Billie Jo was told that she could exchange her daughter for "a nice chunk of change." Billie Jo was told that Nova would be sold in a sort of underground black-market adoption.

"You'll both be better off," Brian had said.

"Where will she go?" Billie Jo asked.

"To a wealthy family."

"Will she stay in the United States?"

"Yes."

"I'll think about it."

Billie Jo didn't need much time to think it over, though. Two days later, Brian was due back to her apartment. By the time that day came, she'd made her decision.

"That's it. I can't take this anymore. Brian was right, you gotta go."

Not understanding the danger she was in, Nova paid no attention to her mother's words and continued to cry about her stomach pains.