Rescue Nova

A Safe Place

Billie Jo was tense. She had been listening to her preschool aged daughter cry for hours. It was cold in the roach infested apartment they lived in because there was no electricity and it was the dead of winter.

Billie Jo had been evicted from her two bedroom apartment and had moved to a studio apartment. She 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 as soon as 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.

"It's just until they're washed and dried! You won't freeze to death in that short a time! You just like to complain!"

But Nova kept crying. She had 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.

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 - crying about - something. Billie Jo was sick of it. So, when an attractive offer presented itself in the form of money in exchange for the freedom of being childless again, Billie Jo took it.

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

As the last of the days of him filling in for the regular dealer came, Don 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," Don 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 about it. Two days later, Don was due back to her apartment. By the time he came, she'd made her decision.

"That's it. I can't take this anymore. Don was right. You gotta go."

Not understanding the danger she was in, Nova continued to cry about her stomach pains.

An hour later, a knock was heard. Billie Jo sprinted to the door, wanting both the drugs Don was bringing and the welcomed silence that would come when her crying child was gone.