Prologue
She was born in the garden of her mother’s teenage home. Early one Sunday morning.
The young girl, only sixteen at the time, laboured all night long, alone in the big house she grew up in. An orphan with parents. Two adults who couldn’t be less concerned with her. She was such a ghost in that space that she had managed to hide her pregnancy completely. She didn’t want to share the news, waiting for the moment her boyfriend would come and they would leave for New York City. She wanted to break free from these people who simply ensured she stayed alive and nothing more. They had been saving for months. Ever since they found out about the pregnancy. They were supposed to have another three weeks, but the labour began around midnight, and her screams echoed through the empty house.
The adults were out, working, partying, or both, she never knew. So she was alone tonight. The phone on the kitchen wall was disconnected, again. Tears ran down her cheeks while the hours ticked by. Her body burned with the effort and she began to feel like she wouldn’t be able to continue alone. The black of the night sky turned blue on the east horizon when the girl managed to move into the garden, hoping a neighbour would hear her, but her cries would go unanswered.
The sun was just beginning to peek over the edge of the world when the girl finally pulled the little life from inside of her. They both cried together amongst the spring blooms as her mother held her for the first time. They looked at each other, both silently saying “hello there, it’s so nice to meet you”. Her mother called her “Baby”. Cuddling her close saying “Hi Baby”. She soaked in the feeling of her mother’s strong arms, and she listened to the heartbeat steady in her chest. They laid there while the sun rose higher in the sky. Bird calls sounding all around. Baby enjoyed the rise and fall of her mother’s chest as she breathed in and out.
Soon the steady heartbeat began to fade in her ears, and the rise and fall of the chest she lay on began to stop. She knew the exact moment when the life left her mother’s body. The arms that held her tight went slack and fell from her, only one hand remaining on her back.
The baby cried for help, as her mother had done. Her cries reaching up to the birds while her mother bled out in the roses.
Chapter 1 – Baby
Sitting in my garden now, among the roses that were a fateful part of my entrance into this life, fourteen years later to the day, I am remembering ever single frightening, heartbreaking second of it. I know I laid in her lifeless arms for hours it seemed like, until someone heard me crying and came to check. A nice, elderly woman who smelled distinctly like moth balls and who had soft, wrinkled hands and a rattle in her chest, held me as tight as can be to that chest and cooed at me, humming a slow and cheerful tune while she rocked me. I could feel the tears dripping from the woman’s chin, splashing on to the top of my head.
Soon an ambulance arrived and I was passed into the arms of a man wearing plastic white gloves and a deep blue uniform. He wrapped me in a blanket and took me to a vehicle with flashing lights. He laid me down and placed a cold metal object over my heart. He checked me over and over again and then soon I was up and in his arms, bundled tightly, being held close again. They had put my mother in a black bag and strapped her to a stretcher before loading her into the vehicle where the man sat holding me. He spoke in a low voice, telling me everything would be alright.
He either didn’t know better, or he was lying. But that was the last time anyone had ever held me.
A tear fallng on my hand snaps me out of my painfully vivid memory and I quickly wipe it away, looking behind me at the house. My grandparents are inside, having breakfast, fighting about something or another. Most likely it’s about me. I bow my head and touch one of the rose buds. They aren’t quite ready to bloom yet, just as they had been the day I was born. When they do bloom, they are blood red. The irony in this detail is not lost on me, and I’m not sure if I despise it, or I admire it.
Maybe if I could have gone home with the nice lady who hummed to me, or the guy from the ambulance that held me so, so tight. Or even the countless doctors and nurse who attended to me while they waited for my grandparents to show up once they’d been informed of their daughter’s death, and the circumstances surrounding it. If I could have had just one thing different, my life wouldn’t feel so hopeless and pointless right now. Angry words and violent hands, a backdrop of my story.
They were cold, and unfeeling. They blamed me, and they blamed my mother. They were burdened with another child to raise. Burdened with more years that they would be responsible for me. Inconvenienced by my entire existence. I’m aware of it. I remember every single day of my life. I wish I could forget. I would do anything to be free of this.
The abuse that I suffer at their hands is full of manipulation and intent. They never hurt me where someone can see it. They withhold. There’s no love, no laughter. No praise or encouragement. No vitality whatsoever. They clothe me, and feed me, barely, and they send me to school. I am supposed to excel there, and bringing home less than their expectation results in more withholding and more violence. Once, I got a B on a paper, and I didn’t get to eat the entire weekend. I was still required to cook their meals though, and clean up. The smell of the food I created almost made me cry.
“One day,” I whisper to my roses, “one day I will leave here, and I will find my father.” I glance back towards the house with apprehension in my heart, worried that they can somehow hear me. Despite not wanting to be saddled with me and resentful of having to look after my basic needs, they have become quite accustomed to having their own servant in their midst. Never having to do a single thing around the house. I do the cooking, cleaning, washing, I buy the groceries, I do repairs. All they do is enjoy it. But this does work for my favour, because buying the groceries means that I have to have money. And they don’t give me a thing, so early on in my life I picked up odd jobs. I have had a paper route since I was ten, which is annoying because I have no bicycle and no wagon, so I have to carry my supply on my back and walk the route. It takes me twice as long as the other kids.
I also walk neighbourhood pets, clean yards, tend gardens, and whatever else I can do for the neighbours that puts money in my pocket. I am certain that some neighbours pay me much more than they would if they weren’t aware of who I am and what my life is like. Despite knowing, nobody does a thing. Upsetting the status quo, getting involved in drama that doesn’t belong to you, is just not something people are very ready to do. I understand it, and I don’t blame them for a second, even though I wish just one person would touch me, or hug me, or tell me it’s going to be alright.
I tell myself that though. That’s enough, it has to be enough. I am blessed with what I do have while I wait for my opportunity to spread my wings and fly away from here. I am unattached to everyone and everything in my life, and as soon as I am able to, I am going to find my father.
He was supposed to come and get my mother that day. They were going to run away together, so that we could all be a family. He didn’t show up. It makes me sad to think that she died that day with a broken heart. I should be angry at him for abandoning us, but I never really felt like what happened that day was right. I want to hear from him why he didn’t come get us. I want to know if he knows that I exist. Something in my gut tells me my grandparents had something to do with it, but when I have asked them about my father, those questions have won me the worst pain. They beat me like it’s their job. I missed a whole week of school to heal from the last time I inquired about him. I never asked again.
