After Louanne’s Baby


Everything was still, and then I let go. My hand shook uncontrollably, back and forth faster than my heart which raced at a pace I had never thought possible. I was unaware of how the pregnancy test fell out of my hands and on to the floor; I only remember the sharp clatter when it hit the rusty tile. My knees followed as my body slung over the toilet. I then proceeded to vomit with such little care; my mind was too far gone and could not conceive coherent thoughts, my senses completely numbed.


The night went in a blur. I failed to notice seven missed calls, the slam of the door, my mother and how she arrived presumably intoxicated. I vomited out the window several more times, a procedure that had only previously belonged to her.


The alarm went off like it always had, the clock I had acquired several years ago always seven minutes late. I slowly rose from the sheets, my hair greasy and unwashed. The smell that was left over should have been enough to trigger another stomach upset, but I had already exhausted my supply.


I can’t remember how I got myself to school; my feet carried me like that of a zombie in an automatic file down the cold, bleak country road. I arrived a full half hour late to first period in a strategic attempt to avoid what I knew would be his confrontation.


As the school doors revealed themselves to me, so did his baggy jeans and similarly dirty hair. Stationed with his arms crossed, Nick stood alarmingly still in the middle of the parking lot as I made my way up. One glance at his empty face revealed that he already knew.


“Don’t,” I started when he cut me off.


“What the hell, Lou Anne. What the hell!” he yelled in a tone I had only heard before from my father. I shrunk back as far as I could into the depths of my sweatshirt, protection that would do me no good.


“It’s not – it’s not my fault,” I whimpered, dizzy with fear and exasperatetion. I wanted so bad to run home, to disappear into the depths of my sheets, to cower under the heavy blankets until everything had calmed down.


“What do you expect me to do? I don’t own s***, my bank account’s been empty for the past year and I know, oh I know your mother won’t have anything to f*ing do with this! It’s all on me now – oh all on me to step in and suddenly become the heroic father, to go on and marry you now! I was supposed to graduate, Lou Anne! Have a future!” he continued. I felt my world cave in all around me. No sheets, no blankets to turn to. The air had become so very cold. Myself, I was only fifteen. He was eighteen and had been accepted to the local community school, which was considered successful around here.


“I don’t know what to do,” I whispered.


“We can’t keep the damn thing, that’s for sure. I can’t raise a baby and you sure as hell definitely can’t,” Nick muffled as he stormed away.
***


Leaning against the kitchen counter, stomach growling and the sharp pain between the legs still there; I hear the shrill sound of his horn and grimace.


I stumble out the door, my mother thankfully out of the house. I approach his car with a pacifier in hand, my mind a jumble of desperate prayers that God had already heard several times over the past nine months. Prayers that all went unanswered except for one, that I would leave the delivery (which had to be at my friend’s house) still alive. Yep, I think I’m still here.


Wrenching open his door, I exhale with relief at the sight of my baby bundled up in the backseat, buckled as safely as he could be in the car seat that I scavenged for hours to find.


“Well?” I ask tentatively as I slide into the passenger seat, assuming we’re going to the house of the adoptive parents. Rain patters onto his windshield, and I watch him stare as the drops slide down.


“Well?!” I repeat, growing nervous. He remains silent and starts the engine. I hear my baby begin to cry, and the only thing I can do is lean over to gently give him the pacifier I found at the five-and-dime.


I stop asking; I know that what we want isn’t going to happen. I should’ve known the whole time; I shouldn’t have left the adoptive process up to him. We’re both silent as he goes down the highway, miles of cornfields passing us by. Even the baby had joined us in our silence.


I shut my eyes tightly as he pulls into the Wal-Mart parking lot. It’s the only one around, a full twenty minutes away, and yet there’s a guarantee to see someone familiar. Perks of a small town, I think cynically.


Nick gets out and walks to my door. I begin to shake my head. “Get out,” he barks in a heartbreaking tone. I shake my head again, eyes still closed and can only feel him grabbing me by, pulling me out of the car.


“Go get him,” he says, pointing aggressively to my baby in the backseat. I feel the same as I did when I found out I was pregnant, my world suddenly exaggeratingly slow.


“Go stand over there, hold him, and be still. It’ll – it’ll work out.” I follow where he points, to an empty parking space right outside of the gargantuan excuse for a warehouse. Cradling the infant tight, I do my best to be as nurturing as I can. It’s best to not get attached, I remember my best friend telling me the night he came into the world, one kiss on that little forehead and then you can’t even think of giving him away. I eye Nick as he approaches an old woman, heavyset and in a maroon tracksuit, making her way into the store. No, he couldn’t have said what I thought he said. The woman looks at him in horror and runs into the store. I watch as he approaches another woman busily pushing a cart full of Wal-Mart-esque crap.


“Hey, lady, wanna buy a baby?” he asks desperately, fast and loud. No, no I think, clinging my child close and fighting watering eyes.


The woman pauses.


“Excuse me?” she asks as her head whips around to meet mine. I stare intently at the ground and feel the raindrops-turned snow begin to stick to my shirt, matching the cold I feel on the inside.My stomach gnaws furtively.


“Wanna buy a baby?,” Nick says, pointing to me. I hold my child closer. My child, the one I housed for a terrible stretch of nine months. Nine months in which I starved myself so no one would notice the protruding of my stomach, nine months in which I salvaged Salvation Army in hopes for bigger and bigger clothes. Nine months, almost a year, and yet my mother took no notice. No suspicion at the new morning routine of vomiting immediately after I showered, no questions about the money suddenly gone from her purse. Perhaps she does know, but the bottle in her hand, so different from mine, allows her to forget. I guess I’ll never know.


Meanwhile, I notice the woman doesn’t run away like the other. Nick’s face brightens. What the hell, I think repeatedly, watching her pause and flick her gaze to me to Nick to the baby. She opens her mouth, but her voice is interrupted by shouts.


“There he is! That's the one!” the old lady screams from the entrance of the Wal-Mart, not twenty feet away from us. I grow numb as three burly cops follow her, slow-motion, as they run towards us.




I can only feel the cop grab my shoulders, I can only watch as they take the child, I can only stare as Nick is led into the backseat of their car.