There was a police car parked outside the bodega, and an officer was in the midst of casual conversation with Josephine. When she saw Laila from the corner of her eye, she became tense and hurriedly rang up the officer’s items and wished him a good day before the imminent confrontation. After Laila heard the door chimes of that officer leaving, she stomped to the cash register and yelled, “We had a deal!”
“Shh!”
“What do you mean, ‘Shh!’?”
Josephine came from around the register, grabbed Laila by the arm, and walked her to the storage room.
“I’m sorry.”
“What do you mean you’re sorry? I have the money. I have it, I promise!”
“It’s not you—it’s—”
“It’s what? What?”
“We just can’t get involved. Something happened with Iris after you left. She said some more things and we—I just can’t. I tried. I can’t.”
“What do you mean? Iris said I was meant to meet your family.”
“She did, but—”
“But what?”
“I can’t.”
“That’s all you can say is that you can’t? Do you know how much pain I’ve gone through? Do you?”
“Believe me, I do. I know more than you think.”
“No, you don’t. You can’t understand. I thought you wanted to help me. I thought . . . you maybe wanted to be my friend.” Laila started tearing up, and Josephine along with her.
“I wanted to be your friend more than anything in the world. I think we do understand each other.”
“You don’t understand me. I shouldn’t have believed you’d help me anyway. I thought I could because I saw how you didn’t have a scratch on you when you cut yourself with that magazine, but it doesn’t matter. I hope you live a sad, miserable life, you bitch.” She waddled out of the storage room, but Josephine stayed behind to cry between the Lysol and dog chow. If only Laila knew, Josephine thought, how sad and miserable she was already.
For the next few weeks, Laila put herself on bed rest, afraid to move lest she shake her baby loose from her body too soon. Now that she did not have the caul to protect her, she suspended her normal comings and goings until her child was safe in her arms. But as she brushed her teeth one morning, she realized that she had not felt the baby move. Fretful, she tried to piece together when last her baby responded to her touch or the surroundings, until her overworked mind created images and scenes of previous days that she wasn’t sure had actually happened. The baby hadn’t moved since the week that the Melancon family officially rejected her. She paced all around the second floor of her home, and when she went downstairs, she heard the rainfall begin.
She looked around and felt ashamed at all the time, money, and effort spent on niceties in her home, objects that brought her no lasting joy: the corridor decorated with African art, the stacks of books in the living room, the empty upholstered chairs. Every step she made produced an echo that grated her ears. She was alone. Ralph was scheduled to come back later that night, but she did not care to see him. Nothing and no one interested her except her unborn baby. Whenever she moved to sit down, she felt a sharp pain ricochet from one side of her body to the other. She tried ginger tea to quiet her stomach, but the drink geysered from her mouth as soon as she swallowed. Her skin turned ashen, and that ringing resurfaced in her eardrums. As soon as she leaned on an adjacent wall, liquid splattered out from underneath her dress. “Oh no.” Her voice cracked. By the time she was able to phone Denise with a tearful and breathless plea, the bottom of that dress was steeped in blood.
She unlocked the door for Denise before staggering around the first floor. Denise ran down the five blocks from her home to Laila’s. Bloody handprints smeared the walls, and all the outerwear from the fallen coatrack was scattered around Laila’s body. Denise turned Laila over onto her back and said, “Lay, we gotta get you to the hospital. I’ll call the ambulance right now.”
“I’m not going to make it.” Laila struggled through her labored breathing.
Denise nodded and sat Laila upright. “Yes, you are. Yes, you are! We gotta get there.”
Laila shook her head and scooted to the nearest corner, where she pressed her back up against the wall. She winced as she parted her legs and gritted her teeth.
“No, Lay. No, no. Just wait!” Denise jumped to her feet and started for the phone but slipped and fell on the trail of blood, her arms screeching across the floor when she attempted to stop herself. When she was able to get to her feet, Laila’s breaths intensified. Denise called 911 and yelled the address to the dispatcher. She gave Laila’s name and address over and over again. She held the phone in the direction of where Laila was laboring and yelled the address again before slamming the phone on the receiver, the cord left dangling over the kitchen granite countertop. She opened all the cabinets until she found dish gloves and towels, then rolled up her sleeves. For a brief moment, Laila’s increasingly loud moans paralyzed Denise. She stood over the stove boiling water in the biggest pot she could find to ease Laila’s muscles and clean up the blood. Then Denise simply stopped. Her eyes followed the bubbles swirling around and around. She didn’t know what she was doing. Her own child was birthed with an epidural and she was too dazed to remember any instructions besides “push.” The
