“You must have been so frightened, carrying a
child at that age. And being sent away to have it in
secret.”
“Bunch of dykes,” she muttered, slurring her
words.
“At Madronas?”
She took another drink.
“Fuck yeah. Las Fucking Madronas Home for
Bad Little Fucking Girls. In Mexi-fucking-O.’ Her
head lolled. She reached for the bottle. “Big fat
. fucking beaner dykes running the place. Screaming
in beaner. Pinching and peking, Telling us we were
trash. Sluts.”
Maimon had remembered vividly the morning
she’d left town. Had described her waiting with
her suitcase in the middle of the road. A scared
little girl with all the mischief knocked out of her.
About to be banished for the sins of another.
She’d come back different, he’d noted. Quieter,
more subdued. ‘Angry.
She was talking now, softly, drunkenly.
“It hurt so bad to push ‘that baby boy out. I
,scmamed and they covered my mouth. I thoughtl
wa co .ming bpart. When it was over, they wouldn’t
‘{t me hold him. Took him away fromme. My baby,
they took him away! I forced myself to sit up to
get a look at him. It near killed me. He Had red
hair, just like me.”
She shook her head., baffled.
“I thought I could keep him after I got home. But
he said no way. Told me I was nothing. Just a
vessel. Just a fucking vessel. Fancy word or cunt.
Good for nothing but fucking. Told me I wasn’t
really the momma. She’d already started .being his
momma. I was the cunt. All used up and tossed in
the trash. Time to let the grownups take over.”
She dropped her head on the table and whimpered.
I rubbed the back of her neck, said comforting
things, Even in th.at state she reacted reflexively to
the touch of a mai/e, lifting her face and flashing me
an intoxicated,’come-hither smile, leaning forward
to expose the tops of her breasts.
I shook my head and she turned away shame-faced.
I had so much sympathy for her it ached. There
were therapeutic things I could have said. Butnow
was the time to manipulate her. The boy in the
back room needed- help. I was prepared to take him
out of there against her will but preferred to avoid
another abduction. For.both their sakes.
“It wasn’t you who took him out of the hospital,
was it? You loved him too much to endanger him
like that.”
“It’s true,” she said, wet-eyed. “They did it. To
stop me from being his momma. All these years I’d
let them treat me like garbage.. Stayed. out of the
way while they raised him. Not saying anything to
him about it cause I was afraid it would freak him
her heart, reached down
her g las s.
“But when he got sick
Like a hook in .my guts
line. I had to reclaim my rights. I stewed about-it
sitting with him in that plastic room, watching him
sleep. My baby. Finally I decided to do it. Sat them
down in the .motel one night, told them the lies had
gone.°n too long. That my time had come. To take
care of my baby.
“They–he laughed at me. Put me down, told me
I was unfit, a piece of shit, A fucking vessel. I
should get the hell out and make it better for everyone.
But this time I didn’t take it. The pain in my
guts was too. strong. Igave it all back to them, told
them they were evil. Sinners. That the ca–the
SickneSs was God’s punishment for what they’d
done. They were the ones who were unfit. And I
was gonna tell everyone about it. The doctors, the
nurses. They’d kick them out and hand my baby
over to his rightful momma when they found out.”
Her handstrembled violently around her glass. I
walled’ behind her and steadied them with mine.
“It was my right!” she cried out, whipping her
head around and begging confirmation. I nodded
and she slumped against my chest.
During Baron and Delilah’s hospital visit, Emma
Swope had complained the cancer treatment was
dividing the family. The cultists had construed it
as anxiety about the physical separation imposed