Exposed: A Novel (27 page)

Chapter 62
Taylor

Prostitution worked. It never got easier for me, especially as Layla began to fill out my stomach. I could actually feel her head in my pelvis and it scared me every time a strange man led me to a musty hotel room. But I sold my body a total of ten times and made a little over a thousand dollars. And it was enough. I saved it all for food and gas (minus the two maternity outfits I bought at Goodwill) and I made it to full-term.

When I went to Lisa’s office for my thirty-eight week check up I saw the same woman who stared at me like I was a dirty animal. I sat across from her and pretended to read a magazine as I waited for my name to be called. I don’t think she recognized me though. The maternity clothes I picked out were oversized and frumpy and I think they hid my former self pretty well.

The woman flipped through a baby magazine with one hand pressed into the top of her stomach. I looked down at Layla. My hand was in the same spot.

I moved my hand to my lower stomach and watched the delicate features on the woman’s face. Her hair, now brown, curled and flowed around her face. She seemed brighter now, happier.

“Allyson Graham,” a nurse called from the hallway. “You can come back now.”

Allyson stood and looked at me. No, wait, she looked through me. Her eyes seemed delicate as they read the words printed on those magazine pages, but when she looked at me I saw no gracefulness.

I watched her wedding ring disappear through the doorway to the hallway. I don’t know why she didn’t like me, maybe it was Gianna’s abortion statement, but either way, I wanted to trade places with her. I wanted that natural beauty she had, the wild hair and defined face. But more than all that, I wanted a husband to take care of me. Someone to love me.

Lisa pulled her plastic gloves off and plopped them into the trashcan. “Looks like you’re three centimeters and maybe 70% effaced. I think you might go early, but you never know.”

I couldn’t look at her. All the times people touched me sexually I still didn’t like people touching me down there.

“Do you have plans for the birth yet?” She seemed like a mother, a mother unlike my own. One that really cared. “Will someone be bringing you to the hospital?”

“My boyfriend.” I lied. “I’ve been staying with him these last few weeks and he will be taking me when the contractions start. I will know what they feel like when they come, right?”

“Yes.” She smiled. “It will feel like period cramps, but they get worse and worse. Sort of like a big mountain. Imagine the contraction pulling around your back or lower abdomen and getting more and more intense, then it will hit a peak and go back down the hill, and repeat until they get closer together and last longer on those peaks.” She helped me up and looked into my heart. “You will be fine. I’ll take good care of you and Layla.”

I believed her. Besides Daddy and that girl who took me to church, Lisa was the only person to really care about me. Everyone else had a selfish reason, but some people just loved. I didn’t know how they did it, but I liked that about them.

Lisa opened the door and looked back at me. “God has blessed you, Taylor. He has really, really blessed you.”

She left the room. But her words didn’t.

God.

Funny.

If he’s blessed me, I thought, then I don’t want to know what hell is like.

Chapter 63
Ally

My thirty-eight week appointment was nice, except for the fact that I saw Blondie. She didn’t look like a porn star anymore. She aged and looked like she hadn’t slept since she was five. I tried not to look at her too much. Her face reminded me of things I didn’t want to think about. And her blonde hair irritated me beyond belief. Especially since I dyed mine back.

Lisa told me I was 4cm dilated and 80% effaced. My heart rate picked up and stayed there until I got in the car and called Jessie with the news.

“That’s so good to hear,” he said. “So does that mean you’ll be in labor soon?”

“Well, technically I already am, it’s just the early phase. It’s not labor labor yet. But I’m dilated so technically I am in labor.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Well, take comfort my dear, it doesn’t need to make sense to you. Just know that she could come into the world any time now.”

“Wow. So, what do we do next?”

“We eat lots of spicy food, drink tons of castor oil, and do lots of walking.”

“Castor oil?”

“Yeah, or pineapples.”

“Sounds nasty.”

I held back a laugh. “Lisa did mention Primrose Oil though. She said it helps soften the cervix. But I don’t know, for some reason I don’t want to rush Avelina’s birthday. I figure God has planned her life and given her to us, we mine as well let Him choose her birthday.”

“Agreed.”

Another week passed and nothing progressed. Every little stomach cramp or twinge that I got would send me to the computer to find out if I’d go into labor early. But the end of my thirty-ninth week approached before I showed any true signs.

Then, right before my pregnancy reached forty weeks, I lost my mucous plug. I’m not sure how that goes for others, but for me it wasn’t too bad. People call it a “bloody show” sometimes, but for me it wasn’t bloody at all.

I went to the kitchen and called Lisa after I finished up in the bathroom.

“Are you sure it was your mucous plug?” she said.

“Absolutely. What should I do now?”

“You are so close to seeing your little girl, Ally. Relax, watch a movie, let those contractions start and time them, when they are coming frequently and consistently give me a call. You’ll know when it’s time to come in.”

She said that many times, but for some reason I thought I’d end up popping the baby out on my living room floor.

Jessie walked in the front door and hung his coat on the rack by the door.

“I lost my mucous plug.” There’s no way I could have hid the excitement in my voice.

Jessie attempted a smile.

“You okay?”

He nodded.

“What happened?”

Every time I asked him that question my chest hurt and it seemed impossible to breathe enough air. His bad mood could’ve had nothing to do with me, it just as easily could have been a tough client who didn’t like his work. But every time he walked through the door with that look on his face I prepared myself to hear about the other woman.

I didn’t know this time—of all times—it would be true.

Chapter 64
Taylor

I know it sounds crazy, but I was proud of myself for surviving months in a car with no help from anyone. Well, I shouldn’t say that, Lisa helped me a lot. She even gave me free prenatal vitamins at every visit, but other than that, I took care of myself. For the first time in my life, I didn’t need someone else to help me live.

I’m not exactly sure how far along I was when I got my first contraction, but it was April ninth and beautiful outside. Flowers and trees budding in every direction. The sun shined in a cloudless sky. And the air had that fresh, moist scent of spring.

At 3:46 in the afternoon on that April day, a mild period-like cramp squeezed my insides. I was in the drive-thru at McDonald’s. Yeah, yeah, I know, but it was cheap and I craved salt. As soon as that contraction happened I got out of the drive-thru line and sped toward the hospital, hoping I’d get there in time.

But on Route 1, right near Ruby Tuesday’s, my car ran out of gas.

I drove on
E
for a few days, but I didn’t drive too much so I didn’t think it mattered, and I wanted to save my money so I could check in to a hotel after Layla was born. The last thing I wanted was to drag her into my house on wheels.

I managed to drift to the side of the road. Another contraction tightened my stomach, like two arms reaching around my back and squeezing.

Not too bad, I thought. It doesn’t hurt much at all actually.

Or maybe all the pain from having my, um, area ripped so many times dulled the pain.

I got out of the car and walked to the curb. Car after car after car passed me and didn’t stop. I couldn’t help but notice one of those fake metal fish things on the back of a car with a bumper sticker next to it that said,
No Jesus, No Peace. Know Jesus, Know Peace.

Laughable. Except I didn’t laugh.

I watched the bumper sticker until I could no longer see it. People and their Jesuses, I thought. They all have a different Jesus. How do they know their peace isn’t just their peace? Whatever they feel comfortable doing is peaceful, forget doing something uncomfortable.

I inhaled and puffed the air back through my nose. I don’t know why but Christians annoyed me more than any other group of religious people. Well, Naomi was nice, but still. Most of them only followed Jesus when they wanted to, and apparently they never wanted to when they saw me.

Another fish drove by.

Maybe Jesus would drive by me too.

Know Jesus. Know Peace.

Another contraction, still no worse than a period cramp.

Jesus, I said inside. I don’t know if you’re God and I’m gonna guess you aren’t real. But if you are and you can magically hear me right now, help me. Peace would be nice, too.

The idea of talking inside my head to a so-called man who once lived and was God’s son born of a virgin lady, um, let’s just say I thought it was nuts, but it was my last resort.

Finally, I decided to go into Ruby Tuesday’s to find help since the Jesus fish people weren’t doing much for me. But before I turned to walk away a cop car pulled up with his lights on.

Phew.

I hadn’t had another contraction for over fifteen minutes, but my stomach whirled with nausea with each minute that passed. I needed to get to Lisa.

The cop walked around the front of his car. “Are you okay, miss?”

One look at him and my face flushed. My abdomen tightened. Andy’s friend, the convenient cop, recognized me, but he pretended like he never met me before.

I didn’t want his help.

Chapter 65
Ally

The bright April day I went into labor just had to be the day Jessie confessed every last secret he kept over the years.

“If I don’t tell you this now I’m afraid it will haunt us in the future and I don’t want it to. I thought it was over, but I realized today that it wasn’t.”

I sat at the kitchen table. He followed.

“Jess, I’m going to have a baby very, very soon. Did you have to bring this stuff up today?”

He licked his lips and breathed hard. “That’s why I need to tell you. When Avelina comes into this world I need everything to be right. I need you to know everything.”

“I’m glad you’re doing this because you need something. What about me? How come you never think about how this makes me feel?”

“Believe me, I do. Which is why I haven’t told you everything you should know. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

I shut my emotions behind a wall of stone. Again. The wall was getting high. “You’re making me think the worst possible thing happened.”

“I’ve struggled with porn for a long time, Ally. It’s almost like it’s built into me, but I know it’s not. I always thought it was healthy to be so, I don’t know, sexual. But I realize now I need to change something.”

I fidgeted in my chair, wondering when I’d feel a contraction, wondering when Jessie would get to the point.

“Before we met . . . I slept with someone.”

My wall of stone cracked and crumbled. I never thought it would. Not so easily. Tears glazed my eyes and blurred Jessie’s face. I didn’t expect that one. Not in a million years. All that time I thought we were both virgins when we married.

“It wasn’t a romantic relationship or anything like that. I’ve just had this problem my whole life. I love you, Ally. I don’t think of you like I think of other women. They are like drugs to me, but I love you.” He tapped the table. “So, this woman came back around a couple years into our marriage.”

I hoped my tears would climb back into my eyes. “Please. Stop. I don’t want to know this time. I don’t need details.”

“I didn’t sleep with her again. But I came close to kissing her. And a few times when you’ve gotten angry with me over this stuff I’ve wanted to go back to her. Not for a relationship, just for sex.”

“I said I didn’t want to know.” I wiped my face.

“Please, please forgive me. I needed to tell you all of this because if you don’t know the temptations will eat away at me.”

“I don’t know what to think anymore. This has been going on for too long. You’re too wishy-washy with it all.”

“Do you forgive me?”

“I guess so. I mean, I can forgive you and all, but how am I going to forget? How am I going to trust you when you still have issues with this stuff?” My stomach tightened. “I think I’m having a contraction.”

Jessie’s chair screeched as he stood up. “What? How do I do this?”

“It’s okay. We can stay here until the contractions are regular. That was my first one.”

“Didn’t it hurt?”

“Not too bad.”

I stood.

Jessie reached for me, but pulled away.

“Lisa mentioned walking around. Maybe we should go for a walk.”

Jessie and I finished our walk, but the contractions still weren’t regular. So we put a movie in the DVD player and hoped we wouldn’t be able to finish it. I just needed a distraction. I didn’t want to talk about Jessie or his other women. So, we pretended to watch Frodo and Sam. Every now and then I’d pay attention, but only to the directing. It amazed me that they made Gandolf look so much bigger than Frodo with camera angles. It looked so real.

The movie ended and my contractions seemed regular, but they still didn’t hurt bad enough for me to think they were real.

“How often are you having them?” Jessie asked.

“About every five or six minutes.”

“Shouldn’t we at least call Lisa?”

He handed me the phone and I speed dialed Lisa.

“Lisa, it’s Allyson Graham. My contractions are every five minutes or so, should we come in now?”

Before she could even finish saying yes I smiled at Jessie and held back more tears. My baby. Finally. After so many years of trying, it was finally time to hold her.

Jessie grabbed our hospital bags, the keys, and his jacket. We walked to the door and I turned to the living room where a yellow soothing vibrations chair sat near the couch. A pink blanket with Avelina’s name on it draped over the arm of the couch. And right beside that sat a bundle of diapers and wipes.

“Just think.” I turned to Jess. “When we come back we will have Avelina with us.”

He glanced around the room then back to me. “Let’s go get her.”