Heart Like Mine: A Novel

The eight months Kelli spent at New Pathways went more quickly than any others had in her life. Each day, she followed the expected schedule—she did the best she could in class; she took her prenatal vitamins and marveled at the bubbly movement of her daughter inside her. “Is it a girl?” she asked the doctor when she saw him in her fifth month for an ultrasound.

“We don’t tell you that,” he said as he wiped the cold jelly off her stomach. “The ultrasound is only performed to make sure the child is developing properly.”

Kelli didn’t understand why she couldn’t know the sex of her own baby. “Is she, then? Developing properly?”

“She looks fine,” the doctor said, then looked guiltily away, realizing that he’d just told Kelli exactly what she wanted to know.

A girl. She marveled at the thought. I’m having a girl. Her fifteenth birthday came and went with no word from her parents, but she didn’t care. She wrote them a letter, telling them about their granddaughter—Rebecca Ruth, she said she would call her. Both holy names—both strong and beautiful like she knew her daughter would be. She couldn’t imagine that they’d actually make her give Rebecca away. They would come to the hospital to see her and everything would change. They didn’t write back, but Kelli didn’t let that deter her from her course. Her grades went up; she felt stronger and happier than she ever had before, feeling her baby growing inside her. She was still a little scared, but Kelli had to believe that the day Rebecca was born, she, too, would be born again.

*  *  *

The pain was like a hot knife slicing through her belly. Her back muscles froze into a tight band, her heart pounded, and her abdomen seized. The gush of warm liquid between her legs woke her in the night, and while she was afraid of what she was about to go through, Kelli was thrilled. Rebecca would be here soon.

After the contraction had passed, Kelli quickly got dressed and shuffled down the stairs to the night counselor’s office. “The baby’s coming,” she said as another searing cramp gripped her body. It almost brought her to her knees.

The counselor, a larger woman with limp black hair and a seemingly permanent pinched expression on her doughy face, opened the door and looked at Kelli like she’d done something wrong. “Is your bag packed?” Kelli nodded. “Okay,” the counselor said. “I’ll call your parents and meet you out front.”

Kelli smiled at the thought of seeing her family again. She couldn’t help but believe that Rebecca would be what allowed all of them to forgive each other. Kelli could forgive them for sending her away and they could forgive her for what she’d done. It might not be the easiest thing, but the love they’d have for Rebecca would heal them all.

The ride to the hospital was silent, except for Kelli’s moans as the pain got worse. “I feel like I’m going to die,” she gasped, holding her hard belly and trying to remember to breathe.

“You won’t,” the counselor said with a sigh. Her annoyance at being woken in the middle of the night was clear. Kelli felt like she was somehow offensive with her giant belly and swollen ankles, as though her sin had affected this woman on a personal level. But she couldn’t worry about that now. The only thing that mattered was Rebecca.

The counselor got Kelli into the emergency room, where Kelli was already preregistered, then waited to leave until a nurse came and wheeled Kelli down the hall to her room. After helping her change into a hospital gown, the nurse wrapped what looked like an enormous belt around Kelli’s stomach and put an automatic blood pressure cuff on her right bicep. There were beeping machines next to her bed and with every pain that zipped through her body, Kelli’s fear began to worsen.

“Will you tell me when my parents get here?” she asked the nurse in a small voice. “Please?”

The nurse patted Kelli’s arm. “Sure thing, doll. I’m Francine, and I’ll be taking care of you.”

“Thank you,” Kelli said, realizing this was the first show of affection she had experienced in months, and it came from a complete stranger. The tears started to fall as another contraction wrapped its jaws around her and clamped down, hard. “Oh my god!” she cried out. “Please help me! Please.”

Francine held her hand tight. “Breathe, baby. You just have to remember to breathe. Short ones, like this.” She demonstrated, and Kelli tried to mimic her, but the pain was too much. She felt like she was being ripped in two.

On and on the contractions went, cycling through her body. After about two hours, Kelli vomited. “Can I have some water, please?” she asked Francine, who only gave her ice chips. Kelli kept her eyes on the door, positive her mother would walk through it at any moment. But more time passed, five hours, and then eight, and still, her parents didn’t come.

“Why aren’t they here?” she sobbed, leaning against Francine’s chest. “I don’t understand how they can do this to me!”

“Shh, now,” Francine said. “You’re not the first girl from that school to go through this alone and you won’t be the last. Your parents have done the best they can, I’m sure, and being here right now just isn’t part of that. You’ll be fine, Kelli. Everything’s going to be fine.”

With sweat pouring off her body and racked by another contraction, Kelli didn’t believe her. She screamed for her mother; she wept as Rebecca tried to push her way out of her body. “Her heart rate’s down,” Francine told her. “And yours is going up, which is making us a little worried about a condition called preeclampsia, so I’m going to give you a shot of something called labetalol.” She quickly administered the shot as Kelli continued to cry. Francine patted her arm. “The doctor’ll be in any minute to deliver. The baby might have the cord around her neck, so we need to get her out, quick.”

Panic joined the blazing pain in Kelli’s body. “Don’t let anything happen to my baby,” she cried.

The doctor entered her room, clad in blue scrubs and wearing a mask over his face. He made her put her feet in the stirrups and checked if she was dilated enough to start pushing. “Get her out of me,” Kelli moaned. Her head felt fuzzy and disconnected; the world blurred around her. “Please. I can’t do this anymore.”

Francine stood next to her and wrapped an arm around Kelli’s shoulders. “You can, and you will,” she said. “Now, with the next contraction, we need you to push. Bear down, hard.”

Kelli cried, but she couldn’t tell if her eyes were stinging because of sweat or tears. When the next wave of pain washed over her, she took a deep breath and did as Francine had asked. Over and over she pushed, feeling her daughter’s head move inside her, wanting nothing but relief from the extraordinary pressure, nothing but to get this baby into the world. “You’re almost there,” Francine said. “One more good push and her head will be out.”

“What about the cord?” Kelli sobbed. She felt dizzy and weak. She was certain she was going to die. “Can she breathe? Is she going to be okay?”

“She’ll be fine,” the doctor said. “Just push, now, and it will all be over. Make it a good one.”

Kelli groaned and sat up when the pain started again. She pushed with everything in her, holding on to the hope of finally being able to hold her baby in her arms. And then, with one huge rush of relief, the pressure stopped and there was the high, thin noise of her daughter’s cries. “Is she okay?” Kelli asked, trying to look down and see Rebecca’s face. She had to hold her. She had to look her baby girl in the eyes.

“You just lie back,” Francine said, giving her a pill to take with a small glass of water. “This will help you rest. The doctors need to see her now.”

Kelli took the pill and downed the glass of water in one gulp, watching as the doctor carried a tiny bundle in his hands over to the lit bassinet across the room. Straining, Kelli tried to sit up but didn’t have the energy. Against her will, her eyes began to flutter. She’d never felt this kind of fatigue. She let the sound of her baby’s cries be her lullaby and even though she fought it, Kelli closed her eyes and fell fast asleep.

*  *  *

“Kelli?” Her mother’s voice woke her. Kelli almost didn’t recognize it, it had been so long since she’d heard it.

“Mama?” Kelli said, groggy from sleep and the medication the nurse had given her. “Where’s Rebecca? Where’s my baby?” She forced her eyes open and though her vision was blurry, she saw her mother standing next to her and her father at the foot of the bed. Kelli looked over to the bassinet, but it was empty. The light above it was turned off.

“Lie still,” her mother said. “You need your rest.”

Kelli struggled to sit up, trying to prop herself on her elbows, but the pain in her pelvis made her gasp and drop back to the mattress. “I don’t want to rest. Where is she? Please, Mama. Please. Bring her to me.”

Her father took a couple of steps and picked up a small stack of papers on the tray next to Kelli’s bed. “Here,” he said. “You need to sign these for the hospital.” He put a pen in her hand and Kelli signed on the pages where he told her to sign, thinking of nothing else but Rebecca. When she was done, he looked at Kelli’s mother with his lips puckered into a sour expression.

“Please,” Kelli said again. “I need to see my baby.”

Kelli’s mother looked at her father, who shook his head. They stared at each other a moment, glanced at the door, then Kelli’s mother finally gave a brief nod.

“What?” Kelli asked, looking back and forth between them. “Where is she?”

“She didn’t make it,” he said. “The child died.” He said it the same way he might have said the furnace broke or the sky was blue.

“No!” Kelli screamed, a wild, angry noise. The sound came from somewhere deep inside her body, dark and primal. “You’re lying! She was just here. I saw her.” Sobs overtook her and she clawed at her mother’s arms. “Please. No. Bring her to me. I need to see her.”

“It’s not a good idea to see her now,” her father said. “We’ll gather your things and take you home later today. The doctor said your blood pressure came back down so you’re fine to travel. The school will send the rest of your clothes.”

“I don’t want to go home!” Kelli screamed. “I want Rebecca!”

“She’s gone,” her mother said, weeping. “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing more we can do.”