My baby is dead. In the months that followed her brief stay at the hospital, Kelli turned this phrase over and over in her mind. The memory of her baby’s thin cry pierced through her lungs, making it feel impossible to breathe. They never let her see Rebecca. She never got to say good-bye.
None of the doctors or other nurses talked with her about what happened; when they came into Kelli’s room at the hospital, her parents spoke with them in low tones, shielding Kelli from having to deal with any of it. Her father brought more paperwork for Kelli to sign. She scribbled her name and didn’t ask why.
“This is all for the best,” Francine said when she wheeled Kelli out to her parents’ car. “It’s hard, but you’ll get over it, I promise.”
Get over it? Kelli thought. Is she insane? She didn’t respond, not knowing what to say to a person who believed that a baby’s death could ever be for the best.
Once home, Kelli immediately entombed herself in her bedroom. She rolled around beneath the covers, forcing herself to sleep the days away. She felt too broken and vacant to do anything else.
“You need to eat,” her mother said one evening, about two months after they’d brought Kelli back. She held a tray with chicken soup and saltine crackers.
“No,” Kelli said, the word muffled by her pillow. Her blond hair was greasy and had begun to fall out in thick clumps. Her body was wasting away. When she looked in the mirror, she could see the xylophone of her rib cage and the sharp knobs of her joints pushing against her skin. She drank water, barely nibbled at the food her mother brought her, and slept. That was all she could manage.
Her mother would not be deterred. She set the tray on the dresser and came over to sit on Kelli’s bed. “Everything will be okay. You’ll forget soon. You can start over.”
“Not without her,” Kelli said. “Not without Rebecca.”
“You have to let her go,” her mother answered. “She wasn’t meant to stay with you. You made a mistake. A horrible mistake. And God is giving you another chance.”
Kelli rolled to look at her mother, blinking at the sudden influx of light. “I hate God,” she said. “I hate Him.”
Her mother looked as though Kelli had slapped her. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before speaking again. “You’re angry. I understand that. I’ve been angry with Him, too.”
This got Kelli’s attention. “You have?”
Her mother nodded. “When I believed I couldn’t get pregnant. Being a mother is all I ever wanted, and when it didn’t happen for so many years, I blamed God. I cried and yelled and turned my back on Him.” She gave Kelli a small smile. “It wasn’t until I accepted the fact that I wasn’t in charge of what happened in my life that He gave me you.” She reached out and touched Kelli’s cheek. “We can’t fathom what God’s plans are for us, we simply have to accept them and do the best we can. You need to go back to school. You need to get your life back on the right path.”
“I’m not going back there.” Kelli shook her head. She didn’t care what her mother said about God; she wanted nothing to do with Him. She also couldn’t imagine facing Jason or Nancy, or anyone else for that matter. She felt a thousand years old, distant from them in a way that could never be lessened. She’d lost her child, and there was no way any of the kids she knew would understand that. Her parents had strictly forbidden her from telling anyone where she’d been or what had happened to her. The weight of this secret was like a stone inside her. It felt malignant.
“You need your diploma,” her mother said.
“Then I’ll get a GED,” Kelli answered. “I’ll find a job and take whatever tests I need to take. I’m not going back to school.”
A few weeks later, when Kelli still wouldn’t leave her bedroom for more than a brief trip to the bathroom, her parents relented and registered Kelli for the necessary classes at the local community college. “Only if you eat something,” her father told her. “Only if you get out of bed every day. This nonsense has gone on long enough.”
Nonsense? Kelli thought. My baby dying is nonsense? “What if I had died when I was born?” she asked him, surprised by her brazenness. “How would you feel?”
He held her gaze for a moment, and she looked for a small crack in his usually impenetrable exterior, but he didn’t look away, didn’t drop his eyes to the floor, ashamed. “I would accept it as God’s will,” he said. “I’d find a way to move on.”
Something shut down inside her as he spoke those words, something that severed any feelings she might have had left for him. She blamed her parents for her baby’s death. She blamed them for sending her away, for letting the shame they felt be more important than their grandchild. Even if Rebecca hadn’t died, they would have tried to make Kelli give her up for adoption. Kelli would never understand why they seemed to hate her so much. That they hated her was the only explanation for how they treated her.
It was in that moment that she began to plan how to flee her parents’ world, and it was the thought of running away that fueled her to finally get out of bed. She began to eat more; she went to her general education classes at the college, relishing the anonymity the large campus gave her. When she turned sixteen, she applied for a cashier’s position at the local pizza place, and after a few months, the manager promoted her to waiting on tables.
On her first day as a server, a pretty girl named Serena trained Kelli. Serena took one look at Kelli’s black pants and white button-down blouse and said, “Oh, honey. You won’t make one red cent wearing that getup. These college boys want to think they might get lucky. The more you make them think that, the more beer they buy and the bigger the tips you get.” She winked, reached over to pull Kelli’s blouse out of her pants, and tied it into a knot over her belly button. Then she unbuttoned the top until her bra was almost exposed. “There. Much better. You need a short black skirt, too, okay? With knee-high boots. Trust me.”
Kelli took her advice and was stunned by the amount of money she made. She decided that her beauty was her only real commodity. No one could blame her for using it. She was asked out constantly, and after a while, she began to say yes, giving in to her need to be held, to feel like someone loved her even if it was only for the night.
“You’re using protection, aren’t you?” Serena asked her one evening, after she’d watched Kelli give a handsome boy with black hair her phone number. Kelli blushed but nodded. She insisted on condoms—she’d learned that much, at least.
Her life fell into a simple routine. She went to class in the mornings, studied all afternoon at the library, then worked five nights a week. “Will you join us for church?” her mother asked every Sunday morning. She and her parents moved around each other in wide circles; Kelli was home only to sleep and shower. She kept her grades high, her room clean, and her laundry done, determined to avoid their finding any more fault with her than they already had.
“No, thank you,” Kelli always responded, and her mother didn’t force the issue, perhaps understanding it was a battle she’d already lost.
One Friday night after she’d been home almost a year, Kelli was in the middle of setting a large pepperoni with olives in front of a customer when a noisy group of teenagers came in. She saw Nancy before Nancy saw her. Her old friend hadn’t changed—her jeans were too tight and her black hair was teased a little too much. Kelli scanned the other faces, worried Jason might be among them, but then she realized he’d likely graduated. As she approached their table, Nancy looked up and widened her brown eyes. “Hey,” she said, shifting around in her chair.
“Hey,” Kelli said, giving her a small, uncomfortable smile.
“You work here now, huh?” Nancy asked. Kelli nodded, and Nancy looked around, as though assessing the restaurant’s value. “That’s cool. How was the school you went to?” The tone of her voice made Kelli uncomfortable, as though Nancy might know the real reason her parents had sent her away.
“It was good,” Kelli said. “It sort of inspired me to get my GED at the college instead of coming back to high school. I can’t wait to get away from this town.” She paused, watching her friend bob her head. “How are you?”
“Great. I’m great.” Nancy looked around to her other friends—people Kelli vaguely recognized but had a hard time naming. Part of her wished she could just sit down with them, feel like a normal teenager again. But when Nancy didn’t introduce her, Kelli grabbed her notepad and pen, understanding that she was not going to be invited back into this fold. She just didn’t fit.
“You guys ready to order?” she said, silently pinning her thoughts on the day she’d turn eighteen. The day she’d finally be able to make her escape.
