Prologue
Ella - Then.
“I CAN’T! I can’t do it!” I scream, as a new kind of hellfire burns between my legs. This pain isn’t the same kind of discomfort I felt when my husband tore through my virginity, this is on a whole other level and delirium from the pain, the exhaustion takes over me, and I become a woman possessed. Edith places a cold, wet cloth to my head and coos in my ear, whispering soft encouragements and another tightening tears through my stomach. If I survive this, I’ll be surprised. Each tug, each pull, each stretch feels as though my pelvis is going to snap in two.
The man responsible for my current situation paces at the far corner of the room, looking anxious and wound up, but he never looks at me. He doesn’t hold my hand and tell me what a good job I’m doing; he is merely waiting to find out if I’ve got this one thing right. If I have redeemed myself, if I’ve proved myself useful.
The burning resumes, fiercer than before, and I throw my legs open, screwing my eyes shut as my body acts on instinct now.
“You can do this, sweetie, it’s almost here,” Edith says, peeking between my legs.
I cry, sweat sticking my hair to my face, pooling at the bottom of my back, “It hurts, Edith, I can’t!”
“I know, darling, I know, it won’t be long now,” her hands rest on my belly, “and big push, Mrs. Chrobak!”
It’s at this moment, that my situation hits home. There’s a little moment of clarity before I push, and I take in my surroundings. Edith isn’t a nurse, no, and I’m not in a hospital. I lay, in agony, on a mattress, below the ground of Vladimir Chrobak’s mansion, and I am giving birth to a child who will never have a birth certificate, which will only be wanted by its father if it is a boy.
I look down at my dirty feet and see just how filthy the mattress is. The once white material is red, balls of dust are stuck in the groves, and terror captures me, screaming at me that my child will become infected before it has even taken its first breath. I say it because I do not know if I have carried a boy or a girl. I have not seen one baby doctor, I have taken no prenatal vitamins, and I have no idea if my child is even okay. Not once did I see it’s kicking legs on a sonogram, hear its heartbeat through a doppler. I have grown this child, loved this child, and denied every precious moment new parents look forward to during the nine months.
Vladimir looks distraught, disheveled, and he turns his back on me as I give my last push, the biggest push I can manage. It’s a weird sensation. One moment there is so much pain, so much pressure, and the next, I feel as though I’ve deflated.
My head lulls back, and I collapse on to my makeshift bed as Edith scurries between my legs, a blanket in arm, and scissors ready to cut the umbilical cord. It’s quiet. Too quiet. But I feel as though I’m being weighed down with a ton of bricks, my eyelids fluttering shut, the room spinning far worse than ever before.
“She’s losing blood, Vladimir!” Edith cries at my husband, her voice sounds a million miles away as I fight to stay conscious. What’s going on? Why isn’t my baby crying? Edith massages my belly and my weak body cannot fight or speak to her. “Vladimir, call someone, please! I can’t stop the bleeding!” Edith’s voice is urgent, and that scares me.
And then I hear it. The gargled cry of a newborn, and my baby take its first breath; it has me sitting up. My mother’s instinct is more potent than blood loss. I look between my legs where Edith looks ashen, a small bundle in her arms wriggling madly and then something falls out of me. I feel sick as I look at, what I assume, is the afterbirth. The blood. Oh, my God. That can’t be good.
Waving my hands in front of me, I lick my lips and widen my eyes in an attempt to stay awake, “M-m baby,” I slur, “I w-want my b-baby.”
Edith and my husband exchange looks, hers is of concern, his is of impatience. He nods and then holds his cell to his hear, speaking in his mother tongue. Edith leans forward, her arms outstretched as she places my child into my arms.
Vladimir shoves his phone into his pocket and rushes towards my baby and me; he peels the towel from its little body and opens its legs. “No!” he bellows, flicking the sheet back, his booming voice makes my daughter, our daughter, cry harder. “Fuck!”
“Ella, I need you to lie back, sweetie, someone is on their way to help. You need a blood transfusion,” Edith breaks the news, and yet I can make out what she’s saying. I’m yanking down my top, noticing how my sweet, red-haired baby girl is puckering her lips through each sob. I don’t know what to do, other than to try and nurse her. Lying back, we get into a position that’s as comfortable as one can be in this situation, and I do my best to get baby girl to latch. It takes a few attempts as my shaking hands wobble her, her tiny lips slipping from my nipple. The world around us fizzes and hisses, and my eyes grow heavy. Stay awake, Ella, I urge myself.
“Vladimir, how long is Jozef going to be?”
“Three minutes,” he growls, and then he’s leaving the room, unable to comprehend that we have a daughter. I don’t care. The unseen bundle of hope I’d spent countless hours talking to though the lining of my stomach is here, and she is perfect.
I continue to fight the urge for sleep to overwhelm me and lock each perfect crease of her skin, each wrinkle of her forehead, each noise she makes as she latches on, each wispy strand of downy, red hair to memory. She is perfect. Her eyes are closed, so I do not know whose she has inherited, but the hair, oh, that’s all me. Her skin is so pale, not sickly, just like mine when I haven’t seen the sun in a little while.
She’s content now, her chest moving up and down as she feeds. Tears burn the backs of my eyes, spilling down my cheeks and splashing on to her face, and I wipe them with my fingers and rub my thumb back and forth over her soft, perfect skin. She’s so tiny. I can’t imagine how much she weighs.
Love, a feeling that I haven’t felt for anything for a long time, bubbles inside of me, wraps around each organ, and I realize that its this baby, this amazing child that’s causing it. It’s consuming, overwhelming, and I know I’ll never love another human being like it. How did I create something so perfect in amongst the horror that is my life? How has my husband, a man who lives and breathes evilness, given me such a precious gift? Where is he? Will he ever love her the way a father should? It didn’t bear thinking about how a parent could dismiss their newborn as he has done. I shudder, remembering the look on his face when he saw what was between my sweet girls’ legs. Vladimir had wanted a son. An heir to raise and groom to be just like him, take over the business when he died, and he’s ended up with a daughter. I don’t want to think about what this may mean for us. Surely he won’t kill us.
The world is beautiful with my baby girl in my arms. She’s sleeping now, a full belly from nursing, and I stroke her hair, gazing at her soft features while trying to think of a name for her. We hadn’t spoken of names, although I do know that Vladimir wouldn’t want anything American, much preferring to look into his Slovak roots, and that was fine with me.
I watch, mesmerized, as my fingers brush through the tiny smattering of hair around the crown of her head. Long, thick eyelashes twitch as she dreams. Of what, I don’t know. Her little finger holds mine, and my heart has never felt so full before. Things will be different now. Vlad and his cruel ways will be a thing of the past, and I know that this child will bring us together for the better. With this child we made, we can change the hatred between us, the violence that binds us, and fix all the mistakes we have made. To her, this precious blessing, we owe it.