Night Road

“If Zach doesn’t want the baby?” Jude said, incredulous. “He’s eighteen years old, for God’s sake. He can’t remember to wash his clothes. ”

“She hated foster care,” Zach said quietly.

Scot nodded. “She doesn’t want that for her baby. ”

Jude couldn’t make sense of all of this; there seemed to be some undercurrent pulling at her, swirling around her, but she couldn’t see a ripple. “Where’s a pen?” Jude said tightly

.

“Judith,” Miles said, using his reasonable voice, the one that meant she was being a bitch or a shrew or whatever. She couldn’t care less. She was sick to death of his reasonableness. The pain in her heart was all consuming, unbearable. It took every scrap of control she possessed not to howl in agony. “This is our grandchild we’re talking about. We can’t be cavalier. ”

“You think I’m being cavalier?” Jude stared at her husband, hating him as much as she’d ever hated anyone. “You think it’s not tearing me up inside? You think I haven’t dreamed of my first grandchild? But not like this, Miles. A child by the girl who killed our Mia? No, I won’t—”

“Stop,” Zach said loudly.

Jude had forgotten he was even there. “I’m sorry, Zach. I know this is terrible, tragic, but you need to listen to me. ”

“When have I ever done anything but listen to you?” he said.

She heard the anger in his voice and stepped back from it. “W-what are you saying, Zach?”

“It’s my baby,” Zach said firmly. “Mine and Lexi’s. I can’t just turn my back on that. How can you want me to?”

Jude felt the floor beneath her open up, and suddenly she was falling. She saw his whole sad future in a flash: no college degree, no decent job, no falling in love with the right girl and starting fresh in life. At that, her last, desperate hope that he would someday climb out of this pit and learn to be happy again disappeared.

“I’ll be a dad,” Zach said. “I’ll quit school and come home. ”

Jude couldn’t breathe. How could this be happening? “Zach,” she pleaded. “Think about your future—”

“It’s done, Mom,” he said. “Will you guys help me?”

“Of course we’ll help,” Miles said. “You can stay in school. We’ll find a way. ”

Scot cleared his throat, and the three of them looked at him. “Lexi thought Zach would feel this way … or maybe she hoped. Anyway, she has also had me draft custody papers. She’s prepared to give Zach full custody. She’s asked for only two things from you. She doesn’t want her child to know that she’s in prison. Ever. She actually suggested that you tell the baby she … died. ” He paused, looked at Zach. “And she wants to hand you the baby herself, Zach. Only to you. So you’ll need to be at the hospital when she gives birth. ”

Jude turned sharply on her heels and walked away. In her bedroom, she took three—no, four—sleeping pills and crawled into bed. As she lay there, trembling, praying for the pills to work, she tried to think about a baby, this baby, her grandchild; she tried to picture a tiny version of Mia, with hair like corn silk and eyes like green marbles.

How could she look at a baby like that and ever feel anything but her own loss?

* * *

Lexi was in the prison cafeteria when the first labor pain hit. She grabbed Tamica’s wrist, squeezing hard.

“Oh my God,” Lexi said when it was over. “Is that what it’s going to be like?”

“Worse. ” Tamica led her across the crowded cafeteria to one of the guards positioned by the door. “The kid’s going into labor. ”

The guard nodded, radioed the news to someone else, and then told them to go back to their cell. “Someone will come for you, Baill. ”

Lexi let herself be led down to her cell. There, she curled up on Tamica’s lower bunk and made it through the rising pain. Tamica stroked her hair and told her silly stories about her life. Lexi tried to listen and be polite, but the pains were sharper and coming faster now.

“I … can’t … take … it. How do women take it?”

“Baill?”

She heard her name through this fog of pain; when the cramp ended, she looked up groggily.

Miriam Yungoh, the prison doctor, was there. “I hear there’s a baby who wants to come out and play. ”