Did you know that when an incarcerated woman gives birth, if they’re almost finished with their sentence, they sometimes get to keep their babies with them? This mostly happens in jails, where the sentences are shorter. It sometimes happens in prisons, but it’s rare.
In my case, I was just beginning my sentence when I gave birth to Diem, which made it to where she wasn’t allowed to stay with me in the prison. She was a preemie, and as soon as she was born, they noticed her breathing wasn’t where they wanted it to be, so they immediately whisked her away and transferred her to the NICU. They gave me an aspirin, some oversized pads, and eventually took me back to the facility with empty arms and an empty womb.
Depending on the circumstances, some mothers are allowed to pump, and their breastmilk is stored and delivered to their baby. I wasn’t one of the lucky ones. I wasn’t allowed to pump, and I wasn’t allowed anything that would help my milk dry up.
Five days after Diem was born, I was in the prison library, crying in a corner because my milk had come in, my clothes were soaking wet, and I was still emotionally devastated and physically spent.
That’s when I met Ivy.
She had been there for a while, knew all the guards well, all the rules, how far she could bend them and who would let her. She saw me crying while holding a book about postpartum depression. Then she saw my soaking wet shirt, so she took me to a bathroom and helped me clean up. She meticulously folded up paper towels into squares and handed them to me one by one while I layered them inside my bra.
“Boy or girl?” she asked.
“Girl.”
“What’d you name her?”
“Diem.”
“That’s a good name. A strong name. She healthy?”
“She was a preemie, so they took her as soon as she was born. But a nurse said she was doing well.”
Ivy winced when I said that. “They gonna let you see her?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
Ivy shook her head, and I didn’t know it then, but Ivy had a way of communicating entire conversations through all the different ways she shook her head. I’d slowly learn them over the years, but that day, I didn’t know the way she shook her head translated to, “Those bastards.”
She helped me dry my shirt, and when we got back to the library, she sat me back down and said, “Here’s what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna read every book in this library. Pretty soon you’ll start to live in the lavish worlds inside these books, rather than the bleak world inside this prison.”
I was never a big reader. I didn’t like her plan. I nodded, but she could tell I wasn’t listening to her.
She pulled a book off the shelf and handed it to me. “They took your baby from you. You won’t ever get over that. So, you decide right now, right here. Are you gonna live in your sadness or are you gonna die in it?”
That question punched me in my stomach—the stomach that no longer contained my daughter. Ivy wasn’t giving me a pep-talk. In a lot of ways, it was the opposite. She wasn’t saying I would move past what I was feeling, or that things would get easier. She was telling me this was it—the misery I felt was my new normal. I could either learn to live with it or I could let it consume me.
I swallowed and said, “I’m gonna live in it.”
Ivy smiled and squeezed my arm. “There you go, Momma.”
Ivy didn’t know it, but she saved me that day with her brutal honesty. She was right. My normal would never be the same. It hadn’t been the same since I lost you, and losing our daughter to your parents just pushed me even further from center.
The way I felt when they took her from me back then is the exact same defeated misery I feel right now.
Ledger has no idea how much his actions tonight have broken the last few pieces of me.
Ivy has no idea how much her words from almost five years ago are still somehow saving me.
Maybe that’s what I’ll name the kitten. Ivy.
Love,
Kenna
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
LEDGER
I’ve received three calls from Patrick on my drive back to the house, but I haven’t answered any of them because I’m too angry at Kenna to have a conversation about her over the phone. I was hoping the Landrys didn’t hear her beating on their door, but it’s obvious they did.
Patrick is waiting in my yard when I pull back into my driveway. He’s talking before I even get out of the truck.
“What does she want?” he asks. “Grace is a mess. Do you think she’s going to try to fight the termination? The lawyer said it would be impossible.” He’s still spitting questions at me as he follows me into the kitchen.