Lost Daughters (32 page)

“Are you sorry you didn't do it? I mean, look how I turned out.”

“I'm glad I didn't abort you and your twin sister. Just so you know, I think you can still turn your life around.”

“I'm goin' to! I'm not goin' to let Mel ruin things for me. Listen, I have to leave in a few minutes to go to my yoga class—”

“Lo'retta, if you don't mind, would you give me your telephone number?” Maureen broke in.

“For what?”

“In case I need to call you.” Loretta made Maureen want to holler. She didn't, though, because she knew that if she did, she probably wouldn't stop hollering until the people in the white coats had strapped her into a straitjacket and tucked her into a padded cell. She was surprised that she was still able to speak in a civil tone of voice. After all, Loretta had said some pretty disturbing things to her.

Loretta rattled off a telephone number and then she hung up without saying another word.

Maureen shook her head and finished packing for her trip to Bimini.

M
AUREEN ENJOYED THE FEW DAYS THAT SHE SPENT IN BIMINI
with
JAY
. For the first time in months, she was able to act like a normal person, whatever that was. They had rented a bungalow near the beach and spent Christmas night sleeping on a blanket under a cabana outside the bungalow window. They opened their eyes the next morning with a starfish and other small creatures crawling on their faces.

“You look and act like a new woman,” Jay told Maureen, wiping sand off her face.

“I am a new woman.” She really did feel like a new woman because she was experiencing emotions that she had never experienced before. But the pain that she had recently experienced was still lurking beneath the surface.

“A penny for your thoughts,” Jay said in a cheerful voice, tickling Maureen's cheek.

“My thoughts ain't worth a plugged nickel these days. I'm goin' to enjoy my life anyway,” she vowed, pulling the blanket up to her chin. They had shared a bottle of rum the night before and then they'd made love. They were both still naked.

“I'm glad to hear that,” Jay said, sitting up, swatting at a swarm of gnats buzzing around his face. “I mean, you've been through a hell of a lot lately.”

“So have you.”

Jay groaned, but a few seconds later he snickered. “Let's try not to think about it. It'll all be at home when we get back.”

Maureen didn't want to go back home. Just thinking about returning to the apartment that she had shared with the last two people in the world she expected to betray her made her sick to her stomach.

However, despite all that had happened to her lately, she was more relaxed than she'd been in years. She did things with Jay that she had never done before and had never even thought about doing. They ate snake meat at a restaurant that served only exotic dishes. They went scuba diving, horseback riding, and they danced until dawn three nights in a row.

Maureen didn't even dwell on what Virgil had told her about her kidnapping case or the fact that Loretta was now pregnant with her stepfather's baby. Those were two more pieces of her life that she was not ready to share with Jay yet—and might never be. She thought it was more important for her to focus on the things that made her feel good, like being with Jay and having Big Maureen to call up and chat with.

As soon as Maureen got back to Florida, she called up Big Maureen and told her that Loretta was pregnant and planning to get an abortion.

“An abortion?” Big Maureen shouted. “
Why
?”

“She feels that a baby would be nothin' but a big inconvenience right now,” Maureen explained with a heavy sigh and a sharp pain in her chest. “It's a damn shame that the females who don't want babies always get pregnant and then get abortions.”

“Oh no! Little Mo'reen, please don't let that child kill that precious baby!” Big Maureen hollered.

“Even if I tried to talk her out of it, I'm the last person in the world she'd take advice from these days.”

“Sister, please, I'm beggin' you, and I'll get down on my knees and beg Lo'retta, too, if I have to!” Big Maureen bellowed. “This could be God's way of answerin' me and Lukas's prayers!”

“What?”

“Don't you see? This could be an answer to a prayer!”

An answer to a prayer?
That was exactly what Virgil had said that Mama Ruby told him on the night she kidnapped Maureen.

“
You
want my daughter's baby?” Maureen asked. “Do you really mean that?”

“Oh Lord, yes, I mean it! I never meant nothin' more in my life than this. Yes, I do want that baby! I wouldn't care if it came into the world with hooves and a tail. I WANT THAT BABY!”

Maureen was glad that she was not in the same room with Big Maureen. If she sounded this desperate on the telephone, there was just no telling how desperate she would be in person.

“I can talk to her, but I don't know if it would do any good. From the way she talks, she's already got her mind made up to get rid of her baby.”

“Please, please, please talk to her,” Big Maureen begged. Then she burst into tears. “I need that baby,” she said between sobs. “And it would be a blood relation, so that would make it an even bigger blessin'. If them adoption folks ever do come through and give me and Lukas a baby, there is no tellin' what kind of blood and background that child might have. Me and Lukas might end up with a lunatic or a born killer on our hands!”

“I don't know if it'll do any good, but I'll call Lo'retta and see what she says.”

“Can you call her right now? I'll hang up and you can call me back as soon as you talk to her. Please! I won't get a moment's rest until I hear back from you.”

Big Maureen hung up abruptly, but Maureen didn't dial Loretta's number right away. Big Maureen raising Loretta and Mel's baby was something that Maureen had to think about for a while. Just to keep Big Maureen from losing her mind, Maureen waited a couple of minutes and called her back.

“What did Lo'retta say?” Big Maureen yelled. “I been pacin' back and forth, jumpin' up and down and everything waitin' on you to call me back!” That explained why Big Maureen was huffing and puffing like she had just run a marathon.

“Uh, she wasn't home,” Maureen lied. “I left a message for her to call me back as soon as she could. Now you go get some rest.”

“Like I told you, I ain't goin' to get no rest until you talk to Lo'retta,” Big Maureen vowed. “I can't!”

Maureen was not able to reach Virgil until the following morning. When she told him about Loretta's predicament, he said something that surprised her. “You tell Lo'retta she ain't got to kill her baby. Me and Corrine would be glad to raise it,” he said, already sounding like a proud papa. “Corrine loves babies and you know I do. It's a pity I only had the one, and seein' him every once in a while ain't enough for me to even feel like a real daddy.”

“I don't think you can have Lo'retta's baby.”

“Oh. You goin' to take it? Before you do, you need to think it through real hard. Every time you look at that child, you will think about Mel and what he done. I think the best thing would be for somebody else to raise it so you won't have to.”

“Big Maureen wants the baby,” Maureen stated. “She wants that baby real bad.”

“Hmmm. Well, if I can't have it, I'd rather see it go to a relative than to some adoption outfit or end up in some foster home. Big Mo'reen would be a good choice. I know how hard she and Lukas been tryin' to adopt. I got a feelin' that this . . . this might be an answer to a prayer.”

An answer to a prayer
.

There was that phrase again. Maureen had no doubt in her mind that it really was an answer to a prayer for somebody....

She called Loretta immediately after her conversation with Virgil. To her surprise, Loretta actually sounded happy to hear from her.

“Hi, Mama! Whassup?” Loretta yipped.

“Hello, Loretta. I'm glad I caught you at home. Uh, I just wanted to say hello and see how you're doin'. Is everything goin' all right? Do you feel all right?”

“Yeah, why wouldn't I? I'm healthy and as strong as a mule. I can't wait to get rid of this baby. I'm gainin' weight like mad! I can't believe how bloated I look already. I did quit smokin', though. On Christmas day.”

“I didn't know that you had started smokin',” Maureen said, disappointed. “I'm glad to hear you stopped. That was a smart and healthy thing for you to do.” Loretta had always been a strong advocate against smoking. Maureen cringed as she wondered what other surprises she had in store.

“There's a whole lot of things you don't know about me, Mama. But it didn't take long for me to realize smokin' was bad for me, so I gave it up.”

“Was it just cigarettes you smoked?” Maureen eased in with caution.

Loretta heaved out an impatient breath. “Oh, Mama! If you mean weed, I gave that up before I gave up cigarettes. I smoked my last joint last month.”

“You'd better believe I'm glad to hear that. I was real worried about you, Lo'retta. I don't like you bein' pregnant in a strange city with no family to look in on you and all.”

“I got a lot of new friends and they look out for me, so you can stop worryin'. I'm not your baby anymore.”

You sure are not,
Maureen thought to herself, tempted to say it, but glad she didn't.

“Oh, Mama! Guess what? I just came from my beautician, and I've decided to lighten my hair. Can you see me as a blonde? Everybody says that with blond hair, I would look even more beautiful and exotic with a different look than the rest of these black models up here.”

“That's nice. I'm sure you will,” Maureen mumbled. “Listen, I . . . do you have time to talk? About . . . your condition?”

“My
condition
?” Loretta barked, like her “condition” was something she had just realized. “You mean the baby? You want to talk to me about the baby? For reals?”

“For reals.”

“I know you are probably wonderin' how it happened. I swear to God, me and Mel used protection from day one!”

“I'm glad to hear that. The last thing I wanted was for you to get pregnant and not be able to graduate with your class,” Maureen said in a guarded tone of voice.

“I graduated with my class, and unlike Wanda Tucker and Melanie Bostwick, I was not pregnant when I walked across that stage to get my diploma.” Loretta sucked on her teeth. “Anyway, Mel was determined not to make any babies with me, and that's why he started wearin' two condoms at the same time.”

“Well, apparently wearin' two condoms didn't work,” Maureen snipped. She sounded sarcastic and frustrated at the same time, and she didn't care if Loretta picked up on that.

“Believe it or not, wearin' two condoms is worse than wearin' just one. Besides sex not feelin' that good for the man, the two condoms rubbin' against each other caused too much friction and both of them broke at the same time. That's how I ended up pregnant.”

The last thing Maureen wanted to discuss was her daughter's sexual encounters with Melvin Ross. “Thank you for sharin' that with me, but I called to talk to you about somethin' else.”

“What?”

“Lo'retta, I don't want you to abort your baby,” Maureen stated. “Please don't do that.”

W
HAT MAUREEN HAD JUST SAID STARTLED HER AS MUCH AS IT DID
Loretta. She never thought that she would be saying such a thing to the woman who had stolen her husband. But Maureen still wanted what was best for her child, and now she wanted what was best for her grandchild.

“What's wrong with you, Mama? I do not want to raise this baby!”

“You won't have to, Lo'retta.”

“You want me to have it and give it up for adoption?”

“Well, yeah. Somethin' like that.”

“You want me to miss out on a ton of jobs, go through all that mornin' sickness and God knows what else,
and
lose my shape? I already told you I've gained a bunch of weight and can't work again until after I have the abortion—and lose this weight.”

“If you take care of yourself, you won't have to worry about gettin' sick every mornin' and losin' your shape. At your age, you'll lose the weight,” Maureen insisted. “Please have the baby. This is probably the
only
thing that I will ever ask you to do for me again. Let somebody who wants a baby raise yours.”

Loretta cackled like a witch before responding to Maureen's suggestion. “Well, if you thinkin' about takin' the baby and raisin' it yourself, no way!
If
I do decide to have it, I want it to be raised by somebody I don't know so I wouldn't have to worry about ever seein' him or her again.”

“I see. Well, it's your life and your body—”

“And
my
baby,” Loretta interrupted. “What happens to it is up to me, not you. I'll never let
you
raise a baby of mine. I don't want to come back to Florida and have a baby runnin' around callin' me ‘Mama' any time soon. I don't want a child who would probably grow up hatin' me for givin' it up, to even know who I am.” Loretta stopped talking long enough to catch her breath. “Shoot! They show enough movies on the Lifetime TV channel about adopted babies growin' up and trackin' down their real mother and turnin' her life upside down. I'm not about to let somethin' like that happen to me. My career would end up in the toilet so fast it would make your head spin. I don't need that kind of disruption in my life right now.”

“I'm sorry you feel that way. I don't want to raise your baby, but I know somebody else that wants to raise it,” Maureen said evenly. She was amazed at how well she was able to suppress her anger.

“Wait a minute. Don't tell me you've told everybody I'm pregnant!” Lo'retta shrieked.

“Only your uncle Virgil and your aunt Big Mo'reen.”

“Don't tell anybody else. Not Jay or any of your friends. They don't need to know. They'd talk about me like a dog.”

Maureen didn't want Jay, Catty, or Fast Black to know about Loretta's pregnancy. Jay would probably stay in a neutral position and keep most of his thoughts about it to himself. But Catty and Fast Black would have a field day. If Big Maureen ended up with the baby, nobody in Florida would ever have to know. Maybe years later, Maureen would feel comfortable enough to at least tell Jay and maybe even everybody else. For now, only she, Virgil, and Big Maureen needed to know. “I agree with you. They don't need to know. But like I said, I know somebody who would love to adopt the baby.”

“Like who? And don't you even think about Uncle Virgil and Aunt Corrine raisin' my child! If I give it to them, I may as well give it to you.”

“No, not them. One of my patients at the home has a niece who has been tryin' to have a baby for years and years. If you let her adopt your baby, it would be an answer to a prayer for her. The woman has been married to the same real nice man for fifteen years.” Maureen couldn't believe how easily she had come up with such a bold-faced lie.

“Oh yeah? Hmmm. Well, where do this niece and her real nice husband live?”

“Huh? Oh! Uh . . . they live in Canada and they travel a lot. You would never have to worry about seein' the baby once you turn it over to them.”

“Canada? A white couple?”

“Uh-uh. A black couple originally from the Dominican that moved to Canada a long time ago.”

Loretta's silence gave Maureen hope, so she continued spinning her tale. “They got
beaucoup
money. He's a doctor. They live in a real big house with a huge backyard and everything. The baby would have a real good life. Better than even you or I could give it.”

“What if later on down the road I wanted to take my baby back?”

“It would be real hard, probably impossible, for you to do once you sign the papers.” Papers! That was another thing. But Maureen knew that between her, Virgil, and Big Maureen, they could dummy up some legal-looking papers for Loretta to sign. “You could come home to have the baby. That way me and Virgil can take care of you. Uh, the couple said they don't want to meet the baby's mother or even know her name or anything else about her. Not now, not ever . . .”

“Don't these people wonder why you don't want to raise your own grandchild? Or are they just that desperate for a baby that they don't care?”

Maureen had never been much of a liar, but she was impressed at how easily she was able to make up material as she went along. “Uh, they don't know that I'm the baby's grandmother. I thought it would be better to keep that information from them.”

“I don't know. I don't want to come back to Florida and have everybody talkin' about me. I could just hear all the trash talkin' Catty and Fast Black would be doin' about me! Livin' under the same roof with you would be too uncomfortable for me, and it probably wouldn't be safe for me.”

“Not safe for you? You wouldn't feel safe livin' with me? Lo'retta, I don't care what you do—I would never hurt you. I can understand you not wantin' to live with me again. It would probably be just as uncomfortable for me as it would be for you. I'll find you a real cheap motel to stay in until you have the baby. Maybe one in Tampa or Lauderdale so you won't have to worry about runnin' into anybody you know. Me and Virgil will visit you every day. I just don't want you to be alone in a strange city goin' through a pregnancy by yourself. You
know
now that you can't count on Mel.”

“I already told you that I made a lot of new friends. My new boyfriend, Kyle, is in the process of movin' in with me. He already told me that he would find a full-time housekeeper to help me out.”

Maureen let out a weary groan. Her broken heart was pounding like it was trying to get out of her body, one piece at a time. “A housekeeper? You mean you might decide to keep the baby?”

“Oh no! I'm not goin' to keep this baby. Why in the world would I want to do somethin' like that at a time like this, Mama? But because that other girl died durin' her abortion, Kyle even thinks I should have it and give it to some childless couple. He said he would find me a nurse so she could look after me until I have this baby, if I do—which I probably won't.”

Maureen let out another weary groan. “Whatever you decide to do, I hope you make the right choice. I would hate for you to do anything you will end up regrettin'.”

“Oh! I just remembered somethin'. I don't mean to rush you off the phone, Mama, but I have to go see my doctor so he can tell me why I've gained so much weight so fast. I can't stand to go around lookin' like I swallowed a watermelon. Gotta run!” Loretta hung up.

Even though all Maureen could hear now was a dial tone, she said, “Bye, Lo'retta.”

As soon as Maureen placed the telephone back into its cradle, it rang. She was afraid that it might be Big Maureen and since she didn't have positive news for her, she didn't answer.

One thing Maureen didn't like to do was deliver bad news. When she didn't have a choice, she put it off for as long as she could. As soon as the answering machine beeped for the caller to leave a message and she heard Jay's voice, she let out a massive sigh of relief. She clicked off the answering machine and took his call. “I'm here and I'm so glad it's you!” she wailed, clutching the telephone like it was the Holy Grail.

“I'm glad it's me too,” Jay laughed. “How about some seafood? I just discovered this cozy little place near the beach. It's real popular with the A-list crowd. I know how you like to gawk at celebrities, and this place is a major hangout for some of your favorites.”

“That sounds nice. You called just in time,” Maureen replied.

“Just in time for what?”

“I need to talk to somebody about somethin'.”

Jay hesitated with his response. “Oh shit,” he groaned. “Not more unpleasant news, I hope.”

Maureen began to speak slowly, spitting the words out like they had been dipped in poison. “Well, yes, it is unpleasant news,” she said. Maureen had suddenly thought that she wanted to talk to Jay about Loretta's situation, but she caught herself in time. He probably still didn't need to know about this yet. She went in a completely unrelated direction. “Uh, I lost two patients today, both within the same hour. They were both real nice and nonviolent, so I am really goin' to miss them.” Two of the patients that she cared for at the home had died earlier in the day.

“That is unpleasant news,” Jay told Maureen.

“Mr. Brown and Mr. Plummer,” she added. “I've been feelin' kind of down in the dumps about it.”

“Uh-huh. I guess that's something you don't get used to,” Jay said. “Baby, those people are on their last leg when they check into that home. But you already know that, so why do you seem so surprised and upset? Didn't you lose another one of your patients just last week?”

“Yes. Old Lady Graham passed while I was givin' her a sponge bath,” Maureen recalled. “Let's stop talkin' about that before I get even more depressed. Now hurry up and come get me so we can get to that seafood place.”