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  I had the baby right there at Joy's house, and she were all prepared for it. She had all the equipment and supplies and knew just what to do, 'cause she were once a nurse, but she called the doctor, anyway, so he could be on the alert, case something happened.

  Took eight hours and forty-five minutes to get that baby out of me, and Joy smiled the whole time and said I were doing great when I weren't 'cause my whole self were split wide open, and I didn't have nothing for the pain 'cept water and screaming. Lord, I ain't never, never, never gonna go through that again!

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  JOY CALLED THE SOCIAL WORKER and told her I had the baby—a girl, seven pounds, three ounces. The social worker said she couldn't get out to us till the next day, so I knew, as sick and tore up as I felt, I had to get out of the house with the baby right away so the pig-nose lady couldn't take my baby and give it away to some Patsy and Pete people.

  We had a appointment with the doctor before the social worker's visit, so we packed up me and the baby, and I stashed my almost ten thousand dollars away in the knitted baby blanket Joy had made. I tucked the blanket and a bottle of formula and a change of clothes for me, and the stuff I stole from the Jameses, all into the diaper bag Joy also made me, and I added Kotex pads to wear in my panties like I had my period, 'cause I were still bleeding from having the baby. Joy didn't say nothin' 'bout how stuffed my bag looked, she just helped me get all of myself and the baby and the fat bag into the car. Then we rode out to Tuscaloosa.

  One thing I always hated 'bout going to Dr. Bramley's office were how busy and crowded it be all the time. Were three other doctors sharing the office and waiting rooms and examining rooms. The day I run off with the baby, though, I were glad for how busy it were. One nurse weighed me and the baby and took my temperature, and another come in and said for me to change out of my clothes and put on the paper dress. Then she left and I left after her, and nobody noticed I walked out the back door and down onto the street.

  I tried to act like I belonged there, walking with a baby in my arms, even though I were feeling way sick and kinda wobbly on my feet, and first coffee shop I come to I went in and asked the woman at the counter to call me a taxi 'cause I got to meet my husband for business and I'm late and my baby be sick.

  She run off and made the call, and a lady come up behind me to pay her bill. She take a peek at my baby and said that she never seen a baby so tiny in her life.

  "What a little darlin'," the lady said. "Is your husband Asian?"

  I knew she were looking at the pretty skin, which looked like café au lait I said, "No, my baby African American, like me."

  The lady's smile fell off her face, and she turned her head to look at the lost-dog sign hanging behind the cash register. Then the woman who made the call come out and said it would be fifteen minutes or so.

  I kept watch out the window, but nobody come running down the street looking for me. Probably didn't know I were gone yet The taxi rolled up outside, and I said thanks and left and got in the taxi. Twenty-or-so minutes later, me and the baby was rolling up the long driveway to the Jameses' house.

  The baby were fussy like it were hungry, but I didn't feed it till the taxi drove away. Then I went round to the back of the house, where Harmon once showed me a gazebo, and I sat there and fed my baby with the bottle I brung. I sung to her and patted her warm, sweet-smellin' head with my fingers, and she drank on the bottle like she starved to death. Now and then, she fell off the nipple and I had to put her back on or her face would flush red and her mouth would open like she 'bout to bust out crying. I never seen nothin' more helpless than her little self. She had a big mouth, far as I could tell, and no teeth, so you could see way to the back of her throat when she were wailing her teeny tiny wail.

  I told my baby just how her life gonna be, and I think she were listening, too. I said, "Baby girl, you gotta stay with Harmon, just till the social worker stop lookin' for you. And it won't matter if she find you here, 'cause if she think you Harmon's baby, she'll see you been taken care of good by all the family and she won't take you away. But you don't got to worry none, 'cause Harmon, he gonna love you and take care of you the way he done me when we was little. Ain't nothin' like a hug from Harmon. And he gonna be your daddy, okay? But you just gonna stay with him for a little tiny bit, 'cause I be your mama and I gonna come back for you soon as I get on my feet good.

  I set the bottle down and lifted the baby up to my face and smelled her deep. Her face and breath was warm and milky sweet and her teeny tiny hand brushed my cheek. I kissed her fingers and thought how my heart were gonna break if I had to leave her off at Harmon's. I stood up thinkin' I gonna run off with her into the woods or something, to hide, but when I stood up, I so dizzy and sick, I near dropped the baby out my arms.

  I felt round for the diaper bag like I blind, found it and picked it up. "Let's go, now," I said to my baby. "Time for you to meet your daddy."

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  WEREN'T NOBODY HOME 'cept the maid when I rung the doorbell. I had to wait four hours till Harmon come home. I sat in the den with a glass and a pitcher of water on the table beside me, and I felt ripped sore between my legs and in my gut and sometimes like I gonna feint, but I kept drinking the water and sucking on the ice from the pitcher and going to the bathroom to see what were happening to me in my pants.

  I tried keeping my mind off of feeling sick, by talking to the baby and thinking how it were gonna be, me tellin' Harmon this baby girl be his. He were gonna say no way it be his, and his parents would say, too, how it don't be his, but then they'll remember the panties I left in his bed and think maybe it do be his after all, and then they'll all be fussin'. Then 'cause they be like TV people, they'll take my baby. I pictured this over and over in the back of my eyes till Harmon come home.

  When he come in the door, I heard the maid say to him, "You got a surprise waiting out in the den for you."

  Then Harmon come trotting through the foyer toward me, and the maid called after him, "I knew those panties were gonna bring you trouble."

  That stopped Harmon dead. "What?" he said.

  I got up and come to the door and called out to Harmon.

  "It's me," I said, grinning and feeling kinda shy. "It's me and our baby. Harmon, come see."

  Harmon had his back to me 'cause he were turned facing the maid. When he heard my voice he whipped round and said, "Leshaya?" And he sounded so surprised, like he didn't never expect to see me again.

  He looked at the baby I held in my arms and asked, "What's that?" And his big girly eyes blinked and blinked at me like he wanted to blink me and the baby away.

  I moved toward him and he backed away. "It our baby, Harmon. Look at her, ain't she the prettiest, sweetest thing you ever seen?"

  Harmon's chubby-face cheeks deflated like they balloons that just popped, and he blinked and he blinked, and I kept walking toward him, watching him blink, and when I got up close I saw tears in die corner of his eyes, and when I held out the baby and he lifted his arms, they was shaking.

  "It be all right, Harmon," I said. "Here, take her. I cain't keep her or the social worker gonna come and put her in a Patsy and Pete foster home. Here, she yours now."

  Harmon took the baby from me and opened the little blanket Joy knitted and put a finger on the little baby's hand.

  "I named her already," I said, peering down at the baby with Harmon. Our heads touched, and Harmon lifted his and looked at me, still blinking, still tearing in the corners of his eyes.

  "I named her Etta H. James. Ain't that perfect? Cain't you see her signing her famous autograph like that some day? Etta H. James. Etta Harmony James," I said.

  A tear rolled down Harmon's sunken cheek, and he turned from me and walked away with the baby in his arms.

  I figured I'd go sit back down and wait for Mr. James and Mrs. James. I knew there were gonna be a big fight coming with them two, and I were feeling way dizzy. I sat down and stared at the empty pitcher and wished I h
ad me some more water. Maybe fifteen minutes later the maid come to the doorway and said, "The taxi's here. You can go now."

  "But I didn't call no taxi."

  "That's right Mr. Harmon did. Now, you go on like a good girl."

  I stood up. "That's it? I just leave? Don't gotta see Mr. James and have a talk or nothin'?"

  The maid set her hands on her hips. "Taxi's waiting. Go on, now."

  I left the house, just like that. It were so easy it made me nervous, like maybe Harmon didn't understand what I meant. I didn't get a chance to say how I wanted him to take good care of the baby. I didn't say how he were to never give her away for adoption or let anybody come take her. I just left the house and climbed my aching self into the taxi and didn't know what to think. The taxi lady tossed her cigarette out the car window and turned round to me. "So where we goin', sugar?" she asked.

  I turned from the window and looked at the lady. Her orange head seemed to fill up the whole front seat of the car, and I could feel myself shrinking, shrinking till I were 'bout a inch high. The lady asked me again, "Where d'you wanna go?"

  I said, "I don't know," and my voice were so tiny I knew she didn't hear. I said again, "I don't know!" loud so she could hear me. And I said it again, louder. "I don't know!" wishing she'd stop looking at me.

  Finally, the lady turned round and shifted into gear, and we drove away.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  THE TAXI DRIVER took me to a Holiday Inn hotel. I got me a room and had to pay the money for it before I even got to use it, 'cause I didn't have no credit card. The man at the desk wanted to know how long I gonna stay, and since I didn't know—'cause staying wasn't in my plans in the first place—I said a week.

  I got me a nice blue-and-tan-colored room. Soon as I got in it, I fell on the bed, feeling soaking wet around the neck of my shirt and shivery like I got a fever. I lay on the bed and stared out at the room. Were a big room, with a table and a desk and two chairs and a chest of drawers, and all that furniture kinda danced, kinda floated. I closed my eyes to keep myself from feeling more sick and I fell asleep.

  I lay in that bed for two, maybe three days, with my body going hot and cold, wet and dry. I slept and slept all day, all night. Only time I woke up were to go to the bathroom, and that took every bit of energy I had in me. I'd go drag into the bathroom and drop onto the toilet. Then, when I got done changing my blood-soggy pad and doing my business, I dragged myself back to the bed and fell back onto it.

  I slept and dreamed dark dreams of drowning, but it were blood—all that baby blood that was still comin' outta me—that I were drowning in. All that baby blood comin' outta me and washing back over me, drowning me till I soaked the bed with my blood and sweat.

  I kept moving to some new dried-out spot on the bed, doing it in my sleep without thinking, and waking up and finding myself staring at a different part of the room: the flower picture on the wall, the mirror, the desk, the door, the carpet.

  After a couple of days, I got to feeling like for sure I were gonna die. My tits was so full, they hard and heavy, and were like all the milk filling up in them be a poison to my own body. I took off the Do Not Disturb sign I hung on the door. I pulled the sheets and mattress pad off the bed and balled them up together 'cause they was all stained with my sweat and blood, even if I did wear them pads I brung.

  The maid come, and I hid out in the bathroom till she gone, 'cause I didn't want her saying nothin' to me if she found out how I messed up them sheets. When she left, I come out and seen she give me new sheets, all made up on the bed, and towels and more toilet tissue.

  The maid come the next day, too, and she caught me laying in the bed. She looked at me fast the first time, then she looked again, and she said, "Girl, you don't look so good. You feeling all right?"

  "I be sick," I said.

  "I bet you need something to eat. You look real pale. Even your lips look white."

  I sat up and looked across to the mirror and stared at myself, at my greasy hair that stuck to my head in knots, and at my dry sand-rough lips. My eyes looked big, and my head looked big, and I remembered Mama Linda all strung out on heroin looking like me, and all I strung out on were having a baby.

  The maid stood looking at me in the mirror, too.

  "I just had a baby," I said.

  I told her 'cause I didn't want her to think I been on drugs and tell the hotel people. I weren't ready to get kicked out yet. Didn't yet know where I gonna go. I just wanted to lay down and die. I felt too sick for anything else.

  The maid ordered me up some cinnamon toast and tea and orange juice from room service. She come back later to see if I ate it, but I couldn't get most of it down.

  She looked sad about the food not being gone, so I said how I were gonna eat it later. She sat down with me, on the bed, like she got all the time in the world to talk to me, and she asked me, "Are you all right?"

  I said how I be fine, I just need to sleep more, but inside I were sure I gonna die. Weren't no part of me that didn't feel in a fever and sore to the bone.

  Then she asked about the baby, where it be.

  I said the daddy got the baby. I said, "She with Harmon and his rich parents. Ain't nothin' gonna happen long as she with them."

  And the maid said, "So, who's taking care of you? Why are you all alone at this hotel?"

  "I'm a famous singer," I said. "Well, not famous yet but almost. I just split with my band, so I come here to crash, know what I'm sayin'?"

  "Yeah, girl, I think I do," she said.

  She patted my arm and told me I felt hot, and she said maybe I needed me a bath to bring my fever down. She went into the bathroom and run the water, and I dragged in shivering behind her and watched her fill the tub too high.

  When it was way to the top almost, the maid stepped back from the tub and said to me, "You get in, and I'll be back in about an hour, after I finish my last set of rooms. Then I'll try to comb out your hair if you want. Why don't you wash it with that hotel shampoo? It's got a cream rinse in it that should help some."

  I said okay, and she left me alone. I drained down the water 'cause it looked deep enough to drown in. Then I climbed in the tub. Felt like I were climbing into a bed of ice, were so cold. Took a long time till I got used to it.

  I sat in the cool water almost the whole time she were gone, draining it and adding more water every time my fever heated it up, but I laid hot wash rags over my sore tits. They was swollen so big and hard, they hurt enough to make me wanna pass out. I lay back against the cool tub, with them rags on my tits, and tried to put my thoughts away from shivering and dyin'. I thought 'bout the maid and how she were too pretty for sweating away in a hotel, cleaning rooms. I figured she could be a fashion model 'cause she real tall and thin, with long, tiny muscles showing in her legs and arms, and she had dark black skin and a small face from the nose down to the chin, but big eyes and a big round forehead on top. She wore her hair way short like it be a crown on her head, and she looked beautiful, so beautiful, like a queen of royalty.

  Before she come back, I took me a shower to wash my hair. And I left the drain closed so the tub filled up too high again. I quick got out the tub and put the panties and pants I been wearing all them days in the water to soak Straight away the bathwater turned red. It looked like a whole tub of watery blood, so much blood, just like in my dreams. I turned the knob to let out the water and looked away till I heard the drain sucking at my clothes. Then I run the water cold again and soaped up my things and held them under the running water. I rubbed my panties together to try to get out the stains. Were stains on top of stains in them underpants, and I couldn't get none of it out Weren't nothin' to do but throw them away.

  When the maid come back she found me wrapped in towels, sittin' on my bed, with the phone in my hand. I quick set it down and she smiled at me.

  "You got somebody coming to pick you up?" she asked.

  "Ain't nobody home. Ain't been nobody at that number for years," I said.
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br />   The maid felt my arm. "You broke your fever. That's good." She reached in her pocket. "I brought you these Advil sample packets the hotel gives out." She pulled out the packets. "These should help."

  I took them from her and said thanks. I laid them on the table by the bed. Then I picked up the spare change of clothes I had took out from my diaper bag, and I slow put them on. I already had my underpants on 'cause I still needed to keep a pad soaking up the birth-giving blood.

  While I were dressing, the maid got me some water for the Advil. On her way back she seen my old underpants in the trash can, and she squatted down and pulled them out and saw I been bleeding.

  "You need to get to a doctor," she said. "How long ago did you have that baby?"

  I shrugged. "Five, six days. I lost track."

  She dropped the panties and stood up. "Where are your parents? You have any parents?"

  I were folding up my dirty shirt and bra real careful, like they be new and clean. I slipped them into the diaper bag, checking while I were at it to see that my money still be safe. I said, "My parents in prison. But don't need parents, anyways, 'cause I'm eighteen."

  The maid shook her head and made a face like she real wise. "I know you're not eighteen," she said. "I'm just nineteen, myself." She handed me the glass of water, and I took the pills while she pulled a chair out from the table and brung it closer to the bed. She patted the chair.

  "Come here and sit in this chair, and I'll comb out your hair. It's sure in a tangle, isn't it?" She pulled a comb out of the pocket of her maid's uniform.