Page 55 of Wounded Dance
I let go.
They placed her in a plastic crib on a rolling cart.
“She’s losing her hat,” one said, but they wheeled her out anyway.
She was gone.
“I have all the paperwork right here,” the woman with the folder said.
“Mom?” I asked again. “Is this what you decided?”
“We can’t keep the baby,” she said. “It’s an abomination.”
Tears flowed down my face. She was not. She was perfect.
The woman held out the folder but I turned my face away.
“Just bring it here,” Mom said.
“She’s a minor,” the woman said. “Here is where your signatures go. But we still want her to sign.”
“I won’t,” I said.
A rumbling voice came from the doorway. It was my father, holding my brother Andy. “You will.”
My insides quaked. He looked large and formidable in the stark room.
My joy at seeing the baby, and my resolve to fight them, crumbled. Andy squirmed in his arms, trying to get down to me, but my father held him tight.
“I’m just here to sign those papers, and then we’ll leave,” my father said.
He passed Andy to Mom and took the pages from her. He scribbled his name and brought the paper to me.
“Sign right here, Livia,” he said.
My hands trembled on the sheets. I was coming down off the high of seeing the baby, and exhaustion was setting in. I wanted to be alone to cry.
I took the papers and found the line with “Birth mother” below it. I scrawled my name.
The woman flipped the page. “Also here and here, and initial these three places.”
I did what I was told. There was nothing I could do anyway. Where does a fifteen-year-old go with a baby if she’s kicked out of her house?
“Leave the baby’s name blank,” the woman said. “I’ll get that from the adoptive family.”
“I don’t get to name her?” I asked.
“You should detach yourself as quickly as possible,” the woman said. “It’s for the best.”
I lay back, starting to feel all the places in my body that throbbed. My boobs felt funny too, hot and tingly. If they were all going to stare at me like I was a monster, I would just as soon all of them leave.
“Are we square on the paperwork?” my dad asked.
The woman flipped through the pages again. “Yes, I already had most of it filled in.” She picked up her bag from the corner. “I’ll be in touch if I need anything else.”
She whisked herself from the room.
“Come on, Dorothy,” my dad said. “We can pick her up when they discharge her.” He turned to the curly-haired aide, who had returned to quietly pick up the bedding and trays. “When will she get out?”
