Page 125 of The Hitchhikers
She thought of two dancers who’d left that year. Who never came back. Her mother said they quit. That’s why they’d hurriedpast Jenny in school. They were embarrassed that they weren’t good enough dancers, but Jenny had thought they were very good. She’d seen each of them stay after class to practice, with Robert playing the piano. No one else at the studio.
And there was Hannah. She’d stayed behind too. Then she’d quit. She’d stopped talking to Jenny. She couldn’t even look at her.
Her mother knew what Robert was. She’d known all along. She hadn’t cared about the girls, and she didn’t care about Jenny now. Jenny wasn’t even part of the equation. Her mother still hadn’t turned to look at her. She and Robert were yelling. He was shouting about her clothes and all her spending. She was shouting about girls.
Robert slammed his office door.
No matter how many times Jenny replayed that moment in her mind, in the hours, days, weeks, and even years to come, she could never remember picking up the knife off the counter.
She’d been standing by the fridge, then she wasn’t. She followed her mother out of the kitchen, and the knife was gripped tight in the palm of her hand. She’d never understood the expression “blinded by rage.” She did then. Because she could barely see her mother’s face when she turned to her, but she felt the sting when her mother slapped her across the cheek.
“After everything I’ve done for you? This is how you repay me? You sleep with my husband? You’re nothing but an ungrateful whore.”
Her mother slapped her another time, then another, with each slap she called her a whore, again and again, the words blurring together into a chant.Whore. Whore. Whore.
Then her mother was screaming and looking down her body. Jenny looked down too. A knife was sticking into her mother’s stomach, straight through the shiny-pink leotard. The one that her mother wore with a white elastic belt, which matched hertights. The legwarmers were pink and sparkly, and Jenny recognized them as hers. Her mother had taken those from her too.
But that didn’t matter anymore. Jenny’s hand was still on the knife, and her mother was lurching backward. Jenny pulled the knife out and stabbed it into the side of her mother’s neck.
Her mother made a strange noise, a gasping, gurgling shriek, then she was clutching at her throat, but Jenny couldn’t stop. Her arm kept going up and down. Then sideways, like she was sweeping a table clean. She slashed at her mother’s arms, hands. Fury spurred her on, roared in her ears, screamed at her to make her mothershut up. Her mother was falling to the floor and blood was everywhere, flinging off the knife. Droplets on her face. Sticky warmth on her hand.
She followed her mother down, kneeling beside her body, plunging the knife into her stomach. It caught in her mother’s ribs, slipped to the side. The handle was slick with blood.
Robert was there now, grabbing at the knife handle, but she moved, and his palms slid down the blade. He screamed and let go, and in that moment, she stabbed upward into his stomach, then he was stumbling away.
She was on her feet, chasing him, and he was trying to get to the back door, his hand leaving bloody streaks on the wall, begging her to stop.
She remembered how she said those words to him, didn’t she? And she was telling him that now. That sherememberedevery time he’d hurt her. How she cried just like that, but he never stopped. No, he’d blamed her, said it was all her fault, and she’dbelievedhim.
She drove the knife into his back, the meaty flesh above his hip, and he was falling. He was trying to crawl away, crying, blubbering, really. She was so much smaller than him, but hewas scared. Scared of her! She kept coming after him, punching down with the blade, and her arm was so sore, and she was sweating, sticky with blood, her hair in her mouth.
Robert had stopped moving, stopped making any noise. She got to her feet, swaying. The knife dropped from her hand and clattered on the tiles. She staggered into the hallway, past her mother’s body. She lost her strength and dropped to her knees. Simon. He would know what to do. He would help her. She crawled to the phone beside the couch.
She was transferred by plane to the Prison for Women in Kingston, escorted by an armed guard, who didn’t say anything except to tell her where to sit, to put on her seat belt, to stay quiet. He was chewing mint gum, but she could still smell the liquor underneath. People stared as they walked down the aisle. She’d never been on a plane before, but she wasn’t afraid. The feeling of constant dread, the one she’d been living with since that night, had gone away and left her numb. She didn’t fear death anymore.
Life was the punishment.
The prison was far worse than Jenny ever could have imagined. The dank, barren concrete building was noisy, the air musty, and the corridors narrow and twisted. Rats woke her in the night, running over her body. She had spider bites, and rashes from the soap.
Most of the women ignored her, but a few offered a smile. Her cellmate was an older woman with thinning reddish hair, cut short to her scalp. She communicated with Jenny with nods or hand gestures. Jenny didn’t think she spoke English until she overheard her talking to one of the guards. The exercise yard was nothing more than a square of dirt, surrounded by walls andbarbed wire. Jenny walked the perimeter until her belly was so big she could only waddle.
Autumn arrived. November in Ontario was colder than it had been on the west coast of BC. She didn’t get outside as often. From the prison windows, she watched the trees turn different colors. Burnt orange. Brilliant yellow. Bold red.
She went into labor late one night. She didn’t understand what was happening, but as the pain built into sharp cramps across her stomach, she knew. She twisted and cried out. Her cellmate’s head popped up over the edge of her bunk. She pointed to Jenny’s stomach, and Jenny nodded, then gasped when another contraction hit. Her cellmate banged on the bars. Once their neighbors realized what was going on, they joined in, and finally the guards came.
Jenny was wheeled into the nurses’ station. The hours after that were a kaleidoscope of distorted images in her mind. She remembered nurses in uniforms and caps shouting commands at her. She remembered the doctor’s white coat and rough hands.
She labored for hours. The nurses disappeared in her mind and were replaced with her mother, hissing at her.You deserve to suffer for what you did.
Jenny’s body was splitting. She wondered if this was dying. She panted like an animal. Grunted and groaned. The nurses were yelling at her. She didn’t want to be yelled at ever again.
One of the nurses was holding Jenny’s leg. She had a smug face and a pushed-in nose. She dug her fingers into Jenny’s flesh like she wanted to hurt her. Jenny lifted her foot on the next contraction and kicked the woman hard in the stomach. She gasped and stumbled back.
Jenny laughed, but the sound was distorted by her moans. The nurses had stopped yelling at her. The one she’d kicked had left. She reached inside herself for strength. She screamed and pushed with the last of her energy. She couldn’t get awayfrom the pressure. It was everywhere. Her body bearing down. Her legs shaking. Then, finally, relief. The burning and tearing stopped.
A baby’s cries filled the room.
CHAPTER 44ALICE
