Authors: Cassandra Cole
CHAPTER THREE
Looking back on it now, Belinda wasn’t proud of her behavior or her blatant disregard for her mother’s feelings and opinion. She became a total wild child when she entered tenth grade.
Her outgoing personality made her popular with everyone, especially the boys. She found herself drawn to the bad boys; the boys her mother warned her about; the boys Abraham would have strangled if they came calling for her at home.
She’d been so good her whole life, she told herself, so responsible… She deserved to live a little, perhaps even to live a little dangerously.
It’s clichéd, but she literally fell in with the wrong crowd. Correct that: she didn’t fall in so much as dove in head first. She started sneaking out at night, hanging out with the bad boys and the bad girls and doing bad things that would have given her mother a bad heart attack.
She went to lots of late night parties where there were always plenty of drugs, alcohol, and sex. Belinda could keep up with the best of them. Staying out all night, smoking pot, drinking beer, screwing whoever wanted to screw her. She’d stagger in before her parents awoke, catch a few hours of sleep, then get up and do it all again.
She was one of those girls who thought she was indestructible; and therefore did everything she could to self destruct.
She was a fool to think there wouldn’t be consequences to her actions. Karma’s a bitch, she reminded herself. In the middle of her senior year, she discovered that she was pregnant. An ultrasound would later show that she was having a baby girl.
“So who’s the father?” her friend Kat asked.
Belinda didn’t tell Kat that she had no idea who the father was. It could be any number of asshole losers that she’d screwed in the last few months. She wouldn’t expose her baby to any of those guys, no fucking way.
She thought about her own father, who she hadn’t spoken to in years. She referred to him now as “the sperm donor”. Her mother acted all offended at the term, but Belinda saw her smile the first time she heard her say it.
“It doesn’t matter,” Belinda said. “I’m going to raise this baby on my own.” She wasn’t being brave. In her mind, she had no other choice.
Other than Abraham, she had come to believe that men were the most unreliable animals on the planet. They screw you, they use you, they toss you away. End of story. Thank you, drive through.
The thing that she feared the most about being pregnant was having to tell her parents. Kat offered to come with her for moral support, but Belinda said no, she had to do it alone.
She knew how disappointed in her Abraham would be. She knew how ashamed her mother would be. She had let them both down when they had given her everything.
The news would devastate them, but she hoped they wouldn’t shun her. She was going to need their support now more than ever.
“What are you going to do about college?” Kat asked.
“Oh shit,” Belinda said. “I forgot all about that.”
Even with her late night antics she had managed to keep her grades high. She was a smart girl. Too smart to be in the predicament she was in.
She had applied to the local University and received the acceptance letter a week before she realized she was pregnant. Abraham had graciously offered to pay her tuition, but Belinda flatly refused. She didn’t want Abraham to spend his hard-earned money on her. This was something she would do on her own.
She had applied for enough student loans and grants to help her get through the first year. She planned on getting a job waiting tables to pay her expenses.
“Belinda, what about college?” Kat asked again.
Belinda cupped a hand behind her ear and sighed. “Hear that? That’s the sound of my future going down the drain.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“You’re pregnant?” Her mother said the words, then covered her mouth with a hand. Her eyes filled with tears. They ran down her cheeks and dripped onto her sari. She made no move to wipe them away.
Abraham sat directly across from Belinda at their kitchen table. He looked stunned, like he didn’t know what to say. His eyes widened a bit, his mouth hung open, but he didn’t say anything.
“Abraham?” Belinda asked. “Please, say something.”
“I’m not sure what to say.” Abraham closed his mouth and bit at the inside of his lip. He looked at his wife, who was now crying into a kitchen towel. He asked her, “What should we do?”
Belinda frowned at him. “Why are you asking her?”
“Because she’s your mother,” Abraham said. He put a hand on his wife’s shoulder and asked again. “Homira, what should we do?”
Belinda’s mother wiped her eyes and sniffed back the tears. “We have to find the baby a good home, with a loving family,” she said, nodding as if it were a done deal. “That’s the only thing we can do.”
“Who do we call?” Abraham asked. “A rabbi? A priest? A lawyer?”
“I’m not giving up my baby!” Belinda said, the tone of her voice causing them to blink. “I’m having this baby and I’m keeping it.”
“But Belinda,
you
are just a baby,” her mother said. “You have college in a few months. You have your entire life ahead of you!”
“I’ll go to college
and
raise my baby,” she said incredulously. “It’s done all the time.”
“That doesn’t mean you should try to do it,” Abraham said. He looked like he was about to start crying, as well, but Belinda knew it wasn’t because he was angry. It was because she had disappointed him. He had come to love her as his own daughter. He had no idea the baggage that came with the relationship.
“I can do this,” Belinda said, trying to keep her anger in check.
“You have no idea what you’re in for,” her mother said. “You had your whole life ahead of you. You had dreams. Now…”
“I still have dreams!”
“Belinda, please listen to your mama.” Abraham’s eyes were sympathetic, his tone soothing. Belinda knew he was trying to reason with her. She also knew there was no reasoning with her once her mind is made up.
“Belinda, you are seventeen,” he said. “College is difficult, even for someone as smart as you. How will you go to classes and work part time and raise a baby?”
“It’s not fair to the child,” he mother said. “It’s hard enough being a full time mother, much less a poor, single mother. Trust me. I’ve done it. You can’t be a mother part of the time.”
“Then you’ll have to help me,” Belinda said. She took her mother’s hand and forced her to look into her eyes. “Mama, look what a good job you’ve done of raising me. Until Abraham came along, you were the only parent I had. I mean, did you really do such a bad job?”
Her mother lowered her eyes and pulled back her hand. “I obviously didn’t do a very good job. Look at the situation you’re in.”
Belinda felt like she had been kicked in the face. She felt her heart break in two. If it hadn’t been for Abraham speaking up, she probably would have run away that night.
“That’s enough,” Abraham said. Something about his tone changed. His eyes were no longer sympathetic. They were determined. His tone was no longer soothing. It was strong and forceful. At that moment, Abraham Banner truly became the father she never had.
“I am the man of this house. I am the father. Belinda, you are a wonderful child who is now with a wonderful child of her own. We will have no more discussion about adoption.”
“But, Abraham…” Her mother tried to interrupt, but Abraham put up a hand to shush her.
“You said it yourself. Every baby deserves a loving family. That’s what we are. You, me, and Belinda. We will help Belinda raise this baby and get through college so she can build a good life for the two of them.”
“But, Abraham…”
“No more butts!” Abraham said. He reached out his hands to them. Belinda took the right, her mother took the left. Abraham said, “We will raise this child with as much love as we three can muster. We are a family. Now, not another word.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Belinda gave birth to a 7 pound, 4 ounce, baby girl just after she finished her first semester at the University. Homira bragged to the nurses that her brave daughter was a nursing student and would be working with them very soon.
“Four more years, mama,” Belinda said between contractions, though she was thinking that the ordeal she was currently going through might drive her out of the medical profession forever.
The labor was long and difficult and nothing like she expected, but in the end, it was worth every ounce of blood, sweat, and tears. The moment she heard the baby cry, Belinda knew she would have immediately gone through it all again.
“You have a perfect baby girl,” the doctor said, smiling behind the surgical mask. She held the baby up for Belinda to see. Even covered in blood and goop, she was the most beautiful thing Belinda had ever seen.
The baby was perfect; ten fingers, ten toes, two eyes, and a great set of lungs. When she cried out, her little lips quivered and her whole body shuddered. Just the sight of her made Belinda cry.
“Please bring her to me!” Belinda cried at the nurse who had taken the baby to clean her off.
“Patience,” the nurse said with a smile. “I’ll clean her off and then you can hold her till your heart’s content.”
Belinda tried to be patient, but it was hard for her. Patience had never been her strongest suit. She lay back, sweating and spent, and stared at the ceiling while the doctor sewed up the episiotomy. Belinda closed her eyes and when she opened them again the nurse was handing her the baby.
“Oh my God…” Belinda said quietly, looking into the tiny eyes that were strikingly similar to her own. The baby had a dark complexion and wisps of dark hair, like her mother.
Belinda named her Arianna Ravelli: Ari, for short. From the moment she saw her daughter she was thankful that she hadn’t decided to give her up.
Even Homira was glad when the baby arrived, though she didn’t much care that Belinda was now calling her Nana Homira. The first time she held her granddaughter, however, her heart swelled with pride and she started referring to herself with the nickname.
She still wasn’t happy that her daughter was a mother so young
and
out of wedlock, but there was nothing she could do. Abraham had given his blessing and seemed more excited than anyone that a baby was joining his family.
CHAPTER SIX
Her mother always told her that when you have a child, the years go rushing by. Belinda could hardly believe how true that was. Arianna would be turning three years old in a month and she would be graduating from the University with her degree in nursing at the end of the current term.
She and Ari still lived with Abraham and Homira, both of who flatly refused to let her and the baby move out until Belinda graduated and found work.
She was grateful for their support. Her mom took care of Ari while she was at school during the day and when she was waiting tables at the Red Lobster at night. She hated that she was away from her baby girl so much, but she knew that soon it would change and they would start building a life of their own.
She was exhausted most of the time. When she wasn’t in class or studying or working she spent every waking moment with Ari. They went to the park, watched Barney videos, played with her toys on a blanket on the floor. Those were the moments she cherished. Everything else was just putting in the time until graduation day.
It was during her last year of college that she noticed her mother changing. The dynamic woman was suddenly tired all the time. She complained of aches and pains in her muscles and joints. There were times when her hands would tremble and she would stumble over her words.
Belinda was a four-year nursing student who would graduate at the top of her class. She was well-versed in the symptoms of various diseases, so when her mother started showing the telltale signs of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or ALS – commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease -- she immediately made her mother an appointment with one of the doctors she knew from doing rounds at the University hospital.
Belinda prayed she was wrong, but she knew the likelihood of that was slim. She was the top nursing student in the program and had job offers already waiting when she graduated. She knew she wasn’t wrong, but she had never wanted to be wrong so badly in her life.
In the words of the doctor who examined her mother, her diagnosis was right on the mark.
Her mother was diagnosed with advanced ALS and given six to nine months to live. She didn’t last that long. Within a few months she was bedridden and within a few months of that, she was hospitalized on a ventilator. Abraham’s heart was broken. All he could do was watch the love of his life waste away.
He came to the hospital every day. He read to her. He sang her songs. He told her stories of Arianna and the funny things she did. He held her hand when the doctor removed the ventilator to let her die.
Belinda watched him sob like a little baby and her heart broke a little more. Abraham’s life would never be the same.
And little Arianna would probably not even remember her Nana Homira.