Free A Constant Reminder by Lolah Lace Page B

long I’ve been sleep.”
    “Are you sticking with the same name you picked out?” Erika asked.
    “Yeah, she looks like a Morgan.” Roxanne smiled when she thought of her baby.
    “Uhhhh, she looks more than that.”
    “What’s that mean?” Roxanne sat up in bed. Her body was stiff.
    “Seriously?” Erika glanced out the hospital window.
    “What are you talking about?” Roxanne wished Erika would stop talking in riddles.
    “Girl stop. I know you were drugged but I know you seen your baby.”
    Yeah she had seen how incredibly perfect she was. “What?”
    “You’re brown and your baby is white as snow.”
    “Erika I know what color Morgan is.”
    “So you know what that means.”
    “Yes I do. But I think it’s messed up that you pick right now to point that out to me. I just had her. She’s my daughter. I don’t care about the…him.”
    “Damn I’m sorry. I was just stating the obvious.”
    “You know that topic is off limits. I mean it Erika. I’m not ever trying to revisit that, ever again.”
    “Okay fine. I’m sorry.”
    “I love my baby. I don’t care about how I got her or where she came from. I don’t care.”
    “Okay, okay, fine.”
    Roxanne rolled her eyes at Erika. She couldn’t believe she said that insensitive thing. It was rude. It was inappropriate. It was how Erika operated, speaking before thinking.
    After eighteen hours or labor Erika felt the need to point out the undeniable fact that her newborn baby was half white.
    Roxanne was still tired but she felt great after she held her daughter in her arms. It had been a rough nine months. Roxanne had gone long periods of time without even thinking of the rape. Then this cow, Erika waltzes in here telling her something that she already knew. She had eyes, two good ones. She could see her own daughter’s pale milk creamy complexion.
    These were the instances that made Roxanne question their friendship. Was Erika a bitch or did she lack common sense? Sure Erika had been there for her but sometimes she wondered what her motives were.
    Erika was extremely promiscuous but not one time did Roxanne ever throw it up in her face. She didn’t even turn her nose up when Erika told her she had a threesome with some guy she barely knew and his girlfriend. Why couldn’t Erika be the friend she was to her?
    Maybe it was that low rent family she came from. All Erika’s people were loud and opinionated. Being around Erika’s family was too much. She wished Erika would stop being such a killjoy but that probably would never happen. She always could find the negativity in any situation. Maybe Erika just wasn’t happy. Maybe her attitude would change as soon as she found happiness.
    Time was the best medicine for the wounds Roxanne had suffered. Roxanne’s mother made life easy for her daughter and her grandchild. Roxanne was allowed to live rent free with her mother and she didn’t have to look for a job until six months after Morgan’s birth. Roxanne survived on her unemployment benefits. She had worked her campus job even after graduation and stopped working only a week before she gave birth.
    Things had changed. She had a baby now. She used to be plagued with nightmares. Now she had nightmares of an entirely different kind.
     
    ***
     
    Roxanne was fast asleep in her mother’s apartment. Being a new mother made her tired in a way she never felt before. Her fear woke her from her deep sleep. She frantically sat up in bed and looked around the room. She peered over to an empty baby crib. Where was her baby girl?
    Panic hit her in her gut. Roxanne hopped out of bed and ran over to the next bedroom in a frantic search for her baby. She spotted her mother Margaret sitting on her bed holding her infant granddaughter in her arms. The relief set in her sternum. She didn’t know what she would do if something happened to Morgan.
    Her fear of being attacked was now replaced with her fear of losing her daughter. Her mother had told her these fears