Free Fade to Black (The Black Trilogy Book 1) by MC Webb

necessary. She was coaching me. I didn’t think I’d ever shown interest in the work of a midwife, but she was coaching me nonetheless.
    Lana, as Nana later explained as we left her to rest a while, had gotten pregnant by a married man. The baby was going to live with the man and his wife, raising him as their own. Lana didn’t seem to have any concerns about this decision.
    Later that evening I checked on her, she openly admitted as much to me.
    “I mean, honestly? He’s going to be much better off with his family than with me,” she said sleepily. “And besides,” she added, smiling at me. “I’m going to be an actress. I wouldn’t be able to give him the attention he deserves.”
    I just listened, knowing the first rule of delivering babies is you never, ever judge the mothers. Not their age or color or reasons. Lana and I talked and got to know each other a little as I cleaned around the room, killing time, and enjoying the company, even as odd as it was.
    Lana was a high school dropout, who worked at a diner on the edge of our little town. She was saving up her tips and longing for the day she got away from her “drunken whore of a mother” and “super-sized” granny and their tiny trailer in the Westland trailer park. She was going to be a famous actress when she finally got away.
    I wished I had some kind of dream, but for now all I knew was Daniel, and my mother had made sure I would never be able to do anything without their presence in my head. They were with me always, along with the awful words they’d said, and the things they’d done.
    When it was late, Nana had took the baby somewhere, and Lana had signed a bunch of papers that a lawyer for the family brought over, the adoption was complete. It was practical, but it still made me sad. I went to bed excited that I delivered a baby for the first time but sad that it was gone and that I would not know what he would grow to be. The little pieces of my heart still hurt at the thought of never being loved, and never being clean enough to have a family of my own.

 
     
    chapter nine
    Christmas was a huge deal at the Mitchell home, that year especially, now I was well enough to enjoy it. We cooked and baked for church people and neighbors. Nana and I took food to the less fortunate families that otherwise would not have anything. I loved every minute of it.
    When we visited the Logue family with baked pies and homemade fudge, I sat and watched Mickey Mouse Christmas with Josh while Nana and Mrs. Logue talked. Matthew, I assumed, had grown tired of me by now and didn’t feel the need to see me. I sat rigid and upset that he hadn’t at least come to say hello to me.
    I could hear Mrs. Logue and Nana gossiping in the kitchen. Leaving Josh to Mickey, I began to wander around the living room, looking at the decorations. The pictures of a happy family sat all over the room, scattered in different places, including pictures of the elder Mrs. Logue who had died a several years before. After she died, Mr. Logue refused to leave, so the family moved to Cosby permanently from Florida to take care of him.
    Something caught my eye and I looked out the window. There, setting on the hill was my blue barn, the image that started my dreams of escape from Daniel and the personal hell I was forced to live in. A light was on in its loft. I instantly turned and left the house, telling Nana I’d be back in a few minutes. I shut the door, not waiting for a reply. I climbed the hill quickly to the barn. I loved that thing—blue and ugly, but a symbol of home to me. I opened the doors and looked inside. There was nothing there. Just the dusty inside of a barn. I climbed the steps to the loft and found Matthew propped up on his elbows reading.
    “Oh, hey,” he said, with that crooked grin that made me blush. Laying the book down beside him, he sat up
    “I’m sorry,” I stammered, and I began to back away.
    “No, stay,” he said, getting to his feet. “I was trying