A Part of Me Still Believes
©Kimber - 2002
Winslow sat quietly staring across the fire at the rose Vincent held in his hand. Musical laughter rang in his ears and Winslow followed it back...
Another end of another long day, walking across the dark, empty common ground to the door of his section of the building in the projects. A full day of high school and vo-tech and then a full evening of work at the garage. Now it was time to go up those stairs to the apartment he shared with Keisha and their baby girl Danielle. His family was the light of his life and the strength that kept him going through all this. The bubbly baby giggle he loved so much stayed in his heart wherever he went and whatever he was doing. He knew that Keisha and he had made a mistake having a child so young but he just couldn't see Danni as a mistake or an accident. She was a gift from God and if he never slept for the rest of his life she would have everything she needed in this world.
Keisha was the love of his life, or at least he had thought so at the time. Love means something completely different when you're 16, living with your folks and the most important thing you do in a day is finish that book report and get through football practice without getting yelled at by Coach. The scouts were sniffing around from Florida State and Notre Dame and Coach wanted him to make good. He had potential and Notre Dame was a really good school. He could get a great education there as well as a shot at the NFL. But when Keisha joined the cheerleading squad his focus started shifting. They had been dating for about 3 months when the Fall Dance came around and one thing led to another... A couple of months later she told him about the baby. He went through a gamut of emotions half of which he never knew existed before but after sitting up all night talking, they decided that talking to their folks would be the best thing to do. Winslow's parents were devout church goers and they had always been there for him. He knew he had messed up but they would understand and help him, they always had before.
He climbed the last flight of stairs, cursing the super for not getting the elevator fixed for the last 4 months and looking forward to seeing Keisha and peeking in at his sleeping Danni. She had finally started sleeping through the night and it was a relief for both he and Keisha. Keisha hadn't been doing well after the pregnancy. She just got more and more depressed and erratic. She'd had to leave school to take care of the baby since both of their parents had kicked them out of the house and disavowed any responsibility for either them or the baby. Neither set of grandparents had seen the baby or even knew her name, nor did they want to and her friends had drifted away over time so she was completely alone during the day. He tried to get her to talk to someone when she took the baby to the clinic for check ups but she just kept saying she didn't think public assistance would cover it and that she would be fine. Many nights he sat up with her and the baby, rocking them both while they cried. He prayed to God, asking for help, knowing that this was all too much for a 17 year old to handle but every day the answer seemed to be "No".
Winslow reached into his pocket, pulled out his keys, turned the deadlock then got the key to the door knob and opened it. Everything was dark which meant that Danni had gone down easy and it would be a quiet night. 'Thank heaven for small miracles' he smiled to himself as he set his keys and lunchbox down on the table. He walked down the short hall to the bedroom and noticed a faint glow under the door. Opening it quietly he went in. Keisha was sitting in the rockingchair with Danni in her arms. She was rocking and humming and staring off into space and Danni was laying quiet and motionless. His stomach clenched and he walked slowly over to them. "Keisha...honey..." He kneeled down and touched Danni's cheek. It was cold as ice. He clenched his fists and pushed the wail of anguish down inside, squeezing the tears from his eyes.
"Keisha...honey, whachya doin'?"
Keisha's eyes never moved, never blinked, she kept right on rocking. "I got her to go to sleep. She was really fussy but I got her to sleep."
The tears were flowing freely down his face now. "How did you do that, honey?" Without looking away from the spot in space she held out the small decorative pillow they had bought at the consignment store they day they brought Danni home from the hospital.
"She's such a good baby, Winslow. She's sleeping so well now isn't she?"
"Yeah, baby, she's sleeping really well now." He stood and went back through the hallway to the front door and into the corridor. Two doors down was the payphone and there he called 911. When the police, ambulance and social services showed up they found Winslow on the floor quietly rocking Keisha and Danni.
After they left Winslow threw his keys back on the table and walked out the door, down the stairs and out on the street. He walked for hours in no direction in particular. His mind spun. Where had it all gone? What kind of punishment is this? How could this happen? What had he done to deserve this? What had Keisha done? What had Danni done?
He found himself wandering in an area around the elevated tracks. There was a cardboard city under the tracks and he walked over to look around. There were several people there, living and surviving in this microcosm. No one looked at him, or tried to talk to him. They completely ignored his presence. 'Perfect' He found an abandoned structure and crawled inside, laid down and slept. By his watch it was 2 days later when he finally woke up. He rolled on his back and took some time to remember where he was and why. The sorrow and anguish and grief all rushed to the surface at once but had nowhere to go. He could not cry, he would not rage so he crawled out of the structure and started walking again.
The days past and his pattern remained the same, walk and sleep, think and hurt, and get more and more angry with the whole world. He occasionally thought about Keisha, wondered what happened to her; Danni, hoping someone gave her a decent burial; his parents and what they were doing now but he pushed those thoughts away and kept walking. One particularly cold evening he thought he would try to get inside for the night and get some sleep. He had passed an ally about a block from where he was that he had seen people coming in and out of and thought there may be an open basement down there somewhere. In the days and weeks since he left the apartment, he had only eaten sporadically and he had lost much of the weight he had carried during school, so when he found the ground level window broken out it was a matter of little effort to slip through.
He found himself in a storeroom stacked with boxes and crates and some large bags of flour. He set to arranging the bags for a sleeping pallet and moving some of the crates to shield him in case anyone looked down there before morning. Behind the crates he found an opening in the wall. As he looked further inside the opening he noticed a passage that went back underneath the buildings. 'Now this has promise,' he thought. Climbing through the opening and following the passage his only thought was finding a hole deep enough to crawl into. Finally, he came to a junction that led to what looked to be tunnels carved out of the bedrock itself. Turning back he took a deep breath and said "Bye Bye Danni, my sweet little girl, Daddy loves you".
Winslow came back to the fire and his friends Vincent and Pascal and reaffirmed for himself that this trip was worth the risk. He needed to keep Vincent from feeling what he had felt that day at any cost. He knew the love Vincent and Catherine felt and wanted to know that it could survive and flourish somewhere in the world. Paracelsus be damned if he got in the way.