A Cold Day

It was a cold October morning in Jersey City as Marlene made her way to the train station. Smelling the breath of the morning deep inside made her happy in a way she had not felt pleasure in a very long time. She looked lovingly at the baby girl in her arms and smiled at her.

"I am going to do the right thing today for you," she whispered to the baby.

And as if the baby understood her, she looked up at her mother and smiled sweetly. The smile sent a sharp pain to her heart. To see that smile that wraps itself around her face and causes a twinkle in her eyes, her mother could see hope in such a gesture. Marlene's heart hurt now for the child in her arms.

What will become of you? What if this lady does not want you? What if I misread the longing in the eyes of that woman? These thoughts and questions tumbled over Marlene's mind as she tried to answer them all. How can this child seem so contented when she must be so very hungry? It was as if the baby knew there was no food for her when she cried.

She kept giving her the milk from her breast, but she was still hungry, and Marlene had no additional nourishing food for her. She had breastfed the baby two hours ago. Maybe she is not hungry yet. She reasoned in her heart, denying herself the truth.

She became more resolved than ever. This was something she would do for her child. It was as if some force beyond herself were moving her in the direction she should go. She hoped she would be allowed to know the family who would be given her twenty-week-old daughter.

She had held on as long as she could to the child, but she could no longer listen to her child's cries of hunger and do nothing. She had no nourishing food to eat herself, so her milk was weak and not filling for the baby. She had not eaten a decent meal in days.

How can I eat the leftovers from fast-food places where I beg the restaurants before it goes into the garbage and then give good milk to my child?

No, she would no longer live like this or make her child suffer any more. This was decision day. The cold, damp floor in the boarded-up, abandoned house in this run-down section of Jersey City would no longer be their home. It was a safe haven after she left the hospital with the tiny bundle. No one noticed her. She was just another girl wandering down the halls of the hospital. No one stopped her, and thankfully, the baby did not wake up or cry. She had the baby wrapped in a blanket, yet no one noticed the bundle in her arms as she made her way through the side door of the hospital into the parking garage and then slipped out unnoticed.

Marlene was happy they did not see her. She just could not give up the baby. She knew the hospital would not let her leave with the baby, seeing she had no home address. It was a requirement for follow-up visits when an unwed mother gave birth, especially one as young as sixteen-year-old Marlene. They suspected she lived on the street, which was true.

She hoped the police were not looking for her, for she felt sure the hospital reported the baby missing and the mother leaving without being discharged, but it was her child, and they had no right to take her. Marlene thought she could take care of her baby.

Some care I am taking.

The way she was living in that abandoned shack she called home was the lifestyle of rats, not humans. This deserted house was no place for a mother and baby. There was the smell of stale beer and urine against the walls that lingered all the time. The drug dealers and users occasionally used the house as a drug den, but they must have vacated the location, for Marlene never saw any of them in the time she had been there, although she saw plenty of evidence that they were once there. The foul smell was more than she could take, but she couldn't do anything. She had no money saved. She had no bank account. She did not have what was needed to open a bank account when she was working before she got pregnant. She had no address to give, and banks always needed an address.

They always paid her in cash, and she hid the money on her body, but someone always seemed to rob her the day she got paid. She had no official identification to prove who she was; therefore, she could not cash a check. She could not drive anyway, so she could not get a license. She had no friends or relatives to stay with, and no one knew her in this city. She wanted to run as far from home as she could, and this place seemed far enough.

Lack of Love

Marlene's parent never showed her love. In fact, they treated her as an intruder into their lives. They would have preferred a dog over her. Sometimes, she saw the look on her mother's face in her drunkard haze, that one that said, "Who are you, and what are you doing in my house?" They never wanted her or showed her kindness. She was conceived in a drinking and drug haze. Her mother was too stoned to get an abortion. When she was born, they did not know what to do with her. It would have been merciful if they had just walked away and left her at the hospital, but no, they took her home and dropped her on the floor, where she stayed for several days. She was fed only when her crying got through her mother's drunken stupor. As she grew older, she scrounged around for the food they left on the floor until she was old enough to reach the stove and cook ... if what she did was considered cooking. Most of the meals she ate in those days were parboiled, but they kept her alive. She wondered many days how she survived.

If there were groceries in the house, someone brought them and left them at the door. Hunger was Marlene's constant friend. It forced her to eat. There was never anything fresh in the house. Even the fruits were stale or rotten. She grew up malnourished in the greatest and richest country in the world, and no one knew or cared that she lived like a rat.

No one noticed that her growth was abnormal or that she was skin and bones. If she drank milk or ate cheese, it was usually at school when she was allowed to go. Sometimes, her parents were missing from the house for days, and the neighbors would hear her cries and come and give her food to eat, but they never took her to their homes or called child services. No one called to report her abuse. They never cared enough to get involved. She wished they had, for at least she would have gotten to eat.

Marlene had never known the gentleness of a mother's touch as she hummed a song to her baby. She had never known the playfulness of a father or trust and confidence in her parents. These feelings were never embedded in her. Fear and the instinct to run were deep within her. When her parents began fighting and swearing, instinct told her to run and hide, for they threw bottles and any object they got their hands on at each other. And if she were in the way, she was very often hit and bruised.

They never held her with hands of loving kindness, all the things normal families shared and taught their children. She was never kissed or picked up when she cried as a child. They simply stepped over her and walked away, ignoring her until she stopped crying. Her life had been one of abandonment. She had these issues that seemed to follow her around. No one seemed to want her. Her life was a series of people coming and then leaving her. She trusted no one. She did not know why. She did not know how to fix herself, but she knew something was broken inside of her.

What is it all about? She never understood the idea of love. What is it?

Someone told her it was a feeling when you are close to someone you cared about. It was not a feeling she ever experienced. She felt a strange stirring in her belly when she held her baby daughter close to her heart.

Is this love? It made her tingle all over. It felt good.

She hugged the baby closer. She looked at this little bundle in her arms. It stirred her deep in her belly, which gave her a feeling of great joy.

Whatever made me think I could care for a child?

The hunger to care for someone who would, in turn, care for her caused her to consider keeping the baby. She now saw the selfishness in that plan, for when you love and care for someone, you want the best for him or her. She was not able to give her daughter the best care. You need to know what a mother does before you can be a mother. She had no idea how to be a mother to this innocent baby in her arms.

A mother never cared for her. So how could I know how to care for this child?

Children learn love and care from their parents. They give what they get. She never received care from her mother. She had no idea how to give care. No, the baby was better off in the hospital where someone would adopt her and give her a good home, something she never had. Her mind was made up that day to return the baby to the hospital. That was the day the Lord sent Madge into her life.

Hope

Madge gave hope to Marlene that there were good people in the world who cared for strangers. She did not know much about God, only what she heard from the cook, a big fellow from Georgia, at one of the many restaurants where she worked. He always had the radio tuned to what he called a Christian gospel station. No one would change the station even if he or she wanted to. He threatened to remove the hand of anyone who changed his station, so no one ever did. Everyone all learned to listen and keep quiet.

She would ask him questions about what the preacher on the radio was saying, but he said he was a new Christian and did not have any answers for her questions. He just came in one morning and announced he was now a Christian and things would change in the kitchen. He said there was no more cussing or sloppy behavior. He said he was a changed man and Jesus had given him a new mind. He would be doing things the right way, and true to his words, no one heard him swearing or cussing from that day. He was even kinder toward her. He always ignored her before.

She wondered about how he got the new mind, but she never asked. He was always saying how good Jesus was to have saved him. He never said from what he was saved. She prayed that morning for strength to give up the baby.

She was praying to the God that Henry the Cook called Jesus. She wished she asked more questions about this Jesus and exactly where she could find him. She felt when she muttered that prayer that Jesus heard her prayer and Madge was the answer. This was the first time in her life that someone had ever shown her kindness. Madge was lost. She was trying to get away from a blocked road caused by an accident when she turned down a side street, hoping to get further up the road from where the accident was. She found herself on Marlene's street and stopped to ask directions from her.

It was a changed day for her, but she did not know it at first. Marlene was sitting on a broken chair on a broken porch in the front of the abandoned house where she had been living for the past twenty weeks since the baby was born. She had fallen asleep on that broken, rickety chair, wanting to go to the hospital with the baby but not desiring to leave. She sat and fell asleep. Madge was only seeking directions back to the main road, but she did not get much help. Marlene did not know the neighborhood.

Madge parked the car and walked up to the front step because Marlene did not respond to her when she called. Madge knew the neighborhood was rough, but what harm could there be from a mother and child? She opened the car door and walked up the porch steps. Marlene did not hear her until she was standing in front of her and the baby.

"Do you live here?" the lady asked.

"No," Marlene replied, "I am waiting for a friend. He should be coming any minute now."

Somehow, the lady knew she was lying. She asked directions to get back on the main road, but Marlene was no help. The baby opened her eyes and started to cry.

"Looks like he is hungry," Madge said.

"Oh, it's not a boy. It's a girl."

"What is her name?"

"MaryAnn."

"What a beautiful name," Madge said. "My name is Madge. And yours?"

"Marlene."

"How old is the baby?"

"Twenty weeks."

"Can I hold her?"

Madge took the baby from Marlene as she held out the baby to her. The baby kept crying as she rocked her and cooed to her. The baby looked up at Madge and seemed to wonder who this stranger was. She stopped the crying as she seemed to be thinking. Then she started crying again.

"Maybe this lady will give me food," the baby seemed to be saying, "if I continue crying."

"I think she is hungry. Where is her bottle?" Madge asked.

"I breastfeed her." Marlene was too ashamed to tell her that she had no bottle for the baby as she had no money to buy the formula that goes into the bottle.

"This is so strange," Madge said. "I feel as if I have known you both for days. Is there anything I can do for you? It seems as if it is going to rain, and you do not want to get wet on this porch with the baby. Can I give you a ride to your home? How far away do you live from here?"

How can I tell her this was where I lived? She had no home to go to, but in fact, she lived in this smelly, abandoned house.

"No," Marlene said. "We are fine. My friend will be here shortly. I will wait."

"Are you sure I cannot take you somewhere else?" Madge asked again. "Can I come and visit the baby? She seems so attached to me."

Madge still had the baby in her arms, and she had not given the baby back to Marlene as she turned to leave.

"We're moving," Marlene said. "I'm moving back to Philadelphia in a day and won't be here."

In her mind, Marlene wondered where she was going in Philadelphia. She was lying. It was the first thing that came to her mind. Her mother was dead, and the murderer was her father. He still lived there, but she would never go back to that trailer in which she grew.

"Well, before you leave, you must let me see you and the baby again," Madge heard herself saying.

What on earth is going on with me? Madge wondered. Something within her was saying she must stop this girl and her baby from leaving. This behavior and action was strange coming from her. She was not known to take to strangers this quickly and such a one as her, but something was going on here. She was destined to intervene. Must be the baby. My hunger and desire for a child must be clouding my actions.

Something about this picture disturbed Madge in a manner. She had rarely been troubled. It seemed to go down to her very spirit. Something was wrong, and she knew it in her inner being. She felt a sharp pain in her heart, almost as if she were bleeding. She instinctively knew that the bleeding was coming from the heart of this young girl and was being transferred to her. There was also danger in this place. She must get them away from here at any cost. The child seemed to be tugging at her heart.

"How about if I come tomorrow and take you out for a meal?" Madge asked.

The sound of a hot meal sounded so tempting to Marlene. Without thinking, she said yes. She would meet her at this same spot at twelve noon.

Madge was surprised at her boldness to this young girl, but in her spirit, she could feel she was on the right track. She could not put her fingers on it. She did not feel a friend was coming, and she knew they were in danger. Madge could not think of anything else to say as she walked to her car. She could not leave. She turned around to the girl and her baby. Something would not let Madge leave.

"Would you like to go out now for a meal?" she asked.

"Yes," said Marlene, almost joyfully.

"Do you know the restaurants around here? I do not know this part of the city."

Madge lived in ritzy Inglewood Estates, where every home cost over a million dollars. Her home value was over three million. Only an accident would have brought her to this part of the city.

Marlene did not know the city, but she replied, "Just down the road is a diner. We could go there."

She figured that a diner was always just down the road in New Jersey. They came to a diner a few blocks away and went in. Something deep within Madge moved her to extend the invitation for the meal. She heard a cry from within this young girl with the baby. It was something that cried out from this young girl's spirit for help.

Madge, who was sensitive to the calling of the Holy Spirit, caught it. What is the matter? There is a problem here.

Madge felt the Holy Spirit saying to her, "I have called you to this mission. Fulfill it."

"How old are you?" Madge gently asked the young girl.

"Sixteen. The baby is twenty weeks old."

She could not let go the feeling of desperation in this girl. She asked her questions that would reveal the truth. She felt an urgency to offer help.

"What should I do? Help me, Lord," she said under her breath. "Show me what to do."

After lunch was over, she stopped and brought her a bag of groceries that included cookies, milk, and a blanket, along with formula for the baby and some bottles for feeding. Marlene did not let her eagerness for the things she received showed. She took the bag as she climbed out of the car in front of the old house. She walked up to the house but did not go in.