Roxanne's story (New Dawn)

NOTE: I wrote this story a couple of years ago. I planned to post it for "R" day. Coincidently I was feeling kind of lazy today anyway.

The following is a work of non-fiction


New Dawn (Or Roxanne's story)

I stared at the pregnancy test. This just couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t be. I was going to leave him. What was I going to do now? The two pink lines stared up at me. Oh, God! Oh God, one child already not 5 months old. I put my forehead in my hands as I bowed my head in frustration. My long dark hair fell about my arms and in front of my face. Oh, how I hated that man I was planning on leaving. I had fallen prey to his lack of responsibility when it came to family and keeping promises. Oh, that I would have listened to my mother. The fault wasn’t just his. It was mine too, and I knew it. What a mess I was making out of my life! Why had I gotten involved in this relationship to begin with? Maybe I was sad and lonely. Maybe I was looking to fill the void of a childhood without a decent male father figure. I hadn’t any excuses that would justify, in my mind, this travesty of a relationship anyway.

I decided that the best thing to do was to call my mother right away and be out with it. Her reaction was exactly like I thought it would be. “Oh, my gosh! How did this happen? Weren’t you being careful?”

“Yes” I lied. In truth I wanted to be careful, but I lacked sufficient will over his. I began to cry as if my heart was breaking, crumbling in to millions of little pieces. How stupid I had been over the past two years. I had allowed myself to be emotionally abused and controlled to the point that I couldn’t even glance at another man without being accused of cheating.

“Honey, why are you crying?” my mother asked.

“I just don’t know what to do! What am I going to do with two kids? I can’t even take care of myself!”

“I told you. You should have left him before Isabella was born.”

“I know.” I said still sobbing.

“It isn’t too late. You know you can always come and stay with me.”

“I know. I gotta go. I can’t talk any more.”

As I hung up I continued to cry. I knew it was time to leave. The problem was getting up the nerve to tell him. I didn’t think I had a good enough reason.

Over the next few months I tried hard to find a “good enough” reason to tell him I was leaving him. After all as far as I knew he had been clean for a while, or at least I hadn’t caught him at it. So, that was the trick. I needed to catch him in a lie, and for that I had to quit believing his lies. That’s what my mother always told me. That’s what annoyed me the most about her. She was always right.

I was finding myself more and more in the pit as I continued to stay in that relationship. He continued to speculate as to what sex the baby was going to be, but I knew he wanted a boy this time. “Not like it’s going to matter once I leave you.” I thought. I too thought that I might just have a boy, but I struggled with feeling any real affection for the child growing within my womb, and I felt increasingly guiltier. I wanted to love my child, and perhaps I did even if I didn’t know it. I worried that if I didn’t love it enough than he/she would die, and that thought occupied me night and day so that I was determined to drive away this indifference toward my coming second child, and so ensure its safety.

Meanwhile I had very little to eat and my other little baby was just scraping by as well. Where was all the money going? I had to catch him. This was my “good enough reason”, but strange fear kept me from outright accusing him of spending the money on drugs without proof.

One night when I was about two or three months along I had a strange and wonderful dream. I was sitting in a hospital bed having just given birth. Beside me was the man I despised, and on my lap was a child. It was a baby boy. Cute though he was he was wearing a blue and red sweat suit and was overly large for a newborn. Black hair adorned his head and inside his mouth were two shiny white teeth. He-who-shall-remain-unnamed and I were playing with this overly large child, and the small boy was laughing and giggling. Quite suddenly the child drew my finger into his mouth and bit me. “Ouch!” At that very moment comprehension dawned on me. Also at the very same moment a hospital attendant walked in. He was tall and good looking with sleek black hair his demeanor was calm, and he had the kindest smile on his face. To him I said, “Excuse me. I’m sorry, but this is not my baby. He is too big and has teeth.”

“I’m very sorry about the mix up.” He replied to me in kind tones that reflected his looks completely. He then took the child off my lap an exited the room.

Not a moment later the attendant reentered the room. He was carrying a very large mirror. It was so large that he being a tall man carried it with his arms spread out wide. It might even have been heavy, but he was not burdened. The frame of the mirror was large and intricately carved. It reminded me of Victorian furniture, and upon the reflective surface of the glass was written the name “Roxanne.”

I looked down as the attendant set the mirror upon the empty bed next to mine. I was holding a beautiful newborn baby girl, and my despised partner had vanished from the scene. I was happy.

I sat up in bed the next morning with the full details of my dream vividly placed in my mind. I wrinkled my nose at the unusual name “Roxanne,” a name not often given to anyone this century or the last for that matter. I had entertained the idea of the name “Aurora” if I had a girl because it means “dawn,” but I disliked the name “Dawn,” and I thought Aurora was a bit too unusual sounding.

I got up and wondered about that dream. It was telling me that I was going to have a girl and that she was to be named Roxanne. The dream was a message to me. It was too vivid and precise to be ignored. I pulled out my baby name book. I turned the pages to “A,” then “C,” then “G,” and at last I ended up at “R” where I quickly scanned to the name “Roxanne.”

Name) Roxanne
Origin) Persian
Meaning) Dawn

I was astonished. I had just dreamed of the only other name in the world that meant “dawn.” This was not only a dream about my child, but a dream that told me in no uncertain terms that the birth of my child would be the dawn of a new and different life for me. How could I ignore that? I couldn’t.

Nevertheless it took me another month to get up the nerve to do what I knew I had to do. The week after I did I was moved out and with my mother who not only helped me but was to me the most supportive and loving friend I could ask for in this life. The best part was that I was able to love my child without even trying. This child came with the dawn of my new life and the dawn of my new self and is, therefore, called Roxanne.


The Beginning