As a little girl in Colombia, Valentina longed for her father’s affection. It wasn’t that he was an absent man - but he worked two jobs to provide for his daughters, and young children don’t always understand why their daddies won’t play with them. When she got older, it was always the men like her father that caught her eye. Valentina moved to Canada at the age of seven, thrown into an entirely new culture before she’d had a chance to learn the language. It wasn’t hard to learn.

Valentina had one younger sister, a teenager named Esmeralda. They hadn’t spoken since Maia’s birth, and Valentina felt conflicted about this. She’d chosen to leave her religion, knowing full well it’d likely mean leaving her family too. At fifteen, she fell in love with a boy at work: gothic and outspoken, a boy her parents would surely not get along with. “You’re much too young to date,” her mother had shouted when Valentina brought it up. “You must focus on school and graduating, so you don’t have to work at an electronics store for the rest of your life.”

Four months after giving birth to Maia, Valentina graduated high school. She’d always wanted to start her family young, like her mother had done. She’d always wanted lots of children.

“Your boyfriend’s a freak,” Esmeralda said, after meeting Valentina at the store where she worked. “Why does he dress like that?”

Mosiah was much taller than her, and he had an air of haughtiness Valentina was attracted to. She’d never cared much about her sister’s opinion. “He’s hot. I love the way he dresses.

Esmeralda wrinkled her nose. “You do? Well, then you’re a freak too.”

From as young as about eleven, Valentina was looked at sexually by men many years older than her. When she started developing, she was no longer treated as that naive little girl, but as an object. As a teenager, she’d put up with this: knowing she was beautiful and desired. When every boy tries to get a date with you, it becomes a challenge to get the one who doesn’t.

“Mamá, come play!”

She’d just picked up Maia from daycare. The girl played in her room, dumping toys onto the floor and jumping over them. Valentina used to be energetic like that too. It was summer, and she was nearly six months pregnant. It wasn’t so uncomfortable yet, not like her pregnancy with Maia had been. She had a mild cramping in her stomach, and a dull backache, but the aches and pains had been far worse this pregnancy. “Coming, baby.” Being a mother was exhausting. Working from home with a toddler running at your feet was even more so.

Maia’s room had just been cleaned. On the days Mosiah had off, he’d spend his time cleaning and organising the duplex, claiming it was unhealthy to live in a messy environment. Valentina had always been impressed by this, as she was never a clean person herself. “What are we playing?”

Like most girls her age, Maia liked dolls. Valentina had liked dolls, as well, as a little girl. “Here,” she said, and thrust a Baby Alive doll at Valentina. “It’s my baby.”

“Your baby is so cute.” Spending time with Maia was priceless to Valentina. It was the biggest reason she’d chosen to pursue self-employment rather than an office job. “What’s her name?”

“We’re having a small issue with Maia,” the girl’s daycare teacher had said, the last time Valentina picked her up. “When we sit down together to eat our lunch, she stands and shouts: Hail Satan!”

Religious people were so uptight. A Christian could sit and say a prayer in the classroom, but heaven forbid a Muslim or Buddhist did the same. Satan wasn’t a figure, but an embodiment of human traits. “Sorry,” Valentina had said, though she wasn’t. “I’ll talk to her about it.”

Maia climbed onto her mother’s lap. “Butterfly Unicorn!”

The cramping in Valentina’s stomach eased, and then tightened again. “Wow, what a great name! Is she hungry?” After Maia’s birth, Valentina had nursed for eight months. She wasn’t sure it was something she wanted to do again this time around. “Are you hungry, Butterfly Unicorn?”

Maia giggled. “Silly mamá.” She’d been attending speech therapy, and had improved greatly in the past few months. “Pee!” Abrupt, Maia jumped from her mother’s lap, her feet slapping across the floor as she ran to the restroom.

“What are we going to do with Maia when the baby comes?”

It was a question she’d discussed with her husband more than once. He had no family in the area, and she wasn’t exactly on speaking terms with her own. “Maribel said she’d watch her.” Valentina’s best friend, Maribel, had been the first person she’d met after moving to Canada. Though she didn’t understand Valentina’s lifestyle, she was a supportive and loyal friend. “She said to just bring her over whenever, even if it’s the middle of the night.”

Her stomach hurt. The dull pain had become louder, as if something were pressing on her from the inside. Maia hollered from the restroom, needing to be cleaned. Valentina felt a cold dribbling down the inside of her thigh, and then a sharp pain. “Maia! Get me my phone!” Something was wrong. There shouldn’t have been this much pain. “Hurry!”

“Why would you marry a boy like that?”

Valentina’s mother always hated her husband. Valentina couldn’t really blame her for this. Paloma was an old-fashioned woman, and Mosiah wasn’t the most personable of people.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Mom, stop. He takes care of me. That should be enough for you.”

The little girl was naked, running from the restroom to the kitchen loudly and quickly. “Mamá, what’s wrong?” She held out the phone, her fingers sticky and cold, and frowned at Valentina. “Are you sad?” Keeled over on the floor, her face in her hands, Valentina supposed it was easy to mistake her anxiety for sadness.

“I’m not sad, baby.” It was hard to speak through the pressure on her stomach, which had seemed to come out of nowhere and now wouldn’t stop. The liquid dribbling down her thigh came faster, and she’d felt this before. “Go get your clothes on.” She was bleeding. A woman didn’t need to check to know if she was bleeding. When her husband was at work, it was hard to get hold of him.

“Pick up, pick up.”

Hearing his voice always made her feel better. “What’s up, sexy?”

Even when she was bloated and breaking out, he still said she was beautiful. A cramp hit, and then stopped. “I need you to come home. I think I’m in labour.” It had felt this way with Maia, too, though she was born on time. It was the same sense of pressure, the same dull backache, the same cool dribble. But it was far too early, and Valentina wasn’t ready.

When Valentina was pregnant with Maia, she didn’t have a hospital bag ready until the night of her birth. This time around, she’d planned on packing at her thirty week mark - but it hadn’t been that long, and she’d gotten nothing prepared. Perhaps it was a false alarm, and this baby wasn’t ready to be born yet. Whatever the case, something was wrong, and Valentina wasn’t willing to risk ignoring it. Before too long, it’d be Maia’s bedtime, and her routine would be all thrown off.

Mosiah arrived home much quicker than usual, probably grateful for an excuse to leave work early. He was an unruly driver at the most of times, and an impatient one the rest of the time. “Valentina!” Maia hadn’t dressed. She ran around the duplex nude, as she did often, as was fine when you were a child. “Are you okay?”

There was pain in her stomach, and her chest. “Something’s wrong.” She hobbled to the living room, falling onto the patchwork sofa. “It’s not time. I don’t know if she’s okay.” Twenty was far too young to be knowledgeable in the complications of pregnancy. Valentina was the first of her friends to have kids, and had no older mentors to guide her. “She can’t come out yet.”

Maia sat on the floor of the living room, cross-legged, watching her parents. Mosiah pulled Valentina onto his lap, putting a finger to her lips. “Take a breath, amor. We’ll take Maia to Maribel’s and get it figured out, okay?” He was holding it together surprisingly well. Valentina needed this. “Maia, go pick out an outfit.”

“If you have complications during this pregnancy like you did the last one, we’re not having anymore kids.”

She could get him to do anything. Everybody knew Valentina always got what she wanted.

“My stomach hurts.” Valentina slipped her shoes on, though it hurt quite a bit to stand up straight. “I’ve been bleeding a lot.” Mosiah helped Maia dress, as she was slow and clumsy, and they were in a hurry. Maribel lived nearby, and rarely asked questions.

“Why do you always ignore me?” she’d asked, planting herself at the table across from Mosiah after a shift they shared. He was hot, and the first boy to reject her advances. “You’re hot, and I’m hot. Let’s go out.”

At the time, his hair had been brown. Valentina liked it better dyed. “What if I say no?”

She smiled: the smile that always got people to give in to her. “Come on.” He was a hard egg to crack, but Valentina was determined. Something about being ignored made her feel excited. Boys were easy to control. All you had to do was turn them on. “You’re telling me you’re not attracted to me?” She’d unzipped her sweater, exposing her fitted work shirt, which had made her tits look huge. He’d look - they all would, that was the point. “You can touch them if you want.”

He’d muttered. “Goddamnit.” They stood very close, the only two employees in the staff room at that moment. Her hands were quick and steady, grabbing his, guiding them to her chest. “You’re such a flirt, Valentina.” She was good at it, too. He let out a breath, giving in. “Meet me in the parking lot.”

“Valentina?”

They were parked in the hospital parking lot, and the cramps in her abdomen were coming quicker. “Does something hurt?”

Jesus, he was gorgeous. “I’m having contractions. They’re getting stronger and stronger.” The hospital bag she’d thrown together hastily sat on the floor in the back of the truck, for the moment unneeded. Mosiah took her hand, pulling her out of the truck and toward the hospital doors.

It all happened so fast. Valentina was rushed into the hospital, and then placed into a wheelchair, with a thin gown and an IV in the back of her hand. In the maternity ward, a nurse assisted her through labour, which had become painful. “This baby wants out, and it wants out now.” Valentina was afraid of this. She’d begun to suspect she wouldn’t leave the hospital tonight without a baby.

As it had been with Maia, Valentina found herself in the operating room, clutching her husband’s hands while an anesthetist put a needle in her spine. She was scared, and cold, and nauseous. Mosiah stood at her side, rubbing her hair, whispering into her ear. It was far too early. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing the baby.

The problem with being chronically online was that people always had something to say. Valentina had heard it all - and nothing really got to her anymore, except for hate about her family. She’d heard things like you’re a slut, your life is full of sin, and you’re not a real mother until you have a baby properly. It didn’t hurt. Valentina didn’t care what strangers on the Internet had to say.

She could feel the surgeon working on her. There was pressure, and the tugging of the scalpel through her abdomen. According to the nurse, the baby’s health was in danger, and she needed to be born as soon as possible to prevent anything further.

It was a baby girl. Valentina had known this since her eighteen week ultrasound, and had named her weeks ago. When the baby began to cry, she was whisked away to a nurse, and the room was quiet. There seemed to be a worry over the surgery, as the nurses and surgeons gathered around, and Valentina became woozy.

“Baby…” She was tired. The newborn had been taken away to intensive care before Valentina had gotten a chance to see her. Mosiah spoke to a nurse in low tones; Valentina couldn’t make out their conversation. She was dizzy, attempting to make out her husband’s face, which blurred before her eyes. “What’s going on?”

He touched her face, which was clammy. ‘You’re bleeding.” The room spun. “You’re going to be fine.” She felt weak, and tired. As the hospital staff hustled around her feet, Valentina fell unconscious.