All I wanted-- all we wanted-- was a
child. That’s all. It wasn’t so much to ask, was it? We were good people. Kind
people, and moral. I guess we just weren’t good enough. Whatever happened to
karma and the balance of nature? Good deeds for good deeds. We helped the
environment, were kind to animals, tried to spread love and understanding. And
we did everything we could, tried every natural way, to conceive a child. A
boy, a girl. It didn’t matter. We just wanted to show a child our love. What
was so wrong with that?
Something had to be wrong. Maybe not with us, but with the
universe. Cosmically, something outside of our control. And were just screwed.
That’s unfair. It’s unfair that bad things happen to good people. My
husband--he was a good man. He did not deserve to die. He did not deserve to
die!
I wipe my tears. I won’t cry again. I’ve spent too long
weeping for the dead and the damned. I feel... Cold. Cold inside. Like I’ve
swallowed a lump of ice and it’s melted in my heart and the chill has spread
through my body. I’ve figured it out-- that the universe toys with good people.
There’s a kind of frosted satisfaction to knowing this, because now that I do I
don’t have to play nice. I’m tired of playing the good girl. I don’t want to be
sunshine and daisies. I want... I don’t know. Vengeance? Can you have vengeance
on nature?
The thought it almost funny. I laugh anyway. It’s a bitter
laugh, but it feels good in a rough sort of way, like sliding my fingernails
down a chalkboard. Oh yes. That does feel good.
So, now what? I ask myself this as I sit in our bed. Our
bed where we tried so hard. Where nature screwed us while... Stop there. Don’t
ruin those memories. Leave them untainted.
What now? That’s it. Yes. Focus on the question.
Revenge. How do you get vengeance for being screwed by
something you tried to keep good and whole? Maybe... Yes, that might work. That
might restore the ‘balance’. Ha. Irony. It’ll feel so good to restore the
balance of my life by spreading chaos, steeping myself in darkness until there
is no light left in my soul. Oh, I’ll be real balanced then.
What do you do when the light betrays you? Why, you turn
to the darkness!
So, I turn to the darkness.
---
I am alone. So alone. I just want... Someone. Someone
real, someone I can touch and hold and love. I want to love, even if it hurts
again. I want... A child. I was meant to be a mother. Sean always said so. I’ve
heard that there are ways to get favours from the spirits-- the demons. Maybe
they have the power to grant me a child. I would do anything for a child.
I’ve started asking around. They-- my friends or
whatever-- have given me books and prodded me in the right direction. I think
I’m almost ready to try. I think I’ll try tonight.
A baby in any form is a blessing, right? If I ask them for
Sean’s baby, they’ll give it to me. I’ll have a piece of him inside of me,
beside me forever.
It calls for a sacrifice, the ritual I might try tonight.
I only have one thing left to give-- well, two, technically. I give my rings.
Our rings. Two slim golden bands exchanged in love for the one thing we desired
above all else, the one thing we wanted our love to make.
I’ll try tonight. I want a baby. I want more anything to
hold a child, so much that my arms ache with it. They’ll give it to me... Won’t
they?
---
Nothing. Nothing and nothing again. I did the effing
ritual. I did it perfectly, without any little changes or mistakes. Not a hair
was out of place. But nothing has happened.
I don’t understand it.
And now I feel even more pathetic. I’m sitting here alone,
eating dinner. I’m sure other people are watching me. I feel their eyes
creeping over my skin, wondering how pathetic I am that I-- a grown woman-- am
eating alone in restaurant. What kind of woman dines alone away from home? Did
I get stood up?
No. I’m a widow. Are you all happy? Go back to your own
food.
I try to focus on my food. I move around the vegetables
with my fork. It’s getting cold. I should eat, but I don’t have much of an
appetite.
“Hello.”
A smooth, masculine voice. I look up and see a stranger,
but one whose face makes my heart beat faster and a hard lump form in my
throat. His hair is red, his face is freckled. He looks so much like Sean. And
he has the same easy, open smile. I want to smile, but I feel frozen. It takes
a minute to reply.
“Hi.”
“Can I sit with you?” I nod to him, too afraid to look up
with more than my eyes. He sits across from me and just watches me for a
moment. Something about him... There’s something magnetic about those eyes.
They are beautiful eyes. Deep eyes.
“You’re much too beautiful to be here alone. What’s your
name?” He’s reclining in the hard wooden chair, so at ease. I’ve never seen
anyone so comfortable in his skin, as though nothing matters outside of him
and-- well-- outside of me. He’s focused, intense, but relaxed.
“Rosemary.”
“What a perfect name.” The waiter comes and asks if he
would like something from the wine list and he looks straight at me, this
handsome stranger, and says deadpan, “I don’t drink... Wine.” It makes the
waiter laugh. It makes me laugh. It’s not even a bitter laugh, but a warmer
one, almost hesitant. I haven’t laughed like that in a while.
We talk for a little while and he eventually stops toying
with the lass of water the waiter brought him (dabbling little patterns on his
napkin idly) and peers at me silently for a moment. “Are you finished eating?”
I nod. I’m not really hungry anymore.
“Good. Let’s go. I’ll walk you home-- You do live nearby?”
I don’t drive, so I don’t have much of a choice but to eat
nearby. I nod and pull my purse onto my shoulder while I stand. “I’d like
that.”
“Good. If you’d have said no, I’d have been a bit
disappointed. Here I am playing Prince Charming and I don’t even get to see you
to the safety of your castle? Some hero that’d make me.”
I giggle and flirt back the whole way home. It’s so
strange, but so comforting, so right. He has that spark. It puts me at ease and
fascinates me. I feel myself watching him every chance I get drinking in his
smiles and his laughs.
All too soon, we reach my home. But I don’t want to be rid
of him yet. It’s unlike me, but... “Come in.”
“Are you sure?” His eyes are so serious. There’s something
different about them, but he’s been so charming tonight that I can’t resist. I
can’t stop now.
“Yes. Please.” I open the door and he follows me inside
and...
Oh, God. What have I done?
---
A dream. It was all a dream. Please, God. It was all a
dream. I went out to dinner last night. Or did I just fall asleep early? That’s
it. I must have fallen asleep before going out and I just dreamt that I really
did. Because if I did...
Even the thought makes me boy ache again where he... It...
No. Nononono. Oh, it was such a vivid nightmare. It makes me tremble. It hurt
so badly. I can still feel the claws--
But it was a dream. I tell myself this over and over.
There’s no bruising-- I take a hot, scorching bath to rid myself of the
unseemliness creeping and crawling over my flesh. Dirt inside of me! Burning.
Grime-- but no bruises. If it were real, there’d be marks.
The dirt, the grime. Inside of me. A part of me. I have to
scrub it out. I have to get rid of it.
And... Eventually, after scrubbing hard enough and sobbing
until all my tears are gone again and I’m left hollow once more, I’m clean. I
have to be. It was all a dream, after all. It was all one horribly lucid
nightmare.
The thought is a comfort. I feel much better when I leave
for work that day. And the next. And the next. Until it really is a dream, vague
and surreal. Just a brief flash that gives me the chills now and then when I am
alone in my bed.
---
It’s been nearly three week. Ad something is wrong. I
should-- but I don’t. I’m late. I... I think I might be pregnant. But that
can’t be unless-- No. I won’t think about that.
I’ll take a test. It’ll be simple. I’ll go to the
supermarket and pick-up a test. And it’ll be negative and--
It’s positive. Why is it positive? I can’t be pregnant. I
know I wanted a child, but not this way. Not demo-- no. There are false
positives. I’ll take another one.
This one is positive, too. And so is this one. They all
are. They can’t all be wrong. I’m pregnant. I have to deal with that.
I have a demon-child inside of me. What does that mean? My
arms still ache for a child, but what does that mean? Did they give me Sean’s
child? Could what happened have been part of the payment? My pain and his--
its-- pleasure for Sean’s child? Maybe that’s it. I can hope for a beautiful
child, for Sean’s child. At least until... I’ll deal with that when it happens.
I have to see a doctor, I guess. A doctor. Hmmm.
I don’t want the books any more. I don’t want any
reminders of-- Him. It. I’m getting rid of them.
And then I’ll find a doctor.
---
“Birth defects.” What an ugly phrase. My baby may be
“defected”. What kind of word is that to use for a human being? Then again,
he’s not exactly a human being, is he?
What if all “defected” babies are like him? Demon spawn. I
think that’s kind of comforting. They can be normal-- well, loving, kind,
working human beings. That’s all that matters, isn’t it? Even if my child is
the seed of a monster, that doesn’t mean he or she can’t be beautiful.
And maybe I can help that. I can bring up my child so that
he-- I feel in my heart that it’s a boy, the child Sean would have played ball
with and swung on his shoulders-- knows that empathy and sympathy are two key
elements of humanity. He’ll love his humanity. Maybe that love will help him
overcome the other part.
I’ll search. I won’t let my child be a monster. I love him
already too much for that. I want him more than anything-- even more now that
he’s growing inside of me and will soon be in my arms.
---
My belly is huge, swollen. I feel like I’m going to pop. I
have to waddle wherever I go, but that’s alright. It’s all for my baby. A
friend is helping me check on him, keep him healthy. And I think I’ve found
something.
My baby will be here soon. I’ve been trying to think of a
good name for him, but I haven’t decided. What would Sean have liked? It would
have to be a strong Irish name. Sean would insist upon that as much as I would.
Whatever I decide, I have to do it fast. The baby will be here soon.
It’s growing colder. October is waning. The baby is coming
either at the end of this month or the beginning of the next.
He’s kicking. He does that so much. It hurts, but that’s
because he’s so strong. Such an active boy. Shush, darling. You’ll be out soon.
So strong, still kicking. So lively. My strong boy, you won’t leave, me will you?
Not you. We’ll always be together.
It doesn’t matter how you came into this world. All that
matter is that you’re almost here.
I love you.
---
Pain! It still hurts. Oh, God. He’s crying. He’s out and
he’s crying and he’s not a normal baby. My baby, covered in blood. He’s a
demon. He has teeth and I’m crying because babies don’t have teeth but he has
teeth like a wolves canines and I’m sobbing and his feet how they hurt when he
kicked and I see now it’s because they are hooves like his father and horns
like his father now nubs but they’ll be horns one day and...
He’s crying. I think he wants to be held. He’s still my
baby. He looks like the demon, but the demon is not his parent. I am. I’m his
mother and I love him. He looks like this, but I love him.
“Take my faith and my love, my sweet boy.” I kiss his
bloody forehead. I need to clean him, but I have to do this first. I put it all
into this-- all of my hopes and dreams for him, all of my wants and my love and
my faith-- I put it in a silver Celtic cross. Such a pretty thing, calling to
our pasts. His father-- his real father in my eyes-- Sean and myself, we were
both Irish. So it only makes sense. I’m putting the magic on him, around his
slim little baby throat. And I see it work.
This is my baby, I tell myself. This freckled,
light-haired child is my baby, no matter what he looks like without that cross.
This is what my love makes him and that’s all that matters.
“I love you, my dear. So much. You have no idea how good
it feels to hold you.”
He holds onto one of my fingers with his tiny little hand.
I’m struck by how strong he is. “That’s my Ethan.” I look down at him. He’s
perfect, except... His hand. His left hand has a sixth finger. I peer at them
for a moment and swallow.
It‘s okay. I have him now. That’s the only thing that
matters now.
---
He’s growing so normally. He’s so clever, my brown hair
little Ethan. He’s walking now, toddling about on unsteady little feet. I have
to laugh when he takes a few steps and falls on his bottom, looking up at me
expecting praise for the work. He loves to please me.
He’s such a darling child that at times I forget there’s
anything different about him, anything dark to the light I see. It’s only when
I notice the finger-- it’s a second middle finger-- that I remember.
My son is a balance-- the balance I created. I lived most
of my life in the light, serving good and bettering the world. I turned to
darkness and let it consume me for a time and that made him. He came from the
mixture of night and day. For now, the light is winning with him. As long as I
keep him safe and show him love and understanding, it may never tip. But if it
does... I’ll still be here. I’ll still protect him. My Ethan.