by Jim Lombardo
“You know, you don’t have to have a password on these phones.”
“I know that. I want one, and that’s it,” he stated matter-of-factly.
“But...but 1-2-3-4? That seems secure to you?”
“Well, it’s easy to remember,” he countered, before considering the weakness of both his explanation and his code. He shrugged. “I don’t know, it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Monica smiled at Brian, whose eyes were now closed again, and entered the emergency number. As the call connected, the sound waves of her voice were instantly converted into digital electronic signals by the device and transmitted at the speed of light — about 186,282 miles per second — upon radio waves to the nearest mobile phone base station in the area. A network computer was directing the information to the base station nearest the emergency receiving phone, which picked up and converted the signals back into the sound waves of Monica’s voice for the person on the other end.
The two waited in silence for help to arrive. Brian felt a prickling sensation on the side of his burly left arm, and removed a jagged shard of glass from a tattoo that read “Sue” in fancy script. A pinhead of blood bubbled to the surface.
“So, who might Sue be?” inquired Monica.
“Just a girl I was seeing.”
“Was? As in past tense? Oh, no,” Monica kidded Brian, considering this permanent declaration of love gone awry.
“I know, I know. What can I say? It seemed like a good—”
“—idea at the time.” Brian and Monica finished the rest of the sentence together.
“You gonna get it removed?”
“Nah, that’s wicked expensive, and a pain in the butt. I just gotta find myself another Sue, that’s all. Hey, what’s your name again?” Brian asked facetiously.
“Sorry, it’s still Monica,” she teased playfully.
“Guess we’re both outta luck then.”
A patrol car soon arrived, followed closely by a fire and rescue vehicle. Two EMTs hopped out of the truck and went to work extricating Brian from the wreck. Monica stood nearby giving information to a policeman, but was having a difficult time concentrating, repeatedly looking over in Brian’s direction to see how he was doing. The crew splinted his leg and strapped him to a gurney for transport. Monica excused herself from the officer and walked towards the back of the ambulance just as the medical crew was preparing to heave him into the patient compartment.
“Okay, on three...1-2-3.”
Brian’s and Monica’s eyes met as he was pushed inside, and he raised his head to keep her in view.
“Be careful, Brian. I mean, they almost have your password figured out,” she ribbed him.
He raised a hand to her in acknowledgement as the stretcher was being secured, and their eyes remained locked until the driver swung the large metal doors shut.
“Where are you taking him?” she asked.
“Gloucester Hospital. You can ride with him in back if you want.”
“Oh, no. I’m with the car he hit. I was just wondering.”
Monica watched intently as the ambulance drove off, gripped by a strange pang in the pit of her stomach. Her eyes strayed to the drive-in movie screen, solitary and forsaken, major rips visible across its long-neglected surface revealing the corroded metal skeleton beneath. She started thinking about Brian saying, guess we’re both outta luck then.
Chapter Two
Echoes (Two years later)
The ultrasound technician wrapped her right hand around an inverted tube and squeezed firmly, releasing a liberal stream of jelly onto the expectant mother’s bump.
“Sorry if this is on the cold side,” she said, pulling the wheeled display screen closer with her free hand and turning it toward her patient. “You ready to see your movie star?”
Monica grinned while looking up. “Yeah, glad I could be here for the premiere,” she replied, appreciative of the nurse’s efforts to put her at ease. What up to this point had felt like a dream was now about to become much more real, and it was hard to contain her bittersweet mixture of worry and excitement.
The screen flickered to life. Unrecognizable shadows and shapes zigzagged about as the nurse maneuvered the transducer probe, trying to get her bearings. The scanning tool emitted high-frequency sound waves, and converted the echoes that it received back into images. Monica raised her head off the pillow, squinting and straining to make out something, anything familiar. Time seemed to stretch out to match the intensity of her impatience until she finally saw the unmistakable profile of a human face grace the monitor. Her breath hitched, and she gulped hard as a flood of emotion washed over her.
“There you are,” she said softly. “Hi, baby.” She lowered her head back to the pillow while keeping her eyes fixed firmly on the screen. “I wish your daddy wasn’t at sea right now.”
“He a fisher?”
“Yeah. He’s on a week-long up in the Gulf of Maine.”
“I’ll get you some pics you can take home, Mrs. Blake,” the sonographer said as she began meticulously recording key growth measurements onto a corner of the screen. She hovered the sensor over the fetus’s skull, pausing for a few moments because the anatomy looked a bit peculiar. After documenting the atypical diameter, she moved down to explore and make notations on other organs and extremities for the doctor. “Your baby looks right on schedule, normal heart rhythm, and even ahead of the curve on brain growth, probably the next Einstein.” She zoomed out to show the entire developing body for the mother-to-be. They both watched as the baby, now at 12 weeks’ gestation, appeared to reach out towards the scanner, and check out its surroundings, moving its hands back and forth in a steady rhythmic motion.
“Looks like your baby’s measuring for new curtains in there,” the technician joked. She zoomed in on the baby’s face, which turned towards the screen, revealing two large black skeletal eye orbits. With its chin jutting forward, it almost looked like it was longingly trying to get a view of the outside world. Monica gazed into the baby’s eyes and drifted deep into them while the outside world disappeared. She found herself falling back in time, to memories of her childhood.
“Look at how beautiful those flowers are, Monica honey. Beautiful just like your mother was.”
“I don’t like them, Auntie Doris. They’re stinky,” replied seven-year-old Monica.
“No, they’re pretty, and they show how much everyone loved your mother. Here are some from your Aunt Lena too.”
Monica took stock of the multicolored floral bouquets surrounding her mother’s lifeless body sunken deep into her casket, adorned inside with white linen and lavender lace.
“See how peaceful she looks? No more pain now.”
“But I want her to wake up…wake up, Mommy!” Monica demanded.
The movie playing out in the blackness of the baby’s eyes shifted back even further in time. Monica’s petite hand was now donning an oversized oven mitt, and she was pushing a spatula into a slot on the side of an Easy-Bake Oven. A plume of grayish-black smoke emerged out of the opening as she delicately retrieved the mini silver baking tray upon which her prized creation sat.
“Be careful. It’s hot,” her mother Sarah cautioned, fighting the urge to intervene.
“I made it all by myself,” Monica boasted.
The lopsided cake was sagging and scorched on one side. On the other side, a very unfortunate golf-ball-sized air bubble covered with a thin, doughy membrane had developed. Assorted vegetables could be seen protruding randomly all around it.
“I can’t wait to try it!” her mother exclaimed, feigning excitement. “I’ve never seen a cake that had lettuce before. What a brilliant chef you are.”
“Dig in, Mommy,” Monica gleefully encouraged.
Sarah grabbed a butter knife and carefully positioned it above the cake so as to remove the smallest piece possible w
ithout offending her daughter. She began to slice, applying the necessary elbow-grease to make her way downward through some carrots and green beans inside and guided the piece onto her plate.
“Oh, this is so delicious,” she said, trying to chew and fight the gag response at the same time, wondering how swallowing was ever going to be possible. “And it tastes nice and...salty?”
“Well, I couldn’t reach the sugar bowl, so I used salt instead…and some pepper too,” the youngster explained with self-satisfaction. “Should I maybe put this in the Town Festival bake-off?”
“You simply must.”
Just then the bubble popped with a resounding snap, releasing a steaming jet of dry flour into the air.
“Hey! My cake just tooted, Mommy,” Monica cried out, giggling with delight.
Her mother grabbed the spatula, slid it under the cake and began moving it up and down, pretending the cake was talking to them in a low, raspy voice. “Sor-ry I too-ted, Mo-ni-ca. It won’t hap-pen a-gain. Can I still be in the ba-king con-test?”
The shaking caused another, larger, festering air pocket deep within the cake to suddenly explode outward with a bang, sending the assorted filling airborne, including a chunk that attached itself to the mother’s forehead. They howled with laughter.
Sarah pretended to be angry, pointing her finger at the cake menacingly while scolding it. “That’s it. You’re grounded, Mr. Cake. No bake-off for you.” The pair laughed as they fell in towards each other in a cloud of flour.
The technician jerked Monica back to the present by abruptly removing the sensor, and applying some towelettes to clean off her stomach. As the screen went dark, Monica closed her eyes and felt the tension of a mother’s worry melt away, at least for now. The sonographer turned away briefly, pulled a notepad from a hip pocket on her lab coat, and hastily jotted down, “Baby Blake/brain issue?” She replaced the notepad in her lab coat for the afternoon consult with the doctor.
“You can see the doctor now. At the next visit, if you want, we should be able to let you know the sex of the baby.”
Monica thanked the woman, then announced politely, but with conviction, “Oh, it’s a girl.”
Chapter Three
Simon Says
Monica struggled up the circular flight of stairs with two oversized bags of groceries, one at each hip, book-ending her burgeoning belly. She kicked at the door that was the back entrance of the duplex apartment and bellowed, “Brian!”
Monica and her husband had lived in the modest but comfortable home since their wedding a year before. They rented the second floor, and a couple with twin girls lived on the first. Brian came jogging into the kitchen, swung open the door, and scooped up the bags from his wife’s full arms.
“I got ’em. Jeez, you’re gonna put yourself into labor, honey,” he cautioned.
“Good, I don’t want to be pregnant anymore.”
“Almost there. So, how were the pee-wees today?”
Monica had been teaching third grade at one of the town’s elementary schools for the past few years. She loved the job and the kids, and usually had at least one amusing anecdote to share with her husband at the end of each workday.
“They were alright. Jack was a charmer again. He went up to Mya who was wearing a tank top and said, ‘You’re exposed,’ which freaked her out. Mya said, ‘I am not! You don’t even know what that means.’ So then Jack comes marching up to me and says, ‘Mya’s exposed, isn’t she?’ So I guess that was good, we all got to learn about the word exposed. I just hope they don’t go home and tell their parents.”
Brian chuckled. “I just hope you’re exposed tonight, sexy.”
“Oh, please, Bri’. I look like a Volkswagen Bug.”
“I don’t care. I love cars.”
Monica playfully swatted him. “Yeah? Well, this one’s in the shop.”
She became still for a moment and peered downward. “Woah, that was a big one.”
The baby was kicking again. The couple hurriedly made their way through the dining room to the living room. Monica lay down on her back on a loveseat and pulled up her cardigan to reveal her now almost full-term tummy. They waited for more movement, but nothing happened. Monica pushed down on her belly button that was now flat from the pressure built up behind it. They waited. Suddenly her belly button popped back towards her.
“Wow, Babycakes is saying hello!” she said. “Don’t go to sleep, little baby. I want to play with you,” Monica pleaded, imitating a child, and then she poked at her belly button two times in rapid succession.
They both watched as Monica’s belly button pushed back out two times at the exact same pace.
“That’s funny,” Brian said. “The baby copied you.” He poked her belly button himself two times, and it was instantly mimicked by the baby. “What the—! Are you making it do that, Monica?”
“No, I swear that’s not me…that’s Babycakes!”
Kneeling at Monica’s side, Brian repositioned himself to more carefully check it out. He again pushed down twice firmly and slowly, and once again the belly button pushed out twice at the exact same speed and pressure. He then pushed down three times in quick succession, and the baby responded in kind. Next, he tried pushing down four times, fast on the first two, but slower on the last two. The baby repeated the same pattern precisely. Brian sat back onto his heels, staring at his wife’s stomach with a perplexed expression. Finally, he mustered some words. “Monica, I don’t know, but I think this baby’s ready to come out.”
Chapter Four
Tempest
“1, 2, 3...Puuuuuuush! 1, 2, 3…Puuuuuuush!”
The Blakes’ midwife Zoe clasped Monica’s right hand and pushed her upper body forward. Brian assisted from the other side with grit in his eyes.
“Still not the progress we want,” Zoe declared. “The baby’s head is just too big, and it’s not descending. I recommend we move ahead with our hospital transfer plan at this point.”
Monica closed her eyes. Beads of sweat were running down her contorted face, which was partially obscured by clumps of long, dark hair. After 12 valiant hours of active labor, her dream of an all-natural home birth, complete with scented candles, mood music, and the comfort of her familiar room, was to be replaced by a harsh reality.
“Alright,” Brian said sternly, “that’s it, let’s move.” He angled toward his wife’s blanching face. “Don’t worry, honey, we’ll get through this, and have our baby really soon.”
The three had planned meticulously for this possible turn of events, and it was only a matter of minutes before they were hustling their way out to the car, fighting a windblown rainstorm in the dark. With Brian driving and the midwife sitting in the backseat with Monica, they began their journey on the snaking roads that led to Gloucester Hospital.
“Pleeeease, no red lights,” begged Monica before crying out as another contraction seized her body in its viselike grip.
Zoe tended to her patient, while Brian focused determinedly on navigating the route as quickly as he could. Monica happened to glance out the window as they passed through the intersection where fate had brought the couple together just two and a half years earlier. A few minutes later, the combination of exhaustion and a pain injection lulled her away from the turmoil, and she sank quietly into the soothing fabric of her seat.
Her respite was short-lived, however, as she was thrust into a recurring nightmare that had plagued her ever since hearing the tragic story of Brian’s father vanishing at sea. Monica found herself all alone on the open ocean, aboard a sailboat in a nor’easter. She watched the white-capped swells approaching one by one, heaving her upward toward the inky clouds before falling away, causing the boat to dive downward into the churning troughs below. Sinister spindles of lightning sprang out at her like fiery spider legs. Piercing thunderclaps followed. She felt the wind and torrential rain beat against her f
ace, and could taste the salty seawater on her lips.
Tightly gripping a drenched rope that was hanging down from a tall mast, she squinted ahead in a futile search for light, or a gap in the clouds that might allow the sun’s rays to shine down on her, but there was only darkness. Then, from off in the distance, through the raging tempest, she heard the faint sound of a voice breaking through. It was unmistakably human, but muffled by the pounding waves crashing down and a shrill wind whipping the mast. The voice became progressively louder until Monica could finally make it out as a phrase repeated over and over again. She struggled to hear, turning to the left and right, and shaking her head to clear the water out of her ears. Then with a momentary calm following the crash of a mammoth wave, coinciding with a brief lull in the gale-force gusts, she finally understood. It was a young child, reassuring her. “Mom, don’t worry. Everything will be fine.”
Monica opened her eyes to a big red EMERGENCY sign. Within seconds, hands were all over her, guiding her out of the backseat and into a wheelchair. She hated that she was now shifting from an active participant in the birth of her child to an observer, but most important to her was the health of her baby, and a caesarian at this point was unavoidable.
Soon the doctor was peering over the curtain that obscured Monica’s view of the surgical procedure. He raised her baby up, happily announcing…
“It’s a girl!”
Chapter Five
Jigsaw
The delivery room fell strangely quiet as the new mother first laid eyes on her child. Monica was physically exhausted after the long labor and eventual surgery, and triumphant tears poured out at the sight of her little girl. Although wet, and splotchy in places, the infant appeared healthy. Yet, despite her baby having no signs of distress at all, one concern gnawed at Monica. Why isn’t my baby crying? Don’t newborns always cry right after birth?
The umbilical cord was severed by the doctor, and a nurse swaddled the newborn in a warm towel and brought her over to her mother, positioning the baby to rest high on Monica’s chest. The new parents stared adoringly at their daughter. She had a wispy tuft of golden blond hair atop a head that was noticeably larger than most newborns, but not to the point of looking abnormal. With eyes wide open, she was completely alert, as she had been since the instant of her appearance into the world.
