“Everything is just fine, Joan,” the unknown woman said. “Your baby will soon be here and you’ll be a mother my dear.”
The woman then disappeared and left Joan and Scott alone with their thoughts. Joan retreated to her own little world, Scott holding her hand from a chair, as the pains grew in intensity and frequency. Her terror grew when the doctor came in tutting.
“No, this will never do, nurses, prepare the OR. We have to get her in now.” Doctor Nelson spoke from behind a mask.
Joan’s terror turned into outright panic and she clenched at Scott’s hands, Anne’s worries suddenly making sense to Joan. Anne had been terrified the doctor was trying to take her baby but they’d all tried to assure her everything was fine and Doctor Nelson was a good man. The nurses had said everything was going fine, according to plan even, and now the doctor comes in, takes one look, and insists on surgery?
“Don’t let them take me, Scott, something’s wrong here, take me to another hospital, anything but get me out of here!” She pleaded with her husband her eyes filled with fear.
Scott made to do as his wife asked but Doctor Nelson stopped him.
“Mr. Parker, if you take your wife out of this hospital you could cause her death and I will ensure you are prosecuted, sir. I’m sorry but she needs surgery.” The doctor said sternly, his eyes boring into Scott with threat.
“What’s wrong with her exactly?” Scott asked, confused and uncertain.
“She’s hemorrhaging. She will bleed to death if we don’t stop the bleeding.” The doctor said, standing in a way that hid Joan’s spread thighs from Scott’s view.
The blood drained from Scott’s face and he moved out of the doctor’s way. He wouldn’t look at Joan as she screamed at him for help, her cries filling the entire wing of the hospital. Her cries broke Scott’s heart but he didn’t want his wife to bleed to death. He wanted the doctor to save her and so he held his hands over his ears as they wheeled his wife away.
An hour later the nurse came to him and tore his world apart. The child had died and Joan was in critical condition. Then the woman walked away briskly. Scott sat in the hallway, his world devastated, his best friend, his wife, his love out of his reach and no other friends around to comfort him. It wasn’t until 9 am the next morning that the doctor came to take him to Joan.
“Can I see the child?” Scott asked the doctor before he left, staring down at his wife.
Joan refused to look at him, as if she was in a catatonic state. She apparently wasn’t responding even to pain, staring only to the right, not looking at anyone, not crying, and not speaking. Totally in her own world and refusing to interact with the world around her. Doctor Nelson had already recommended electro-shock therapy to Scott, to “bring Joan out of her stupor.”
For a week Scott tried to talk his wife out of her state, bringing her flowers and candies, all of the things men were supposed to do for their women but nothing worked. Joan refused to budge and Scott, at his wits end finally agreed to the treatment the doctor recommended. He simply wanted what was best for Joan and this catatonic life wasn’t it.
Scott felt a small niggle of worry that maybe this was all wrong but he was a simple man. He believed the doctor’s words and didn’t question them. Watching as the nurse took Joan away Scott hoped he’d soon see his wife again, back to her normal smiling self.
Unlike Anne’s experience with EST Joan’s was controlled and administered with care. The experience was still traumatic but Scott noticed an improvement immediately. Joan wasn’t completely normal but she did finally speak to him.
“Take me home.” That was all she said with a hard look in her eye that Scott had never seen before. She started crying as he pulled into the driveway and Scott gave her one of the pills the doctor had called “mother’s little helper”. She went to bed and went to sleep, never even glancing back at Scott.
Over the weeks Meg came to visit but even that didn’t cheer Joan up. Joan seemed to have given up on life and though she’d talk to Scott it was only to respond to his questions. Deep inside Joan knew what had happened to her and her baby. The doctor had taken her to the OR where she’d delivered a healthy live baby then he’d cut her open after knocking her out with anesthesia. The next morning the nurse and the doctor both assured her none of that had ever happened, that her baby had been delivered by C-section, she’d never heard her baby cry because it had been born dead and deformed. She knew her one chance at being a mother had been stolen from her and that her baby had been stolen as well. She suspected the same had been done to Anne.
She’d heard the whispers while she was in the hospital, heard Anne’s screams for her child. She didn’t want the same treatment as Anne had received so she kept quiet. Meg also blamed Scott but felt tremendously guilty over it. Her resentment of him grew daily, however, and the only way she could cope was to retreat from the world where her best friend, her husband, did not protect her but delivered her, over and over, to her tormentors.
Scott’s nerves became fraught and day by day, as the house deteriorated and Joan deteriorated Scott finally called on Doctor Nelson again. The man had Joan admitted to the hospital and more EST was given. Then came the call in the middle of the night, asking if Joan had come home. Where was Joan, the nurse asked. Scott had no idea.
Chapter Seven
Meg went into labor two days after Joan, her worry over both of her friends, and the stress of coping on her own, proving too much for Meg to deal with alone and the babies she was carrying decided it was time to come into the world. She called one of the women from the church to come sit with the children until Robert came home then went into the hospital on her own, her bag in hand.
In her mind, deep down where nobody could see it, Meg was terrified, in her own way, but her previous experiences had taught her well. She knew everything was fine and expected little trouble form the birth experience. She clamped down on her worries and headed into her room with the same stoic fortitude that had got her this far in life. None of those present would have guessed that deep inside Meg was still screaming in terror like a young woman giving birth for the first time.
Humming a country tune to herself about staying on the straight and narrow Meg walked behind the nurse into a dimly lit room, put her bag in the closet and changed into more appropriate attire for giving birth in. Wondering if her husband had made it home yet Meg calmly counted the seconds between her pains and waited for the doctor.
The nurse came in to check Meg’s progress and didn’t say much before disappearing out of the room. Meg shifted in the bed, uncomfortable but knowing the time was coming when she’d have to use all of her strength. An hour later, when Meg was certain the first child was on the verge of hanging out of her body, the doctor arrived.
“Hmph. No, this won’t do. Nurse, you know what you need to do.” Without another word to Meg the doctor left and she was suddenly being rolled into another room.
“Wait! Stop! What is going on? Why am I in here, everything is fine.” Meg protested but none of those present would listen to her. Then the world slipped away as a mask was placed over her face and she breathed in. One minute everything was fine, she was in her room with one baby on the way, and in the next everything was going black.
When Meg woke up the nurse was wheeling one of her daughters in to her, wrapped tightly in a hospital blanket, her little face scrunched up, the baby made Meg smile.
“Oh she’s precious! I’m naming this one Bella, where’s her sister then? Or was it a boy?” Meg asked the pain in her abdomen forgotten as she looked down at the face of her little angel. Meg had never felt so much love for one of her children at birth. This baby was special, she just knew it. The nurse didn’t answer so Meg looked up questioningly, wondering what was taking the woman so long to answer.
Nurse Pracket, for once in her long life, looked slightly mournful. Not a kind person she usually took great pleasure in causing others pain but something about Meg made the cold hard woman melt jus
t a little. She placed the baby in Meg’s arms without speaking, fussing with the covers and making sure Meg had a good grip on the baby before taking hold of the cart once more. The nurse couldn’t look at Meg so her words were spoken to the open doorway.
“I’m sorry Mrs. Skaggs, the other child, also a girl, did not survive her birth. We can take care of the arrangements if you like.” Nurse Pracket walked out just before Meg’s tears started, for once not leaving out of cruelty but to escape before the other woman started to sob and she had to hear it. Closing the door quietly behind her, Nurse Pracket left the room, a grim expression on her face.
Meg’s quiet sobs were heartfelt, feeling a true sense of loss for the child she’d never even seen, but as she looked down at Bella, sweet and tiny Bella, her heart sang and her pain eased just a little. The baby was waving her tiny little fists, her eyes scrunched up, and Meg bared her breast, giving the little girl what she needed most.
Meg smoothed the baby’s fine hair as she suckled and sang hymns to her, until Bella’s breathing evened out and her sucking slowed. Meg watched her daughter sleep, her breaths coming in and out of her tiny little nose, and counted her tiny daughters fingers and toes as she checked all of the things mothers checked on their new babies. Bella was perfect.
Meg loved all of her children, as she should, but Bella somehow was different. The sweet feeling of instant love had never taken hold of her with the other children. The love had come with time, for Meg, though she’d cared for them and nurtured them as she should. Her tenth child finally brought her the love and adoration she’d been told about, expected to feel, but had never quite experienced before.
Meg refused to allow Bella out of her room for the rest of her stay, even when the doctor came in to examine his handiwork with her stitches. He explained that a C-section had to be to be done but Meg clearly remembered feeling the head of one of the babies between her legs before the doctor had come to take her into the surgery.
Meg was also saddened by the cries of the other two women in the hospital ward with her and went to visit both. Anne was asleep, and Meg didn’t like the look of her, something was definitely wrong there. And Joan. Poor Joan just wailed for her baby and had to be drugged to keep her quiet.
Meg thought it was odd that both women’s children had died and that one of her own had but did not question the doctor’s veracity. She had been raised to trust doctors and preachers. They would not lie; there was no reason for them to, after all. These men answered to a higher calling and accusing them of being unkind or less than honest was tantamount to a sin in Meg’s mind.
Poor Anne was sent home, a drooling mess that Meg prayed for sincerely. The vacant, staring woman was nothing like the vibrant sweet woman Meg had known. This was almost a monster, a soulless monster that had come to take Anne’s place. Meg could barely look upon the caricature, her heart breaking for the sad state the woman was now left in.
As for Joan, Meg heard the uproar the night Joan disappeared, the way she screamed until Doctor Nelson arrived and gave her a shot. Then Joan disappeared into the elevator. An hour later Meg heard Nurse Pracket at the nurse’s station asking Joan’s husband if he’d seen his wife recently. The call confused Meg but then Bella started to cry and Meg took the baby in her arms, forgetting the world around her for a moment.
Meg was finally allowed to go home and tried to settle in to a routine without Joan there to help. The women from Robert’s ministry tried to help her but Meg missed Joan and wanted to know what happened to her. Meg would leave the youngest children with a sitter for months and joined the search for Joan with Joan’s husband Scott. The entire town turned out in the first week to search the woods and mountains, even the creeks and ravines were searched, but not a single clue was found. After several months the town quieted down, people moved on, and Joan was quietly forgotten by all but Scott and Meg.
Even Meg had to give up the search eventually, her children demanding her attention as her husband insisted she stop neglecting her household duties and get back to the living. Meg looked sharply at her husband when he made that statement, wondering why he hinted that Joan was dead, but did as she was told.
Months passed without a sign of Joan and Scott eventually moved away, unable to remain in the home that reminded him of all he had lost. When the death certificate, issued after Joan had been missing for seven years, arrived Scott packed the belongings he’d left in place exactly as Joan had left them, and moved away, never to be heard of again.
Meg’s life moved forward, ever forward, and her hair turned grey as her skin began to age. Brown spots began to appear on her skin in her late thirties, and fine lines formed around her mouth and eyes. Her children began to graduate from school and life became hectic with televisions and radios being phased out by computers and smartphones. The world stopped making sense to Meg and as her children started to age she slowed down.
Bella proved to be her last child and the light of Meg’s life. Her oldest sons went off to join the military and her two eldest sons died in wars in places she’d never even heard of. Her eldest daughter became a writer, telling the stories of the mountains she’d grown up in, and the others had all found their way into variety of jobs and vocations but none joined the ranks of their father.
Robert passed away when little Bella was fifteen years old but by then little Mary had become a successful writer and young Roger had become a doctor. All of the older children ensured their younger siblings and mother were provided for, never making a single complaint. Meg never again wanted for anything and counted herself lucky as the women around her complained about a son that was imprisoned on drug charges or a daughter that lost her way and had a string of children that were fatherless and stuck on welfare.
The world changed dramatically around Meg but her children bloomed and young Bella went on to become a fashion model in Paris, where she brought her mother when her mother was in her mid-sixties. Meg went back home to Louisa Falls, shocked at all she had seen and pleased for her youngest child.
Meg may no longer understand the world or how it worked but she knew her children were grounded and cared for, all of them connected and always in touch.
On the last night of her life Meg, tired and aching from the cold, sat before her fire in a rocking chair going through the years of her life in her mind, her favorite songs playing on a device her great-grandson had called an MP3 player. Meg didn’t understand it but her home was filled with the sounds of songs she knew and loved so she followed his handwritten instructions until the device played what she wanted to hear.
As Meg rocked she thought of Joan and Anne once more. Joan had never been found and more women went missing over the years but they too were never found. Poor Anne wasted away in her mother’s home locked in her own world. The damage of the EST had changed her and Anne was never the same. First Anne’s mother then a nurse cared for the damaged woman and when Meg saw Anne the poor woman was usually so drugged up Meg knew the woman had no idea where she was. Pushed in a wheelchair Anne was a painful sight for Meg and Meg would often turn away to save herself the pain of seeing poor Anne.
Meg’s thoughts then turned to Bella and the miracle that occurred after her birth. Somehow Meg had never conceived again. Robert had railed at first, destroying the house in search of birth control pills. Robert had even gone so far as to call Doctor Nelson, accusing him of somehow engineering some means to prevent Meg from conceiving another child. Meg did not know what prevented her from having another child but suspected it was the Lord’s work.
Besides, she was pleased about her inability to conceive anymore. Bella was her crowning achievement and she was no longer burdened with pregnancy or caring for more infants. Meg knew that the Lord worked in mysterious ways and accepted her fate, happy to no longer be a baby machine. Robert never helped her with the children anyway so why he wanted so many she’d never quite understood.
Meg prepared for bed and turned off all the machines that accompanied modern livi
ng, promising herself that tomorrow she’d take paint to all of those blue, red, green, and white lights that seemed to be a requirement for everything made in the modern world. As the house suddenly turned quiet, or as quiet as it could be with all of those appliances her kids bought her to make her life “easier” Meg made her way to her bedroom window to look over at the now decrepit house that used to belong to her best friend.
For a moment Meg thought she saw Joan staring back at her from the tree that still stood in the front yard but then the image faded. Only a notion of her foggy brain, she told herself. Settling into her bed, the one modern comfort she truly appreciated, Meg pulled the old quilt over herself and sighed. The simple act of stretching out easing some of the constant aches in her body immediately.
Meg’s eyes closed and she smiled, thinking of all of her children once more and finally settling on Bella. Bella was in Italy tonight, Meg saw it on the calendar. She’d be home in a few days and her favorite child would finally be at home. Meg had tried to hide her preference for Bella from the others but knew she’d sometimes failed. She’d done the best she could, however, and as her heart stopped in the middle of the night, the almost silent house going suddenly quieter, Meg went to her death peacefully knowing that she left her children happy and whole in the world and that was far more than some of her old friends could say.
Chapter Eight
Present Day, Louisa Falls
“Who’s that woman, Beth? She looks familiar.” The young woman in the booth by the windows heard the man cooking behind the diner counter ask the waitress. Smiling to herself the young woman acted like she hadn’t heard them.
“I’m not sure but you’re right, now that I think about it she does look familiar. I can’t place her but I know I’ve seen her before.”
Thriller: Emily Page 14
