A Human Element

by Donna Galanti

  "Oh, my God," the nurse whispered.

  They stared at the boy he held in both hands. It must have weighed twelve pounds. Through the blood and mucus covering it, the child gleamed pale as the moon. The pulse throbbed through translucent veins with a life force so strong it had ruptured its way into the world. Its forehead was a bulbous mass protruding from a Neanderthal-like skull. Its nose and mouth spread wide across its deformed face. When Doctor Britton wiped the mucus from the eyes, the nurse gasped. What should have been a pale child's newborn blue was instead a pale yellow.

  "It's the Devil himself," the nurse stammered. The lights in the room shone bright and dimmed again as if in agreement. "See, it's a sign!"

  "Stop it. There's nothing here but a newborn baby with some abnormalities," Doctor Britton snapped. "Get him cleaned up and make the delivery." He cut the umbilical cord, tied it with deft hands, and passed the child to the shaking nurse. Its forehead shone like alabaster and it wailed as if already mourning the loss of being separated from its mother.

  Doctor Britton turned back to his patient. After hours of thrashing about in pain and blood, she rested. He felt for a pulse and found none. Her chest no longer rose and fell. The blood that had pumped from her now dribbled at a slower rate. He would wait until he cleaned up to call the time of death. He got a fresh sheet to pull over her face but before he could do it, his gaze rested on the soft, peaceful face.

  Sarah…oh, Sarah, he whispered to himself, while the baby wailed. He allowed himself to say her name again. Her damp hair draped around her young, narrow shoulders. Her slender hand drifted off the bed as if letting go of something precious. If they had only gotten her to a hospital in time for a cesarean operation, she might have had a chance.

  But he would never be more than a poor country doctor unless he saw this assignment through. Still, he set his hand on her womb, that organ that time and time again amazed him with its capabilities. He was struck by the fact that this mother had been young enough to be his own daughter.

  That's when he felt movement beneath his hand. He pulled it away, in shock, then felt again more purposefully.

  "There's another one!" The nurse had just finished cleaning and wrapping the pale, deformed newborn, still showing off the capabilities of overdeveloped lungs. She jerked around at Doctor Britton's voice and almost dropped the child.

  He had to work fast to deliver this other child who had remained hidden for so long. With an urgent need to preserve what life remained, he reached both hands inside the birth canal and pulled loose the remaining child. A girl. Small in size, not quite five pounds. Her enormous twin had taken over and hoarded the nourishment for himself. He immediately wanted to protect her. She squirmed in his hands. A perfect, normal baby in every way.

  "Welcome, Laura."

  She whimpered through her ruddy skin and wrinkled her smooth forehead where tufts of brown hair grew above. He laughed in delight and held her out toward the nurse. Even she looked less arrogant by now.

  "Just look," he said. "A perfect girl!" He cut and tied the umbilical cord and handed yet another crying baby to the nurse. "Clean her up quickly. We haven't much time."

  As he finished cleaning up the still mother, his mind strayed far from the task at hand. He quickly devised a plan. He would deliver the boy to the man outside. Then, he would tell the Armstrongs Sarah died due to complications and that the adoptive parents changed their minds and weren't taking this baby girl. The Armstrongs need never know about the boy, and may want to keep the baby girl themselves. Being God-loving people, they would accept Sarah's fate. Sarah's daughter would console them.

  His generous government benefactor need not know about the girl. One baby was expected, not two.

  He smiled again as he finished his work over the young mother. Her vessel rested, now at peace. Her children would each find purpose in life. And he was satisfied God had given him a chance for redemption.

  The man in black waited at the facility's back door holding an envelope and a small bundle wrapped in a ragged towel. His long coat kept his muscular girth dry from the storm's deluge. His wide-brimmed hat slung low over his jagged face, as water poured off its edge in a steady stream. This weather did not bother him. He waited patiently in the chilled spring night to deliver his packages and receive one in return. The door opened, spilling fluorescent light onto his feet. A plain-looking nurse held a crying bundle in her arms.

  The man could hear the child's bellowing cries coming from underneath the blanket covering it. She pushed the child into his arms as if eager to be rid of it. He reached down and hung his head lower, to shield the bundle from the rain and his own face from the glaring light. He took the bundle and handed the nurse his packages. The nurse grabbed the envelope but quickly placed the lump on the ground as if the contents were distasteful. The nurse began to close the door when he heard another far away cry.

  The man wedged his foot in the door.

  "What was that?" He had to nearly shout over the din of the rain.

  "Nothing." The nurse looked up.

  The man risked looking her in the eye.

  "The girl is in pain and won't keep quiet." She clutched the envelope and folded her arms across her sagging bosom.

  "It sounded like another baby," he said.

  "It's just the whimpering slut. Now she's paid double for what she's done."

  The nurse took a step back as if aware she had said too much already. She glared at him. "Now go on. You have what you wanted. And so do I." She picked up the lump from the ground and shut the door in his face.

  The man in black stood there for a long moment, considering the woman's choice of words. He was sure he had heard another baby. What if another child had been delivered and the frigid woman and country doctor kept it secret? Fascinating. He decided to keep this information to himself. He would find the opportune time to use it. He was a patient man.

  But first, he had to see for himself.

  He peeled back the child's bunting and looked for the first time into its yellow eyes. For that moment, the baby fell silent.

  "Welcome to Earth X-10."

  The baby resumed its wailing.

  The man turned with his noisy package and melted into the darkness satisfied, as the doctor had been, that the night's events had provided him with more than he had asked for.

  CHAPTER 3: 1987

  Laura Armstrong grabbed onto the moss-covered branch and pulled herself up into a nook in the biggest tree she could find.

  At seven years old, she stood compact and full of muscle from hours running through the woods surrounding her hilltop home. At fifteen feet up, the branches of the enormous, old oak bowed open to the Catskill Mountains in the distance, behind the farmhouse she shared with her parents. Its grand leaves folded outward like a green stage curtain beckoning its audience. Come, sit for a while, it called. Forget your worldly worries. Be entranced. She wanted to forget being worried. She had an anxious feeling that something bad was going to happen that day.

  Laura balanced her feet on the branches and spread her arms out wide. Her chestnut hair blew behind her in the warm, July breeze. She owned this piece of the world in the little town of Coopersville, New York. She overlooked the sloped meadows and woods around the farmhouse.

  Feeling confident in her footing in the tree, she took a deep breath and sang to the woods. She sang to the ancient craggy mountains before her. She sang to the birds claiming the sky and the creek that tumbled along its way. She sang to the squirrels and chipmunks chattering around her.

  Her young voice sprang forth with a melody of beauty and grace surprising for a child so young. But Laura accepted this difference, as she knew she was different in other ways too. She had the ability to sense the thoughts of people. At first those thoughts came through in a jumbled disconnect of words, but as she grew older, they became a clear stream of talking in her head. It happened whenever she stood close to someone. She didn't always understand what she heard.

  S
ometimes frightening words came to her, often from strangers she stood next to in line at the store with her mother. But her mother and father always flowed with kind thoughts, speckled with worry about Laura or money. She never told her parents about this talent, as she didn't understand it herself. She didn't tell them about the other new talents she had just discovered either. Maybe someday she would.

  "Laura, can you help me shell peas?" her mother called from the house.

  "I'm coming!"

  Fanny Armstrong sat on the covered porch shelling peas. Laura put her arms around her mother's neck first and buried her face in her soft hair. It made the bad feeling inside her soften for a moment. Fanny laughed and squeezed her back, then handed Laura a basket of peas to shell. She grabbed a handful of shelled peas from her mother's basket and stuffed them in her mouth before getting to work. They crunched in her mouth with sweetness.

  "No headaches today, honey?" her mother asked as her stocky hands worked fast to pop out the peas beneath her wide apron-covered bosom. Laura tried but couldn't pop them out as fast. Fanny rocked away in her chipped green rocker, whistling cheerily, as her hands slit open peas.

  "Nope." Today would be a good day. Some days she had headaches so bad she had to lie down on her bed. Her mother would then place cool washcloths on her forehead and neck. Their town physician, Doctor Anna, said it could be child migraines and she would grow out of it in time.

  "Now don't eat all these peas." Her mother shook her finger. "Save some for supper. I'm nearly done. After this, I need your help getting the chicken feed and hay from the barn. Daddy won't be home for a bit."

  They didn't have a true working farm, Laura's father would say, but they were self-sufficient enough with chickens, eggs, an apple orchard, and an enormous vegetable garden. Wesley said Fanny could make it so they lived off their garden and orchard all year long with the cellar she stocked. By autumn, it would burst full of canned tomatoes, tomato sauce, pickles, applesauce, fruit preserves, and pickled beans. Laura liked to lift the heavy round lids off the giant pickle crocks, dip her fingers into cool wetness, and pull out a crisp one to munch on.

  The sky darkened suddenly. She looked up. Black clouds, thick and angry rolled overhead. Her heart raced faster. The bad feeling screamed again inside her.

  "Let's go inside now." Laura tugged on her mother's sleeve. They would be safer in the house.

  "But we can't let our chores go." Fanny's fingers flew across the peas. Slit. Pop. Slit. Pop. Wind whipped around the corner of the house. It knocked over Laura's basket.

  "Mommy, come on. A storm's coming." She picked up her basket and scattered peas.

  "Laura, you're being silly now. We have to go feed the chickens."

  Her mother put her basket of peas down and Laura took it as an invitation to pull her up and toward the door. The wind became a howl. Her mother's apron and skirt flew up. Thunder cracked. They both jumped.

  "Oh my," Fanny said. "A storm is coming. Quick, come help me."

  "Maybe a tornado! Let's go inside." Laura tugged at her mother's apron.

  "There's hardly ever tornados here in the Catskills." Her mother crinkled her nose and hugged Laura. She had the same pug nose as Laura, but much wider. People said they often looked alike, which Laura thought was funny since she wasn't her real mother.

  All she knew about her real mother was she had been a runaway who showed up one day. Laura dreamed up many scenarios about where her mother hailed from. Once her mother was a trapeze artist from a traveling circus who got left behind on a tour, another time a royal princess who ran away to escape marrying an evil prince. And one time she was even an alien transported to Earth on a secret mission to see how humans lived.

  Wesley often told Laura it was good luck to have two mommies. Fanny watched over her as her 'Earth mommy' while Sarah was her 'Angel mommy' looking down from Heaven. Wesley and Fanny had taken one photo of Laura's mother when she stayed with them. In it, she sat on a rocking chair with her hands folded over her swollen belly. She looked sad and yet peaceful at the same time. Laura could see she looked like her real mother. She would stare at her image and say her name out loud when she was alone. It made her real.

  Laura was afraid some days that her 'Earth mommy' would be taken from her too.

  Today felt like one of those days.

  Fanny jigged across burnt grass as the wind tugged at them. She pulled Laura with her toward the barn. On clear days, Laura liked sitting in the doorway at dusk, looking at her world from high up. Today the barn was a menacing face. A towering building that threatened to gobble them up.

  The sky grew darker. Lightning exploded through the angry clouds.

  "Hurry," Laura said.

  Fanny nodded and wiped her forehead on her apron from the exertion in the July heat. She then went upstairs to the hayloft. Laura positioned herself outside the barn to drag off the hay bales as Fanny threw them down.

  "Stand back." Fanny called down to her as she swung open the loft door. It banged on the barn siding in the wind.

  "I know." She stood aside as Fanny threw the first bale down, then Laura pulled it to the side while waiting for the next. The trees creaked and moaned around the barn, bending to the will of the wind. Laura's heart raced faster. The bad thing was coming.

  Fanny pushed the next hay bale toward the opening when a gust of hot wind blew the loft door shut.

  "Mommy, watch out! The door!"

  Fanny pushed the door away with one hand, but then staggered forward, and it was like the hand of an invisible person grabbed her. She tried to stumble back but the hand tugged harder at her dress. Laura watched in horror. Fanny shoved the door hard to open it again. The door pulled her with it. Laura pushed against the wind that held her prisoner in its grasp. Her legs wouldn't move forward. She had to get upstairs and help her mother.

  The wind rose in a black funnel around the barn. Laura screamed. The funnel rushed toward her, knocking over a wheelbarrow next to the barn with a pitchfork in it. The pitchfork her mother always warned her to not touch. The vicious wind flung Laura into the barn. Her head slammed into the siding and she collapsed on the ground.

  "Laura," Fanny shrieked. Laura looked up just as her mother tumbled out of the loft door. She landed on her back. On the pitchfork that lay, face up. Fanny was quiet and still. Her head hung to one side. Her eyes remained closed.

  Laura pulled herself up and ran to her mother's side. Blood seeped through the front of her mother's blouse in a spreading stain. Her large bosom didn't move. Laura touched the growing blood spots. Her tears spotted Fanny's shirt. They mixed in with the blood that slowly spread across it. Laura had to make her better. She had to use her new talent. Would it work though? She slowed down her sobbing so she could think. She needed to calm down to figure this out. Hurry up, Daddy! We need you!

  But Daddy wasn't here now. She had to help her mother alone.

  Laura got her hands under her mother's lower back and leaned all of her seven-year-old weight into her. Grunting and groaning she found the strength to push Fanny over on her side. Her blue shirt shone with wet blood oozing outwards in a ragged oval. The pitchfork sunk deep into her mother.

  "Mommy, please wake up, please," Laura pleaded between sobs. The black clouds had disappeared. The air was still again. It was a beautiful day. The sun touched everything with a bright glow. The birds sang overhead. How could her mother be silent on the ground here and everything be still the same?

  She put her hands on her mother's side and closed her eyes. She wished her hardest that the pitchfork would come out of her mother's back. Just like when she wished the glass chunk out of her foot after she ran barefoot through the woods last week and stepped on a broken bottle careless teenagers left behind.

  As she had sat that day on pine needles and cried, with blood running down her foot, she held her foot and wished for it to be out. Then the jagged glass worked its way out and fell to the ground. The pain and blood stopped, too. When she touched the spot, where
the glass had punctured her foot, the cut disappeared. She never told her parents. There was no scab or scar at all.

  Laura continued to visualize the fork's tines moving backwards out of her mother. She imagined she pulled them out herself. Drops of sweat rolled down her neck and forehead but she didn't wipe them away. She kept her hands on her mother's side, calm, but the rest of her body shook with fear. She wished and wished. And then she prayed.

  "Please, dear God, don't let my mommy die."

  A soft thud cut through the summer sounds around her. She opened her eyes. The pitchfork lay on the ground before her. Blood oozed down the metal spikes. Laura let out a huge sigh, having grown dizzy from holding her breath. She shoved the fork away and rolled Fanny on her back again. She laid her head on her mother's chest and put her hand on her arm that sprawled on the dirt where she fell.

  "Mommy, please wake up," she whispered. She inhaled her mother's scent as she sniffled into her shirt. She smelled of sunflowers and wet earth after a spring rain. She tried to hear her mother's thoughts but there were no sounds in her head. Just quiet. She didn't know how long she lay across her body. The world disappeared. Fanny and Wesley were her whole world. If they weren't there to take care of her, who would?

  "Laura?" Fanny opened her eyes. She turned toward her and half-smiled.

  Laura let out a great sob. Her chest could almost burst open with joy. She touched Fanny's face and hugged her close not wanting to let go.

  Fanny moaned and patted Laura's hair with a shaky hand. "What happened? I fell and then…nothing."

  "Mommy, it's okay. You fell on the pitchfork but I helped you."

  Fanny touched her shirt and pulled away blood on her fingers.

  "I made the pitchfork move out of you. You were bleeding, but I fixed you and now you're all better."