by Joe Humphrey
Finally, she let go and cranked the knob to cold. The temperature dropped and she gasped. It yanked her out of the fog she was in and she found herself nearly hyperventilating in the dispersing steam. Her body was raw and felt like it was glowing. The cold water hurt as it assaulted her skin. She rinsed the soap from her hair, turned the water off, and stood there for a moment, dripping in the cooling air.
Charlie stepped out of the shower and toweled herself off. Her tiny body shivered in the cold of the bathroom and she no longer felt confident and excited. She was wounded and confused. Who did she think she was, cutting her own hair in the mirror like a crazy person? The thought of looking at it in the harsh light of the bathroom terrified her. The strange difference in weight as she dried her hair made her stomach turn. She’d really done that. Her mother was going to shit.
The mirror was fogged over, so she wiped it clear with her towel and looked herself over. The change to her hair was dramatic. There was no hiding this, the way she hid her smoking and rock magazines. This would have to be dealt with. She’d been able to fly under the radar since the attack. At first, her mother didn’t seem to know what to do with her, but as the weeks rolled by, things settled back into their predictable routine. This wasn’t something she could write off as part of her healing process (though, looking at herself in the bathroom mirror, naked and shaking, the dark bags under her eyes and the scar on her lip, she suspected that it was exactly that) without some response. Her mother loved her hair and this was going to cut her deeply. Charlie shook her head, letting the short hair swing around her face in wet tangles. It did feel nice.
- 4 -
The dress felt more like a costume after the shower. It looked fine. It was a well-made dress and she’d done a respectable job tailoring it, but it didn't look like anything she would ever actually wear. One thing Charlie was grateful for was her mother’s insistence that she learn the basics of sewing, even though it was a skill she had no interest in doing anything with. Rose saw it as one of the fundamental building blocks of an American woman and was determined that Charlie be at least a passable seamstress.
With her hair dried and combed, she was certain she would need to go into a salon to get it fixed. There was no getting around that. Her bangs were uneven and she was terrified to look at the back of her head. She might be a halfway decent seamstress, but she was no stylist and it was a miracle she didn’t completely butcher her hair. Still, looking at herself in her dress with the freshly opened neckline and shoulders, and her new bangs, she couldn’t help but feel some pride. It looked interesting. She wasn’t sure what had driven her to do what she’d done, but it felt good. At least it was a change from the jeans and tops she usually wore, and while the style wasn't current, it had a charm. She leaned forward and looked down the neckline at her breasts, swollen and almost radiant. They were definitely bigger than they’d ever been. She’d always secretly hoped for a little more growth in that area. Maybe it was finally happening. She cupped one and found it tender to the touch, as she had expected. Definitely getting my period soon, she thought.
There were two things about what she was seeing in the mirror that should have been apparent to her were she not in denial, and if her memory had not been smashed and scattered in the desert wind by a series of recent traumas. The first was that she was nearly three months pregnant. The second was that she’d crafted a dress and haircut for herself that directly imitated the style of a very peculiar woman named Caroline she’d recently spent some time with.
- 5 -
Charlie sat in the living room on the old sofa that had been in that same spot all of her sixteen years. She caught her breath when she heard Rose’s keys jangle in the lock and pulled the hem of her skirt down as close as she could get to her knee. Rose stopped walking when she noticed Charlie sitting there in her blue dress and new hair. For a moment Charlie watched the wheels turning in Rose’s head as she decided how she was going to respond to this new information that made no sense. She nodded slightly, turned, and walked into the kitchen without a word.
After a moment when Charlie realized her mother wasn’t coming back in to yell at her, she went into the kitchen, not sure what to expect. Rose was standing over the sink holding half a glass of milk. She didn’t look at Charlie, only stared out the window and took a drink.
“The dress looks nice. I’d prefer a higher neckline,” she said in a soft, careful tone. The complement felt uncomfortable in Charlie’s head as she processed it.
“Thank you,” she muttered.
“Your hair will grow back. The way it was before,” Rose said before drinking the last of her milk and placing the empty glass in the sink.
“What if I don’t want it to?” Charlie asked. Her mother finally turned, her cheeks wet.
“It has to.”
Then she did something Charlie never expected. She stepped forward and embraced her daughter in a tight hug, resting her chin on Charlie’s head, her arms wrapped around her tiny shoulders. Something in the pit of Charlie’s stomach cracked and spilled a warm wave through her body that made her shake and her breath collapse into hitching, hiccupping chaos as she fought the flood of sobs that was welling up inside her.
“I’m sorry this thing happened to you, Charlotte. So sorry.”
Charlie let go and wailed into her mother’s chest, an animalistic and primal sound that she had no control over. Her hands gathered the fabric of her mother’s blouse and cramped as they clenched.
“Just know that Jesus loves you no matter what, and I love you.”
As they stood there, crying and holding each other, an odd, familiar scent drifted through Charlie’s nose. A smell buried deep in the cloth of her mother’s blouse, under the cigarette smoke and sweat. It somehow both comforted and frightened her. Her mother was wearing imitation vanilla as perfume.
- 6 -
“Why do they have to keep it so cold in here?”
Rose sat in the corner reading a Family Circle magazine, a cigarette resting between her lips. She looked up at Charlie, who sat on the exam table in her hospital gown, her bare feet dangling over the side. The stirrups spread out from the table behind her like the legs of a mechanical spider.
“It’s not cold in here, you’re just almost naked. I’m perfectly comfortable,” Rose said turning back at her magazine.
“They could at least give me a blanket or something,” Charlie muttered, picking at a frayed bit of leather on the corner of the table.
“It’s not his job to coddle you. It’s his job to fix you. Leave that alone,” Rose said, pointing her cigarette at where Charlie was pulling at a thread in one of the cushions. Charlie shrugged and lay back on the table, resting her head on the pillow. She pulled her legs up under the gown, trying to find some warmth.
Dr. Ballard entered with a smile and a nod. He was a pleasant enough man with thick glasses in brown tortoise-shell frames resting on a sizable beak of a nose. The picture was completed by the ridiculous looking circular mirror strapped at the side of his forehead, flipped up.
“Hello Rose, hi Charlie,” he extended a hand first to Rose, and then to Charlie. They both shook it without much enthusiasm.
“How are you feeling these days Charlie?”
“Okay I guess,” Charlie said with a shrug.
“Just okay?” Dr. Ballard asked, looking over her chart.
“Yeah, just okay. I’ve put on a bit of weight, but my diet has been all over the place, and I've been peeing a lot. Other than that I’m okay.”
“Good. Let’s take a look. Scoot on down,” he indicated the stirrups and Charlie slid her butt down the table and dropped legs over the metal arms, resting her feet in the stirrups. Dr. Ballard reached past her and pulled the privacy curtain across. Since leaving the hospital after the attack, she’d been in that office, in that position at least four or five times, though it was a couple of months since her last visit. This was merely a follow-up on how the scarring inside her was healing. Charlie closed her e
yes and tilted her head back. She hated this more than most things. First the cold, lubricated finger with its awful loose latex skin and then the icy, biting metal.
Once the speculum was in, she opened her eyes and looked up at the ceiling for a long breath. A cheap print of an ocean scene was taped there, apparently meant to soothe her. Some beach with a distant boardwalk amusement park. Santa Monica perhaps. The light from his head mirror caught in her eye and she realized he was looking up from between her leg. She tried to meet his gaze but the light coming off his forehead kept her from looking directly at him.
“Charlie?” he asked. “You say you’ve been urinating a lot lately?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Do you think you could pee for me now? In a cup?” he asked, flipping up the mirror and looking at her with an apologetic smile.
“Why?” Rose said from behind the curtain. Charlie heard her mother stand and walk across the room, the heels of her clunky shoes clopping on the tile like a horse. She poked her head around the curtain.
“Why does she need to do that, doctor?” Rose asked, her cigarette quivering in her mouth.
“Because I don’t have a rabbit,” the doctor said with a shrug. Charlie looked at her mother, not understanding what was happening. There was some grown-up knowledge between them that she wasn't privy to. Rose shook her head, sending ash from her cigarette falling onto her sweater.
“No. No no no no no. Get up Charlotte. Get up and get dressed,” Rose said, stubbing her cigarette out in the ashtray on the counter.
“Mom, I still have the... the thing in me,” Charlie waved her arms at her legs, propped open in the stirrups.
“Take it out of her. Now. We’re leaving!” Rose barked at the doctor, almost yelling. He held his hands up, not wanting to argue.
“Okay. You got it, Rose. Whatever you say,” he reached between Charlie’s legs and unscrewed the clamps on the speculum and released it from her. He was barely able to wipe her with a towel before Rose pulled her up from the table by the wrist and shoved clothes into her arms.
“I understand you’re upset. Lord knows I would be, but this is real and you’re going to have to deal with it. Do you understand?”
“Do I understand what exactly?” Rose spat the words at him. “What do you mean ‘deal with it’? There is no dealing with it!”
“Please, Rose, for Charlie’s sake. Just sit down for a minute and let’s talk about this. There’s time to talk about options.”
Rose stared at him while he talked. Charlie wasn't sure what exactly her mother was so upset about, but she was seething. Dr. Ballard continued.
“There are certain provisions for a situation like Charlie’s. It’s not always a popular choice, but sometimes it’s the wisest... the kindest, and the best for everyone. I can arrange it and it would be private. Completely private. Do you understand?” Dr. Ballard said in an even-tempered tone that suggested that he was offering them an opportunity with an extremely short time limit. Rose shook her head, seemingly in disbelief.
“Stop asking me if I understand! I understand perfectly!” she snarled. As Charlie slipped the dress over her head, she noticed both her mother and Dr. Ballard looking at her belly, which poked out in a slight bulge over the waistband of her underwear.
“It doesn’t have to be this way. No one would know except the three of us.”
“You’re a monster.” Rose hissed.
“Know what?” Charlie asked, scared, her arms crossed at her chest. Her mother and the doctor looked at each other for a long beat. Finally, he spoke.
“You’re pregnant, Charlie,” Dr. Ballard said with some sadness in his voice.
“You’re going to have a baby,” her mother said at nearly the same time. Her head was shaking back and forth involuntarily. Charlie stood there for a moment, completely dumbstruck. The information didn’t make any sense.
“How can I be pregnant? We only kissed. He touched my boob but that was it. We only kissed!” she said, tears stinging her eyes. Rose’s own eyes narrowed briefly. “I can’t be pregnant! It doesn’t work that way! I know that!” Charlie was yelling now. It didn’t make any sense. She hadn’t seen Patrick in months. He’d stayed away since her ordeal and besides, they hadn’t done anything that would get her pregnant, ever.
“You’re wrong! I can do the test! I’ll pee! I can prove it! We never did anything! I’m a virgin! This isn’t right!” she was almost screaming. Dr. Ballard stood to comfort her but Rose put her arm around Charlie first and guided her to the door. Charlie could only shake as her world fell apart.
Rose wasn’t able to support her weight. The girl was small but grief dragged her to the floor.
“Damn it Charlotte, get up. You can’t do this here. Get up!”
Rose yanked at Charlie’s wrist. When their eyes met, Charlie saw a fire in her mother’s face that scared her. She shut her mouth and tightened her jaw, her tongue shoved into the gap in her back teeth. Rose held her hand out and Charlie took it, pulling herself to her feet. The emotional machinery inside her was seizing and the tears stopped almost as abruptly as they started. She sucked a string of dangling snot up into her nose as she bent to pull herself upright.
“I’m sorry for causing a scene, Dr. Ballard. Thank you for your help,” Charlie muttered, refusing to meet his eyes as she adjusted her dress, pulling it into place.
“Of course,” he said, his hands on his hips, his eyes sad but resigned. He reached out to touch her shoulder but Rose pulled her away. They walked past the receptionist. Without looking at her, Rose spoke to the girl sitting behind the desk with her mouth hanging open.
“Please gather our records. I’ll pick them up tomorrow.”
The girl looked from Rose to Dr. Ballard and he nodded before returning to his office and closing the door with a soft click.
- 7 -
The newspaper fluttered in her hand. She let it go, a page at a time, and watched as the grey angels fluttered down into the water below. She didn’t need it anymore, the headline was burned into her mind. ROCK SINGER MORRISON FOUND DEAD IN PARIS. She’d read the article, which was short and concise, at least ten times. He was dead. He was dead he was dead he was dead. The rest of the paper fell from her hands and scattered in the wind. She took another drink from the bottle, forcing herself to swallow the foul liquid inside. It was nearly ten, but the sun was still reaching over the mountains, painting the sky pink. Jim was dead in some hole in Paris and she was sitting on a train trestle getting drunk by herself with a creature growing inside her. A little leech that was sucking her life, and would continue to suck her life until she died. She knew how it got there because she was told how it got there, but she never had a choice in that. Not only had she been denied the choice, but there was a hole in her memory when this thing was put inside her. The whole process was inflicted on her without her consent at every step. Conception, gestation, and, ultimately, delivery and rearing. No one once asked her what she wanted.
The whiskey was disgusting but she drank it anyway. Her body fought the alcohol and made a valiant attempt at forcing it out of her stomach. She resisted the urge to vomit and took another drink. Holding the bottle up to the remaining bit of sunlight, she saw that she’d barely consumed a quarter of it. Screwing the cap back on, she gripped the steel girder next to her and pulled herself to her feet. The weight of her belly put her off-balance and for a moment she thought she might fall off the bridge entirely. That would have been bad. Not because it would have killed her but because it wouldn’t have. She’d found the highest bridge in Nephi, and it was barely fifteen feet off of the water. Useless. A jump from that bridge would have probably broken her legs, maybe paralyzed her. It wouldn’t kill her though, and that’s what she wanted. For the moment anyway.
Once she found her balance, she took a step onto the tracks. They stretched out to the horizon in a straight line in front of her, splitting farmland. Behind her, the tracks curved and cut through the northwestern corner of town. She knew
there was a spot a half a mile or so around that bend where the train would stop and unload and pick up cargo headed south. She took another long pull from the bottle. It was getting easier with each drink. She imagined the warmth that spread from her throat into her belly was a shower of radioactive poison that would burn the creature inside her to death like salt on a slug, causing it to shrivel up and turn black.
It wouldn’t though. She was stuck in this world, carrying this thing inside her. This time bomb was two months away from exploding out of her and destroying whatever future she might have had. She took another drink.
The dress her mother made for her tangled in her legs and she nearly fell over. It was a pretty dress, but it was certainly her mother’s taste, not her own. Like everything Rose made, it was matronly. The dress was cut in such a way that it almost hid her condition if you weren’t wearing your glasses and she didn’t stand sideways. Charlie was very pregnant and everyone knew it.
Patrick hated her. He hated her but he also loved her and had given her the bottle. Not without telling her again how much he hated her. Charlie laughed at him and thanked him, both for the bottle and for his opinion, adding it to the pile of examples of how her life was complete shit. It didn’t even hurt her anymore. She was past all that. All she wanted was to go to sleep and wake up somewhere else, somebody else. Or not wake up at all. That’s what she was really aiming for.
The trestle was a black spider web on the darkening sky behind her as she walked along the train tracks. The same tracks she’d rode on only a few short months before with Patrick, change in her pocket for comic books and candy. She laughed and her stomach finally won the battle and clenched against her diaphragm, forcing a splash of hot liquid out of her onto the ground at her feet. She wiped her mouth and burped. Fuck it. She took another drink and stepped over the puddle.