Rebecca
Adam J Nicolai
Also by Adam J Nicolai
Alex (Available Now)
Children of a Broken Sky (Available Now)
A Season of Rendings (Coming 2014)
Rebecca
Adam J Nicolai
Published by Lone Road Publishing, LLC for Amazon Kindle
Copyright © 2013 Adam J Nicolai
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from Adam J Nicolai, except for brief, properly credited quotations.
Cover Design by Kit Foster and Adam J Nicolai
Cover Image © 2013 Adam J Nicolai
"You Are My Sunshine" by Jimmie Davis
©1940 by Peer International Corporation
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Also by Adam J Nicolai
Dedication
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Acknowledgements
About the Author
For my mom, Senja.
You did a good job.
"Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children[.]"
- William Makepeace Thackeray
1
Sarah found herself in the living room, staring at the cars passing in the dark out on Riverside Avenue. She had sworn she would sleep tonight, but she was awake again. The baby wasn't even crying, but Sarah was awake.
During the day she could keep her brave face on. Tell herself this was all going to work out, somehow - that God wanted her to keep the baby, and she'd wanted to keep the baby, and with that kind of love, things would work out. Yes, she was young. She had given up a lot, like going to Yale. And yes, she was doing it alone. But it would work out. Nothing based on love could end in a bad way.
At night, her faith evaporated.
The baby transformed into a blob of hungry darkness: a shrill, starving thing that would never let her alone. She clutched after that blithe confidence she had felt earlier in the day, and felt it melt through her fingers. In its absence, she was left only the truth: she had lost everything. This was all there was now.
There was no one who cared anymore, not really - they'd all left or been driven away. But she craved a supportive voice. Someone to tell her she was doing the right thing, that it would all be okay, that God was with her. The things she could tell herself during the day, but was bereft of in the darkness.
And so she was only slightly surprised when she glanced across the room and saw the Messenger sitting at the dining room table. He wore an old smile - gentle and sad - and though she hadn't seen him in years, she knew at once why he was here.
God wanted her to kill her baby.
2
She opened her eyes, pulled in a startled breath. Suddenly she was in bed, staring at the headlights that washed across the black ceiling and dripped down the far wall. There were no sounds save two: the muted rush of traffic from Interstate 94, and the mechanical swing in the other room, squeaking as it swung one way and clicking when it fell back. Creak, click. Creak, click. Creak, click. Like the door of a haunted house tapping rhythmically in the wind.
She hated that sound. Rebecca wouldn't sleep unless she was in her swing, but the little sounds the machine made could've been the constant echo - or premonition - of her cries. They set Sarah's body on edge, bracing itself for the squall that could come any second.
The dream had already faded, leaving her with a vague sense of disquiet and nothing else. At least there are no gun shots tonight. A few nights ago, she thought she'd heard a few of them. She couldn't be sure. She'd never heard one before her mother made her move to Minneapolis.
She harrumphed, rolled over, and pulled the pillow over her head, favoring the soreness near her belly as she tried to block out the lights from the street. She was finally starting to drift off again when she heard the baby squawk.
Her eyes jerked open inside the cave of her pillow, and she waited.
It might have been her imagination. It wouldn't be the first time. That was the bitter irony of the whole thing: even when the baby wasn't making noise, it was keeping her awake.
Please sleep. It was a plea, or a prayer; she couldn't tell the two apart anymore. Please just give me twenty minutes. The words rode a long worm of pain as it snaked its way through her skull, a fatigue headache that had been there since that first night at the hospital two weeks ago. She had thought she'd known sleepless nights before the baby came, but she'd been wrong. She'd gone through long nights, getting evidence together and putting it onto cards for debate tournaments. This was different. It was every night, forever.
I can get up for just a few minutes, she told herself, just as she'd done all the nights before. Until I'm sure she's sleeping. But she knew this was a lie. Sleep was gone. She was getting up.
She threw off the thin sheet and climbed to her feet, wincing at the lingering ache in her abdomen, at the ghosts of the nurses' hands crushing her to stop her bleeding. Then she crept to the bathroom and peed. She didn't risk the click of the door closing, didn't flush the toilet, used only the barest trickle of water to wash her hands. Quietly, she admonished herself. Her heart pounded, anticipating a sudden scream from the next room. Quietly.
She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror just as she flicked off the light. It imprinted the darkness with a fading ghost of haggard eyes and limp, dishwater blond hair.
Stepping into the hallway, she
engaged in the old ritual of deciding where to go next. Left, back to the futon in her bedroom. Or right, into the living room.
She hadn't heard the baby since she got up. She must've imagined it, before. So she could go to bed. But as soon as she did, she'd hear the kid again. Real or not, she'd hear it.
She waited, breath held, craving rest but unwilling to be tricked again.
Creak, click.
She wanted her bed, but she turned toward the living room.
She passed the main door on her left - the one that led to the oppressive halls of the apartment complex and, ultimately, the parking lot. It was black and looming, set into the end of a short side hall like a cell door. She glanced at it as she shuffled by. She always did. Beyond that door was freedom, but she didn't let herself think about it.
The living room spilled out in front of her. It was littered with diaper boxes and still-packed boxes, some stained with the dim yellow light of the parking lot sodium lamps. If she walked to the living room's far end and turned right around the corner, she'd be in what passed for the dining room: a single, small table, crusted with junk mail and dirty dishes, and a glass patio door. Continuing clockwise she'd be on the cold linoleum of the kitchen, and then back in the living room. She'd go in a circle, like a gerbil in a wheel. It was a grim analogy for her life. Living room, dining room, kitchen, living room. Feed the baby, calm the baby, try to sleep, feed the baby.
In the darkest patch of the living room, the swing labored to keep Rebecca quiet. It flickered into a narrow strip of traffic light leaking through the patio blinds at the apex of each swing. Sarah caught a glimpse of her daughter in each of these flashbulb instants.
A swaddling of thin, fraying blanket. Creak, click. A chubby, red face, with eyes pinched closed. Creak, click. Wisps of dark hair peeking from beneath a crooked hat.
Ugly. It was a horrible thing to think, but she couldn't help it. In the daytime, it was easier to overlook the deformed shape of the child's face, the weird dent in her forehead from the birth canal, but in the darkness, Sarah was alone with her true feelings.
Then she had another epiphany. She's out. Look at her. Out cold. Sarah stepped mentally on to this realization as if on to a frozen lake, testing its strength, wondering if it would be firm enough to bear her to sleep.
Suddenly, she felt ridiculous. The girl had to sleep. She was only human. While she was sleeping, Sarah would get her own rest. Wasn't that what her mom kept saying? All she had to do was let exhaustion claim her.
Her apprehension melted away, and her mouth split into a jaw-cracking yawn.
Creak, click. In the strip of light from the patio door, the baby's eyes had flicked effortlessly open. They stared at her, beady and glittering: the eyes of a monster.
3
The creature in her lap snorted and rooted, trying to catch at her breast. It had worked its hat loose, revealing a tangled mat of sweaty, black hair.
The baby could get cold without the hat. They'd told her that at the hospital. A good mother would put it back on.
Sarah couldn't believe the child was cold, though. The apartment was humid and miserable, the air conditioning broken. She let the hat tumble to the floor, adding this failure to a long, growing list of them.
"Sorry," Sarah whispered, but the creature didn't care; it was hunting for her nipple, straining like some monstrous, blind mole. It began to snuffle, getting frustrated. The thought of its cries made Sarah cringe.
"Here, here," she urged it, cupping her breast and nearly shoving it into the thing's mouth, as they'd taught her at the hospital. The creature - Rebecca. Her name is Rebecca. - bit down with its gums, but its grip was off, and it pinched her. "No," she winced, but her voice didn't sound maternal or caring to her ears, it sounded annoyed. Maybe angry.
"No." Gentler this time. "You don't have it." She felt she should add a "sweetheart," or maybe a "kiddo," but she couldn't. Those words implied feelings she didn't have.
She started to pull back, to try again - but this made Rebecca angry and it clamped harder, trying to keep her nipple to itself. Sarah worked her thumb into the baby's mouth, breaking the suction it had established.
When her swollen nipple tumbled loose, it was bleeding.
4
Bleary light from the window played at her eyelids, and she started awake.
The baby. Shit, the baby.
She cast about, her heart hammering. She didn't recognize the living room. She didn't know where she was. That didn't matter. Where was the baby?
She looked down. The child was in her lap, still on the nursing pillow.
It wasn't breathing.
Sarah tensed, her hands jerking up, ready to shake the child; make sure it was alive.
No! she berated herself. Calm down. It's breathing. Remember what Mom said. It's breathing.
She stared at the creature's still face, ready to leap to her feet, scream for help, call 911. She had screwed this up. She had killed her baby.
Rebecca's lips twitched, nearly imperceptibly. Behind its eyelids, its eyes moved.
Sarah sagged back in her chair with a tight sigh, trembling. As she tried to calm down, she caught herself feeling disappointed.
If it died in the night, there would be crying and consoling cards - but after all of it she could go back, finally, to her normal life. The worst part, she realized, might be trying to convince anyone that she was upset.
God, she accused herself. That's disgusting.
She drew a deep breath, trying to brush it off. Crazy talk. She was just tired. They'd told her about post-partum depression at the hospital. It was hard, being alone with a newborn. She should have support right now; someone to pick up the slack so she could sleep every now and then. Obviously, she was under a lot of stress. She wasn't perfect, but she was doing her best.
That was all logical, but another part of her brain said: I wonder if God knows.
Pastor Dennis had been eager to make sure she kept the baby, even though she'd assured him from the first day that she would never consider anything else.
"You know Sarah, God will know if you don't keep this child. They may try to tell you differently at the Planned Parenthood. But if there's murder in your heart, God will see it."
She hadn't been to church in months; Pastor Dennis's keen interest in her well-being had dried up once she entered her third trimester. But she still wondered if God was watching. Did He know she'd just fantasized about her baby dying?
She felt a stab of panic, but it melted fast into indignation. It was just a stray thought. It wasn't like she was going to act on it.
She'd had the damn baby. What else could He want from her?
"Whatever," she muttered, and turned on the TV.
5
Eliza was on.
She used to watch Eliza for entertainment, to feel good about her lot in life. It was one of those trashy talk shows, where the staff was always running paternity tests and the guests were always screaming at each other. She used to watch it with her friends. She watched it now out of habit, but it was starting to feel more and more like she had too much in common with the people on it - like the show was a mirror, rather than a window.
"I'm one hundred twenty-five percent sho'," a large woman with no neck announced, her head bobbing. The audience booed.
Rebecca's lips pursed, seeking food, and Sarah winced. She could actually feel her nipples recoiling. Both of them were still raw with pain.
The thing never quit eating. It even rooted in its sleep. It didn't care that she was bleeding, or that she had no idea what she was doing. It just wanted to eat. The thought of giving it her nipple again made her want to cry.
"What Dante doesn't know is that we already gave Frederick a paternity test," Eliza explained with a sly grin, "and the results were negative. Should we get him out here and see if he'll take one too?" The audience roared.
As if the bloodthirsty Eliza crowd was egging it on, Rebecca's rooting intensified. It flexed its arms ins
ide the blanket, making it ripple like a cocoon.
"All right," Sarah said. She took her right breast in her hand, triggering a keen twinge of pain, like her nipple was criss-crossed with paper cuts. "Wake up. We're not going to try this in your sleep again." She tapped the baby's cheek. Its mouth yawned open - a gaping, red clamp - and it strained for her finger. Its eyes were still closed.
Against her better judgment, Sarah pressed her nipple into its mouth. The baby clamped on to half of it.
Sarah's breath caught. "No!" She worked in a finger as Rebecca's black eyes flicked open, beady and intent. "No, god - ow!"
Why can't I do this? What the hell is wrong with me? What is so hard about it?
She'd beaten teams from all the top schools in debate. She'd gotten accepted to Yale. Why couldn't she do this?
She pulled away, but the child kept straining, its mouth wide open. "Wait," Sarah snarled. "God, can you just wait?"
Its answer was a ragged squall. Sarah's heart leapt into her throat. She hated that sound. Her arms twitched; she wanted to throw this screaming thing off her lap.
"Fine! Here!" She tried again, but Rebecca wouldn't latch; it was too busy crying now. "C'mon! Okay?" Sarah drew a deep breath, trying to calm herself. Screaming at it isn't going to help. "C'mon. Let's try again. Please?" Her back shivered with revulsion.
She finally calmed it down enough to try again. It didn't latch right. Sarah pulled out again, nearly in tears herself, and switched sides. She tried two more times.
Finally, Rebecca latched and started suckling.
On the other side of the room, the phone rang.
6
"What's wrong?" her mom said.
"What?"
"You sound upset, is everything okay?"
The sheer ignorance of this question left Sarah dumbstruck. Are you serious? Is everything okay?
"Of course," she finally managed.
"Are you busy? I can hear Becky."
The baby was on Sarah's chair still, in front of Eliza, shrieking.
"Yeah. She's hungry."
"Oh, well you better feed her, honey. I was just calling to check in."
Rebecca Page 1