Something Down There

by Nancy Widrew

  But now things were changing. With the baby thrust before them like a ripening watermelon, the members started to treat her deferentially, with a reverence reserved for heroes and demigods. She lost count of how many times she’d been told “Take it easy” and “Don’t work so hard.” Paying little attention to their admonitions, she kept going at her usual pace without any thought to her health or the baby’s for that matter. To her it was a mere parasite—a thing—and an unwanted one at that. At least, that’s how she had felt until yesterday.

  Sitting quietly, with her arms and legs folded pretzel-like, she had sensed it move for the first time. Initially, she dismissed the tingle as mere rumblings in her stomach, but then it came again, reminding her of monarch butterflies whose soft-petal wings fluttered in her palms on warm summer mornings; except this tiny creature was fluttering inside her, enclosed in her protective womb.

  At that moment, all the hate she had felt toward it dissolved, replaced with a type of love she had never experienced before, a protective love more powerful than what she felt for Jeremy. Within her grew a baby, her baby, a thriving miracle moving its tiny arms and legs. She wondered what it looked like, and her eyes misted over as she imagined soft, fuzzy peach skin and a red, bow-shaped mouth. She’d die for this marvel, her creation, a perfect fruit on the tree of life.

  But then a horrible thought—the same one every mother-to-be ponders: what if something’s wrong? She froze and clutched her chest, overcome with the realization that she’d been negligent, had not considered adequate nutrition or rest. What if the baby was born deformed and it was her fault? She would never forgive herself; at that moment she vowed to eat properly and let others do the heavy lifting and digging in the garden. After all, she was pregnant and pregnant women were entitled to a little pampering. In fact, maybe she should consider turning over the reins; tell others her tricks to make the mushrooms taste both meaty and peppery and smell like cinnamon. Then with extra time on her hands, she could devote more hours to Jon and Randy. As a former teacher, she had been appalled by the laxity, the downright carelessness, the adults showed toward the boys’ education.

  Karen looked up, surprised to see Randy.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to startle you. I just want to ask you something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Remember we talked about increasing my school hours?”

  “Funny you should ask,” said Karen. “I was just thinking about it.”

  Randy lips formed a lopsided grin. “I’ve been saving this for a surprise … I’ve learned the whole alphabet, backwards and forwards. I followed your advice and been studying picture books, on my own. I can sound out the words. Read whole passages. I want to read a novel—Owls in the Family. I pulled it from a shelf.”

  “But the letters are too small. You won’t be able to see the small print.”

  Randy smiled like a child with a new toy. “That’s another surprise. When I helped Norman gather the guano weeks back, I found an area that gets natural light, but is still far enough away to avoid the stinky smell. I’ve been going there every day with a book. It’s helped my eyesight.”

  “Really?” said Karen, delighted by the news. “Maybe it’ll help mine too. At the next community meeting, I’ll insist they let us increase our time together.”

  “Good. Now can I ask you one more question?”

  “Sure. Anything.”

  “Where do babies come from?”

  Karen gulped. “Huh?”

  “I mean, I sort of know. Rahm explained it to me. Norman too, but I’m still confused.”

  Karen winced and tugged on her shirt as if trying to hide a shameful secret. With her child’s questionable bloodline, she preferred keeping the subject of babies off limits. “Maybe you’d better ask your mother if you’re confused.”

  Randy persisted. “What I don’t understand is how you got pregnant without going to the fertility area. You never did go, right? Rahm told me to peek inside when grownups went, and I never saw you even once.”

  Karen eyes bulged, her mouth flew open. “Rahm told you to what!”

  “He said it would help my education, but to tell you the truth, it made me feel weird so I stopped after a couple months.”

  Karen sighed. “You don’t need a fertility area to get pregnant. The whole idea is absurd. Aboveground there’s no such thing.”

  “I know,” said Randy. “I just thought maybe it was different below.”

  “Well, it’s not. And you don’t need fertility gods either.”

  “I don’t really believe in fertility gods,” said Randy. “Best I can tell, they’re just rock. I even asked Jeremy about it, but he got really mad. My mom said it’s ’cause he might not be the baby’s father. Is that true?”

  Karen stuttered. “I-I’m not sure.”

  “My mom’s not sure who Jon’s father is either, but I don’t care. He’s still a pest. You know what he’s been doing today?”

  “No, what?”

  As if on cue, Jon ran by with something moving inside his mouth. Two tiny webbed feet poked out, which thrashed like the limbs of a human baby and hung toward his chin.

  Karen raised the lantern higher, shuddering when Jon chomped on the living creature. But worst of all, with a “Pffffttt” from his lips, he spit out the head. Karen screeched. “What the—“

  “It’s a toad,” said Randy. “They don’t normally live in the cave, but once in a while they crawl through the entrance and make it to the lower levels. Jon loves the taste. Hey,” he said, shifting his focus. “Can I touch your stomach?”

  Karen stiffened. “I guess.”

  Randy pressed down. “Wow. Feels just like my mom’s stomach when she was pregnant.”

  “If you don’t mind,” said Karen, covering up her unease with a lie. “I really should go. I’m late for the mushrooms.”

  “Sure, I’m supposed to help Mom clean our room, anyway. But you’ll let me know about any changes with school, right?” He ran off leaving Karen, in a state of panic.

  Kicking the icky head of the toad aside, she thought, Could living below turn my child into an unnatural being like Jon? A slew of grotesque images formed in her brain, sealing her resolve to make peace with Jeremy. After witnessing today’s freak show, she vowed to flee this subterranean house of horrors before it was too late. If Jeremy continued to refuse her advances, she’d try her damnedest without him. With her special abilities and a sacred reason to never give up, she’d find a way. For the time being, however, she’d do what she loved: work in the garden and teach.

  Still rattled by Jon’s nightmarish display, Karen massaged the knots in her neck. As she kneaded, she devised another plan, a secondary one which involved trickery, and, yes, guilt, but was necessary, nonetheless. For the sake of her child, she would abandon her principles. Recalling Jeremy’s words, she spoke them out loud like a president or prime minister addressing a nation under attack: “‘This is war,’” she declared, stomping the ground. But with no person in the group she could completely trust, her ploy would have to remain top-secret.

  #

  Mary never felt happier. To love and be loved in return, to feel someone’s warm breath against her face, to hear words of endearment in her ear, this was a gift she had thought beyond her reach. But now that it fell within her grasp, she became a changed person.

  For the first time in her life she felt pretty. Jeremy told her so, so it must be true, and being the object of desire permitted her to shed her old skin and supplant it with a softer, more feminine coat. Gone was her mulish pocketbook mouth, stuffed with resentments, flapping open or snapping shut. Her current style unmasked a startling panache, uplifting and cheerful, exemplifying health, youth, and beauty. Even Rachel and Norman asked her if she had lost weight or changed her hair.

  Although flattered by their compliments, Mary’s moment of triumph came when she had been sitting in The Ballroom, a queen on her throne. Brian walked in, did a double take, and hit a
low-hanging stalactite head on, cracking the tip. She laughed like a tickled child when he apologized to the formation.

  “To whom are you speaking?” she quipped. “Don’t you look where you’re going?”

  Again Brian’s eyes darted between Mary and the stalactite. “Huh,” he said. “What the hell? Thought I bumped into someone. What’s going on?” He pointed to her. “That can’t be you.”

  “But it is me. Mary. The love of your life.”

  Waving his hand to and fro, Brian fanned his heated face. “But you’re beautiful.”

  Beautiful? No. That went too far. Mary knew she had changed, but beautiful was out of the question. Still … “Must be the lighting in here.”

  Brian moved closer, mouth agape, then backed away like a subject before royalty. After he was gone, Mary rose, did a pirouette, relishing in her satisfaction like a contented housecat. And all this because of Jeremy, her man.

  With his help, her foot had easily slid inside Cinderella’s slipper for a perfect fit. He respected her feelings, her intelligence, and placed her on the proverbial pedestal, making her feel like a real woman.

  They had sex on a regular basis and the experience left her dizzy and tingly, far superseding her cursory obligations with Brian or those in the fertility area. She even dared hope that love would be the magic ingredient to cure her infertility. It certainly helped with her longing for Rahm, secured inside a mental strongbox marked with an R, which would have surely dissipated if she hadn’t suspected her time with Jeremy was finite. But Carl’s unfortunate death and Jeremy’s continual exploration of the cave, told her an escape attempt was coming. While he had never learned to echolocate, the depth, comingling, and fine-tuning of his five senses, added up to more than the sum of their parts.

  But even more than Jeremy’s skyrocketing skill, Mary’s own words, the equivalent of a sacred oath, proved a greater irritant to her serenity, a constant tickle beyond reach of her hand or conscience. While she regretted those words, going back on them would be tantamount to a sin. No, she’d do as she had said, like it or not. Of course, his constant prodding never let her forget.

  Early the next morning, with the two of them still in bed, Jeremy again asked, “Have you discovered anything new?”

  With his face touching hers, she said, “Nothing definite, but I’m trying.”

  Jeremy pulled away, turning in the opposite direction. “If I stay here much longer, I’ll lose my mind. Rahm’s a murderer. He killed my friend. I have to get out of here, and I need you, Mary. Remember your promise.”

  “I remember and I’m trying. Really I am.” She reached out to him, ran a finger down his back, but his “Uh-huh” response was as empty as a discarded paper bag.

  “Look, I’d be lying if I said I want you to go, but I swore an oath.” She took a deep breath and forged ahead before she changed her mind because maybe, just maybe, she hadn’t been as forthcoming with herself—or Jeremy—as she thought. “There is one thing we can do,” she admitted. “Keep a better eye on Randy.”

  “Why?” he said, turning back, curious, forgiving.

  “He went up with Rahm.”

  “‘Up’? You mean outside the cave?”

  “That’s right. There’s more food in the pantry, and they even bought some baby things for your w—for Karen.”

  Jeremy rubbed a hand across his mouth, thinking. “I haven’t seen much of Randy lately. He doesn’t seem too interested in fishing anymore.”

  “That’s because of Karen’s school.”

  “Her school,” he echoed, mechanically.

  “That’s right. Didn’t you pay attention at the last meeting? She said that the boys’ education was ‘grievously lacking,’ and volunteered to teach them math and reading. She holds classes most days after she’s through bossing everyone around in the mushroom garden. I worked there yesterday and it was no picnic. Karen’s so obsessed with those stupid puffballs. Everything has to be just so. She even sleeps nearby in case you haven’t heard.” Mary almost added I don’t know what you ever saw in that deceitful bitch, but wisely decided against it.

  “Yeah, I heard about her sleeping arrangements,” said Jeremy. “Believe me, it was purely by chance. I don’t give a rat’s ass what she does or where.”

  While Mary hoped it were true, she had her doubts, but his next words took her breath away.

  “Look, Mary. If I do manage … No! When I do leave, why don’t you come with me?”

  “You mean leave here. With you? I could never do that!”

  “Why not? There’s nothing for you here.”

  Mary’s narrowed eyes contrasted with Jeremy’s dead-on, headlight stare. “You’re wrong,” she said. “Everything I value is here. This is my home. And besides, I couldn’t leave Brian.” She lowered her voice so that Jeremy had to strain to hear. “I know you may not understand or agree, but according to God’s law we’re still married. And so are you—to Karen.”

  “She means nothing to me,” he said in response.

  “I wish that were true, but I’ve heard you murmur her name when you think I’m not around. You can’t tell me that you don’t feel something. In here.” Mary pressed a palm first to her heart, then his. “I’ve always known—don’t ask me how—that your fate is not with me, with us. But before you go, I want you to leave me a gift, one to remember you by; one I swear I’ll always treasure.” She took his hand and placed it to her abdomen.

  Jeremy tensed and pulled his hand away. “You know I have no control over that.”

  “You don’t, but I do.” She smiled at the thin line formed by his tense, puzzled lips but didn’t bother to explain. He was much too practical, too logical, and would have no basis for understanding; she, at least, had the required faith.

  While echolocation was not her forte, over the past weeks she had been practicing and improving her proficiency. She had stopped using candles when she moved among the passageways, forcing herself to rely on her voice. And then she had a breakthrough, an honest-to-God, lightning-bolt explosion in her head. Why not use the technique to see inside someone’s body as well as outside? Why not follow the pulses where they could search out a promising sperm, coax it, and lead it until it latched onto its mate, an egg, waiting to be penetrated.

  “Make love to me,” she said, speaking so forcefully he dared not refuse.

  “You mean right now?”

  “Yes. Now,” she said, tearing at his clothes.

  They rolled, tumbled to the ground as Jeremy jokingly said, “I love aggressive women.” Mary fastened her hands around his neck. Still laughing, he bent over and kissed her open mouth while she click-clicked above his range of hearing.

  #

  Karen placed her latest book on top of a stack near her bed. Despite her worsening eyesight, two lanterns made reading possible, but her fatigue proved too great a challenge. Since the beginning of her pregnancy she found herself nodding off at inopportune times and was about to blow out the flames when she heard muffled laughter.

  That’s odd, she told herself, knowing all the members had gone to the lake to bathe and wash their clothes. Karen had pleaded exhaustion and when Rachel offered to do her laundry, she accepted the offer with thanks.

  Hearing more giggling, followed by a shushing rebuke, Karen sat up straight, craning her neck around a berry bush, blocking her view.

  Before she could identify the intruders by spoken word or echolocation, she heard multi-voiced shouts of “Surprise!” Karen stifled a sigh and pushed aside the covers as Lily, Rachel, Helene, Mary, and Janet crowded around her, placing packages on the floor.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “A baby shower,” said Rachel, pointing out gifts wrapped with pictures of infants cuddling in their mothers’ arms.

  Karen held her lips in a pout, trying to decide whether acting appreciative or annoyed would work more in her favor. Compromising, she kept her words polite but her tone flat. “How unexpected, but nice. I’m so pleased.”

>   Helene, too self-absorbed to notice the insincerity, flittered about on her knees, touching each box as if it belonged to her. “Go on,” she said. “Open the presents. I can’t wait to see what you got.” She shoved the largest forward.

  Karen reached for it, carefully tearing off the paper. Inside were three one-piece playsuits. She held them up, then passed them around to murmurs of “Adorable,” “Look how tiny,” and “They’re all pink.”

  “That’s because it’s a girl,” said Rachel, referring to Mary’s remark regarding the color. “I can tell.”

  “You don’t say,” said Mary. She ran the point of her tongue along the inside of her cheek. “Just how can you do that?”

  Rachel smiled, met the challenge. “I have my ways and, besides, I have influence.”

  Lily broke in. “She’s been praying a lot. To Tloc and Toca. Especially Toca.”

  Mary tapped her fingers on an unopened box. “I’m afraid all the prayers in the world won’t change the baby’s sex. That’s determined at conception. I know you never went to college, Rachel. Didn’t even finish high school, right? But surely you’re aware of that.”

  Concerned the insult would hit a nerve and cause an argument, Janet quickly spoke up. “What difference does it make, whether it’s a boy or a girl? As long as it’s healthy.”

  “Healthy’s good,” agreed Rachel, “but a girl would be—nice.”

  Karen compressed her lips, knowing just how nice a girl would be; in fact, a girl was essential since the addition of a third boy would not only complicate matters but make them worse. I wonder, she thought, what they’ll do if their plans fall apart? Picturing a little Bobby or Billy, Karen laughed. As she tore the gift wrapping off another box—this time to shreds—Karen laughed louder. Inside was a sweater, also pink.