Whenever I start to lose my nerve about all of this, I think of Hugh’s face nearly nose to nose with mine, the vise grip on my arm, that wave of fear. The knowledge that he’d truly hurt me and the baby. It gives me the resolve I need to keep going. It’s survival. Soon, I’ll be out of the city and starting a new life. A new family.
November 15th
Dad slipped into a coma last night. I’m writing this in the waiting room of the hospital. Visiting hours aren’t for another hour.
I can’t stop crying, nearly crashing my rental van driving up here. I packed up everything, filled the U-Haul with my paintings and hit the road. I basically just drove off the face of the earth, didn’t even leave Gina my dad’s address. Have I lost my mind??
I got home to Hob’s Valley late at night and it was such a relief to be back in the house. It’s still the home of my childhood. Mom’s presence is everywhere, and though it’s gut-wrenching, it’s also comforting. The house is looking rough, though. Even at night I can see the peeling paint, and the porch is lopsided, but it’s home and I don’t care.
My dad’s been living on the first floor only, sleeping on a cot in the front parlor, so the upstairs is quite cold. It was a relief to see my room’s still like I left it. I haven’t been to visit in almost two years, but it’s all the same, just a bit dustier. I curled up in my old bed and I was asleep before I even peeled off my coat.
This morning I headed straight over to the hospital. Dad was asleep, looking small and fragile, wires and tubes covering him, sustaining him.
No one’s here besides me. I’m in a dingy waiting room, news blaring, yellowed magazines in front of me, alone, writing. The longer I sit here, the more I fight the pull to flip through ancient parenting magazines.
November 28th
He died. He fucking died. Never regained consciousness, and then died in the night. I dropped the phone when the call came through, crumpled to the floor in my kitchen like a stringless puppet. Just hugging my ever-growing belly, not sure if I wanted to scream, puke, or cry. Or maybe all three.
My poor dad. He was the sweetest man alive, and I really wanted him to be a grandparent to this little girl. It’s a girl. Dr. Blake, my old pediatrician and the only doctor in town, confirmed it at the ultrasound I went to three days ago.
I can’t believe Dad is dead. I rubbed my belly for support the whole ride to the hospital, where I got to say my goodbyes to a corpse. Dad was so tiny, face all hollowed out. When I think of him, my childhood memory of him, it’s as a big jovial man. Big bear hugs, a place of comfort. Having Dad to help me, to love us both, I don’t think I realized how much I’d banked on that. How through force alone I thought he could kick the cancer and we’d all be all right. And now there’s no one. I was a fool, again. And now he’s dead and I need to survive, somehow. I have a funeral to arrange, and a house to take ownership of. Good thing Dad had some savings and a life insurance policy. It’ll keep me in paints and electricity for a while, at least.
Turns out Dad also prepaid his funeral arrangements—thank God!—and he’s going to be interred beside Mom in the town cemetery. That’s a relief since it’s shockingly expensive to dig a hole and put someone in it. That said, I would’ve much preferred Dad alive to the damned money.
I finally emptied and returned the U-Haul. I just dumped all my stuff in the old guest room for now. I don’t really need party dresses or old prom photos right now. I don’t know why I didn’t just toss everything before leaving the city. It all means nothing to me now, here. Earrings? Who cares? I’m alone, totally and utterly alone. God, I wish Mom was here, that someone was here to tell me everything is for a reason, everything will work out, when a door closes a fucking window opens, all those useless platitudes that might help me at this moment. I can’t believe I never even got to say goodbye.
I whisper to the baby that we’ll be a team. That everything is going to work out fine. I hope she believes me. I don’t.
December 2nd
The funeral was small, cheap, and sad. Dad wasn’t a very social guy, and a lot of his friends are gone, or old, or dead. A sprinkling of Mom’s friends came, left over from her Rotary Club days, and the few old timers that still lived in town. My pregnancy was a definite topic of conversation—the unwed mother who came back from the amoral city to bury her father. An orphan now in a big old house. I’m going to be the cautionary tale to scare the high school kids into marrying early and staying in town where they’re safe from horror and temptation—I just know it.
I cried openly and dramatically in church. I’ve never cared what this town thought of me, why start now? I could barely bring myself to look at the photo of my parents on the casket. Their wedding photo. They were so happy, so young. I see so much of my own face in both of them. Mom’s ginger hair, Dad’s nose. I think about the baby. I wonder if she’ll look like us as well. Of course, it makes me think of Hugh.
Dr. Blake was kind enough to prop me up at the gravesite and even drive me home. I remember getting lollipops from him after a shot, and stitches from a fall off a bike in junior high. I think he went to the funeral because he pities me. But I’ll take what I can get. And whatever his reasons, he’s been really kind to me, going above and beyond for me and my baby.
December 10th
A few days after the funeral, I went to my monthly checkup, and Dr. Blake’s brows were knitted together in a frown the entire time. He was very concerned about my iron levels and blood pressure. My heart is being stressed by the lack of oxygen in my blood he said. He prescribed some medication and gave me a transfusion. I debated telling him about Hugh’s warning. That the baby was a monster, that it would be my undoing. But I didn’t, and besides, the baby is fine, he says, in fact it’s surprising how good the baby is doing considering how ill I am. It’s such a relief. I tried not to think about Hugh. I tried not to think about anything. I dug out my old bassinet and playpen. Luckily my mother was a hoarder who really wanted grandkids, so there were bags of ancient baby clothes, high chairs, and toys.
December 20th
I’m chugging on, sad but surviving. The days are long and snowy and boring. I’m realizing more and more why I left and went to the city. It’s just so lonely here. We live on Main St. which you would think would have a little more life. But it doesn’t.
I go to the general store and get the hairy eyeball for being a fallen woman. The library’s the same, me and a dusty, judge-y librarian. I think being alone, cooped up and pregnant is making me crazy. It’s embarrassing to write, but here it is: I’ve been eating things I shouldn’t. It’s like an obsessive desire, but not for food. Chalk, buttons, pencil erases. My regular appetite is non-existent, but every time I find one of those items in a junk drawer or on the floor, my mouth starts salivating. I need to talk to Dr. Blake about that at my next appointment, but I’m afraid. I just can’t take much more.
The complications in this pregnancy are making it impossible to not think about Hugh’s warning. What could run in his family that would be so dangerous to mother and child? My “undoing.”
I can’t think. I need to rest.
January 10th
Dr. Blake was kind enough to start making house calls. It’s uncommon, but everything about my pregnancy is a little off. I’m pushing that to the side. I can’t think about that; I can’t think about what will happen when She arrives. I just have to eat, sleep, and take my vitamins. I finally confessed my peculiar cravings, and after some tests it looks like I am suffering from pica. Which is a crazy disease I have never heard of that can sometimes be triggered by extreme anemia.
The doc told me as soon as he can get my iron levels evened out, the cravings should go away and I’ll just want pickles and ice cream like most pregnant ladies.
I want to believe him. I feel like a lunatic frantically stuffing buttons and chalk in my mouth all the time. I need to get healthy for this baby. I’m looking forward to meeting her. Just to have the company will be nice. I’m so alone here in this big
old house. I only have pictures of myself on the walls to keep me company. I try to sketch to pass the time, but the exhaustion’s made everything a challenge. Even writing is hard. My thoughts are too boggled.
February 14th
Well, it’s Valentine’s Day. I’m celebrating it by sitting alone in a freezing giant old house in the middle of nowhere. Dr. Blake was sweet enough to call and check in on me today. He insists it was a coincidence that it was Valentine’s Day. I don’t believe him, and that makes him all the sweeter. I keep wanting to call Gina, or some of the old gang, but I’m scared to. I picture Hugh’s face, the cold, crazy, threat in his eyes. I don’t want him to find me. And worse, in a way, I don’t want Gina and them to know where I am, and what a charity case I’ve become. Would they think I got what I deserved? Sleeping with a gallery owner, being charmed like a naïve child by his wealth and influence. And what would I to say? They were right. I was such a fool falling for Hugh the way I did. I can’t stomach Gina’s glib judgement—better to just keep on alone. Besides, I’ve made my choice, probably the worst choice in the world. But She will be here in April whether I like it or not. So I better prepare.
April 16th
Two nights ago, I went into labor, when a piercing pain woke me up. I got myself up, more scared than I have ever been and waddled to the bathroom. I felt wet and was surprised to see my water had broken, soaking my nightgown. I called Dr. Blake in a panic, and he called me an ambulance. I changed, cleaning myself up as much as I could before the main event. I’ve never felt such choking terror, such a need to go back in time and put the genie back in the bottle.
The whole time in the ambulance, I just kept wishing all of this had been a terrible dream. I’d wake up to find I was in my apartment in NYC, Hugh with his arm over me, his body pressed to my back. In the next room over Gina would be sound asleep—even Kyle would be there, snoring softly. We’d have stayed out too late having cocktails and discussing a museum opening we’d just attended. It would have been a fantastic night.
Reality intruded when I felt more wetness spilling from between my legs and it was red, everywhere red. I was screaming until I lost consciousness from blood loss.
I feel like my world is centered on blood. My blood. My relationship with Hugh, my pregnancy, and my hospital visits, all sanguine. Apparently, I had a hemorrhage, my chronic anemia making it even worse, and I was bleeding like a stuck pig.
I went into shock and almost died. After copious transfusions, they saved the baby and me. I named her Jane, after Mom, who’d wanted a granddaughter so badly, but never would get to meet her. It was scary and exhausting, all the more surreal blinking in and out of consciousness. And at the end of the tunnel someone drops a baby on your chest. A small thing you made, grown inside you, and fed by you.
When I came out of surgery and was lucid enough to see the baby, I nearly recoiled. She wasn’t a redhead like me and Mom, and she didn’t look like Dad. She was dark, Mediterranean, olive skin and black hair. She looked like her father. I felt so guilty looking at her, as if she was a completely foreign thing. I wished my heart overflowed seeing her. But more than anything, and guiltier still for admitting it, my heart was cold and I felt nothing. I yearned for a scenario where Hugh leaned over, wearing scrubs and a hairnet and looked at our baby, overflowing with parental joy. It’s sick, but true. Whether he knew it or not, Hugh had a daughter.
I look at her, and I see Hugh. So far, Jane is perfect, appropriate numbers of fingers and toes, cute even. But in the place where transcendental euphoric love is supposed to be, I feel coldness. As if I hadn’t been hauling her around in me, as if I hadn’t given up my life to have her. I’m sure a lot of it is postpartum, and just the recovery process from nearly dying, plus grief over Dad. But the love I thought I’d feel when I truly met my daughter, it wasn’t there. The feeling of rightness, that I made the correct life decision, that it was all worthwhile—I didn’t feel it. I felt nothing. For the first time in months my first instinct wasn’t to cry, but feel regret. Were all new moms like this?
May 5th
Jane and I stayed in the hospital for two weeks. My recovery was slow, and painful, but I got better. Once my blood count was up, I began to lactate and started breastfeeding. I found the whole thing exhausting. Plus, I was starving all the time because so many of my hard-earned calories were stolen by this tiny baby, like it was sucking the life out of me. One morning, I noticed the milk that came out of me was pinkish or streaked with blood and began to panic. I confided in an older nurse who’d been looking after Jane and me all these weeks. She chuckled at my concern and patted me on the shoulder.
“It’s scary dear, but totally common. In the old days we used to call it ‘Rusty Pipe Syndrome.’ Not the best name for it, certainly. But it’s totally normal, especially for first time mommies. It’ll clear up in a week or so. And the blood consumption is harmless to the babies.” She gave my shoulder a squeeze and continued on her rounds. I stared at the pigmented blood that had stained my hospital gown and frowned. Seems I can’t escape my blood.
It was indescribable—the loneliness I felt—when I realized there was no one to sign me out and drive us home from the hospital. Dr. Blake, my guardian angel, offered to take us home. I held Jane, although it was technically illegal since I didn’t have a car seat with me. I buckled us both in and held her tight, watching the road fearfully.
Turns out, Dr. Blake had an ulterior motive for driving me home. Things he was struggling to say and didn’t want to say with an audience. We went a few miles before he cleared his throat. Dr. Blake is a good person, he has a careful voice, and kind eyes. His sparse hair the color of crisp snow. He wears grandfatherly cologne, Old Spice, or something like it. He’s someone I’ve grown to feel safe around over the past few months.
Finally, he confessed that he found my pregnancy perplexing. There was something off about it from the beginning, mainly the extreme chronic anemia. Turns out anemia’s common in pregnancy, since the body has to produce more than fifty percent more blood to support the baby. But, with vitamins and a good diet, it should level off. But my body would not, could not, level off no matter how many supplements and transfusions I got. He said my body was literally killing itself making so much blood. I finally asked why I needed to make so much blood. Where the hell was it going?
Dr. Blake was silent for a long time as he drove, weighing the words before he said them. Finally, he glanced at Jane. I squeezed her tighter. He told me Jane started to exhibit a similar anemia when I was in ICU and unable to nurse her. He had to give her transfusions as well, surprisingly large transfusions considering her size and no place for all the blood to go. I felt like I was going deaf, or about to pass out. It was Jane. Jane was taking my blood. When she was separated from my blood, she needed transfusions. The pounding in my temples felt like a migraine. Images of Hugh filled my head, old ghost stories and B-movie monsters haunted me.
Dr. Blake said Jane didn’t make enough of her own blood. Like she has a hole someplace where it all drains out that they couldn’t find. But what he really thinks is that she’s digesting it and passing it through her urine which is, biologically . . . impossible. I squeezed my eyes shut and let out a sob before I could clamp it down.
This couldn’t be real. Vampires, and I hate to write the word, believe me, are made-up magical creatures, right? But Jane was like Hugh: she needed blood to survive. This was what Dr. Blake didn’t want to tell me even though it had been in my face the whole time. Jane had been living off of me from the inside, stealing my nutrients like a tapeworm.
We pulled into my driveway, and the idea of being in this big empty house, alone, chilled me. Dr. Blake was kind enough to come in with me. I set Jane carefully in her bassinet where she kept sleeping peacefully. I traced her soft baby face with my fingertips.
Dr. Blake seemed to realize how upset all of this was making me and said we could talk about it another time. He left me and the baby to get some sleep. When I woke up hours
later, Jane was still tucked up in her bassinet. Downstairs was a simple meal for he’d left for me on the table. I’ve never wept more for a sandwich than I did that day.
May 10th
I told Dr. Blake about Hugh. I had to, and I left nothing out. He thought for a while before saying that Hugh might in fact be someone who drinks blood, because he doesn’t make enough of his own, or he lacks something in his own chemistry. There’s a rare disease, porphyria, that a lot of vampire mythology was based on, it turns out. A painful disease that blood consumption has had success in treating. Dr. Blake theorized this could be something like that. But none of the other symptoms are there, the photophobia, the purple urine, the gum recession . . . but he thinks that something like it, something even rarer could be what both father and daughter suffer from.
He asked if I’d be interested in sending Jane to specialists, and a part of me, maybe my newfound mother’s instinct, flatly refused. I want her to have a normal life. We can manage Jane’s condition together, without a lot of attention. I don’t want a life of hospitals for her.
Dr. Blake stared at me a long time. I finished my tea and rinsed the cups out. By that time, Jane was fussing to be fed. He agreed to do her checkups here at home, pro bono. And to “lose” any of the paperwork that could be damning to Jane’s future. He would respect my wish to give her a normal life. As I watched her nursing, it was hard not to think of her as just a normal baby, suckling on her mother, and not some sort of monster. I promised her then I’d protect her, keep her safe, keep her secrets, and keep her healthy.
July 5th
I’ve not been writing much these past few months, not much to report. Jane grows and changes more each day. She’s a serious child though, hard to make laugh, hard to play with. But she does respond to physical affection. I’m beginning to wonder if it’s more because she gets to be close to her food. And then I feel guilty for thinking that. It’s all so messed up. The “Rusty Pipes” have never cleared up and my breast milk is primarily blood. It wipes me out. I take my weight in vitamins, and eat enough iron and protein to kill a healthy person. But it’s never enough.
Parasite Life Page 11