Lost You

by Haylen Beck

  Can’t be that hard, Anna thought.

  She undid a few more buttons on the nightgown they’d given her, exposing Little Butterfly’s back. He shivered and cried louder, a higher, longer wail.

  “I’m sorry, baby, I’m sorry.”

  She took his body in one hand, his head in the other, and turned him, maneuvered him into place so that his lips rested against her nipple. His mouth opened and closed on her skin, searching.

  “Here,” she said, trying to move herself within his reach, but he couldn’t seem to get hold, even as his lips moved, making sucking sounds. “Here, baby, it’s right here.”

  But still he couldn’t manage, and she felt something crumble inside of her, like her soul cracking and splintering.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she said, her voice trembling as tears came. “Nobody showed me, L’il B, and I don’t know what to do.”

  She wept then, feeling the crushing reality of what lay ahead. All the things she didn’t know, and no one to help her. For the first time since the conscious thought of keeping the child she’d carried appeared in her mind, she did not believe that she was equipped to care for him.

  “What do I do?” she asked the baby. “Show me what to do.”

  “Oh, sweetheart,” a voice said from the doorway. “Not as easy as it looks, is it?”

  Anna gasped and turned her head, saw Nurse Tiernan looking back, a soft smile on her face.

  “It’s a pity they don’t come with instructions, isn’t it?” She entered the room, closing the door behind her. “Here, let me help.”

  She approached the bed, leaned over so she could see, pulled back Anna’s nightgown.

  “Now,” she said, “lift baby away for a second. Don’t push it into his mouth, let him take it. Bring him in close, put your nipple against his top lip, and he’ll tilt his head back and open his mouth. There, see? And just let him…there you go. That’s it.”

  Little Butterfly latched on, and Anna giggled as he filled his mouth and swallowed.

  “He’s getting the good stuff now,” Nurse Tiernan said. “Your first milk is different, colostrum, it has all the antibodies and the nutrients and everything he needs for his first few days. Attaboy. Look at him go. The little ones always feed like crazy, just so they can catch up.”

  “Thank you,” Anna said, resting her head back against the pillow.

  “You’re welcome, honey.” Nurse Tiernan stroked Anna’s hair, swept it away from her eyes. “You got a tough time ahead of you. But I promise, it’ll be worth it. You thought up a name for him yet?”

  Anna smiled. “I’ve been calling him Little Butterfly, L’il B for short, but I guess that won’t do, will it?”

  “Not when he gets bigger, it won’t,” Nurse Tiernan said, returning the smile. “This guy’s going to be a bruiser, just look at those hands. And there’s a rapper called Lil B. My daughter listens to him.”

  “There’s room for more than one L’il B, isn’t there?” Anna asked. “But I’ll think of something else. L’il B works just fine for now.”

  “I wish I knew your name,” Nurse Tiernan said, her voice gentle. She fixed Anna with her eyes.

  Anna couldn’t hold her gaze.

  “A man called, asking for you.”

  Anna tried to keep her voice even, casual. “Who?”

  “He didn’t give his name, just like you didn’t. He wanted to know if he could visit you.”

  Anna closed her eyes and pictured him out there somewhere, waiting for her. No. Not waiting for her. Waiting for L’il B.

  “Sweetheart, tell me what’s going on. What kind of trouble are you in?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “There’s no trouble. Honestly.”

  “Look at me,” Nurse Tiernan said.

  Anna did as she was told.

  “You’ve been lying since you walked into this hospital. Now it’s time to tell the truth. I can’t help you if you don’t. You tell me what’s going on, and I promise, we can fix it.”

  “You can’t,” Anna said, her eyes welling. “No one can.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Nurse Tiernan became silent, looking down at the baby feeding, a distant expression on her face. Eventually, she spoke.

  “I’ll make sure no one is allowed in,” she said. “But you can’t stay here. The manager wants you moved over to Magee Womens Hospital in the city. They can take proper care of you and your baby. An ambulance is booked for six a.m. That gives you three hours to think it over. They’ll want to know how you’re going to pay for your care, for one thing. You need to start talking. Then we can figure out how to help you and this little one.”

  She placed a hand on the baby’s head, then on Anna’s cheek.

  “I promise, I will do everything I can to help you,” she said. “But I can’t if you won’t let me. Three hours. Think of your baby.”

  She turned and left the room.

  Alone, as Little Butterfly fed, Anna gave in to the tears.

  38

  MR. KOVAK PRIDED HIMSELF ON his ability to move in silence, particularly for a man of his size. The aging security guard knew nothing of his approach until it was too late. The guard wasted the few seconds of consciousness he had left by grabbing at the thick arms wrapped around his neck instead of reaching for the pepper spray or the pistol on his belt. The cigarette he’d been enjoying only moments before dropped from his lips, its embers sparking on the concrete outside one of the hospital’s emergency exits. Mr. Kovak lowered him to the ground, maintaining the choke hold, knowing he had only eight or nine seconds before the guard awoke and tried to fight back.

  He flipped the old man onto his front and pulled the cable ties from the pocket of his hoodie. The guard groaned as Mr. Kovak bound his wrists behind his back, and his body had begun to buck and writhe as the ankles were secured. Mr. Kovak placed a knee at the small of his back, his hand at the back of his head, forcing him down.

  “Be still,” he said.

  “What…what…”

  “You’ve been unconscious for a few seconds,” Mr. Kovak said. “You’re not in any danger so long as you remain still and quiet. Do you understand me?”

  “I…I don’t…”

  “Just be quiet. Don’t move, and you’ll be fine.”

  “Please, don’t…don’t…I…”

  “It’s okay. Everything’s all right. You’re confused, that’s all. Breathe deep and stay calm. All you have to do is lie here until help comes. Do you understand?”

  “I think…I think so.”

  “Good. Because if I have to come back and deal with you, I will hurt you very badly. Do you understand?”

  “Yes. Yes, I understand.”

  “All right,” Mr. Kovak said, and stood upright.

  The guard breathed hard, in and out, and Mr. Kovak noted the puddle that spread from his groin. He looked to the emergency exit. The door had been propped open with a fire extinguisher. He slipped into the darkness inside.

  As his eyes adjusted, he saw a row of lockers to one side, a mop and bucket to the other, along with stacked boxes. Some sort of staff changing room that doubled up as storage. Light cut through the cracks around a door directly opposite. He crossed the room to it, held his breath, and listened.

  A woman’s voice, speaking softly. Perhaps the same woman who had answered the telephone earlier. There had been three cars in the lot when he had arrived a few minutes ago. One he recognized as Anna’s. He guessed the other two belonged to the security guard and the woman. A place like this, there was no need for overnight staff. He was glad of that.

  Mr. Kovak pressed the metal finger plate and the door opened outward without a sound. He leaned through, head and shoulder first. On the other side, a dimmed ward made up of three curtained bays faced by three doorways. A
nurse stood in the farthest, speaking to someone. And Mr. Kovak knew to whom she spoke.

  He slipped through the door, careful it made no noise as it closed behind him. Still and watchful, he waited while the nurse stepped away and walked to a pair of doors at the other end of the ward. He moved toward her, feet whispering on the vinyl tiled floor, closing the distance between them in seconds. As he reached for her, the nurse sensed his presence, spun on her heels. But it was too late for her.

  She emitted a high squeak as his right hand closed on her throat, his left on the back of her neck. Her eyes bulged, her mouth opened wide. The tips of her toes skittered along the floor as he carried her toward the double doors, then through, using her as a battering ram to open them onto a narrow corridor. There, he pinned her against the wall.

  His nose close to hers, he said, “Listen to me very carefully. I’m going back into the ward and I’m going to talk to the young woman in that room. If you try to stop me, if you interrupt me, if you call anyone, I will break your neck. Do you believe me?”

  He loosened his grip long enough for her to say yes, then he tightened it again, and her heels kicked at the wall. As her eyes began to roll back in her head, he let go, and she crumpled to the floor like a sack full of rags. She coughed and writhed, spat on the floor. He went back to the doors, threw them open, and hurried to the room he’d seen the nurse leave a few moments before. He shouldered the door open, let it slam against the wall.

  Empty.

  He entered, turned in a circle, stared into the darkened corners, under the bed, into the open closet. The bathroom door was closed. He went to it, kicked it open, found it as empty as the room.

  “Goddammit,” he said. “Where is she?” he demanded, turning back to the ward, and the doors beyond.

  Except his path was blocked by the nurse. Too late, he saw the glint of metal in her raised right hand, heard her scream. He raised his left arm to block the scissors, but they pierced the flesh of his neck, just inside the hood. Stinging pain followed. He balled his right fist, swung it up, caught her beneath the chin, felt her jaw shatter as her head snapped back, compressing the nerve cluster at the base of her skull. She dropped, out cold, the scissors falling at her side.

  “Fucking goddammit!”

  He reached for his neck, pressed his palm against the cut, his left eyelid involuntarily fluttering. It wasn’t that bad, little more than a scratch. But it could have been much worse, and he had been too slow in blocking the attack.

  Mr. Kovak stepped over the nurse’s still form and out into the ward.

  Where could Anna have gone? She must have slipped out when he was dealing with the nurse in the corridor. He was about to curse, but a faint draft froze the hateful words in his mouth. He looked toward the door, the one that led to the locker room and the emergency exit. It moved back and forth, barely perceptible.

  “Shit,” Mr. Kovak said.

  He bolted for the door, shouldered his way through, and ran for the emergency exit. His gaze was fixed on the young woman staggering across the small parking lot, so he did not see the security guard kick out. He felt his feet taken from under him and reached out to break his fall. The concrete grazed his hands, tearing the surgical gloves as he sprawled there. He cried out in fury and kicked at the guard before he gathered his senses and clambered to his feet.

  He heard a car’s ignition cough and wheeze as he stood upright. Anna Lenihan’s Civic. As he launched himself toward it, the headlights came on, dazzling him. Still, he kept going, his legs pushing him across the asphalt as his arms churned. He heard the engine sputter, then catch, followed by spinning tires. The car lurched forward, then veered away, heading for the exit. Mr. Kovak adjusted his course, calculating that he could intersect its path. He summoned all the speed he could muster as the car accelerated. The passenger door handle would be within his reach if he could just keep—

  The car jerked toward him, the tires shrieking, and he saw her then, staring at him with more hate in her eyes than he’d ever seen before. Her teeth bared, twisting the steering wheel in his direction. He tried to halt, but his momentum was too much, carrying him forward and into the car’s front wing.

  His legs were whipped from under him, his shoulder hit the hood, then all he could see was the starry sky above, then the asphalt coming up at him so fast he couldn’t save his skull from connecting hard with the ground.

  Then all was silence and the world full of sparks and constellations.

  39

  LIBBY BECAME CONSCIOUS IN A quiet hospital room. She supposed, in the dimness of her mind, that she was awake. And that she had been awake before. She had a sense, if not a memory, of having come and gone, losing and finding herself in the dark. But this time was different. This time she could see and know. She knew it was a hospital by the sounds all around, and the ceiling above, and the high sides to the bed.

  “Hello?” she tried to say, but the sound barely left her mouth. She swallowed, and it felt like her throat was lined with sand.

  Something was biting on the forefinger of her left hand. She lifted it into her vision, saw the plastic clip, and recognized it was one of those devices that keeps track of a patient’s pulse. The persistent beeping she heard was her own heartbeat. She gathered whatever saliva she could find in her mouth, swallowed again, and tried to speak once more.

  “Hello?”

  Movement somewhere across the room, then she saw Mason, leaning in. A day’s worth of stubble lined his jaw, his eyes underlined with dark circles. He stroked her hair and her cheek.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  He gave a weary smile. “This’ll be, what, the fourth time I’ve told you?”

  “I don’t remember. Please, I need some water.”

  He reached across her and brought a paper cup to her lips, helped lift her head so she could take a sip. It was tepid and stale, but wonderful nonetheless.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  “You’ve had an appendectomy,” he said. “It was bad. You could’ve died if they hadn’t operated in time. But you’re okay now.”

  Her hand went to her stomach. “The baby,” she said.

  He reached down to her hand, brought it back to her chest.

  “There is no baby,” he said.

  “No,” she said, “what did they do? What did you let them do?”

  Mason bowed his head, the exhaustion written clear on him.

  “They removed your appendix,” he said. “It had burst. You had poison inside of you. They saved your life.”

  She began to cry, trying to make sense of it.

  “You’re confused,” he said. “The anesthetic. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “Where’s my baby? They cut it out of me. Did they? Is that what they did?”

  Tears came to his eyes. He shook his head and said, “I can’t. I can’t.”

  He disappeared from her vision, and she heard a door open and close, and she called after him, called after her baby until her voice had gone and then she fell once more into the black.

  * * *

  —

  A DAY PASSED, and Libby became fully aware. When Mason returned, she apologized.

  “I didn’t know what I was talking about,” she explained, “everything was a blur.”

  As she had come to her senses, she had grown embarrassed at her own raving. She knew she had never been pregnant, that the silicone belly was merely a prosthetic, that she would never give birth. And yet she grieved. She couldn’t help but reach for her stomach and feel the deep sorrow of finding it as flat as it had ever been. It was sore and tender over to the side, but even so, she ran her fingertips up and down and across, missing the rise of not-flesh that had been a part of her for months. And even if none of it was real, there was nothing fake about the grief that opened beneath
her like a hungry mouth, ready to swallow her.

  But there was the baby to come. Not the make-believe one she had carried all this time until it was taken from her, but the real one, the child who would be here in just a matter of days. She held that thought up and examined it often because it gave her comfort.

  “Did they say how long it’ll take to heal?” she asked Mason.

  “They said you’ll be up and about by tomorrow. They want to keep you in just in case there are any complications from the poison, but you’ll be home by the weekend. You just have to take it easy for a while.”

  She thought about it for a few moments.

  “I guess that’ll be all right,” she said. “I mean, you’ll have to help out more, but that’s fine. We can manage.”

  “Help out?”

  “With the baby. It’ll be here in a couple of weeks. But we’ll be fine. Right?”

  Mason cast his gaze down to the floor.

  “What?” she asked.

  He shook his head, did not lift his eyes.

  “Mason, what?”

  He glanced up at her but couldn’t hold her stare. He lifted a hand as if to explain something, but all he could do was let out a long exhalation.

  “Tell me, goddammit.”

  “She absconded,” Mason said.

  Libby had a sense of falling, of tumbling through space. She gripped the rails at the sides of the bed, tried to sit upright, but the pain was too great.

  “What do you mean, absconded?”

  “That’s how Dr. Sherman put it. She’s run away with the baby, they don’t know where she is.”

  Dizzy now, the air rippling, the room turning.