“Momma! Where’s the baby? I want to see my baby!” Anne called out to her mother.
“What? Oh, you’re awake Anne good, I’ll get the nurse. And you can’t see your daughter, you got what you deserved or the Lord decided to spare you both a life of shame. Your daughter died the day she was born and has been disposed of already. Count yourself lucky!” Sophia rushed from the room, her heartless words matching her heartless actions as she left her daughter screaming in her bed.
Anne’s world collapsed with her mother’s words. She didn’t hear the heartlessness in the words, only the message that her daughter was dead and gone. She’d never even had a chance to look at her or name her!
Chapter Four
Through the devastation and loss Anne heard the doctor’s words but didn’t register them. Something had gone wrong, the doctor had been forced to perform a C-section but he was too late, the baby was dead before he could cut her out of Anne. Anne knew that was a lie, she’d heard the baby crying, she remembered it clearly.
Apparently Anne would never be able to conceive again either; damage within her body forced the doctor to perform a hysterectomy on her. The news just grew worse and eventually Anne simply stopped listening to him, turning over in the bed to face the blank white wall. The total, overwhelming loss of the one thing that had made her life worth living, that had given her hope, left Anne unable to function. Her mother leaving her on her own in the hospital, never coming to check on her, also left Anne a victim. But Anne suspected her mother wouldn’t have stopped the drugs anyway.
The doctor prescribed heavy medications at first under the guise of stopping her pain and then to make Anne sleep, his idea being that she would get over her grief as she slept. Anne’s mother left the day Anne woke up and did not come back until it was time to take Anne home. In the meantime Anne experienced strange physical sensations, nightmares that plagued her, and would awaken in the night to hear her little girl crying. The wails pierced her very soul and she knew, just knew it was her daughter crying.
Anne sobbed when she was awake, begging the medical staff to stop torturing her and bring her child to her at last. She knew instinctively that her child was still alive and for some reason they were keeping the baby from her.
“Anne you must stop this. Your child is dead. She didn’t even take a single breath. The child expired before she was even born.” Doctor Nelson told Anne sternly three days after she’d woke up from her ordeal and learned her daughter was dead.
“Then why does Nurse Pracket keep coming in to take my milk? Why has my milk not dried up by now?” Anne challenged, her maternal instinct fighting with the drugs she was being fed. Her mind was fuzzy but she knew the slightest touch would cause the milk to flow. It shouldn’t be doing that by now, surely.
Sighing the doctor turned away from Anne, signaling to Nurse Pracket. “Anne, we are going to have to consider electro-shock therapy if you keep this up. Your baby is dead.”
Nurse Pracket dived at Anne as the doctor walked away, holding down the struggling, much lighter woman, and jabbed a needle in her leg. Anne’s body quickly relaxed as the medicine went into her veins, her cares disappearing with the drug.
Anne woke up later that night, some contraption strapped to her breasts, a pumping action expressing the milk. The motion eased the pain in her swollen breasts and she fell back to sleep, yet again unsure of whether she was dreaming or if the event was actually happening. The drugs certainly did their job.
Anne later heard her daughter crying once more and tried to leave the bed, determined to go to her crying child. Pulling herself along, too weak to even brush her hair out of her face, Anne pushed one leg in front of the other, trying to get out of the room. Someone Anne couldn’t see came in and caught her, taking her back to bed where her arms were tied down to keep her from leaving the bed once more.
“Listen, that is not your child. It’s another woman’s child. But I’d love to strap you down and shock you a few times so if that’s what you want keep this up.” A harsh female voice said to Anne in the darkness. Then a needle prick took it all away.
The next day Anne asked why she was tied down.
“You were a very naughty girl last night. It’s for your own good that you’re tied to the bed.” Nurse Pracket responded with a gloating look.
“I want my daughter, where is my daughter? Please, as a woman can’t you have some sympathy and let me just have my daughter?” Anne pleaded with the other woman.
Anne watched Nurse Pracket’s face and saw something in her eyes snap. To Anne’s surprise her restraints were cut and she was pushed into a wheelchair roughly. Anne felt hope rise within her heart and looked back at the nurse in gratitude. The look on the woman’s face soon dashed that hope.
Terrible, gleeful, sadism showed through the placating smile the nurse wore as she pushed Anne to an elevator that took them up to the fourth floor. Anne struggled but the drugs, the birth, and the surgery left her too weak. She was strapped onto a cold table, her cries ignored and mocked, and that’s when the real terror began.
“This is going to be so enjoyable. Ever since you first walked into Doctor Nelson’s office I’ve wanted to do this. So hoity-toity, so better than thou. Not anymore you aren’t, bitch.” The nurse said as she clamped something in Anne’s mouth then over her head.
Anne felt cold liquid running over her head then heard a crackling noise. And then she knew very little at all as electricity passed through her abused body over and over and over again. Her body shook, it burned, and the pain was such that it was all she could focus on. And just when she thought it was over it would start again. Anne had no idea how long the torture went on but she knew it ended when Doctor Nelson walked in.
“Nurse Pracket, who gave you permission to do this?” The doctor roared, checking Anne’s vitals and peeling her eyelids back.
“She asked for the child again. I fixed that problem. Now she won’t keep asking about the breast milk issue. She won’t ask for the child, and she certainly won’t be making any accusations. We can keep her compliant until the formula shipment comes in and then we can send her home.” The nurse said before walking out of the room with a serene smile.
The doctor looked into Anne’s eyes but knew the damage was done. Anne’s mental capacities might come back but for now, Anne was gone.
Anne remained, as Nurse Pracket suggested, compliant for the rest of her stay. So compliant in fact that a child was brought in to nurse at her breasts before being taken away. Anne didn’t resist anymore, and the child sucked happily, but without the comfort that normally accompanied a mother feeding her child.
Anne was unaware of it all, lost in her own world now. A world where she was holding her child while floating down a quiet river in a canoe. Occasionally some pain would twinge into her world but the doctor soon made that go away with a pill. Then her mother came to take her home at last.
“What’s this?” Sophia asked when she was finally called to retrieve her daughter. Staring down at her daughter in the wheelchair, a line of drool running down Anne’s mouth, Sophia was disgusted. “This is going to cost you extra.”
“We will pay, never fear. We have two more coming in this week so you’ll be paid again before the next due date. Just take her home and keep her warm and fed. I doubt you’ll ever have a problem out of her again. And if you do, you can always bring her back for another treatment.” Nurse Pracket informed Anne’s mother, a pleased smile on her cruel face.
“Look at this mess. And I have to take care of her? I’m not sure it was worth this. You’d better be sending me a nurse out two times a week or we’re going to have to talk more money.” Sophia said, looking at her once vibrant daughter with distaste.
Not pity, or shock, or heartbreak, Anne’s mother looked at her daughter with disgust before loading her into a car and driving her home. This was not the life Sophia had planned. Anne was supposed to leave and she was supposed to have her normal life back. She’d been burdened wi
th the girl since she was fifteen, wasn’t that long enough?
Pushing Anne into her bedroom Sophia dumped the now helpless woman on the bed, covered her with a throw and walked out to her front porch swing. This was not going to be easy if Anne stayed this way. Sophia was old now, and tired, but the Lord would provide a way, she just had to listen, she knew that.
Sophia thought about what the doctor had said that Anne may still improve and spent a few minutes praying that she would. Not for Anne’s sake but for her own.
Over the next few months the doctor’s words proved to be right, Anne started to improve but she remained almost childlike, her capacity never quite getting back to that of an adult. She found a baby doll somewhere and would rock it for hours on end out on the front porch swing, talking to it in a childlike voice. Anne never spoke to her mother again, only the doll she named Bridget. Anne didn’t fight back but she didn’t interact with the world around her either.
Soon items began to arrive at the house through the mail. Nice things, things that Sophia had always wanted but could never afford. While Anne’s clothes became ragged and fell apart Sophia began to wear furs. Dishes that would never be used at a dinner party arrived and Sophia would spend hours staring at them while polishing the new silver she had.
Anne’s body became thinner, weaker, and she became dependent on the pills the doctor’s prescribed her. Over the years her body began to crave more powerful drugs and while her mother was busy ordering things from the mail order catalogue the doctor would twice weekly bring medicines for Anne.
Eventually Anne’s mother passed away and the doctor had to call a nurse to come in and care for Anne. Anne could now cook and clean and look after herself but the drugs she was taking made her forget the world existed. Anne would eat off of dirty dishes or leave food on the stove until the pots were so burned they had to be thrown away. The state stepped in and Anne was given a caretaker and welfare benefits to keep her fed.
Rather than taking Anne off of the drugs, getting her body clean of their poison, and allowing her some semblance of a life Doctor Nelson just kept bringing stronger ones, until one particularly powerful one came out that caused Anne pain and terrible cravings if she had to go without the pill.
As long as Anne had the medicine she was fine. She didn’t think about her missing baby, or how her mother had bought all of that junk with money she swore she didn’t have, or how the doctor kept bringing her drugs to keep her quiet. She just sat on the porch swing or stared out of the window, not thinking of anything but rocking her baby.
Chapter Five
April 1977
Joan Parker looked around the small room with white painted walls, a crib, and other baby items before walking out and closing the door. Not yet, she couldn’t allow herself to have hope yet. Not until the baby was in her arms.
Joan had lived a rough life, even after she married Scott, the man of her dreams. Her parents had died when she was young and she’d spent her teenaged years with her very timid grandmother in Louisa Falls, a woman whose fear of the world had infiltrated her granddaughter’s psyche. Two years away from thirty Joan had given up on having another child but then she’d discovered she was pregnant once more.
Getting pregnant wasn’t easy for Joan; giving birth to a live child proved impossible so far. It was the one thing she and Scott wanted more than anything else. A child of their own to love and raise. Scott was an orphan as well but he’d been raised in an orphanage a few counties over. They wanted a family of their own and wanted to adopt but they didn’t have the money that adoption would cost them.
Going in to prepare her husband’s dinner in the kitchen Joan wondered what those shots were the doctor was giving her. They must be some kind of vitamins because Joan didn’t feel as weak as she normally felt when she was pregnant. Her last two had left her feeling at death’s door she was so exhausted but not with this one. This baby was strong, she just knew it.
Scott soon came home and Joan greeted him happily at the door, taking his hat and coat.
“Welcome home, darling, how was your day?” Joan asked before kissing her man happily.
“It was good Joan but I’m glad Doctor Nelson has reduced his fee, I couldn’t handle much more work. Dinner smells lovely, is it lasagna?” Scott asked after kissing his wife back.
“You guessed it, my love. Are you ready to eat now or should I keep it warm?” She asked as they walked back into the kitchen, the dining room actually just a nook in the corner of their tiny kitchen.
“We can eat now.” Scott said as he washed up. “How did the doctor appointment go?”
Scott’s words came out casually but the tenseness in his shoulders and in the jerky way his arms moved showed his calm words for a lie, Joan knew. She wanted to ease that tension but she knew Scott, like her, would not be calm until this baby was born and in their own home. They’d debated a midwife and having the baby at home but Scott insisted that Joan see a doctor this time and that the baby be born in a hospital, in case anything went wrong.
“Everything is fine so far.” Joan qualified all of her statements about the baby and her pregnancy, terrified of jinxing everything. “Oh, there was a new woman there today, Anne Rasnake. She’s very lovely and we talked for a while. Meg was there too, of course, and we all had a nice little chat. Anne is coming to church Sunday so you’ll get to meet her then.”
“That’s wonderful dear, you don’t have enough friends, you know. I’m glad you’ve met another, from the sounds of it.” Scott sat down to his dinner, complimenting his wife on how delicious it was.
They went to bed that evening, Scott cradling her to his body, a couple hoping for more than they should some would say. Far from a wealthy couple the pair only wanted a real family, the opportunity to experience something they’d both missed out on in their childhoods. Hopefully this time was their chance.
Across the street from Joan’s house, in the house that came as part of her husband’s role as the church’s leader, Meg Skaggs wondered if this was going to be the child that killed her. She’d feared birth since the very first time she became pregnant, all those years ago but Robert insisted she perform her duties without birth control. Birth control was a sin, he insisted.
Meg knew they could not afford another child, their parishioners were not the wealthiest people in the world, and asking the congregation to subsidize them with food was unthinkable. She’d simply have to sell more of her mother’s jewelry and do without. That’s all there was to it.
Rolling over on her side, away from the snoring of her husband Meg wondered how she’d ended up with such a life. She was thirty-three years old and the mother of nine children. She could barely remember what it was like to not be pregnant because she’d been pregnant every year of her marriage so far.
She’d tried avoiding her husband when she was likely to get pregnant but Robert wouldn’t have it. Meg had learned long ago to keep her opinions to herself and to bow to Robert’s will, she didn’t like having to hide bruises.
Meg thought children were a blessing but breeding indiscriminately was just greedy and unhealthy for all involved, especially the mother. She’d once asked Robert what would happen if she died giving birth to one of their children and his face had blanched. Not because she’d be gone but because she wouldn’t be around to do all of the raising of the kids and he might have to take some responsibility for them. He’d assured her God wouldn’t allow that to happen, their children needed her and wouldn’t let her talk about it again.
At one point Meg had tried to secretly take birth control. When Meg went six months without getting pregnant Robert had torn the house apart until he’d found the offending pills that kept her form conceiving. She’d hidden her tears as he poured them down the toilet and called the pharmacist, forbidding them to refill the prescription. Meg had felt her final bit of spirit die as Robert made the call and resigned herself to her life.
Meg rolled once more, staring out of her bedroom at the window.
As she had in previous pregnancies she wished she could just give this child to her friend Joan. The news she’d had today increased that desire. Poor Joan wanted nothing more than to have a child of her own. Meg was about to have two more of her own. She hadn’t even had the heart to give Joan the news yet, too worried it might hurt her friend’s feelings.
Joan was a good friend; she’d even talked Meg into going to the doctor with her because she knew Meg was afraid of birth, even though she’d done it so many times before. Meg knew her body was wearing out and just wanted some peace from pregnancy and birth but now she was not only going to have to cope with nine young children but two tiny babies at one time. If Robert would have allowed it Meg would have just handed the new children over to Joan as soon as they were born.
Meg wasn’t heartless, she loved each of her children, she thought to herself in the dark room, but Robert had simply asked too much of her. And poor Joan, childless and longing for nothing more than the chance to be a mother deserved to have her own child.
Meg sighed, knowing she had to accept her fate and look ahead, to how she was going to feed her children, not keep picking over old wounds that would never heal. For some reason her brain would not allow her any rest tonight. The thoughts kept coming and she began to cry softly into her pillow as she thought over her life so far.
Robert had promised her the world when she married him at twenty-two. She’d graduated from college with a degree in teaching and he’d promised he’d allow her to work until she got pregnant, then he’d prefer her to stay home. She’d been eager to start her new life as a teacher and wife, building a life that promised her more than just the endless tea parties and charity drives where her mother paraded her around.
She’d had little idea that Robert would ensure she got pregnant within two months of their wedding, taking note of when her monthly visitor arrived and counting down until the week when she was most fertile. He’d been pleased beyond compare when she informed him of her pregnancy but Meg had been terrified. She knew so many women without mothers and she’d heard the whispered tales of terrible birth experiences. Birth was not something she’d looked forward to as a happy experience.
Thriller: Horror: Conceived (Mystery Suspense Thrillers) (Haunted Paranormal Short Story) Page 16