The One You Feed Page 8

  She placed the phone back on its cradle. Another cramp ripped through her belly. Dana ground her teeth through the pain and gasped a few short breaths, wondering when Garrett would arrive. Surely, he was on his way. Her stomach tightened. Pain tore through her thoughts, forcing her to focus on breathing. Worried about the baby, too weak to walk down to the neighbor’s, Dana picked up the phone and dialed Luke and Opal’s number.

  Opal answered on the tenth ring. Dana breathlessly told her she needed a ride to the hospital. To her dismay, Opal hammered her with questions.

  “You aren’t due for nearly three weeks. I think you should calm down. Are you sure it’s labor?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “What did Garrett say?”

  “He said he’d come home when he was finished. I don’t think there’s much time, though.”

  Opal sighed. “How far apart are the pains?”

  “They’re close.” Dana silently pleaded she would shut up and help her.

  “With Garrett, I was in labor for three days. The first one always takes time. Just calm down and he’ll be home soon, I’m sure.”

  The line went dead.

  Dana stared at the receiver in her hand, unable to believe Opal wouldn’t help her. She considered calling an ambulance, but Garrett would be furious. Ambulances cost money, and they didn’t have any. Sweat beaded on her brow. Her hair matted to her face. Dana cried. She wasn’t sure how long her breakdown lasted, but by the time she heard Garrett’s muffled cursing, her throat ached and she hiccupped between sobs.

  He helped her to her feet. “Jesus Christ. What’s wrong with you?”

  “I told you. I’m in labor.”

  “Let’s go then. Better not take all damn night.”

  “You said you weren’t coming.”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  After that, Dana remembered very little. Garrett hurried her to the car and raced to the hospital where twenty-three long hours later, Devon Garrett O’Brien made his way into the world.

  Dana wanted to hold him, but the nurses were strangely silent. “Let me see him, please,” she called to the nurse at the foot of her bed.

  “I’m sorry, dear. He’s having some trouble breathing. The doctor will get him stabilized, and we’ll bring him back in. He’s in good hands, dear. Don’t fret.”

  Dana tried to sit up. “Is he okay?”

  The nurse gently pushed her down. “Now you need to rest. You’re in rough shape too. Poor mite was breach and Doctor Kelly had to turn him around. You’ve got a lot of stitches that will tear open if you move around.”

  “I fell. Is that why he’s sick?”

  The nurse patted her arm. “Oh no dear. It must have been a nasty fall though. You’ve got some bruising.”

  Dana nodded.

  The nurse whispered to a younger woman in a pink uniform who left to return with a loaded syringe.

  Dana pulled away. “No, I don’t want anything.”

  Ignoring her, the nurse put the syringe into her arm. Dana watched it go in. In moments she felt light. Then the pain faded.

  “Now rest,” the nurse said and patted her head. “In no time at all, your husband and your beautiful boy will be here with you.”

  Dana refused to think of what Garrett would say. If the baby died, he’d never forgive her.

  —

  Pacing the hall, Garrett checked his watch once more. How long did it take to push a kid out?

  An air conditioner hummed somewhere in the deserted hallway. Garrett rubbed his bare arms. His t-shirt had been damp with sweat when they’d arrived, the late August heat stifling, but the air inside the hospital felt like a December wind. He watched a man dressed in blue slacks and a matching long sleeve shirt slosh a ratty old mop over the cracked tiles of the floor. He hoped they were done soon. The guys from work had a poker game planned. If they hurried this along, he could go before they started. He could stop and pick up cigars on the way.

  Suddenly the doors burst open and a doctor came out, two nurses pushing a tiny bubble-like thing on a gurney on his heels. As they passed, he saw a long, skinny baby inside; its head turned at an odd angle, its body a grayish color.

  “Excuse me,” he called.

  They continued down the hall.

  Garrett was left staring at their backs.

  That couldn’t be their baby. It couldn’t. The image of the hideous creature wouldn’t leave his head where it merged with another: one of Dana, crouched on the floor, sobbing. He remembered kicking her, but the memory of their fight was hazy. He didn’t kick her hard enough to have caused their baby to look like that. It was probably bad genetics. Obviously, her gene pool was pretty shallow.

  Shaking his head, he stole a glance at the door to Dana’s room. Garrett turned away from the door and headed to the elevators. Nothing he could do for her or the baby, and he needed a drink.

  CHAPTER 12

  September, 1975

  “Mr. Sampson?”

  At the nurse’s voice, Ronny rocketed out of his chair. “Is she done? I mean, is it here?”

  The nurse grinned, opened the door, and waved him inside. “Yes, you have a beautiful little girl. Mom and baby are doing great. You can go see them.”

  Drawn curtains gave the room a grey, empty feel. Ronny glanced at nurses clearing away instruments and bloodied towels.

  Vicki held a pink bundle, a scowl marring her features. Hair, limp and wet, clung to her face. “Well get in here. Hurry up; I want to go for a smoke.”

  “Sorry,” a nurse interrupted. “You can’t get up for a few hours yet.”

  “You’re fucking joking,” Vicki said. She passed the bundle to a dumbstruck Ronny. He accepted it carefully, unsure what to do with such a tiny creature.

  “This is bullshit,” she whined.

  “You just gave birth. We have to make sure you don’t hemorrhage or something worse. It’s just a few hours.”

  “I don’t care, Florence Nightingale, I’m going for a smoke.” Vicki sat up and threw her blankets off.

  Ronny was startled back to reality by the commotion.

  “You can smoke inside, dear,” the nurse said. “No need to go out where no one can keep an eye on you.”

  They tried to coax her back into bed. She cursed and shoved them away, darting wild glances around the room. Her limbs trembled. She needed a fix.

  “Vick—”

  “Don’t you bother, asshole. You didn’t carry the cocksucker for nine months, and you didn’t just squeeze it out of your cunt. I am having a smoke and I’m doing it outside Now move.”

  The nurses’ faces went through brilliant shades of pink. Ronny shrugged. He sat down on a chair next to the bed and rocked the fussing infant.

  “If I hemorrhage, I’ll be sure to let someone know.” Vicki slung her purse over her shoulder and rushed to the door.

  The back of her gown was open, but he wouldn’t be the one to tell her. He turned to the squirming bundle and smiled. The baby managed to free a tiny fist and waved it furiously. He took it in his hand and examined her delicate fingers.

  “What would you like to name her?” the nurse asked.

  “Oh, I’m sure Vicki will want to do that.”

  “She said that you would name the baby. You don’t have to decide yet if you don’t want to.”

  Ronny gazed at his daughter’s scrunched up face and thought about it for a minute. “No, I can do it. Amy Leah.”

  “Is Amy short for anything?”

  “No, just Amy.”

  The nurse wrote in her little book and walked away.

  Ronny watched his daughter settle and fall asleep once more. An unfamiliar tension bloomed in his chest. Holding the tiny being, more emotions surfaced than he recalled feeling his entire life. “Everything I do will be for you,” he whispered. “No one will hurt you when I’m around.” He kissed her forehead.

  Amy’s eyes opened.

  He smiled at the frown he received in return before she nestled her
face against him and resumed sleeping. Ronny flumped into the chair to watch her. Absently, he thought of Vicki, wondering how she wasn’t as mesmerized by their child as he was.

  —

  Shortly after Amy’s birth, Ronny returned from a week-long haul to find Vicki stoned, the apartment a disaster, and Amy crying in her crib. Her diaper was so full that the shit and piss had seeped up her back and into the sheets.

  “Christ, Vicki, this is a human being.” He picked up the squealing infant and ran warm water in the sink to bathe her.

  He glanced at the small television set on the rickety stand he found at the dump. The fuzzy picture showed a man standing at a podium. Short hair framed a pale face with a weak chin. Beneath him the caption read ‘Joe Clark victorious in race for Prime Minister.’ He’d heard on the radio that Trudeau got bumped by Clark. The news channels were really excited about it. The guy looked like a pussy in Ronny’s opinion. Sure, Trudeau was an asshole but at least he had balls.

  Vicki waved, unable to do much more as she lay on the couch staring at the screen. “She just started crying. Your mom comes over every day anyway, feeds her, makes bottles. She’s spoiled.”

  Ronny paused and lowered a dishcloth into the water. She must be hallucinating; his mother did not like babies.

  “Warren even came once,” she continued. “But he doesn’t care for the smell of them. Babies, you know.”

  Ronny said nothing as he finished bathing Amy and wrapped her in his shirt. He carried her to the bedroom where he diapered and dressed her in a too-big sleeper, the only thing remotely clean in the small dresser. Dirty clothes, bedding, and empty bottles littered the floor.

  Setting Amy on the bed; Ronny tore the dirty sheet off the crib and searched for something clean to put on it. There was nothing. Choking down a curse, he wrapped Amy in her blanket, which was stained but didn’t smell as funky as the rest of her things, and laid her on the crib’s bare mattress. She moved a fist into her mouth. His heart tightened at the tiny movement. What was he going to do?

  “Your mom wants you to bring Amy over when you get home,” Vicki called from the living room.

  Ronny didn’t want to see his parents. He wanted to get drunk—stinking, stupid drunk—and forget this hell.

  “I’ll take her tomorrow,” he said, then collected as much laundry as he could from the floor. It smelled of urine and sour milk. “I need to clean this shit up first.” Wrestling with the stinking bundle, Ronny shoved it into a trash bag and then staggered to the front door. “I’ll be back in an hour. Think you can manage?”

  Vicki lit a joint and lay back on the couch. “Your mom would do that you know.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  He walked down the hall to the apartment building’s shared laundry. It was empty, save for an elderly lady seated by the door reading a book. He opened the door of the closest machine and shoved the clothes in, then searched his pockets for change.

  “You’re going to need soap, dear.”

  Ronny straightened and glanced at the woman. She laid her book down and smiled.

  “Yeah, I forgot it. Do you mind watching my machine while I go get some?”

  “No need, I have plenty. Machine number three. It’s right on top.”

  Ronny turned. A blue box shook around the top while the machine lumbered through its spin cycle. “Oh, thanks.” He didn’t know what else to say, kindness always weirded him out.

  She smiled. “No problem. My name’s Emily.”

  Ronny turned the box around to read how much to use. The letters didn’t make any sense and the numbers confused everything. His hands shook as he attempted to decipher the instructions. Surely, he could read a simple box of soap. He could read traffic signs, shipping bills, and pay stubs. He refused to admit he could possibly have mistaken anything he’d read on those things. No one had corrected him; that had to mean he’d learned to read enough to get by.

  Emily still watched him.

  Nerves on edge, the letters in the blue box swam before his eyes. The pictures showed a small cup, half-filled. Half cup? Where was the cup? How did Emily measure? He couldn’t dump the soap in. What if he got too much? She’d know he couldn’t read and he’d have wasted her soap.

  “I always use one scoop,” she said. “No matter what I’m washing. It’s inside the box. Make sure you use warm water, so the crystals dissolve.”

  Ronny let out a sigh.

  Emily winked and turned back to her book. Her grey hair neatly coiled into a bun at the nape of her neck, shone silver in the sunlight from the small window next to the chairs. She wore old lady’s clothes, a knee-length floral dress buttoned to her neck and sensible black shoes.

  He slid quarters into the empty slots on the top and fiddled with the buttons, using the pictures as his guide. He pressed a button depicting a puff of steam. He assumed the symbol meant “hot” and closed the lid.

  “That your baby I hear in four?”

  “Yeah, I’ve been away.” He could only imagine what she and his other neighbors had heard.

  “She sure cries a lot.” She leaned over and patted his hand. “But she probably missed her daddy.”

  Ronny resisted the urge to pull his hand away.

  “Granny can’t be watching her all the time you know,” Emily continued. “A child needs her parents now and then.”

  “True.”

  “Does your mother stay with you?”

  How often had his mother been there?

  “I live across the hall,” she explained. “So I see a lot. Just tell me to mind my business, that’s all right. I’m just curious, got nothing else to do. My grandbabies are all grown up and gone.”

  “My mom just comes over to help out while I’m at work. My girlfriend stays home. Sometimes she’s…sick.”

  Emily sat back, crossed her arms and let her book rest in her lap. “That’s a terrible thing.”

  “It’s not her fault,” he said. “She’s had a hard life. Not like she means to be the way she is.”

  Emily nodded. “I’m sure you believe that, but we are who we choose to be. No one has to be what life tries to make them. It’s why we have free will.”

  “She’s not a bad person. Just…” he searched for the right word but couldn’t find it.

  “You know,” Emily said. “I heard a story once about an old Cherokee chief who wanted to help guide his grandson on the right path. It helped me get through many a troublesome patch. Might help you see the truth of things.”

  Ronny smiled, but not because he cared about her stories. It’d be rude to tell her he didn’t want to hear it.

  “The chief told the boy that a fight is going on inside him,” Emily continued. “And the fight is between two wolves. One wolf is evil. He represents the darkness in us; the anger, envy, regret, greed, self-pity, pride and resentment. The other wolf is good. He represents the light inside us; all of the joy, peace, love, hope, kindness, empathy, truth, compassion, and faith we’re capable of.” She smiled. “The boy was quiet for a moment and then he looked up at his grandfather and asked ‘Which wolf will win?’ The chief replied, ‘The one you feed.’”

  Ronny didn’t want to think about her words. Didn’t want to acknowledge their truth.

  “What I’m saying,” Emily continued, “is that you don’t have to apologize for that girl. She’s made her choice. Fed the wolves and come out the way she chose to come out. You’re still deciding, I think.”

  “Maybe,” Ronny said. “Maybe Vicki is still deciding too.”

  “Maybe she is. While you’re both fighting with yourselves, though, that poor child suffers.”

  “I’ll figure out something. Thanks for the advice.”

  “You can tell me to shove it. I understand.”

  “No, it’s helpful. Really.”

  “Maybe you just need a nanny. For when you’re away, I mean.”

  “Oh, I can’t afford anything like that.”

  “It doesn’t have to cost a dime. Some people lik
e to help to fill in the time. Feed the right wolf, so to speak.”

  It would be better than having his mother there all the time, but Ronny couldn’t let some stranger in his home. Emily would figure out what was wrong with Vicki and he’d lose Amy.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  He picked up a tattered copy of Time and pretended to be engrossed in words he could barely read. Emily went back to her book and rose once to transfer her laundry to the dryer. She reached into her sweater, pulled out two quarters, and pushed them into the slot.

  When Ronny’s machine buzzed, he did the same and moved to sit on the table between the banks of dryers rather than so close to her inquisitive stare.

  She rose to fold her clothes. “Just so you know. I can see when someone is in trouble.”

  Ronny stared.

  She set her towel down and leaned forward on the table. “Everyone makes mistakes. Don’t make that baby pay for yours.”

  “Vicki’s just sick.”

  “Boy, I’ve seen enough to know what’s ailing that girl. Nothing a swift kick in the ass wouldn’t fix.”

  Ronny’s cheeks burned. She was right, but Vicki wouldn’t change and Amy needed stability. He couldn’t take care of her if he was on the road all the time and he couldn’t feed her if he quit his job.

  Emily resumed folding her laundry. “Tell you what; you tell that girl if she needs someone to care for the little one, bring her over to my place. Day or night, don’t matter none to me. I’ll take her.”

  “But you don’t know us.”

  “Enough to know you need help. Pretty soon, the authorities will step in and they won’t give you a choice. You get what I’m saying?”

  Ronny nodded. It was a warning, though he doubted Vicki would see things as clearly. He couldn’t promise that she would bring the baby to this woman. Hell, he didn’t know her; she could be worse than Vicki and his mother combined.

  “I used to be a teacher,” she said, reading his thoughts once more. “Worked at the elementary school in Beverley for years. Call them. Check it out if you want. You can trust me. Deal?”

  “Yes.”