A STRANGER'S BABY
by
Margaret Marr
"Elaine?"
She turned toward the sound. "What ... ?" She realized she'd let her mind drift again, going back to that cold, winter's night when a stranger had taken what was not his, leaving her with a child her husband, Jack, refused to accept.
"Go on home. I can finish up here."
"No, this stuff has to be done by the fifteenth."
Her boss, Toby, leaned back in his chair and tossed a pencil on his desk. "You only got out of the hospital two days ago. That's not nearly enough time to recuperate."
"I need to pretend it never happened and get back to my life." She ran a shaking hand through her tangled and messy hair.
"You mean you're going to go back to your life with Jack?" He stood and came around to sit on the corner of his desk.
"He expects me next week. Alone."
"But maybe if he saw the baby ..."
"No! He said it would only work if I came back without the baby." She clenched her jaws and fought the tears welling up from the depths of her throat.
"Why? Because it's a stranger's baby?" "Why did you bother having it?"
Elaine didn't answer.
"I think I know why. You wanted to keep the baby ... because you and Jack were unable to have one of your own," Toby said.
"No!" The pencils sounded like pebbles landing on a tin roof as they hit the floor and rolled in all directions.
The silence ticked by as neither said a word. Toby sighed and moved back behind his desk.
The phone rang.
Elaine flinched, but didn't take her eyes off Toby as she reached for the phone. "Toby Freeman and Company, Accountants," she said. She listened for a moment, then slumped forward onto her free hand. "Mom, did you eat fried potatoes again?" She sighed and closed her eyes. "How many times has the doctor told you that greasy foods would play havoc with your stomach? I know you like them, Mom, but you need to stay away from them. I'll be home in a little bit with Pepto-Bismol." She replaced the receiver and buried her face in her hands.
"How's your mother?" Toby asked.
"Fine, considering her stomach is slowly being eaten away by cancer." Placing her hands on the desk, she eased up and walked over to the coffee pot to pour herself a cup.
"Go home, Elaine," Toby repeated.
She banged the cup down. She wanted to stride out of there and slam the door with enough force to crack the glass, but instead she had to walk like an arthritic old woman. Why couldn't he leave her alone? Why couldn't he let her believe that none of the events of the past twelve months had happened? The problem was, she couldn't believe that herself.
Outside she pulled the thin jacket tighter around her waist. The last remaining leaves fell like fat, brown snowflakes in a gust of wind.
She still had to tell her mother the baby would be gone forever in a few short days. Why did you bother having it? Toby's words came back to haunt her. Why? She asked herself that a hundred times a day. Maybe there was some truth to what Toby said about me wanting it because I haven't been able to conceive before ... but it's a stranger's baby, she thought. A child born out of a senseless act of power, a violent conception. From that terrible crime, the stranger walked away. Yet, Elaine was left fearful, pregnant and finally rejected when Jack refused to understand her unwillingness to destroy the life within her. Still, she'd hoped and when that didn't work, she'd prayed that Jack would change his mind. He never did.
"Now I'm the one who has to make a choice and it scares me that I may not choose Jack," she said softly. An owl hooted nearby, echoing the question in her mind. Who?
Elaine dropped the bottle of Pepto-Bismol on her mother's lap and kissed her pale forehead. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm fine." The grimace on her face said otherwise.
Stuffing three Tylenol into her mouth, Elaine chased them with a half a glass of milk. She hadn't gotten out of the habit of eating and drinking healthy for the baby. "April been okay today?"
"Yeah, she's a good baby."
"About the baby ..." She smoothed her skirt and took a deep breath, unable to look at her mother. "I'm letting her be adopted." The silence beat in her ears like a drum.
"Nonsense, I won't let you do such a thing." She breathed in short bursts, her face pulled tight and colorless.
"Don't make this any harder for me. She never should have been born." Her voice quivered and a tear slid down her cheek.
"It's because of Jack, isn't it? You want to go back to him."
"Mama, I love him."
"Then make him see that this child is a gift from God. It doesn't matter how it got here."
"I tried. He doesn't want some stranger's baby." She blew her nose.
"Can you go back to him knowing that you will never ever hold another child in your arms and call it yours?" She pointed toward the bassinet where April lay on her stomach, her head turned to one side. She was so sweet and innocent in her smallness.
God help me, I love her too, she thought and felt the anguish clawing up from inside. The web of her life lay in pieces, too torn up to be put back together again. "I'm too tired to eat, so I think I'll go to bed," she announced. She didn't want to talk or think about it anymore.
Sometime around four in the morning, she woke up. Something was wrong. Suddenly, it hit her. April had not demanded her two a.m. feeding.
She kicked the covers off and hurried toward the crib, her heart in her throat. No!
April was gone.
"Mama!" She slammed through the door into the living room and stopped in mid stride.
"I thought I'd rock her tonight. She's such a comfort to me in this awful pain." Tears glistened in her mother's eyes. "One night won't spoil her for her next parent's ... will it?" She stroked April's back and kissed her head. Tears fell, wetting April's soft hair.
On a cold December day, three months later, Elaine stared down at the freshly covered grave where her mother lay. It was suppose to be a time to rejoice, because her mother was no longer in pain and in a much better place, but she let the tears fall unchecked. She missed her so much already.
April gurgled and kicked the side of the stroller.
Elaine bent down and pulled the blanket closer around her and for a split second she saw her mother looking out through April's brown eyes. She had her grandmother's slightly crooked nose, too.
Though her heart ached whenever she thought of Jack, he would not be a part of her future. He would remain a bittersweet memory of her past.