Well, he didn’t seem to have a good opinion of loggers, so maybe he was a foreman or worked in the office.
“I listened to her talk about this Neanderthal and let her cry all her pathetic tears on my shoulder for six months. She started saying she wished she could find a nice man, so I asked her out, but she said she wasn’t ready. So I waited. Then one day she told me she wanted to go for a walk. Alone. But I saw him leave the camp a few minutes later, and I followed him.”
He bounced the baby faster and faster and she began to whimper. “They were in the woods on a blanket, and she was letting this man, this man she despised, this man who threw her away like garbage, do things to her. So I waited until he left and tried to talk to her, tried to tell her he was only going to hurt her again, but she told me to mind my own business and walked away from me. Away from me! After everything I’d done to try to protect her, she was going to go back to that man. I had to save her. She left me no choice.” His arms tightened around the baby.
I stepped forward with my hands out.
“You’re hurting her.”
“She hurt me.” He jerked his head as the baby began to wail, then stared down at her like he didn’t know how she got there. He shoved her into my arms, almost dropping her in the process, and stalked toward the door. With his hands gripping the frame, he said over his shoulder, “If she becomes one of them…” He shook his head. “I can’t let that happen.” Then he slammed the door behind him, leaving me to quiet the baby and wish I could break down and bawl myself.
He came back in after an hour with his face serene and made his way over to the baby basket. “I think if you take a look at what I’ve spared her from, Annie—the diseases, drugs, and pedophiles running rampant down there—and then ask yourself if you really want what’s best for our daughter, or what you think is best for you…” He crouched over her and smiled down. “You’ll realize it’s time you put her life above your own.” His smile disappeared as he looked up to stare hard at me. “Can you do that, Annie?” My eyes dropped to his hands resting on her tiny body—hands that had killed at least one person and done God only knows what to that helicopter pilot.
With my head bowed I said, “Yes, yes, I can.”
For the rest of that day every nerve in my body screamed at me to run, and my legs ached from unreleased adrenaline coursing through them. My hands shook—I dropped dishes, clothes, soap, everything. The more frustrated he became, the more things I dropped, and the more my legs cramped. The smallest sound made me jump, and if he moved fast, my blood surged in my veins and I broke out in a sweat.
The next day he packed up a small bag with a change of clothes and took off without saying a word about where he was going. My relief was underscored by my terror that he’d finally had enough of us and wasn’t going to come back. My frantic fingers searched the cabin top to bottom again, but there was no way out. He came back the next day, and I still didn’t have a clue how I was going to get my child out of this hell.
Wherever he’d been, he brought back germs, and soon he started coughing and sneezing. True to form, he was a demanding patient. Not only did I have to care for the baby and do my chores, I now had to wipe his brow every five fucking seconds, keep the fire going, and bring him blankets hot from the dryer—his idea, not mine—while he languished in bed. I prayed he’d develop pneumonia and die.
He made me read to him until my throat became raspy. I wished I could just play poker with him like I used to with my stepdad. Wayne wasn’t the wipe-your-brow kind of guy, which was just fine by me, but he did teach me to play cards when I was sick. At the first sign of a sniffle he’d whip out a pack and we’d go at it for hours. I loved the feel of cards in my hands, the numbers, the set order of them. Mostly I loved winning, and he had to teach me increasingly harder games so he could beat me once in a while.
By the second day coughs wracked The Freak’s body, and I paused from my reading to say, “Do you have any medicine?”
As if I was threatening to pour something down his throat right there and then, he grabbed my arm, dug his nails in, and said, “No! No medicine.”
“It might help.”
“Medicine is poison.” Against my arm his hand burned with fever.
“Maybe if you went to town and found a doctor—”
“Doctors are even worse than medicine! Doctors are what killed my mother. If she’d just let me take care of her she’d have been fine, but they pumped their poisons into her and she got sicker and sicker. They killed her.” Even through a stuffed-up nose his contempt infused every syllable.
After a few days he stopped coughing, but the baby began crying at night and waking up every couple of hours. When I reached my hand down to her she felt warm. I tried to comfort her as soon as she woke up, but once I wasn’t fast enough and he threw a pillow at her bed.
Another time he wouldn’t let me go to her, saying, “Keep reading, she just wants attention.” I wanted to take care of my daughter, I wanted to keep us both alive. I kept reading.
Her wails grew louder. He ripped the book out of my hands.
“Make her stop or I will.”
My tone as calm and reassuring as I could make it, I lifted her out of her bed and said, “I think she might be getting sick too.”
“She’s fine. You just have to learn how to control her.” He buried his head under the pillow. I had the insane urge to go over and press my whole body down on the pillow, but then his head popped up and he said, “Get me a fresh glass of water, and this time make it cold.” I gave him a cheerful smile while inside another piece of me snapped off and spun away.
The next morning, earlier than usual, she woke me crying. I picked her up right away and tiptoed around, trying to calm her down, but it was too late. The Freak jumped out of bed and threw his clothes on while glaring at me.
“I’m sorry, but I think she’s really sick.”
He stalked outside. I lay back in bed and got ready to nurse her. It was one of my favorite things to do with her. I loved the way she stared up at me, one small hand resting on my breast, how her belly swelled up when she was full, how her little bottom fit my hand perfectly. Everything about her was so delicate—her hands with their little lines and tiny finger-nails, her smooth cheeks, her silky dark eyelashes.
Usually after she was finished nursing I kissed every part of her, starting at her toes and her soft instep. Once I got up to her hands, I’d pretend to nibble her fingertips and work my way back down her arm. For the grand finale, I’d blow on her belly until she emitted happy little squeaks.
But today my normally happy baby was restless and edgy, and every time I tried to nurse her she moved her mouth away from my nipple. Her skin was hot to the touch and her cheeks were circles of red, like someone had drawn a clown’s face on her. Her belly looked distended and I thought she might have gas, so I walked around with her, but she threw up all over my shoulder and finally just cried herself to sleep. I’d never felt so helpless in my life. I was terrified of what The Freak might do if I told him, but I had to get her some help.
“The baby’s really sick, she needs a doctor,” I said as soon as he came back inside.
He glanced at me. “Start breakfast.”
During breakfast she started crying in her basket and I moved to get her, but he held his hand up and said, “Stop. Going to her only reinforces negative behavior. Finish your meal.”
Her wails ripped the air apart, and as she inhaled between each lusty cry, I thought I heard a wet rattle in her chest.
“She’s not doing well. Can we please get to a doctor? I know your mom died, but she had cancer—it wasn’t the doctors that killed her. You can tie me up in the van and take her in.” I hesitated for a second. “Or I’ll wait here and you can just take her, okay?” Had I really said that? She’d be alone with him. But she’d get help.
He chewed slowly. Finally he paused, wiped his mouth on his napkin, took a sip of water, and said, “Doctors ask questions.” Her wails reach
ed heart-wrenching levels.
“I know, but you’re smart—smarter than any doctor—you’ll know what to say so they never suspect a thing.”
“Exactly. I am smarter than a doctor, that’s why I know she doesn’t need one.” He stomped toward her bed, with me right on his heels. His voice rose to compete with her cries as he said, “She just needs to learn some respect.”
“Why don’t you relax, and I’ll quiet her?”
“I don’t think so, Annie. Obviously you’ve been doing something wrong.” As he picked her up from the basket, I gripped the fabric of my dress at my thighs to stop my hands from pounding on his back and prayed she’d calm down for him. But when he bounced her, the wails only grew frantic.
“Please just give her to me.” I held my shaking hands out. “Please. She’s scared.”
One minute he was staring at me, his face burgundy with rage, and the next his hands were up and she was dropping. I managed to catch her, losing my balance and falling hard on my knees at the same time. Whether from surprise or finally fatigue, the baby gave an exhausted hiccup and was quiet in my arms. He knelt down, putting his face close to mine, so close I felt his breath against my face.
“You’ve turned my daughter against me. Not good, Annie. Not good at all.”
My voice a shaky whisper, I said, “I would never do anything like that—she’s just confused, because she’s not well. She loves you. I know she loves you, I can tell.” His head was cocked to the side. “When she hears your voice her eyes move in that direction. She doesn’t do that for me when you’re holding her.” Total bullshit, but he had to buy it.
His eyes drilled into mine for an excruciating minute, then he clapped his hands and said, “Come on, our breakfast is getting cold.” I placed her in her basket and followed him, my body tensed for her screams. Thankfully, she’d fallen asleep.
After breakfast he stretched his hands over his head and patted his stomach. I had to try again.
“Maybe if you let me look through the books I could find some herbs or plants that grow up here for medicine. That’s natural, and you could look at the books too and check what’s okay to give her.”
He glanced at her bed and said, “She’ll be fine.”
But she wasn’t. Over the next couple of days a fever raged through her. Her silky skin burned against my hands and I didn’t have a clue what to do for her. Coughs left her gasping, and I put hot cloths on her chest in an attempt to loosen her congestion, but that just made her cry more, and cold cloths made her scream even louder. Nothing worked. She started waking up every hour at night, and I never went all the way to sleep—I lay half awake in a constant state of fear. Sometimes I heard her breath hiccup in her throat, and my heart froze until I heard her take another.
The Freak decided that if she cried during the day we had to ignore her so she would learn self-control, but he usually only lasted maybe ten minutes before he stormed outside while screaming, “Deal with her!” I was quick to get her when she cried at night, but if he did wake up, he’d throw the pillow—at her, at me, or put it over his head. Sometimes he punched the bed.
So he could go back to sleep, I’d hide in the bathroom with her until she calmed down. One night, hoping the steam would help her breathing, I ran the shower, but I never found out whether it would have worked—he came tearing in, yelling at me to shut it off.
After a few of these nights, I was a zombie. On the fifth night she was sick, it felt like she was waking up every half hour and it was getting harder for me to stay awake in anticipation. I remember my eyelids feeling so heavy I just wanted to rest them for a second, but then I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up with a start. My first thought was how quiet the cabin was, and, glad she was finally resting, I let my eyelids drift closed. Then I realized I didn’t feel The Freak next to me and I bolted up.
The cabin was dark. Even though it was summer, it had been cool the night before, so he’d had a small fire going, and from the glow of the embers I made out his shape at the foot of the bed. He was hunched over slightly, so I thought he was picking her up, but when he turned around, I realized he was holding her. Groggy, I reached out.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear her cry.”
He handed her to me, turned on the lamp, and started getting dressed. I didn’t understand why. Was it already time to get up? Why hadn’t he said anything? The baby lay quiet in my arms, and I pulled the blanket away from her face.
For the first time in days it wasn’t twisted in discomfort and her cheeks weren’t red or sweaty. But their paleness didn’t seem right either, and her rosebud mouth was tinged blue. Even her eyelids were blue. The sounds of his dressing were muffled by my heart whooshing in my ears, and then everything grew quiet in my head.
When I laid my cool hand against her cheek, her cheek was colder. She didn’t move. I brought my ear to her mouth, and my chest tightened as my own lungs fought for breath. I heard nothing. Felt nothing. Then I put my ear to her small chest, but the only sound was my own racing heart.
I pinched her tiny nose, blew into her little mouth, pushed on her chest. I was aware of mewling sounds in the room. My heart surged with joy—until I realized they were coming from me. In between CPR attempts, I pressed my ear to her mouth.
“Please, oh, please, just breathe. God help me, please.”
It was too late. She was too cold.
I sat frozen at the foot of the bed and frantically tried to deny the fact that I was holding my dead daughter in my arms. The Freak stared down at us with an impassive face.
“I told you she needed a doctor. I TOLD YOU!” I screamed at him while pounding on his legs with one hand and clutching her to me with the other.
He slapped me across the face, then in a flat voice said, “Give me the baby, Annie.”
I shook my head.
He gripped my throat with one hand and curled the other under her body. We stared at each other. The hand around my throat began to squeeze.
I let go.
He lifted her out of my arms and brought her to his chest, then stood up and walked toward the door.
I wanted to say something, anything, to make him stop, but I couldn’t make my mouth form words. Finally I held her blanket up in the air, thrust it toward his retreating back, and choked out, “Cold—she’s cold.”
He stopped, then came back and stood in front of me. He took the blanket but just stared at it in his hand, his expression unreadable. I reached for my baby, eyes pleading. His gaze met mine and for a moment I thought I saw something cross his face, a slight hesitation, but in the next second his eyes darkened and his face grew hard. He brought the blanket up to cover her head.
I began to scream.
He was headed out the door. I leapt off the bed, but it was too late.
My fingernails clawed, desperately, uselessly, at the door. I kicked it and threw myself at it until I couldn’t lift my bruised body off the floor. Finally, I lay with my cheek against the door and screamed her secret name until my throat was raw.
He was gone for about two days. I don’t know how long I spent pressed against the door, screaming and begging for him to bring her back. I bloodied my fingers, destroyed every one of my nails scrabbling at the door without managing to make even a mark on it. Eventually I made my way back to the bed and cried until there were no tears left inside me.
In a pathetic bid to buy time against the pain, my mind tried to reason out what had happened and make sense of it, but all I could think was that it was my fault she died—I’d fallen asleep. Had she cried? I was so in tune with her every sound, surely I’d have heard her. Or was I just so exhausted I slept right through? It was my fault, all my fault, I should have woken up and checked on her during the night.
When he opened the door, I was sitting up in the bed with my back against the wall. I wouldn’t have cared if he’d killed me right then. But when he strolled toward me I realized he was holding something in his arms and my heart lifted. She was still alive
! He handed the bundle to me. It was her blanket, only her blanket.
I hurled myself at The Freak’s chest and hammered on it. With every blow, I repeated, “You sick fuck, you sick fuck, you sick fuck!” He gripped the upper part of my arms, lifted me up, and held me away from him. Like a demented alley cat I clawed at the air.
“Where is she?” Spit flew from my mouth. “Tell me right now, you bastard. What did you do with her?”
He actually looked confused as he said, “But I brought you her—”
“You brought me a blanket. A blanket? You think that’s going to replace my daughter? You idiot!” Hysterical giggles bubbled through my lips and turned to laughter.
He let go of my arms, my feet hit the floor with a thud, and I staggered forward. Before I was able to regain my balance, his arm cocked back and his fist slammed into my jaw. As the floor rushed toward me, the room turned black.
I woke up alone on the bed, where he must have placed me, my jaw throbbing. My baby’s blanket was neatly folded on the pillow next to me.
To this day no one knows my baby’s name—not even the cops. I’ve tried to say it out loud, just to myself, but it stays locked in my throat, in my heart.
When The Freak walked out that door with her body, he took everything left of me with her. She was only four weeks old when she died—or was killed. Four weeks. That’s not enough time to have lived. She lived nine times longer in my belly than she did in the world.
I see pictures in magazines of kids the same age she would be now, and I wonder if she’d have looked like them. Would her hair still be dark? What color eyes would she have? Would she have grown up to be a happy or a serious person? I’ll never know.
My clearest memory of that night is him sitting at the foot of the bed with her in his arms and I think, Did he do it? Then I think even if it wasn’t intentional, he killed her by refusing to get any help for her. It’s easier to hate him, easier to blame him. Otherwise I go over and over that night trying to remember how she was lying when I last placed her back in her bed. For a while I’ll convince myself that she was on her back and it was my fault because she probably had pneumonia and drowned in mucus. Then I think, no, I must have placed her on her stomach, and I wonder if she smothered while I lay sleeping not five feet from her. I’ve heard that a woman is supposed to know when her child is in trouble. But I didn’t feel anything. Why didn’t I feel it, Doc?