Searchterm Entry #8: A Second Chance
Entry #8, and now we’re over halfway through the entries for this round. Today’s story is also about babies, but extra kudos to this author not only for using all seven search terms, but also for literally beginning and ending the story with one of each, a feat few others accomplished.
For details of the challenge, and to see other entries, click here. Voting for stories will begin once all entries have been posted online.
The author of this entry is NewToWritingGirl who blogs about her writing escapades here.
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A Second Chance
‘Stillborn’ even now, three years later the word still echoed round her head constantly. More so over the last eight and a half months, and in the last ten hours it was like a broken record.
She knew it had been her fault. It was her punishment for what she’d done earlier in her life. Tony said she was wrong, but he was just trying to make her feel better.
“You did what you had to do to stay alive. I’m glad you did, or you wouldn’t be here today.”
“But I was…”
“No buts. You didn’t have a choice. Those bellowing bastard brothers made sure you didn’t have a choice. They knew you were young, very young and alone and cold. They took advantage when you couldn’t have said no. You had no choice.”
Sometimes she believed him, she would think back to her stepfather abusing her, her mother not believing her and then eventually kicking her out, then about the weeks she spent on the street. When they picked her up and took to that dirty house, could she have resisted? Could she have survived on the street another week, another month, a year? She thought so, but she didn’t know; it was September when they found her, the nights were starting to get very cold.
Besides she hadn’t known how bad it was going to be. She was young and naive, she’d given in to the idea that they would probably abuse her, but she wasn’t prepared for all the extra sex they forced her into, she hadn’t realised they’d force her into prostitution.
At times she thought that it would have been better if she had have stayed on the street and died there. Or that the police hadn’t stormed in and saved her and the other girls so she could have died there. Either option would have saved Tony the pain of losing his firstborn and putting up with her depression and moods since it happened. She never vocalised those thoughts, it would have made him angry, so angry that she thought so little of herself.
She looked at Tony sat on the chair next to her bed. He had his right knee resting on his left and a magazine on his lap. He looked so relaxed reading that her heart lurched in her chest. What if they had to go through it again? They’d been monitoring the baby and he was doing fine, but could they really know?
An additional thought had been brewing recently: What if she was going to be punished again, but in a different way? What if the baby was born with three ears, or two noses, no mouth or three eyes? Their kid would be a freak like one of those sideshow fables at the circus, and it would be her fault.
Tony looked up as though he could feel her watching him. He smiled, a relaxed, confident smile. A smiled that showed her he wasn’t worried.
“How are you doing?” He stood up and closed the distance between them in one stride. She tried to smile back but the tears were stronger, they started flowing. He gathered her in his arms and rubbed her back.
“We’re going to be fine, you have to believe that. He’s going to be fine. Just you wait and see.” He sounded so sure that she almost believed him.
“I… I… can’t… believe… we’re… here…” she said between sobs. She truly couldn’t believe they’d got to this point again. After Jennifer’s ‘birth’ she swore to herself she’d never get pregnant again. She couldn’t take the pain of losing another child, and didn’t think Tony could either.
With Tony’s strong, comforting arms around her she started to calm down, just in time for another contraction. This one seemed to go on forever and ever. Poor Tony she was digging her fingers into his arm so tightly.
When it was over he released her and smiled.
“They’re getting closer, it won’t be long now.”
He kissed her on the head and sat back down. He didn’t pick up his magazine but stayed looking and smiling at her. He looked so happy he was almost glowing. She’d not seen him this happy since the day she found out she was pregnant.
They’d thought she was ill. When her periods had stopped and she’d started being sick constantly she had actually thought she was dying. Being pregnant hadn’t entered her head, she didn’t think it had Tony’s either, they both put the symptoms down to an undiscovered nasty illness.
It was no wonder, since giving birth she had almost stopped eating so lost a lot of weight, they’d both put the lack of periods down to that. When she started being sick too, she was convinced it was a tumour affecting her body. Even though Tony wanted them to have children, she didn’t think she’d be able to get pregnant again, especially as she was still on the pill.
At the check up she almost felt relieved, it wasn’t that she wanted to die, but life had been so horrible since Jennifer that she thought dying wouldn’t have been a bad thing. As he was doing the examination, the doctor, who usually writes longhand, made some scribbled notes which engraved the seriousness of her situation to her.
When she sat back down and the doctor told her she was pregnant she couldn’t take it in, she’d spent so long convincing herself she was ill she didn’t know how to handle the news she wasn’t dying, that she was in fact creating another life. When she’d told Tony later that day, he was the happiest she had ever seen him. It was a great day for him — not only was his beloved wife not ill, he was going to have another shot at parenthood.
Tony was right, it wasn’t much longer before the nurses and doctors came in for the birth. After the last time, Tony had insisted they went to a private hospital where the care they would receive was the best it could be. She almost felt overwhelmed by the number of people that were there to watch the baby’s delivery, but she knew the more people that were there, the more chance they would have to save him if anything went wrong.
After another hour of pushing and panting and screaming and crying she heard a cry that wasn’t hers, the baby was alive.
“He’s perfect. A perfect little baby boy,” someone said from the other end of the room.
Relief flooded through her like a tidal wave; Tony had been right when he’d asked her for another chance at becoming a father. She’d hated the words ‘I want a baby’, ‘I need a child’ but now she was ecstatic he’d pushed her and begged ‘Please, please give one to me.’
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NTWG is very new to writing. She’s never had anything published, but hopes to change that soon.