The Letter T

Signs

She was a beautiful baby girl with eyes that seemed to sparkle with blue innocence. Her Mother was holding her in her arms, a smile on her face that was as real as someone like her could ever give. Underneath the smile, however, was something rather different. An underlying terror filled her barely masked by her happiness and barely covered up by the smile. It was a terror only a mother could feel, deep and churning that only comes from the uncertainty of a child's future.

The baby's father had come in what was left of the door. He stank like filth, and looked like poverty, but then again so did the mother. Everyone like them did. He looked haggard and tired but determined.

" I found someone willing to help us from the outside. A  D who has a wife who was expecting  a baby, it won't arouse suspicion." The father sounded less than convinced as he said this.

" Your sure you want to do this," the man asked, "she might be safer without one."

The mother took in his words, considering backing down for a small moment. Then after gazing in to the sweet blue eyes of the child, let her resolve return. Maybe there was a chance the child could avoid her suffering. A chance for the child not to have to live her life. She looked down at her gloved hand and shivered. If there was a chance then she had to know.

Her voice broke out uncertain at first, then filled with the steel inside her: "Maybe she won't be like us. What if she is one of the lucky ones? We need to know."

It was settled after that.

The man from the outside would arrive early in the morning to take the child to get signed. If the parents ever saw her again, then the child was condemned to their fate. If that happened then they would do everything in their power to keep her alive. They would do their best to help the child bear the burden that would be thrust upon her. But if they never saw her again, then she was lucky. Then she would never feel the perils that they faced. Then they would not get to be a part of her life. The thought of that stung, but the idea of the child living as they had lived stung far more.

As had been promised the man arrived before the sun had begun to rise in the sky, guided into the dilapidated house by the little baby's father. He was middle aged and skinny as a rail. He too looked like poverty, but it was a different kind of poverty; a livable kind. The man didn't wear gloves and the sign on his hand was showing. It was a capital letter D.

Diseased. God what the parents wouldn't have payed to have that sign.

The woman went to rouse the baby from where it was sleeping, praying as she always did that the child didn't cry. If the child cried, then they might be found out. The baby didn't cry though, she never cried. It was almost as though she could sense the necessity of silence.

She carried the sleep weary baby out. The man and the child's father were exchanging words in lowered voices. The father nodded as if they had come to an agreement and the one coin that the father owned was handed to the middle aged man who greedily stuffed in the pocket of his worn pants.

" Thank you for doing this. We know the risk you are taking," the mother  said, the gratitude shining in her eyes.

The man simply shrugged. "I can't refuse coin no matter where it comes from, I have a family to feed, which seems to get harder to do by the day." He shrugged again. " Your people have never done anything to me anyway."

She kissed the child hard on the forehead, then looked into her deep blue eyes. She tried to burn every detail of the child into her mind, knowing that this may well be the last time she ever saw her. Then begrudgingly she handed the baby over to the man. Her heart hammered with anticipation. Tears streaked down her cheeks, some were tears of hope, others were tears of dread.