Killing Tink

Ch. 18

She lifted her legs off the bed and put them back again. Twenty times tonight, that was much better than yesterday.  Eating soft foods and drinking had been helping get her strength. Soon she'd be strong enough to leave. But before she did she'd get supplies for the baby.

Diapers could be anything, but she would need clothes for it. Babies should have warm soft blankets and colorful things to look at. She imagined her baby in the warm sun, cheeks browning like hers used to, the smell of earth being washed off in the tub.

The hallway light filtered in and she lay still. She didn't want them knowing she was working on strength.  It would be her timing, her decision, when she left. No one else was going to be in control of her life again.

Her nurse came in for night rounds. A new nurse, swollen belly and long tangled brown hair knotted into a pretzel shaped bun. Her blue uniform shirt stretched across her rounded stomach threatening to shred and Hope couldn't help but imagine that cramped up baby wishing it would. The large white rubber bottomed shoes slapped against the tile as she waddled like a duck toward the bed.

Hope watched silently as she typed on the computer and scanned the small white hospital ID bracelet she had worn since she'd been there. With long pink nails the nurse carefully opened the tiny packages of medicine that was given to her each night before the hallway went dark.

"Hello Hope. My name is Daisy. I'll be your nurse for the night. Would you like a snack before bed? Or something besides water to get your pills down?"

Hope smiled, and quickly stopped the process when she saw the uncertainty cross the nurses face. She imagined her smile was hideous. Broken teeth and jutting cheek bones. She didn't blame her for being startled.

"No thank you. I'm fine."

She took the small clear cup in her hand and looked inside. Three small pills. A white oblong pill, a small blue one shaped like a traffic sign, and a red one. She held the cup close to her chest.

"These won't hurt my baby right? They're all safe?"

The nurses face wrinkled and her eyes grew large.

"You're pregnant? That's not possible. Nothing here says you're pregnant. You were tested when you came in. Who told you that?"

Hope felt the room spin. Lying! They were lying. Tricking and lying. Did it ever stop? They wanted her to lose this baby. John! John wanted her to lose this baby. He didn't want her to have anything good. Just a pit of fear and bad memories to wallow in so he could get off on hearing them.

No baby. Maybe they'd even been trying to get rid of the baby. Stupid stupid Tink. Swallowing pills like an idiot without saying anything.

She looked down at her stomach. It was smaller than it had been. But that was because she was getting bigger and fuller as she got healthier, it didn't mean anything. She put her hand on her stomach and it felt flat. Firm. Empty.

Thoughts swirled. Three years. She'd been there three years. How long had she been carrying the baby? How far along in her pregnancy was she when Stash tried to kill her and threw her out? It was impossible to know. One day bled into the next. There was no possible way to measure except in screams and visits which jumbled together into one long memory.

She hadn't lost her baby. She could still feel it, connected to her soul. Still there.

If it was ever there.

She looked from the pills to the face of the nurse aware she was rocking and unable to stop. Drool trickled down her chin, her throat refusing to open and allow it passage to her acid filled gut. Then nurse tried prying the cup of pills from her hand but she couldn't let go.

She begged air to come into her lungs and her throat to open but it refused to happen. Over and over she rocked, banging her head against the denting crumbling wall. The nurse looked panicked. Tink's vision filled with swirls of darkness and blobs of grey and as a wave of blackness rolled over her.

Her arms and legs flailed and the heel of her foot connect with the something fat and soft that she could only assume was the padded stomach of the lying nurse. She wanted to stop, she wanted to take the time to think everything through, knowing there was an explanation.. but her body refused to listen.

Hands grabbed her feet and tightly gripped arms and she felt the familiar burn of ties being placed on her arms and legs. She struggled for air, for freedom, and finally, as the prick of the needle entered her thigh her lungs opened and the scream she had been holding released.

Air rushed into her lungs and she heaved as she greedily sucked in more. Her skin tingled with the drugs as they weighed her down like cement pushing her deeper and deeper below the black waves.

"My baby. My baby. My baby." She muttered it over and over until her tongue felt thick and coated and refused to move.

"Oh my God Daisy. What the hell happened? She was doing incredible".

It was a male voice, slurry and wobbly sounding as it traveled across her humming ears.

She wished she could answer. Tell him they had tried to kill her baby. He'd help her out of here. Away from blue pills and John always sitting in the shadows waiting for her terror to be presented to him like a Christmas morning gift.

She tried to pry open her eyelids to see his face, to use her eyes and plead with him saying she needed out. She'd do anything, go anywhere. Just to get away from people who hurt and lied and tried to kill babies and tied her down.

As the room silenced she thought of Stash. His boots on the stairway, the smell of cigarettes and whiskey. The tang of sweat and yeast on his skin as he forced her to earn her keep. The pain meant something to her then, it meant she was alive. Stash's only surprises were pain. She missed that.

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I know Hope's chapters are dark, sometimes the dark is all people have and they too deserve to be heard. Her ride isn't over, in fact, it's just beginning.