An Unwanted Life

"Oh, I'll have to call you back," Alison said through gritted teeth. The wailing had reached an unbearable pitch; loud, long and not to be ignored a second longer. She stood abruptly, so the back of her knees made the chair skid a few inches across the floor. Her voice was almost a yell as she said, "Have a good time and let me know if he asks you out again." Alison slammed the phone down, pressed her hands to her ears, and paced the tiny kitchen. Each footfall slammed harder across the checkerboard linoleum until she was stomping. Black, black, black. She said the words over in her mind, as she marched from one black tile to another, avoiding the white ones. Black, black, black. My whole life is black.

"Shut up!" she screamed, squeezing her eyes shut, pressing her hands tighter against her ears so her bitten nails pressed into her scalp. A pause of quiet came for only a second before the crying resumed--louder, more insistent. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!" Through gritted teeth, Alison screeched from deep in her gut and finally taking her hands from her ears, strode down the short hall to a tiny room at the end. She flipped the wall switch, flooding the room in artificial light slightly muted by the thick layer of dust on the fixture. Her presence alone was enough to reduce the wrenching sobs to mournful ones interspersed with sniffles.

"Mam, mam." The little girl in the crib stretched her arms, waggling her pudgy fingers. With a trembling smile, she did a funny little hip-hoppity dance, her bare knees banging against the slats of the crib.

"You're supposed to be sleeping," Alison yelled. "It's your goddamned nap time!" The girl, barely ten months old, sucked in her breath and would have started crying again if Alison hadn't picked her up then, though it was more jerking and pulling than lifting. She hooked her hands under the baby's arms and held her at arm's length. "You stink, you stupid little pissy pants." Alison laid the baby down hard on the change table and glanced at the little girl's face. Fear and surprise mingled with guilty relief in the little girl's wide blue eyes. Alison turned her full attention to unfastening the safety pins, avoiding any more eye contact with her offspring.

Offspring? Could she really be called that? The little monster who had come into being, ending all possibility of the life Alison dreamed of living? Her supposed good friend, Lisa, was going out with Cliff Hanson, a man who had it all. Good looks, wit, charm, and enough money to make Alison's dreams come true ten times over. He was made of money and lots of it. She figured he might even have money coming out his ass. He probably used it for toilet paper. Despite all Alison's efforts to entice him into at least one date, nothing had worked. He left for Europe, apparently for good, leaving Alison lonely, vulnerable, and open game for men like Mark.

She ripped the sopping diaper away from the baby's sticky skin. She grimaced as she held the heavy urine-soaked cloth between her thumb and forefinger. Gagging, she tossed it into the already overflowing diaper pail. Offspring, ha! More like Mark-spawn. A one-night stand gone wrong. Besides that, there was something . . . not right about Mark. She had no proof for distrusting him, only a feeling that something wasn't quite right.

Now Cliff was back in town, but she was stuck with a baby, a tiny, sweltering apartment in a bad neighborhood, a husband she couldn't love, and all her dreams completely destroyed. Nice girls didn't get abortions. Besides, she didn't know where to get one and horror stories abounded. She'd heard about coat hangers, dirty back rooms, girls younger than her own nineteen years bleeding to death.

Alison wiped the baby down with a cloth she dipped in a small dish of water kept on the dresser, and sprinkled an abundance of powder on the bare bottom. There. Oh, what a good mom am I. She pulled a fresh diaper round her daughter's waist so tight it made the baby gasp. "You know what Jeanie? If Mommy didn't know better, she'd say God has a mean streak." She said it as if she did know better, as if she was fully aware that she was God's biggest joke.

As Alison bent to pick the baby up, she noticed a ray of sunlight coming through a rip in the foil she'd put on the windows. She pried open Jeanie's hand and found the missing bit of foil.

"Bad girl!" she said, slapping the baby's hand. "Don't pull that off the windows. How many times do I have to tell you to leave it alone? Huh?" Alison glared at the baby, knowing in her heart that Jeanie had done it just to annoy her. Although picking the baby up when she'd first come into the room had stopped the crying, Alison had an overwhelming urge to make the little brat cry now. In a small way, she knew it was wrong, but like her relationship with God, she felt powerless to stop it, as though she was only victim.

"I put that up to keep it dark for your naps and to keep out the goddamned heat!" She bent down so her face was inches from the child's. "Stupid! Bad girl. BAD girl."

The baby's chin began to tremble. A small smile of satisfaction played on Alison's lips but she didn't know a need for power and control over her life spurred her actions. The injustice of her unwanted lifestyle, a stinky baby, a horrible husband, a traitorous friend, and being perpetually victimized consumed her thoughts.

"Rotten. You are rotten right to the core you stupid little brat." When the baby began to cry again, annoyance shut out whatever temporary joy she'd felt and she slapped the girl's cheek. "Stop crying. Now. Or I'll give you something to cry about!" She held her hand stiff, ready to administer another slap if the girl didn't stop it. When the whimpering stopped, Alison picked her up and carried her out to the living room.

She sat down on the sofa, holding the sweaty child in her lap and listened to the traffic going by three stories below. She thought over her life; graduation, a new decade, the free-loving sixties. Nothing had turned out so magical as she had dreamed. As if she didn't have enough to worry about, Alison had one more thing to add to her oppression. She was late. Her period hadn't come yet and although Alison would have to see a doctor to confirm it, she had a strong hunch. The last thing she needed was another baby. I just hope it's not another girl. Alison bit her lower lip and gazed at the child now drowsing in her arms. She didn't want to tell Mark.

There was something wrong with him. The words "child molester" ran through her mind. She had no proof. There wasn't anything obvious her husband did that Alison could point to as reason for her feelings. It was an elusive thing. She hated the way he held their daughter too close to him, the way he ran his fingers down Jeanie's back, how he watched children at the playground with an intensity that frightened her. There was something unnatural about it. He wasn't like other fathers, even men who truly did love children. They watched their children play too, hugged and kissed them just as much, but there was something off about Mark's interest.

Alison was tired. She was always tired. She couldn't be awake around the clock, but she tried. In the middle of the night, she'd wake suddenly and jerk her head to the right, making sure Mark was still in the bed. When he wasn't, she panicked and searched for him. Usually he was in the kitchen or the bathroom and only occasionally in Jeanie's room. Despite her best efforts to comfort herself or stay alert, the feeling never left her.

"How can I love someone I don't trust?" Alison asked. The baby's dark lashes lay like little half moons above her unblemished cheeks. "How can I love and hate a person at the same time?" Tears shimmered in Alison's eyes as she bent to kiss Jeanie's fine, dark hair. It didn't occur to Alison that the child in her arms would one day ask the same question of her.

Alison breathed in the soft baby scent of Jeanie's skin and cried. "How can I call you a bad girl when you're so clearly an angel? I do love you my sweet little Jeanie and I have one special wish for you. I hope God hears me. I wish for you to be an only child." She closed her eyes and fell into an escapist sleep where life couldn't get progressively worse, where she didn't feel powerless, and where sleeping angel-babies didn't wake to become devil-spawn. As always, she hoped to never wake up.