Lark's End Read online

  “I can’t do that,” Charles said, resisting with all his might. But David was a construction worker and barely flinched.

  Donna wiped the tears from her eyes. She stood in the doorway with her flat belly. “Just go, Charles.”

  “Donna, I don’t need to go, really. It’s probably not a good idea for you to be alone.”

  “Go!” Donna shouted. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Okay, but I’ll hurry back,” Charles said. He climbed into the back of the car. His friend sat down in the driver’s seat and fumbled with the keys. He dropped them onto the floor and scrambled about.

  “I can’t find the keys!”

  “You should join the twenty-third century. My car doesn’t need keys—or me.”

  “The baby will be born in the street if I don’t get it together.”

  “David, aren’t you missing something?”

  “What do you mean?” David looked around. “My wife; I forgot my wife!”

  “David!” A tall woman with freckles all over her face and neck stood on the stoop.

  “Coming, Peg.” He hit his knees on the dash. “Don’t pick that suitcase up. I’ll get it for you.” He bent down missing the handle.

  “Just get in the car,” Peg groaned. “I can carry a bag. I’ve been lugging this thing around for months. What’s a few more pounds gonna do?”

  “It’s a baby, not a thing.”

  “Don’t correct me right now.”

  “Let me help you in the car.” David’s wife, Peg, sat up front breathing awfully loud. He closed her door and raced around the car. Peg looked in the rearview mirror.

  “Hello, Charles,” she said in between breaths.

  David got in the driver’s seat and slammed his door shut. “Peg, my love, Charles is going to film the birth of our daughter, isn’t that nice?”

  “Why? Because the big bad construction worker is gonna faint?” Peg yelled. “He passed out when he saw the sonogram. Can you believe that? Huh, Charles?”

  “I think you should concentrate on breathing,” Charles said.

  “Yes, you’re right,” Peg said, wincing from the pain. “David, DRIVE!”

  Her husband smashed the pedal as hard as he could. The old car jumped. Several “overload” warnings flashed on the control panel.

  Warning, speed exceeds local limits.

  Warning.

  “David.” Charles clasped his hands together. Was he having birth pangs, too?

  “Sorry, Charles but I’ve got to get my wife to the hospital! Initiate manual override. Computer, that means shut up!” He commanded, barreling down the normally quiet street at 80 miles per hour.

  Good things never happened to her. Donna sat in her dining room alone. Sure, she’d told Charles to go with David to the hospital, but now she wished she hadn’t. Dangerous thoughts crept into her heart. Like, what had she done to deserve such a horrible life? She never got to go to prom—that was the night her parents crashed. She’d been standing in her room in front of the mirror twirling around in her new dress, waiting for her date to come.

  ***

  She wore a red sequined dress with strappy heels and red lipstick. Donna couldn’t believe how beautiful she looked and that she was actually going with the quarterback!

  “Donna?” Someone tapped on her bedroom door. Was it her date already?

  “Yes?”

  The door creaked open and a police officer entered. “Donna Baker? Are you in here?”

  “Yes, Officer Pete. Have you come to have a cup of coffee with my father? He’s usually brewing a pot about now.”

  “I’m sorry, that’s not why I’m here. There’s been a crash and your parents are in the emergency room.”

  Donna’s mouth opened and she could hardly breathe. They were just home minutes before taking pictures of her in her prom dress! “How?”

  “They were on their way back from picking your sister up from school and a car sideswiped them.”

  “It’s so late—why was Maya still at school?”

  “I don’t know.” The police man frowned. “I’m really sorry.”

  Donna sat on the edge of her bed. Her skin itched and her eyes watered. Why was there something stuck in the center of her throat? “Was Maya in the car with them?”

  “Yes,” the officer whispered. “We need to take you to the hospital.”

  “Okay, let me change.” She wiped the mascara that ran down her cheeks, “and tell my date that I have to cancel.”

  CHARLES AT THE HOSPITAL

  “Quick,” Peg shouted, “Pull me up.” David’s car sat parked outside the emergency entrance. He wiped droplets of sweat from his brow and ran around to the passenger side.

  Charles loaded batteries (something he hadn’t seen in years) into the digital camera. He found it funny that David and Peg still said words like “video tape”, “cassette” and “VCR”. They didn’t even have a computer. He’d have to load the home video onto an old school DVD for them.

  “Peg, dear, why don’t you hold onto the door? You’re awfully heavy.”

  “I look fat?” Peg wailed. “I’m a heifer. You’re my husband,” she cried, “you’re supposed to think I’m always beautiful.”

  “I do!” David stammered. “You are beautiful. It’s just that you are, like, two people in one right now.”

  “Stop talking, okay?” Peg breathed hard. “You’re only making it worse than it is.”

  “Yes, dear.”

  Charles squirmed. He’d recorded the whole thing. Would they be angry for this? He could see Peg bringing up the “you’re, like, two people” comment for years to come.

  “Are you taping?” David asked. He grabbed Peg’s bag and chased after her. She stomped ahead, her belly swaying from side to side like a big bag of potatoes. “Peggy. Please wait for me.”

  She stopped abruptly holding onto the small of her back. It took her longer to turn sideways than normal but when she did her belly protruded from her body. “Did you just call me a piggy? David, I’m pregnant!”

  “Piggy?” David swallowed. “No, no, no, I called you Peggy; P E G G Y. I called you by your name, dear.”

  “Now that you said I look like a house I keep hearing words like fat, house, big, pig, huge.”

  “I never said you looked like a house,” David said.

  The double doors opened and she entered the waiting room. “Sign me in, David.”

  “Yes, dear.”

  “Charles, are you getting this?”

  “Yes, Peg, I am.”

  “My contractions are minutes apart. I should be having a little bundle of joy soon.” She waved at the camera. “Hi, sweetie, mommy loves you.”

  “Let’s sit you down.” A Digital Obstetrician’s Assistant (DOA) pushed a wheel chair forward, motioning for Peg to sit. His square body expanded at the sides. It rose and enclosed Peg within a three-sided glass containment prototype. Digital readings ran across the glass. “Your vitals are satisfactory. A necessary iron injection is required prior to birthing.”

  “Iron?” David’s eyes rolled into his head. He staggered, grabbing the wall. “Is my wife sick?”

  “Stop that.” Charles shook him. “It’s a common deficiency in pregnant women.”

  “She’s deficient?!”

  “Just follow the DOA.”

  “I just don’t think I can make it through this birth! It’s so painful. I can’t breathe.” David grabbed his friend by the collar, “I’m going to die.”

  “Imagine carrying the thing!” Peg called over her shoulder. “David stop being a girl and support me!”

  “Yes, dear.” He ran beside her and grabbed his wife’s hand.

  Charles filmed Peg and David as they made their way down the long corridor. As soon as the DOAs put Peg on the birthing table, David, the big bad construction worker—fainted.

  DONNA IN THE MEDICINE CABINET

  Donna climbed the stairs, stepped into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. She stared at her reflection in the
mirror. Eyeliner smudged her face. She cried harder. There wasn’t ever going to be a child. Donna crumbled into a ball on the floor. Where was her sister? Why’d Charles love her? She wasn’t worthy of being loved. Disaster came to anyone within a ten-mile radius of her. There was one way to fix it.

  Donna looked up at the medicine cabinet. She forced herself to stand. There was one way that she knew of that would end everyone’s misery—especially hers…

  She took a deep breath. “Pharmacy I need Eszopiclone; dosage: entire bottle.” The mirrored doors slowly opened. Her hands shook fiercely. Could she, do it? Would Charles be upset? He’d find another wife—one who wasn’t a walking disaster.

  She thought back to the prom. Instead of a limo escort, she’d climbed into the back of a police car and instead of spiked punch, hanging with her best friends and dancing to music she drank coffee with powdered cream and sugar, she’d sat in a plastic seat at the ER with strangers listening to a static filled television that hung on the wall above her head. Donna could remember only one feeling—and that was numbness. That’s what she felt now, alone in the bathroom with her medication request.

  ***

  Maya was in critical condition; her father was dead and her mother was on life support. What nearly eighteen-year-old girl wanted to experience that? She was supposed to start college in less than a month and her dad promised to give her his old car as a graduation gift. She was ready and willing to give up everything just to have him back in her life.

  ***

  Donna shook her head, removing the past from her mind. She didn’t want to hurt anymore. “Pharmacy, I said Eszopiclone; dosage: entire bottle.”

  CHARLES IN THE DELIVERY ROOM

  “Push!” The DOA (Digital Obstetrician’s Assistant) coached. Peg lay in the delivery room without her husband. The big bad construction worker stood in the hall instead, with a bag of ice on his forehead and held a paper bag next to his lips “just in case” he needed to vomit. He refused medication as usual. His mother taught him to do things traditionally. The DOA didn’t comprehend and placed David on “high alert”.

  Peg’s body dripped with sweat as she practiced her breathing. The glass panels above distracted her some and she welcomed the infrared readings showing where her little girl was in the birthing canal.

  Charles held the camera and tried to breathe right along with Peg. “I see the head! You’re crowning, Peg,” Charles said. “Wow, how amazing.” His eyes watered. It was nice to be able to share this moment with his two best friends. Really, it was. The only problem for Charles was the fact that he’d never have the chance to witness the birth of his own child. Something he didn’t want to accept finally settled like a giant stone on his heart. Donna was infertile.

  “When is this going to be over?” Peg moaned. “Charles, are you getting this? I want that thing inside me to see what pain she’s caused me!”

  “You could have a son,” Charles jested. He knew Peg had painted the nursery pink and bought everything “for a princess” so it’d better be a girl or else they’d be knocking on his front door asking his and Donna’s advice on an entirely new bedroom; again. They refused a genetic sonogram. Why? They merely had to order it through their television. A scan cost virtually pennies these days and the photos and videos could be viewed by the entire family no matter where they were. That’s what Donna desperately wanted for her own child…

  “Oh, no, my mother said I carried this child like a girl. I’m going to have a princess and name her Angelou after your niece.”

  Charles lowered the camera. Maya. Tears brimmed in his eyes. What had happened to her? He loved her so much. She was his heart and soul. “I’d be honored if you did that.”

  “Charles!” Peg screamed, “The camera!”

  “Oh, sorry,” he said. Charles pointed the camera. He watched the DOA’s synthetic hands pull out a very slimy baby. There was blood on his surgical gloves and a long umbilical cord wiggled about like some sort of weird snake.

  “Would you like to cut the cord?” Another DOA asked Charles.

  “Oh, no, thank you,” Charles shook his head.

  “CUT IT!” Peg screeched.

  “Okay,” Charles said. He took the medical scissors and snipped. The cord fell into a heap as if it were nothing more than an everyday water hose.

  “Congratulations, madam. You’ve given birth to a very handsome son.”

  “A WHAT?!” Peg wasn’t happy at all. “My mother said it was going to be a girl.” She cried. Her hair was dripping wet and Charles’ eyes widened. The baby boy screamed and screamed.

  “Would you like to hold your son?” A DOA inched forward, motioning for Charles to take him.

  “He—he isn’t my son,” Charles mumbled.

  “Let me hold the baby,” Peg said. With her arms outstretched, she snuggled the child against her chest. “I guess we’ll have to repaint your room, huh, son?” She grinned. “Look how beautiful he is, Charles.”

  Charles inched closer with the camera aimed at Peg. He really was a handsome newborn even if he was covered in guck. “You were amazing, Peg. If David weren’t such a softy—”

  “Don’t ruin the moment, Charles.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “I guess I will have to call you Angelo instead of Angelou. Still, you’re going to be named after a very special person. I hope you’re just half as wonderful as Maya was,” Peg whispered, poking her son on the nose.

  “Me, too,” Charles rubbed his eyes, accidentally lowering the camera. Peg looked up and smiled.

  “You can stop filming now. Why don’t you tell David that he has a son?”

  “I’ll tell him with great pleasure. Though, I think I’d like to tape his reaction,” Charles jested. “Maybe he’ll faint again.”

  “It’s time for sanitation.” The DOA took away Angelo and disappeared into another room.

  “If I gambled I’d put every cent I owned on the odds that he will faint.” Peg laughed. She then closed her eyes, too exhausted to say another word.

  Charles pointed the camera at the operating room doors. He stepped out, and there, with a bag of melted ice on his forehead and a paper bag at his lips sat David. “Did she have a baby?”

  “Yes, David, you’re a father.”

  “I’m a father!” He jumped up. “Did you hear that?” He hollered in a DOA’s face. “I’m a daddy.”

  “High alert! High Alert!” The DOA lit the halls with blinking lights.

  David giggled. “Oh Charles, is she beautiful?”

  “Your wife is very lovely. But, your son well, he’s handsome.”

  “Son?” David’s eyes rolled into his head. He dropped his bag of ice and, as Peg and Charles predicted—promptly fainted.

  SECOND THOUGHTS

  Donna pounded her fists on the medicine cabinet’s mirrored doors. “Give me my prescription!”

  “Dosage request unauthorized.”

  “Manual override.” She trembled, prying the doors ajar. “Man—”

  “Warning, dangerous dosage request.”

  “Oh shut up, you stupid idiot.” Donna ripped a door off its hinges.

  She scooped up ten pills. Her knees grew weak—who was she kidding? She couldn’t kill anyone, not even herself. She flung her pills at the mirror, punching it with her fist. Glass shattered and landed in the sink. She smashed her hands down onto the shards of glass.

  Donna cried. “Why’d I do that?” Life seemed so meaningless. Why did everyone she loved have to die or disappear? Couldn’t one good thing happen to her? Just one—that’s all she cared about.

  She remembered waiting outside her sister’s door. Wondering when Maya would pull through—if she’d pull through. Her mother had been taken off life support after three months, and now she’d waited on Maya. She’d had to withdraw from college, graduate high school alone—there weren’t any family members to cheer for her and sure she got the car, house and a life she’d been promised but in a way she’d never bargained for. Non
e of it mattered. Her sister was waking up.

  Donna cried hard. She couldn’t kill herself. Maya survived a tragedy once and she could do it again. Maya would come back and if Donna weren’t alive, where would she go? Who would take care of her?

  Donna peered out the window through wet eyes. A zebra raced across her backyard. She had to be seeing things. Donna raced down the steps and opened the back door. She gasped. “What’s going on?”

  CHARLES RETURNS FROM THE HOSPITAL

  Charles peered through the viewing glass at Angelo. Peg and David didn’t realize just how fortunate they were to have a son. What a miracle! He was happy he got to share it with them. Donna. How was she? He’d left his grieving wife and had the adventure of a lifetime. What was he doing? He needed to get home.

  “David, this has been a wonderful experience. Thank you for including me.” Charles smiled.

  His best friend patted him on the back with his big, gruff hand. “I couldn’t imagine you not being here. You and I have done everything together since I moved here, man. We’re like peanut butter and jelly. I’m the peanut butter, by the way.”

  “Sure seemed like it tonight, you fainting like a girl.”

  “Don’t tempt me.” David grinned, “I’ll give you a noogie.”

  “Very funny.” Charles laughed, struggling under David’s big arm. “I need to get home to my wife. I will call you tomorrow.” He pulled free, flushed.

  “Take my car.” David tossed him the keys. “I am going to stay here with Peg.”

  “Thanks, but I’d rather walk than take that old hunk of junk.”

  “You just wait; my car’ll be the only thing running one day!”

  “Sure it will,” Charles said. “I’ll be back tomorrow with Donna. We can have breakfast and then take some pictures of your new son! I want to bring them with me to the office.”

  Charles took quick steps down the hallway. He got into the elevator and pressed L for lobby.

  Outside, it was raining. Great. He took a deep breath and inserted his bank stick into the transportation link.