'I--I was only sixteen. I got pregnant from Daddy. He and Mom pretended not to notice. I was skinny and my stomach didn't get that big, but kids at school noticed. It didn't keep Daddy from coming to see me at night.' She's lifted her head back up. She's staring off, remembering. She's regressed and speaks with the voice of a child. 'I hated the thing inside me. It came from Daddy being with me and I remember thinking it was like having a devil in me, a demon. A creature, growing, with fangs and claws. It would move sometimes and I'd start to shake. I was so afraid of it. Toward the end, Daddy stopped pretending it wasn't there. He touched my stomach one time and he said, 'If it's a boy, we'll call him Charles.' ' She shudders. 'That made me hate the baby even more. I was sure it was the son of Satan or something.
'I woke up one night and my bed was wet. My water had broken. I was in a lot of pain. One thing I knew for sure was I didn't want to have it there, at home. So I got dressed and I took Daddy's car and I drove out to where all the abandoned factories were. I found a place in the dark so I wouldn't have to see him when he came out, with his fangs and his tail and his claws.'
She stops. Her face twists in pain.
'What happened then, Maxine?' the voice asks.
'I had him. He was born. He just laid there on the dirt and I was kind of out of it, but I knew one thing, I was scared. I didn't want to look at him. And then--he cried.' I hear wonder in her voice. 'He sounded so normal. Not like a demon at all. He sounded like a baby. So I looked at him and he was so small and he was just crying and crying like he was mad at me and mad at the dirt being cold and just mad at the world. He had my blood on him and I just grabbed him and really looked.'
'And what did you see, Maxine?'
She closes her eyes. 'I saw a baby. Just a baby.'
'And? What else did you see?'
Her eyes open. They're filled with endurance, a pain at its purest.
'That he'd belong to Daddy. Daddy would use him up somehow, would infect him or abuse him. He wasn't born a demon, but Daddy was the devil, and Daddy would turn him evil in the end. So I did'--
she draws in a single, whooping breath--'I did the only thing that I thought it was right to do. I took Charles and I found a trash can and I put him down in it, and I covered him with garbage until I couldn't hear him crying anymore.'
'What happened after?'
'I went home. And you know what?' Her eyes look toward the camera now. They're full of pleading. 'Daddy never asked what happened to the baby. Never, not once.'
'It was worse that your mother didn't ask, wasn't it?'
'Yes,' she whispers, 'that was the worst of all. It was like he never existed for them, and maybe he never did. Maybe they were those kind of people, able to live without feeling guilt or worrying about anyone else, ever.'
'You weren't 'those kind of people,' were you, Maxine?'
She squeezes her mascara-ringed eyes shut again and wails. 'No!
I never forgot. Never! I ran away a year later and came here to California. I whored for a while, did some drugs, and hated myself. But--but then I found God, and I turned my life around.' The eyes open, again, suffering, again. 'Don't you know that? I changed. I got away from my devil and I gave my soul to God. I work with children now, I help them, all to make up for what I did to Charles. Don't you see that?'
She's asking for mercy, but the murmuring I can make out tells me what I already know: he had none to offer. The murmur is his beginning recitation of the Lord's Prayer.
'Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name . . .' Then a pause. 'God is love, Maxine,' he says.
Fade to black.
My mouth has filled with bile. Adrenaline races through me and makes my heart jitter and skip beats. My skin feels flushed. I'm dizzy. I'm flying apart, I realize. Right here, right now, with no warning at all.
I feel a cackling thing running through the night in my mind, scrabbling at great speed to try and jump from the darkness into the light.
See me, it cackles and snarls and growls. You know what I am. See me.
I clench my eyes shut and shake my head.
No no no no no!
The phantom from the night is back, grown to a monster this time, and he's caught me by surprise.
I find myself longing for that bottle of tequila, longing for it with a level of savage naked need that terrifies me. This, I realize, is what drives the alcoholic to his next drink. The feeling that if he doesn't, he'll die a long, lingering, screaming, painful death. I hold out my hand, palm down over my desktop. It's shaking. See me, the voice demands again, more strident and certain this time. No question, all command.
I feel nausea rising inside me. I realize it's going to keep coming, I can't fight it back.
Jesus Christ, I'm going to puke!
I bolt from my office and race to the bathroom in the hall. The door can't be locked, but no one else is in it, thank God. I fling the door to one of the three stalls open and I drop to my knees on the tile without ceremony. My gorge rises and my stomach twists and a brief, sweet pain spikes through my head and I'm puking my guts out in the next millisecond. It's brief, but it's violent. I can feel how flushed my face is, and the force of it all squeezes tears from my eyes. I grip the sides of the toilet bowl and wait to see if it's over.
I'm twisting like a rope in a pair of strong sailor's hands, bending like a violin bow, muscles spasming as I vomit again. It goes on a little too long, and puts spots behind my eyes.
This time I know I'm done and I fall into a sitting position, back against the wall of the toilet stall. I sit there for a moment and breathe, hand against my forehead, working to stuff the monster and his claws back into the box.
Now is not the time, I tell myself. There is a time, but it's not now. Please.
I close my eyes and lay my head back against the stall wall and let myself drift. Time goes by in internal fuzzy flashes. Pictures come to me. They're all unrelated, jumbled, no rhyme or reason. I see Matt, I see Bonnie, there's Tommy telling me he loves me, and there's Maxine with her raccoon eyes.
I open my eyes again and find that the voice is gone. I take advantage of the lull to stand back up on wobbly legs. I flush the toilet, and as I do, I realize that tears are running down my face.
'Goddammit,' I mutter.
I hate crying, always have.
I seem to be a little more stable now. My stomach has stopped flipflopping, and the yammering in my head has died down to a background whisper. My mouth, however, is filled with the acrid taste of vomit. I open the door to the stall and totter out.
'Better?'
I'm so surprised that I almost draw my weapon. I whirl on the voice and nearly fall over doing so, as my legs remain a little rubbery. Kirby is standing there, arms crossed, leaning against the door to the bathroom. She's chewing gum and is staring at me with a look I can't quite fathom.
'What are you doing here?' I ask.
'I was making sure no one came in while you were falling apart.'
She shrugs. 'I came up to see Callie and watched you run into the bathroom. Got curious.'
I turn to the sink so I don't have to look at her. I turn on the water.
'I wasn't falling apart,' I say, defensive.
She cracks her gum. 'If you say so. But you were sitting in that stall for almost twenty minutes.'
I stand up straight, shocked.
Twenty minutes? That long?
I sneak a look at Kirby. She's just standing there, chewing her gum. Her expression is a mix of the patient and the bland. She seems to read my mind and holds up a wrist to show me her watch.
'I checked the time.'
I turn away again and splash water on my cheeks, which are now burning with embarrassment.
'And what the fuck is it to you?' I snarl.
