Lisa sighed, relaxing in the cool air blowing from the vents in her car. This had become something of a daily ritual for her, simply enjoying the white noise and the chilly atmosphere as she unwound from a stressful day. She thought of the pregnant women that she worked with, poking and prodding at their bellies with an ultrasound machine as they stared in awe at the new life growing inside them. She thought of her son, James, and his brilliant blue eyes, so different from the deep brown of her own.
She stepped out of the car and felt the refreshingly cool night breeze—a rare occurrence in South Florida, even in Winter—flow over her, raising goosebumps on her skin.
She went to the front door fumbled with her keys, swearing beneath her breath as they slipped out of her grasp and clinked onto the ground.
As she stooped over to pick them back up, the door clicked open, pouring light onto the grass and walkway. The cutest little thing looked up at Lisa with the widest of smiles stretched across his face in a portrait of curly, sandy-brown hair.
"Hi, mommy," he greeted her with a grin, arms outstretched.
"Hey, sweetums," Lisa scooped up her precious and nuzzled her nose into his lovely little locks.
They both giggled as she stepped into the house.
"Why aren't you in bed yet?" She asked. The couch beckoned her to rest her tired legs; she happily took its invite. He sank deeply into her lap and belly, yawning loudly and rubbing his eyes.
"I waited for you, mommy."
"Aw, Jameykins," she dug her fingernails into his scalp and felt him shiver under her touch, as he always did, every single night. "Did you shower yet?"
"I don't know." He fluttered his heavy eyelids.
He quickly fell asleep. She felt her heart melt into a puddle of joy as she hoisted his tiny, snoring body upwards and over her shoulder, walking him to his room. He drooled lightly on her shoulder. She chuckled softly.
She tucked him into bed and kiss his forehead, allowing her lips to linger on his smooth skin. He rolled over onto his side, his breath coming out in little mousy breaths. She knew should, but she couldn't help it; she lightly caressed his cheek and grinned as he snorted and swiped at the tickling sensation on his face. Her cheeks hurt from how hard she was smiling. She turned the lights off and listened in on his snoring, the only sound to pierce the darkness.
Then she went to her room.
Lisa took out her bills from her desk drawer that she had been putting off since last night. She tapped them against the table and lined them up properly.
She pursed her lips at the sight of it; not quite a smile, but nothing too negative. She turned to the other sheet of paper that she stapled to it.
Test results from a few years back; results for severe chlamydia.
This wasn't the first night she lingered on these papers, allowing her gaze to slowly scan the text, word by word, sentence by sentence. This wouldn't be the last either.
She allowed herself a slight frown, deadened and dulled by time, folded up the papers and put them back in the drawers. She decided to put the bills away and save them for another night.
Weathered and weary, she crawled into bed and went to sleep.
--
Someone knocked on the front door as Lisa prepared breakfast for James.
"Wait here, sweetie." Lisa pat James on the head and opened the front door, revealing Sammy, the portly yet innocent babysitter.
"Mornin', Ms. Goldsman!" She cried cheerily.
"Mornin', hun." Lisa nodded and smiled. She stepped aside and ushered Sammy into the house.
Once inside, Sammy immediately ran for James, who ran to her in response; she picked up the three year old and spun the smiling, squealing boy in the air and kissed him on the cheek before holding him against her pillowy chest and nuzzling him tenderly.
"I'll be back by midnight, as usual. Be good, Jamesie, mmk?" Lisa grabbed her lunchbox and put her shoes on.
"Okay, mommy." James waved goodbye to Lisa.
Lisa waved back to him while strolling out the door.
The sterile walls and halls of St. Mary's Hospital were a familiar sight to Lisa, as well as a somewhat comforting one; the pay was great, as all medical professions were. She smiled at the thought of coming home to James later in the week and taking him to the toy store. Whenever he sprinted down the aisles, her eyes would glint with a joy she thought she'd never have.
Her smile then faded when she saw a screaming woman with distended belly being wheeled down the hall and to the labor, delivery, and recovery room, LDR for short.
She whipped around at the sound of a big-bellied, screaming woman being wheeled down to the hall. She absentmindedly placed a hand on her own stomach as she watched.
Her grip on the clipboard tightened, her knuckles whitened, and she stood firm-gazed, stiff-lipped and lightly shaking before her colleague lightly patted her shoulder. Lisa spun around in shock.
"Are you okay?" Asked her colleague.
"S-sorry, Greg, I'm—" Lisa shook her head. "—caffeine-deprived."
"Normally people shake after they get caffeine, not before." Gregory gave her a serious look. "You sure you're okay? You were here just three hours ago."
"Yeah."
"That's what they all say, but I won't be nosy." Gregory nodded. "If you ever need anything, you know where my office is."
"Thanks," Lisa took a deep breath, turned around and walked down the hall.
"Oh, and Lisa?" Gregory called to her.
"Yeah?" She addressed him.
"Frank is a piece of shit."
She did not stop to humor him.
Lisa turned the corner and walked down the hall to file the papers where they needed to be filed. She walked past the ultrasound, the same way she did every shift, and slowly forced herself to stare at it for shorter and shorter amounts of time.
She noticed Gregory walk into the ultrasound room and close the door behind him.
She went to a nearby computer and took a seat in front of it. The computer monitor reflected her face back at her, slightly wrinkled, rather concerning for a woman at age twenty-seven, but not concerning to someone such as Lisa.
She wiggled the mouse and brought glowing life back to the screen, opening up a page of appointments and data about the upkeep of patients. She looked to her clipboard and flipped a page.
As an obstetrician, Lisa was used to seeing an ever-growing list of pregnant women; she went through with countless ultrasound tests where she had to put up a smiling face and usher many, 'congratulations!' while she lamented the scar tissue that lined her uterus.
James' presence helped tremendously.
Until she remembered that his birth surname was 'Kinnien' and not 'Goldsman.'
"He's mine," she whispered. "My baby boy…" Her eyes glazed over; the monitor blurred in her vision and her mind wandered; both of these were activities in which she unwillingly participated far more frequently than she would have liked.
She promptly jumped out of her seat when a woman's scream erupted from the ultrasound room.
Lisa froze in place for a moment, frantically looked around at her colleagues—some of whom made momentary eye contact with her—then looked back to the ultrasound room.
She rushed in there, unsure of what to expect. It was an ultrasound room, after all. Why would anyone scream? Other than maybe going into labor.
But that wasn't happening; there was a woman on the bed, yes, and the sheen of lubricating jelly shone from her bare belly. But Gregory wasn't there; he had walked in earlier, hadn't he?
The ultrasound transducer lay on the floor, unmanned by any proper obstetrician.
Another detail of note: the woman's belly was flat.
She didn't look pregnant in the slightest.
"Wh-where did he go?!" The woman barely breathed through her heavy hyperventilation. "Wh-why is my stomach—?" She ran a hand over her gut, getting the jelly over and in between her fingers. "He just disappeared! Where is my baby?!" She rubbed her cutting board-flat stomach with both hands. "Where is he?!"
Doctors and nurses ran into the room.
To Lisa, everything went by in a blur.
They kept the previously pregnant woman and carefully monitored her, unsure of what steps to take next.
For the next few weeks, Lisa allowed her gaze to rest upon the ultrasound room.
This time, not with a stiff lip and white knuckled grip, but with a wide-eyed gaze.
Since the ultrasound was no longer there.
"What the hell is going on?" The woman asked the day immediately after the incident, after they had moved her into a new room.
"I don't know," was the only response any of the doctors gave her. It was all they could give her.
For the next few months, they monitored the woman's condition. She seemed normal, aside from the sudden lack of eighth month pregnancy.
Also aside from the fact that there was a new fetus in her womb, different from her previous. The last one was female. This one was male and it was developing as normal.
The first trimester went by without any abnormal occurrences, although the new baby looked strange in the woman's womb.
"That's odd," whispered the doctor who was in charge. "The baby—" The doctor didn't even gasp, just let her mouth hang open.
"What's wrong?" Asked the woman.
The doctor said nothing; after all, how was she to tell the pregnant woman that this mysterious replacement baby had wrinkles, white hair and teeth?
The second trimester was also uneventful, though by the fifth month, the woman swore she could hear something coming from her womb.
She couldn't tell what it was.
Or maybe she didn't want to listen.
Before she knew it, she had reached the third trimester. The contractions started on month seven.
Someone screamed in her room; it was a male voice. No nurse or doctor had walked in to check up on her.
Just like when she heard the screams coming from the ultrasound room, Lisa also heard screams coming from this patient's room. She ran in—just as she had run in before—and saw the woman lying in bed with a distended belly.
Somehow, in the midst of her adrenaline, Lisa had just enough clarity to wonder, 'how the hell can this woman stand being pregnant for fifteen months?'
The woman writhed in bed, screaming and wailing with tears and snot bubbling from her nose. Her belly stretched and contorted rapidly and irregularly; the baby was kicking.
No, not kicking. The baby was clawing and thrashing.
The male screams cut through the air, sounding as though they were coming from underwater; they were coming from her womb.
That voice.
It sounded so very familiar to Lisa.
"PLEA—"
The baby screamed from within the patient's belly.
"HELP! GET ME OUT OF HERE! WHERE THE FUCK AM I?!"
The patient's shrieks and screams pierced the air and drilled directly into Lisa's ears. Her water was well past broken, and two little arms clawed out from the vaginal canal. The hands gripped the side of the inner thighs, slipping from the amniotic fluids.
The head erupted first, and Lisa nearly fainted.
Though his features were shrunk down, she'd recognize that face anywhere.
Frank was a piece of shit. Lisa heard in the back of her mind. The last thing she had heard from Gregory seven months prior, just before he disappeared.
The last thing she had heard from him.
"HELP!" The 'baby' roared in a man's voice. 'PLEASE!'
The patient looked down and saw Lisa's newborn colleague and promptly had her eyes roll back into her head as unconsciousness relieved her eyes of her new beautiful baby abomination.
Newborn Gregory pulled himself out of his womanly prison and crawled to the edge of the bed before the length of the umbilical cord stopped him.
"Lisa! Is that—" Gregory fought against the cord and pulled at it. He yanked and it snapped out of the woman's uterus. "Lisa! Please!" He crawled off the bed and landed on the floor, head-first.
"Lisa. Please. I can't—"
Gregory got on two legs and attempted to waddle towards her. He fell on his rear in the process.
"Lisa. Stomp my fucking head in. Make it end. Please." Gregory frantically crawled towards her, slapping the ground with sickening wet 'plops' along the way.
"I…I…" Lisa's breathing intensified; her vision started blurring as this middle-aged newborn crawled towards her with a long umbilical cord trailing amniotic fluids behind him.
Gregory hugged Lisa's ankle and wept deeply and loudly into it. The fluids drenched deeply into Lisa's pant leg.
They were still warm.
Lisa shrieked and kicked Gregory off of her leg.
Hard.
Gregory struck the wall and stained the clean white surface with the afterbirth of a woman who was yet wasn't his mother and fell to the ground, unmoving.
She tore her eyes away from this sight and ran past the doctors and guards and who had just arrived.
Lisa ran.
And ran.
Made it to her car. Slammed the door shut. Ran a red light and sped all the way home.
Ignored Sammy's, 'back so soon, Ms. Goldsman?'
Tossed money at the babysitter, scooped up James into her arms and locked herself in her room, with him.
"Mommy, mommy, what's wrong?" James hugged her tightly. "Mommy never cries! Why is mommy crying?"
"Oh, James, I love you so much, I just—"
And thus, the third year of James' life had returned to the cycle of watching a parental figure wail.
For a time, Lisa's life returned to normalcy. That time was exceedingly short lived, however, as Lisa, understandably, couldn't get the image of Gregory out of her mind.
Nobody could.
Lisa kept thinking about that scene.
And every night, Lisa took James and held him tightly against her.
At first, James was concerned, but once mommy stopped crying, he fell asleep happier than ever.
One night, Lisa came home from St. Mary's Hospital.
She picked up James and carried him to his room.
"No more sleeping with mommy?" He asked, peering up at her face.
Lisa caressed his brown little curls and scratched a little nail down his forehead and bridge of his nose, earning a little giggle from him.
"No, Jamesie. I loved it too, but I think we should stop it now, okay? You need to learn to sleep by yourself one day." Lisa kissed his forehead.
"Aw, come on, just one more night!" James whined.
"No. And that's final, mister," Lisa whispered firmly.
"Okay…" James accepted defeat.
"Good boy." Lisa turned the lights off, plugged in a night light and stood in the doorway, with James' face just barely illuminated enough to show his little smile.
"Good night, mommy," said James.
"Good night, Jamesie." Lisa closed the door.
She went to the bathroom and splashed her face with water. The cool water felt refreshing and relaxing on her face at the same time. She wiped her face dry and stared into the mirror, closely examining every wrinkle on her face.
Her gaze slowly shifted to her belly, internally scarred and empty. She lifted her nightgown, exposed her flabbiness and patted it lightly. She shivered at the coldness of her own touch and felt an empty gnawing sensation growing in the pit of her barren wasteland of a womb, coupled with the ever-creeping images of her newborn colleague that never left her mind since the day he was birthed.
She turned the lights off and quietly padded out of the bathroom and into James' room. She was thankful for the carpet in the house, as this covered the sound of her footsteps very well.
Guided by the nightlight, she walked over to James and was not at all surprised to find him already asleep.
Maternal feelings bubbled up within her and rose to her eyes in the form of tears. She gazed at his curly sand-colored hair and tucked her own blonde hair behind her ear.
And then she had an idea.
She then felt a rapidly rising urge to vomit and she ran out of his room, thankfully without waking him.
She curled up in her own bed and threw her sheets over herself, trying to get the intrusive thought out of her mind.
Or at least, at first she tried.
She tossed and turned in bed, wondering why sleep refused to take her.
Then she shot up straight and knew.
She knew.
This was what she wanted, even if James didn't.
But she'd make him want it.
The next day, she asked around to find out what happened to the ultrasound machine. Surprisingly enough, her colleagues were ready and willing to tell her.
If only they knew.
Later that night…
"Jamiekins." Lisa gently shook him awake. "Jamiekins."
James slowly awakened and rubbed his sleepy eyes.
"M-mommy?"
"Let's go play a game, Jamiekins." Lisa held him close to her as she walked up to St. Mary's Hospital in the dead of night. "Just make sure to stay quiet, okay?"
"Okay!" James whispered loudly.
She strapped James to her chest and held some towels over him to conceal him. That was where she also hid some extension cables. Not the greatest plan, she admitted, but that didn't matter. Everyone there trusted her.
She took the back entrance to the hospital and unlocked the door. She closed it as quietly behind her as possible and she made her way to the storage closet.
Where there were no cameras.
She set James down and laid the towels down for him to sit on.
"Wait here, sweetie."
James nodded and stared at her with wide, wondering eyes.
She took the extension cables and wired them to a socket in a wall outside the closet. Then she plugged in the ultrasound machine. She had no lubricating jelly and James obviously didn't know how to use an ultrasound machine. Or knew what it even was. She hoped that neither of those details mattered and she sat him down on an elevated surface.
"Here's the game we're gonna play, okay, sweetie?" Lisa's voice shook; as did her hands when stopped down handed him the transducer.
James merely looked on curiously, ignorant, and perhaps with a tinge of excitement.
"I'm gonna push that button and I need you to poke that against my belly, mmk?" Lisa stood up straight, turned on the ultrasound machine and lifted her shirt high enough to expose her belly.
"How did you know I wanted to be a doctor like you when I grew up, mommy?" James giggled.
Lisa grinned. "Because you're my baby boy and mommy knows you like the back of her hand."
James giggled louder this time.
"Sshh," Lisa put a finger against his lips and shushed him.
"Sorry," James put a hand over his own.
"It's okay, Jamesie." Lisa patted his head. "Do it."
James smiled and poked the transducer against her belly.
Lisa caught it before it fell to the ground and clattered. She then quickly unplugged everything and wrapped everything up before anybody could notice she was there.
The next three trimesters would be lonely, but so very worth it.
The first month was lonely. She had awakened the morning afterward, immediately ran to the bathroom and vomited what felt like the entirety of last night's sloppily eaten dinner into the bowl. She knelt there and grinned as her stomach waged war against her.
She patted her belly as she did so, telling herself this was for the best.
The first trimester went by without a hitch.
The second trimester—month five—was when the nausea hit harder.
One shift, Lisa ran into the restroom during a shift and vomited for what felt like twenty minutes. forever.
"Lisa?" One of her colleagues knocked on the stall door. "Are you okay? You've been in there for twenty minutes."
Lisa responded with an especially loud URK!
"Tell you what. If this happens one more time, go home. We have things covered okay?"
Lisa spat out a glob of phlegm and watched it plop against the side of the toilet bowl.
"Got it."
Lisa drove home, her eyesight growing blurry, and her driving just a tad unsteady. She stopped by the side of the road on the halfway point of her drive home and vomited pure, bitter bile onto the streets.
Then she drove the rest of the way home.
Lisa leaned over the kitchen countertop, half slumped over, vegetables in one hand, knife in the other.
She had to eat healthy. Eat healthy for James. If only she could keep the food down. She took one bite of carrot and chewed slowly. She willed the back of her tongue to push it down her throat, only to be met with a severe gag reflex.
She felt to her knees in front of the trash can significantly harder than she would have liked.
Her head throbbed and her distended belly felt strange.
She thought about Gregory and thought about the way he had pulled his way out of that poor woman.
But he was a grown man.
James was still a baby. Three years old was basically still newborn. Right?
"I'm giving you a second chance, Jamiekins." Lisa whispered through gritted teeth. The aroma of bile and vomit wafted out of the garbage can and into her nostrils, further provoking more gag reflexes.
Lisa vomited into the trash can for half an hour that night.
Lisa awakened in the middle of the night to forceful contractions.
It was time.
And she didn't need the hospital.
She was trained for this.
She leaned back against the headboard of her bed and braced herself.
She took a deep breath and she pushed.
And she shrieked.
Fuck you, Frank! You thought you could take this from me!
And then she laughed manically. She closed her eyes, tucked her head down, chin to her chest, and she pushed.
Memories of her parents flooded her mind as she pushed and heaved. There were pictures of her parents buried somewhere within her work drawers.
She'd burn them once she was able to give James a true second lease on life.
Her laughter turned to shrieks of agony; she arced her head back hard, felt it thunk against the headboard, and felt her womanhood stretch. The girth of James' crowning head painfully tore through years-old scar tissue.
This pain was worth it.
She cried in ecstasy at what she believed she could never have.
And then she heard a shriek emanate from below.
It was James.
But he had only just started crowning.
Then she found herself forcing the images of Gregory out of her head.
"I love you, Jamiekins!" Her throat went raw from her roars.
"N—" James' muffled voice came from Lisa's birth canal.
"Jamesie!" Lisa laughed as she pushed again. She felt his head stretch her and felt the rest of his adorableness push straight out of her.
That would be one hell of a cleanup, but that was okay.
James was hers now!
"J-James!" Lisa sank back against the headboard and she felt her womb empty itself of her precious treasure.
She leaned forward and saw her newborn baby, exhaustion weighing down her entire body.
He cried and he cried loudly, but oh, was he beautiful!
Lisa cupped a hand over her mouth as she leaned down and peered at his face; his face which now bore some of her features.
His hair was still curly, but it was now the same bright shade of blonde as her hair. He opened his eyes and they were no longer that hideous blue, but an identical shade of brown to hers.
"Hi, sweetie," Lisa whispered breathlessly.
"You don't love me!" James cried, his newborn mouth still full of baby teeth.
Lisa's smile vanished.
"Wh-what do you mean, Jamesie? You're my baby boy. I can raise you now." Lisa frowned.
"You hate me, Lisa!" James wailed. "You hate me!"
"What?!" Lisa asked. "Why are you calling me 'Lisa'? I'm your mommy. Call me mommy!"
"I hate you!" James closed his brown eyes and wailed. He wailed uncontrollably and Lisa tried to console him.
He quickly grew lightheaded and felt his vision fade as he chanted, "you hate me! I hate you! I hate you, Lisa!"
And thus, that was James' fate. Unloved by his first mother, unwanted by his birth father, and not good enough for his second mother.