Her Purpose

A short story. By Emma Brattin.

Goldfield, Nevada: A ghost town. April 2011. Photography by Emma Brattin.

Her Purpose

            He’d kept her hidden now for seven months.

Hidden like a dirty secret.           

She knows it is not time yet, but the pain wrapping around her swollen belly reminds her she isn’t in control.

He says it is time now.

She watches the fluid drip through the clear tubes and disappear into her hand as he checks the dosage. She can’t look down at her round stomach, instead she stares at the ceiling, not really seeing anything. Guilt. Another flash of pain and she grimaces, clenching the blankets swirled around her sweat-drenched body.

            She knew her assignment when he brought her here, but she never realized how painful the final moments would be. Her heart aches at what she is about to give up, to walk away from forever. She would soon have to pretend the whole event never happened, and she will have to do it alone.

Silent tears flood down her cheek as she feels another slice of hell pierce her groin.

            I need a successor. I’ll pay you well, he’d said so matter of fact. But once the baby is born, you may never tell anybody, nor can you return.

And she’d agreed because she was bored with life, and the whole thing sounded like a romantic novel.

He’d seen to it that she was fed, comfortable, and given appropriate medical care. Beyond that, she never saw him, nor anybody. She’d temporarily felt inadequate for the task at the beginning but discovered she only had to take good care of herself.

All she had for months was this growing, living thing inside her.

She grew to love the life inside her.

Part hers, part his, but owned by him, and not hers at all.

            He approaches as she’s writhing in pain.

I’m near death, she says.

He glances down at the floor near her feet and sighs loudly. She forgets she doesn’t want to look and rolls her head to the side to see around her belly lump to the floor.

Red.

Liquid.

So much.

Too much.

Her hands grab her stomach, not in pain, but in apology. The life she tried to grow.

I’m sorry, I tried.

Stars.

Lights.

No, he says. No, keep here. It’s time to push. You must push. Now!

She screams at being pulled back and begs to die. She wants to find the darkness beyond the stars she sees behind her eyes.

Stay here for the baby! Stay! Be here! Push!

She bears down one more time.

For the baby.

Relief.

            Crying. A squealing cry. A squawk. A newborn cry.

A healthy girl, she’s okay. He sounds like he is crying, too.

She forces her heavy eyelids open, sees the beautiful messy thing squawking in his arms.

Hi, she says softly. You were worth everything.

She smiles. Feels no more pain.

Closing her eyes, she lets go and follows the stars to the darkness.