Dave Clapper - May 2005

 

JOY OF ATHENA

When the Stranger first appeared outside the Athena Women's Health Center, nobody noticed Him. He carried no signs of protest. He didn't interact with the people (mostly women) who worked there. He stood off to the side and observed.

Occasionally, He would see women who were clearly pregnant entering the clinic. He would see the same women exiting the clinic, no longer with child. He would see people with poster board signs depicting aborted fetuses accosting them. Most often however, He saw women entering the clinic for routine check-ups. Sometimes, the protesters harassed these women, too. The Stranger never said anything to any of the people whose lives were touched by the clinic. He merely observed.

There was one woman in particular that He noticed. She was about thirty years old. Her once brown hair had gone mostly to grey. Crow's feet notched the skin around her hazel eyes. The eyes themselves seemed inescapably sad, eyes that had seen too much, or perhaps not enough. The set of her shoulders was one of defeat, of resignation. Her shoulders told the Stranger that this woman was alone in life and had accepted that she always would be. The lettering on her nametag said, "Elise, NURSE PRACTITIONER."

After the first week of observing the Athena Women's Health Center, the Stranger ceased to notice anyone but Elise. He watched as she came to work every morning at 7:15. He watched as she left for lunch every day at 12:15 and returned at 12:45. He watched as she left the clinic every evening at 6:15. She was always one of the first people to enter the clinic and one of the last to leave. Quite often, the protesters only saw her on her lunch breaks. Perhaps she'd planned it that way, although the Stranger doubted it. He suspected that her hours were more reflective of a desire to work, to be needed.

Elise did not necessarily enjoy the work she did, or at least not all of it. She felt good about the ministrations she gave to the poorer of the clinic's patients, especially those who came for neo-natal care. The times that she helped deliver babies were especially gratifying. She felt quite differently about the abortions.

It was not so much that she had moral qualms about the procedures, although her beliefs were ambiguous. Rather, a feeling of waste and desolation often overcame her during each dilatation and curettage. She desperately wanted someone to call her own, desperately wanted a child, but had resigned herself to never having one. To see the tiny human forms torn from their wombs deadened another piece of her every time. Every time.

This was the woman whom the Stranger most noticed. Initially, He'd thought to observe all of the people involved with the Athena Women's Health Center, but Elise became His focus. He took to following her home when she left for the day, albeit at a discrete distance. He had no intention of making contact with her, but He wanted to know more of her life, to observe what He knew to be true.

Typically, she would walk the few blocks to her apartment just up the hill from the clinic. Occasionally, she would stop at a neighborhood grocery on her way home, but that was the extent of her life outside the clinic. The light that came on shortly after she arrived home never stayed illuminated past 9:30. There was never the tell-tale blue light of a television set flickering through her window. She led, as far as the Stranger could see, a very quiet life.

On one such day, following her home, the Stranger saw her take a decidedly different route. She carried with her a canvas shopping bag. That was not in itself unusual. On her trips to the grocery, she always brought along her own bag for the nickel discount. This time, however, there appeared to be something in the bag.

The Stranger followed Elise to a bus stop. She caught a number 17. The Stranger, though He had no car, followed. His means of doing so evade explanation.

When Elise disembarked, the Stranger was waiting for her, though not in her line of sight. He followed her as she made her way into a cemetery. The attendant at the gate appeared to be an octogenarian. He recognized her, doffing his cap, and murmuring quietly to her, pointing in a general direction.

The Stranger purchased some flowers from an enterprising (if ghoulish) corner stand and made his way into the cemetery. It was nearing twilight and there weren't many visitors. Elise was easy to keep in his sights.

From a distance, He saw her gingerly set the canvas bag on the ground and remove an object wrapped in blankets. The Stranger had assumed the contents of the bag correctly. He was fairly sure, in fact, that He knew which fetus it was. There had been one woman who'd come in who'd nearly waited too long. If she hadn't been in her third trimester, she was clearly nearing the end of her second. The bundle that Elise carefully unwrapped was well-developed.

Elise took a small gardening spade from her purse and painstakingly began digging a grave for the unborn child. The Stranger was certain this was atypical of the clinic, but not atypical of Elise. She finished digging the grave and gently laid the fetus inside, then covered it again with the dirt she'd unearthed. She sat by the completed grave for a few minutes before quietly departing.

The Stranger watched her go, and then moved to the grave Himself. He laid the flowers He'd bought atop the small mound, and sat down beside it. He closed his eyes and a palpable energy emanated from Him. The stalks of the cut flowers bent to the soil and slowly took root. The Stranger stayed by the grave for quite some time, perhaps weeks, but nobody ever noticed Him.

Two and a half months passed at the clinic. Elise carried on her work dutifully, doing her job well, casting her eyes at the sidewalk whenever she had to pass the protesters on her way to lunch. A transformation was taking place in her, though. If her colleagues didn't know her better, they'd have thought her pregnant; she seemed to have that kind of glow.

Elise was noticing a change, too, but it was not one she thought positive. Frankly, she was terrified. Her breasts had begun to feel much heavier. Examining them in the shower, she felt hard, somewhat painful lumps.

Shyly, she asked for an examination from one of the clinic's doctors. She was quite certain that it was breast cancer, but the doctor disagreed. He had her pee into a cup, and he was mystified when the results returned negative.

"Elise," he told her. "You're lactating. Those lumps you're feeling are colostrum."

"But that can't be," she said. "I'm not pregnant."

"No, you're not. But that's what's happening."

Elise was mystified. Why would she be producing milk? Every day, her breasts felt fuller and heavier. She eventually rented an electric pump and started dumping the milk that she was producing.

After about two weeks of this, another woman came to the clinic late in her second trimester, needing to terminate. Elise again made her way to the cemetery after her shift had ended. The gate attendant directed her back to the same part of the cemetery where she'd been three months earlier. The Stranger was no longer there, but the flowers He'd left were still growing where He'd left them.

As Elise went through the ritual of burying the fetus, a quiet mewling sound distracted her. She looked around, but could not locate its source. When she'd finally finished the burial and said a prayer, the mewling became louder, turned into a cry. It came from among the flowers, which had grown so thick they'd obscured the grave.

Parting the bouquet, she was stunned to see a newborn baby girl, nestled among the flowers. Elise looked around, but saw no one else in sight. Had someone abandoned her here? She was caked in dirt from head to toe. Had someone actually tried to bury this poor child?

Elise swaddled the baby in the blankets that had been used to wrap the fetus she had only just buried. Responding to the baby's cry, her breasts began to leak. Somewhat embarrassed, Elise found the largest tombstone nearby and sat with her back propped against it. She released a breast from under her shirt and guided it to the girl's mouth.

The baby sucked hungrily. Elise was surprised by how easily the two took to the feeding. She knew that new mothers often had difficulty learning to nurse, that new babies often had trouble latching on. Elise and the child, however, took to the act as if made for each other.

The following day, after a fairly sleepless night, Elise took the girl to the Athena Women's Health Clinic. They tried to bottle-feed her, but she refused. Desperate, they found a wet nurse, but the baby rejected her. She would feed only at Elise's breast.

Elise told her story to the staff and later to police. No mother could be found. The baby was to be put up for adoption. Whenever she was taken from Elise for more than an hour, however, she went into a catatonic state, turning a frightening grey. When Elise would return to her, the baby's color would return almost instantly. It quickly became apparent that no matter who wanted to adopt this child (if anyone), she had already adopted Elise.

Bureaucracies seemed to magically melt away whenever it seemed that there might be some impediment to Elise keeping the baby. She named her Joy. The crow's feet around Elise's eyes melted slowly away. The cast of her shoulders changed drastically. And the Stranger was no longer seen outside the clinic, except on occasional protestors' signs.

 

Dave Clapper lives in the Pacific Northwest with his two sons. Although his work has appeared in a number of publications (notably 3am Magazine, NFG, InkPot, and Pindeldyboz), he is first and foremost an editor. He is the founder of SmokeLong Quarterly, a literary magazine home to many writers far more talented than he. Reprints of his own published work can be found at untruecrimes.com.