Shades of Love

Chapter 7

7

Wednesday, December 21, 1988

11:00 p.m.

Few things in life truly prepared a woman for pregnancy and in Eva’s case, losing her mother, cutting ties with her father, and moving to Ireland left her floundering.

It should have been the ultimate feminine experience—perhaps even the ultimate human experience—a happy time. But as she sat, pulling up her eight-and-a-half months rounded belly, then wobbled to the bathroom once again to pee in the middle of another sleepless night thanks to the tiny human skull of her baby pressing against her bladder, she felt miserable.

How had her life taken such a drastic turn?

She’d thought she was doing the right thing, marrying the father of her child and love of her life. In doing so, she’d turned her back on her father and the rest of her family and moved to Ireland against his wishes, cutting all ties with the people she loved for the last few months.

All to have her new husband turn his back on her as well.

She cringed, thinking of how stupid she’d been. How hopeful. How happy he’d made her. Only a few short months ago, she was certain that their love was the most powerful force on earth.

And now?

She could easily remember when it had begun to sour. It started the night they arrived at the monastery in a remote Irish village.

At first glance, the monastery, surrounded by a great rock wall and well-kept woods, offered more warmth than most of the old well-kept castles in the country. To a stranger passing by, it would look like a five-star hotel.

She’d expected a welcoming committee, a party. And yet, he’d brought her to a cramped, closet-sized room in one of the towers, which had only a mattress on the floor and a bucket.

When she set her bag down and looked up at him with a smile, he’d frowned and bit out, “Go to sleep.”

All right, it’s late. She’d taken in a deep breath. It had to be after midnight. Maybe the party would be the following day. She’d given him a half-smile. “Aren’t you going to sleep here, too?”

He’d just given a shake of the head and disappeared, slamming the door behind her.

In the morning, she’d woken, and looked around, the light streaming through the small window casting shadows on the bare walls.

This part of the monastery was not as well-kept as the side she had seen when she entered. It was old, walls covered with cobwebs and streaked dirt. There was dust a half-inch thick on the floor. When he’d arrived later, he’d told her brusquely, that he needed her to come with him—the cult leader’s orders.

She’d followed him down the stairs and across a large, empty room, this one spot clean. A few people worked on various activities. Dressed in black tunics, they kept their heads down as her husband passed them, but she could see small smiles on their faces, which lifted her spirit.

He took her to a large, stone-walled room that had more ornate furniture in it, including a large dark oak desk, which dominated the center of the room. The floor was covered with a beautiful and antique Persian rug, probably custom made since it fit the room size perfectly and complemented the windows which were framed by velvet curtains.

It looked like the room of a modern King.

Yet, on the desk, sat a very old-fashioned phone.

“I’ll give you the number to dial and tell you what to say.”

She hadn’t understood what he meant until he gave her the number of her bank. According to him, their leader wanted her to make the call and find a way to work to have the trust transferred to their account in the village.

So, she did. She’d done everything he asked of her. But the bank would still not act without a written, signed statement from her father. They’d called him, and he’d refused to provide it.

Blue had clenched his fists at his sides. She’d tried to take his hand, to bring back some of the love they’d shared at home. She’d whispered, “Don’t worry. I’ll call him. I’ll work things out. I’ll get the money.”

His voice was cold as a steel blade when he said, “Yes, you will.”

She’d tried to call her father, but every time he’d heard her voice, he’d hung up.

At every fail, Blue’s face reddened more and more.

Intending to distract him, she’d asked, “When are we going to have our party, so you can introduce me to your parents and your brothers and sisters?”

One side of his mouth quirked up in an ironic smile, and he slipped from her touch. “I’m sorry, Eva. Our rules here are ancient and very clear: no money, no party. Let’s call the lawyer.”

And then he’d left her.

Eva had thought her father prejudiced then; greedy for not wanting to share his wealth with the less fortunate, old-fashioned for not believing in the possibility of a gentle and passive society where money or position didn’t matter and people loved each other freely and without inhibition.

But now she knew, her father had been wise. He’d know that the utopian community of free love was too good to be true.

If only she hadn’t been so stupid and naïve.

Turning on the bathroom light, Eva looked in the mirror. The reflection staring back didn’t look familiar. The haggard look of her features, the bags under her eyes, that wasn’t what she had envisioned to look like right before she brought this precious child into the world. She imagined having the pregnancy glow that everyone talked about. That, coupled with the glow of her love from him, would make it impossible to regret this decision.

But she regretted every bit of it.

Lowering herself to the toilet, she waited for the small amount of pee that would flow. It was really ridiculous how many times she had to pee in a day now.

Idly, Eva wondered what Brenda was doing back home. Did Brenda miss her as much as she missed Brenda? Did she worry about Eva May and their complete lack of communication? Eva wanted to call after she’d first gotten married in Ireland, but she’d ceased asking to use the telephone after her first few attempts to do so had been rejected.

She’d called her father, the first day. And again, the second. But he’d made it clear that he wasn’t going to sign over the trust to her, no matter how much she begged him.

With that, her husband completely dismissed her. It was as if she didn’t exist anymore. He’d left her in this decrepit old closet, day after day, letting her fend for herself while he was off doing who-knew-what. The bathroom had running water—just barely. The window provided barely any light. A man had been stationed outside, at first she thought, to serve her, but when she saw his gun, she quickly realized that he was there to keep her in there.

Why? Did Blue think she would try to run away? She was his wife, for god’s sake. She loved him.

Or at least, she thought she did.

She became a prisoner. That armed guard brought her a tiny ration of a few crumbly slices of bread, some radishes, and a pitcher of moldy-tasting, dank water. Her clothes, which should have been tight on her, now hung on her frame. It couldn’t have been good for the baby.

The only time she was let out of her room was for the services, when the Prophet, their leader would preach to all the people of the congregation—and there were at least one hundred of them—about a reckoning that would come if they didn’t obey the law of the land. His law.

Blue was there helping with the sermons and when he chanted, his voice was strong and fierce, nothing like the sweet-nothings he used to coo to her when they made love.

Everyone there adored their way of living and yet, at the same time, strangely, they feared their leader.

And part of her knew exactly what he was doing when he wasn’t preaching. She saw it in the vacant eyes of the other young women in the sect who’d been brainwashed to worship him: s*x.

They were once pretty, but now, they looked disheveled, ruined from many pregnancies.

She’d had a sinking feeling that she hadn’t been the first woman Blue and the other men had brought here. She had the feeling that even now, Blue and other brothers were recruiting new women and men, all with money, to join the sect.

Sighing, she tamped down her fear. If they did let her have a phone call back home now, what would she tell her family now? That she’d made a mistake? That the man she thought loved her was really only after her money?

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

A tear escaped her eye and Eva swiped at it angrily. She’d been incredibly naïve to think that he actually loved her.

A sudden gush between her legs caught her attention and Eva felt a tiny prick of fear as she realized that her water had just broken.

Oh no. Sweat trickled down her temple as a first contraction wracked her body, squeezing her insides tight.

She wasn’t ready to have this baby. There was no one to call, no one to help her heave herself off the toilet as she waddled out to the bedroom, yanking the door open.

The man stationed outside eyed her suspiciously as her back spasmed in pain, nearly buckling her knees in the process.

“It’s time,” she panted, sending him running down the hall.

This was their baby. Eva cinched her arms tightly around her distended abdomen. This was going to happen, whether or not she was ready.

Whether or not, her baby would be born into a world that welcomed it.

Friday, December 23, 1988

1:15 p.m.

Now, more than ever, Eva May wished she’d taken her father’s advice. But it was too late.

Guilt wracked her. How could she have been so blind? Why couldn’t she have seen that her father was only trying to protect her.

Her throat tightened as she realized how much she missed him and wished he could be with her now.

From the small cot, she glanced around the almost empty windowless ceremonial birth room and at the faces of the midwife and an older woman with graying, tightly braided hair. They regarded her blankly. The coldness on their faces terrified her at a time when she was already petrified. She was trapped and could only rely on the women in front of her.

“Help me, please. Help my baby. I’ll give you anything you desire. Money—”

She stopped because she remembered she had no money. She’d tried to get the money, but her father had turned her down all the times. And when she realized she was pretty screwed, she tried to break in the room where the only old telephone in the whole monastery was kept but it was always locked.

Maybe if she had been able to get the money, things would be different. Maybe her husband would be with her right now, holding her hand. But he’d tossed her away.

What she had anticipated happening in her life and what was happening now, well, they weren’t even close.

In his sermons, Blue’s father spouted words of reckoning, words that brought many in the congregation—or rather, cult, as she recognized its true nature now—to their knees in thanksgiving, but Eva couldn’t be thankful. She still remembered her old life far too well.

She’d felt so trapped, then.

Only now did she truly understand the meaning of the word.

Just then, the door opened and their leader appeared, followed by Blue.

She couldn’t stop the swell of emotion rushing into her heart when Blue gave her the same cold, indifferent stare that the other women wore.

She hated him, hated him with all her forces. And she couldn’t believe there was a time she thought she would always love him, that once she yearned for his touch.

Now she didn’t want to lay eyes on him.

“Is the baby ready to come?” asked Blue’s father, their guiding leader.

The women bowed their heads in reverence. One spoke in a trembling voice, “Yes, my lord. But the baby is transverse.”

“Please,” Eva whispered to him, broken from what she had learned since her time here. There was no one to help her, no one who was willing to step out of the line that was drawn for them.

When he refused to speak, her chest hollowed out. Blue never cared for her and even if he’d gotten what he wanted from her—her money—he’d still treat her like garbage he never wanted to touch again.

The old midwife looked from Eva to Blue, and lastly to his mother, fear as clear in her eyes as the bright blood staining the sheets she hurriedly threw in a basket to make room to substitute clean linens. “We should take her to a hospital.”

Maybe the old woman would be more compassionate than the husband.

“Nonsense. What she needs is a cup of yagé. It’ll help the delivery,” he ordered.

The old woman walked to a corner in the room and brought back a small silver cup, handing it to the midwife. “Make her drink.”

“But…”

“Make her drink.”

The midwife went to the bed. “It’ll calm your nerves and ease your labor pains.”

“What is it?” she asked in a whisper, eyeing the cup suspiciously and then looking up at the midwife.

“Yagé,” said the midwife.

Eva reached for it reluctantly, but just after the midwife helped her drink the concoction, another contraction ripped through her body, tearing a scream from her throat. “Help me. Please,” she begged. “I’m going to die.”

The midwife looked up from where she was squatted. “She is going to die, my lord.”

“Well, we all have to die one day.” Their leader’s voice was completely indifferent and devoid of any emotion.

The midwife’s face blanched in horror.

Eva started to cry. Far past the point of exhaustion, her body struggling with its last forces to push the child into the world, she no longer had the energy to get this baby out. Part of her just wanted to die.

Her husband looked from the midwife, to Eva, and up to the old woman. “I’ll go and pray for her poor soul.”

Pray? Eva barely heard him, not caring if he was present for the birth or not anymore, and certainly not wanting his goddamn prayers. She’d thought he loved her, that he loved this child they’d created together, but it was all an illusion, one that she had seen far too late to do anything about.

She didn’t want her child to be born in such a place. She needed to survive, to push through this, just so that she could be sure that her baby would be well taken care of.

Another pain ripped through her body and she screamed again, allowing all her desperation and remorse to escape through her.

They hadn’t given her anything except that bitter tea, and they hadn’t taken her to a proper hospital to deliver this baby as she had anticipated. No, she was giving birth in the most horrid of conditions with people who didn’t care if she or her baby survived.

Clearly unsettled and worried by Eva’s cries and the lack of progress on the birth, the midwife shook her head and leaned down again to peer between her legs. “The baby is transverse and ripping her apart.”

“Deliver it and be done with it,” the other woman snapped, her eyes on Eva’s face. “We don’t have all day.”

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Eva’s focused her attention on the midwife, fear coursing through her veins. The woman had bundled her hair under a bonnet, but steel gray strands had been pulled loose in her exertions. Blood streaked her cheeks from where she’d tried to swipe the hair behind her ears.

“Please, help me!” Eva reached down to her sides, clutching the sweaty, blood-soaked sheets. God, there was so much blood. Too much. Eva tried not to notice, concentrating instead on the small pendant on her chest. It was the shape of three silver spirals. “That pendant…”

The midwife nodded, distractedly. “It’s Celtic. It symbolizes the cycle from birth, to death, to rebirth. We’re not supposed to keep them in the cult, but our lord lets me keep this one.”

“Oh,” Eva said, mesmerized by it. Her breathing calmed as she traced the circular path with her eyes.

The midwife gave Eva more of that bitter tea and then instructed the old woman, “Quick. Help me put her in the tub.”

Eva wanted to tell them not to touch her, but she couldn’t find the strength. Rather, she now felt as if she was floating in a strange red, fluffy cloud where the pain was all around but it was not so uncomfortable. Soon she was in the warm water tub, screaming through another contraction.

Just at the next relaxation, the midwife looked over to the old woman and back to Eva, “Hold on the tub sides for your dear life.”

A vicious inhuman sound of keening came out from Eva’s mouth as together, the women leaned over her belly with all their might, each one pushing her baby a different way. With more water inside the momentarily flaccid walls of the womb, there was a sudden shift and finally her baby turned, tinging the water with red.

Eva didn’t say a word when they moved her back to the cot, glad to be out of the nasty water. As soon as the next contraction began, the midwife put her hand on top of Eva’s belly and pushed down strongly. “Push, girl…push. Get this over with.”

Eva shrieked, but the midwife kept bearing down as the pain intensified, slashing Eva from the inside out, until the contraction eased.

“Concentrate, girl,” the midwife said, her voice more calming now. She crouched between Eva’s legs, a small smile breaking the stressed lines around her mouth. “The baby’s crowning. Won’t be long now. You can do this.”

“I—I can’t,” Eva cried, breaking her stare from the pendant as pain sliced through her body.

The midwife locked eyes with Eva as she pressed down hard on over distended belly. “Push, or you and the baby are going to die.”

No, not my precious child! She pressed her body down as hard as she could into the lumpy surface of the cot, grimacing and clenching her teeth so hard it was a wonder she didn’t break in her jaw. She’d carried this baby within her for all this time and couldn’t allow it to be ripped from her now.

With the last little bit of her strength, Eva bore down, yelling as she felt the baby pass through the birth canal, each frisson of agony urging her on, telling her it was going to be over with soon.

“That’s it,” the midwife coached. “Almost there!”

Eva let out a last, hoarse scream before she felt the pressure disappear, her vision blurring as she heard the first weak cry of her baby, sagging into inertness.

“It’s a girl,” the midwife announced, passing the baby to the other woman as she attempted to stave Eva’s bleeding.

But Eva barely heard her, her consciousness drifting. She had done it. She had given birth.

All is going to be well.

“Will she live?” the old woman asked softly, wiping away the blood from the baby’s oh so tiny body, then clamping the cord with quick movements.

“The mother or the baby?” the midwife hissed, clearly not happy about the turn of events.

“Either,” the older woman grumbled.

“B-baby,” Eva said weakly, barely able to lift her head off the pillow. “My baby. Please.”

The midwife didn’t answer as she took the little baby girl from the other woman’s arm. But there were tears in her eyes as she put the bundle in Eva’s arms. Eva could barely hold onto the squirming baby girl, forcing the midwife to place her arms around hers to keep the baby from falling onto the floor.

Cold settled in the pit of her stomach, and her entire being felt as if it were hollowing out. Dread filled her as she looked into her precious daughter’s wide blue eyes.

“I—I’m not going to make it, am I?” Eva asked, barely able to form the words, her ability to think muddled by flashes of white before her face. She could feel the life draining out of her, and the red cloud beginning to turn white cold, creeping into her bones, chilling her, weighing her down.

“Shh, now,” the midwife said, wiping her face with a wet rag. “Focus on your baby.”

Eva looked down at the tiny life in her arms, a sob breaking out. Blinded by tears, she brought her numb lips to the baby’s ruddy, wrinkled skin, so warm with life, and yet…what would become of her?

She’d wanted to give her child everything, but instead she’d taken it away from the very people who could do just that. She’d handed her baby over to a monster.

A liar.

Oh, how she wished for her father was here, or Brenda—anyone who could take this precious bundle away to a better life. She didn’t want her child to grow up in this place. And she wouldn’t. With her last bit of strength, she willed herself to look at the midwife, barely able to make out her outline.

“H-here,” she said, her voice faint to her own ears. “Please, take care of her. Please don’t let these people destroy her.”

The midwife took the small baby in her arms, and then leaned down to eye level with her and continued to wipe her sweaty forehead with a wet rag.

“I won’t,” she said softly, and her voice cracked as she held the little bundle between them so Eva could gaze at her precious baby for one last time. “I promise she’ll have a good life.”

Her eyes scraped to the pendant. “I…I have a necklace. It’s among my things. It’s a silver dove. Can you make sure she gets it?”

“Yes. Yes, I will.”

Eva nodded, a lone tear escaping down her cheek as she fought to keep her eyes open. She wanted to watch this baby grow up, and yet, she knew that once her eyes closed, this was the end. She’d never see her precious child again. “Thank you.”

She shut her eyes, her body growing numb, now, weightless. She took one last shuddering breath and then she let herself drown under the weight of her body’s final surrender.