Limbo's Child Read Online Free PDF Page B

least.
    “Because she’s a teenager they’ll start her at a halfway home most likely and then, if she’s lucky, they’ll find a good foster family for her…”
    She pulled the pillow on her hospital bed tighter around her ears and wished these women would just go away . They were driving her crazy and they never said anything she didn’t already know. She stared a little harder at the water stain on the wall.
    “…but that’s not the worst of it,” the doctor continued.
    Lucy’s eyes quavered and her concentration on the water stain broke for a moment. The two women’s voices went on.
    “Not the worst of it? What do you mean?”
    The doctor gave a long sigh and paused before continuing, “Her mother’s body is missing.”
    The nurse gave a sharp intake of breath. So did Lucy. This was the first thing they had said that she didn’t already instinctively know.
    “Missing?!”
    “Stolen,0020 actually.”
    “Stolen! You’re kidding!”
    “I wish I was.”
    Lucy’s resolve wavered. She bit her lip and tried to stop her eyes from welling up, but it wasn’t working. She tried staring at the water stain harder. A wildfire had started somewhere inside of her. She thought about truck stops and pancakes and chocolate shakes late at night.
    Why would anyone want to steal a body?!
    The fire spread to purple paint and old houses.
    “Do you remember that funeral home in New Jersey a while back that was selling body parts to medical research firms overseas?”
    “Ugh…that was horrible.”
    “They think it might be something like that. Maybe junkies looking for a quick profit to supply their habit.”
    The sparks carried over to foster parents and no more conversations on the porch. Lucy choked back sobs.
    “Why couldn’t these women just STOP talking and go away ?!” she thought. The water stain on the wall really did begin to resemble a face.
    “Someone came in pretending to be a relative of the deceased, and got access to the morgue. They think it was an inside job too. An orderly who worked there is missing along with three bodies.”
    The flames licked up the dry tinder of cold grandmothers and helicopter rides and missing parents…missing mothers . The water stain definitely resembled a face now – it looked familiar. Her mother’s face? No, it was a stranger’s, a woman with long, black hair and cold eyes.
    “That’s just terrible.”
    “Just some random thing…I guess.”
    Random, meaningless, hopeless, pointless. That’s what it all was. That’s all it ever was. She swallowed the sobs, pushed back the tears aching to break free from her and pulled the pillow tighter over her head. The water stain was just a water stain. That was all, it was not a face and it did not mean anything. The dreams were meaningless. It was all meaningless.
    She looked away for a second and out the window of her hospital room. Outside her window, she could see across the street. There was a park along the riverfront and a small stand of trees along a river. By the edge of the trees in the shadow just outside the glow of a lamppost, stood a small boy in a baseball cap. He was spinning a yo-yo up and down, up and down, over and over again, and it seemed like he was looking right at her. It was the same boy she had seen from the accident. She thought she had imagined him. She looked at him in disbelief for a second, blinked and turned her eyes back to the wall.
    The face in the water stain lunged at her.
    Lucy screamed, stood up in the bed and tried to jump away, but the wires and tubes from the monitors and IV’s pulled her back. She thrashed and yanked at them, desperate to get away, to no avail.
    “OMIGOSH! She’s awake!!” The nurse ran to her and tried to restrain her. The doctor followed immediately.
    Lucy flailed and fought them off and tried to get away. The nurse struggled to restrain her. Two other nurses and a large orderly came to their aid when they heard the commotion, but none of them could calm her.