A Little White Book of Lies by David B Silva

Author:David B Silva [Silva, David B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: horror, short stories
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2021-01-23T00:00:00+00:00

I grinned, placed the palm of my hand over her belly and waited for the baby to kick. It was either that or look her in the eyes. Something I didn’t think I could do. Not while I was still concerned about her and the baby. I suppose it would have been easier if I’d known she was still holding something back. Under those circumstances, I don’t think I would have left her alone.

Not for a moment.

Certainly not until the baby was born.

But I didn’t know.

And it would have scared the hell out of me if I had.

I heard no more about death after that night.

And Mandy seemed to do much better.

She made it her pet project to turn the guest bedroom, which had become a dumping ground for her photography equipment and my growing pile of computer manuals, into the baby’s room. That not only kept her busy, it seemed to brighten her considerably.

Still, she never left the house again, not until the labor pains became unbearable. By then, I had begun to believe everything had finally returned to normal.

If only that had been true.

Jonathan Adams Bauer was born in the middle of the night, two days before he was expected. Mandy’s contractions came on with such intensity they frightened us both. But we made it to the hospital with fifteen minutes to spare, and the moment Jonathan emerged, Mandy’s pain seemed to shift to fear.

“Is he okay? Tell me, is he okay?”

“He’s perfect,” the doctor said.

Mandy squeezed my hand. She didn’t believe it. I could see the doubt in her eyes. They were huge and white and went darting frantically from me to the doctor to the four corners of the room.

“He’s safe,” I said. “It’s not here. Not this time.”

Then Jonathan let out his first cry, and Mandy’s fear instantly turned to a rush of tears. She laughed and squeezed my hand again.

The nurse placed Jonathan on Mandy’s chest.

“He’s so tiny,” she whispered.

“Six pounds, eight ounces,” the nurse said.

There was a patch of silky down hair that formed a sort of widow’s peak on his head. He flailed his arms in the air, his mouth busy working on an invisible pacifier. Mandy studied his face, overwhelmed with emotion. “He’s perfect.”

“He is.” I combed the damp hair away from her face.

Like a real trooper, Jonathan found Mandy’s breast and began to nurse. She looked down on him, tears in her eyes, as if she couldn’t believe she was holding an angel. But at that moment, more than any other time in our marriage it was Mandy who was the angel.

After the feeding, the nurse gathered Jonathan from my wife’s arms. They had cut the umbilical cord, given the baby a quick bath with a damp towel, and weighed him. Now they needed to do a blood test and take a print of his feet. Though Mandy had known this moment would eventually come, she still looked to me with a sudden rise of fear in her eyes. I kissed the back of her hand, reassuringly.

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