Page 122 of Downfall

I can’t do this. I won’t do this.

They’re going to take my child.

I know it.

In my heart I know exactly what my father has planned because why else would he have changed his mind? Why else would he not have forced me into terminating it?

“Come on Rose.” My mother says taking my hand, finally giving up the whole observer part she’s been playing since my waters broke.

“Please…” I beg as she soothes me. As another contraction racks through me and I feel the mass of something start to push out. Start to move its way out of me.

“I can see the head.” The doctor says. “You’re crowning now. Keep pushing.”

I wail, I weep, I sob as my body releases my poor child into the world.

A baby’s scream echoes out. High pitched. My heart clenches as I hear it, as I hear my child. My poor innocent child.

“It’s a girl.” Someone says but I don’t know who. I don’t care. In that moment I’m staring at the mass of towels in the midwife’s arms. At the tiny pink legs that are kicking out in protest and the very top of the head of my child that I can’t even make our properly.

My child. My daughter.

They cut the cord. I try to sit up but the stirrups are still strapped around my legs holding me in place.

My mother steps up taking my baby and she frowns staring at her.

“Please.” I say.

She looks at me, at my hands as I desperately reach out, as I beg her to let me see my child, to let me hold her.

And then my father steps up, out of the shadows, taking her from my mother and my daughter screams louder than ever as if she can sense the danger she’s in.

“Please.” I cry again. Trying to move, trying to get out of this damned bed.

He meets my gaze then looks back at my child as if she’s a piece of dirt on his shoe.

“Father….”

He turns as I speak, starts walking away, and in that moment I lose it entirely.

I scream, I fight, I thrash against the damn stirrups not caring if I break my legs, not caring if I seriously injure myself.

I won’t let them take her.

I’ll fight to my last breath if that’s what I takes.

I lash out, sending a tray of something crashing to the floor. I’m not even finished giving birth, there’s still the afterbirth to go. I still need to be stitched back up and yet none of that matters. The only thing that does is the fragile life my father is stealing away from me.

One of the nurses steps up, I feel the jab of the syringe, feel the prick as she rams it into my neck and as the awful drugs slip into my system I see him walking away. I see him disappearing out of the room with my daughter.

And I know in that moment that I’ll never get her back.

That she’s lost to me.

Gone before I could even do anything to stop it.

* * *

The minuteI wake I know I’m not in my bed. I’m not in my home. My mind flickers back to yesterday and everything feels hazy at best. Someone sedated me, I remember that much, I guess the drugs are still in my system.

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