Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 91467 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91467 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
“Your wife has given birth sometime in the last year or so. She’s still lactating but from the way her body’s healed even with the extenuating circumstances, I’d say the child is maybe a year or just a few months shy of that.”
My world went blank before coming back into focus. “I have a child. Where’s my child?” I grabbed the other man even though I knew he had no answers.
Rushing back into the room I stood like a stone as I looked down at her. What the fuck is going on with my life? What more is headed my way? And what the fuck did we do to deserve this shit?
“What is it son?” This time it was my dad who came to stand next to me. I looked at him without really seeing him as the words burned like acid on my tongue.
“She was pregnant. I have a child.” I felt sick saying the words. To think that I have a child out there somewhere in danger was almost too much to bear. Or was he dead?
Who the fuck did this? Why would this happen to me, to us? I felt the life being sucked out of me, as I stood there almost trancelike.
Cade
There was a flurry of questions as all eyes turned to the woman on the bed, my wife. I felt adrift, like I was outside my body looking on at what was going on around me.
Wake up Zandi. I need you to wake up and tell me what the hell happened to you and my child. My child, fuck; was he or she alive? Were they safe?
My limbs felt like lead and I suddenly couldn’t breathe. I stumbled over to the wall and held on as all the unanswered questions raced through my mind.
Had someone taken her because of the baby? Was it one of those things where some crazy bitch stole a child from another woman’s womb?
No, they didn’t usually leave the mother around in those cases. And the doctor had said she was still lactating. That made no sense. I know enough to know that a woman’s milk dries up if she stops nursing.
I’d read everything about pregnancy and birth once we actively started trying. I wanted to be ready when the time came. But I never even got the chance to hold my child.
She wouldn’t have escaped without our child. I know that as sure as I know my name. So what happened? Where is our baby and why was she taken?
Frustration clouded my mind because there was nothing I could do, nowhere to turn for answers except to the woman lying unconscious in that bed.
I wanted to shake her awake but knew from what the doctor said that she needed rest more than anything else right now. Still, it was hard having to wait to have my questions answered. I wanted to run out and start searching myself, but where do I start?
Why is this happening? How could this happen? How could our idyllic lives turn into this nightmare that didn’t seem to have an end? More questions, more anger, more fear.
The joy I was beginning to feel at having her back was now tempered because there’s a part of me out there somewhere alone without father or mother. Had the baby died? Is that why she hadn’t brought it home with her?
The thought brought pain and desperation to my very soul and I had to fist my hands to keep myself from lashing out in anger. Who would I lash out against? Her? She’s the victim here, I’m sure of it.
My family was in pretty much the same state as I. I could see their anguish written clearly on their faces; hear it in their unanswered questions as they too tried to make sense of this new development.
I felt helpless, like I’d been dropped back into that deep dark void again. My heart and soul ached in ways I never expected them to again in this life. I was back at the beginning again.
Back to that feeling of being lost in the desert without a way out, back to wanting to crawl into a hole and die. Surely this is too much for one man to endure in a lifetime.
It would be so easy to buckle under the constant pressure. To just close my eyes and let shit go. Fuck that! I didn’t give up before I’m not about to now. If my kid is out there somewhere I’m going to find him or her and bring them home. Dead or alive!
I don’t know how I was still standing with the pain that racked my body at the thought of my innocent child being harmed. The reality that I was not there to protect my most precious ones was hard to take.