Baby Boy

Jacob chatters in his car seat as we drive through the darkness. I obsessively check my speed, my headlights, my gas tank every two minutes. Not speeding, lights working, more than half a tank, we won't get pulled over, we won't get noticed, we are safe, muttered mantra under my breath. I can scarely see him in the rearview mirror but I coo at the glass anyway, "Mama loves you, baby boy, yes she does yes she does," my heart swelling with love so strong it fills my ears and blurs my vision. A deep breath in, then a reach for the radio, music, need music, only three hours to go to home, to family, to safety, to

There is skidding, no crash, no impact -- there is just suddenly smoke, glass, pain, screaming and trees....branches, leaves, so many branches, small and large filling the car. And then rough hands pulling me from the wreckage. Pain, more pain....

"Get up! We have to go now! Now now now!" the man with the rough hands has a voice to match and he's so angry.

I try to tell him about my baby! My baby is in the backseat! Jacob is in the backseat! Please! But no words come out, just screams. I keep trying as he drags me to a van and shoves me into the back, banging my head on the door.

The rain starts the second we pull away. I turn to look at my car, at Jacob but there are only sheets of water.

"Jacob!" the words free themselves from my chest but my voice is so quiet, even though I'm yelling so hard the effort burns my throat "please, we have to go back for him! We have to get him before his dad finds him, please!" The man turns and wags a finger at me and I see he has no face -- no eyes, no nose, no mouth just empty space.

I have to get out of this car, I have to find Jacob.

Suddenly it's daytime. I recognize this block, I recognize, wait -- I lived over there with Lisa! I lived right there, in those apartments, in college!

I throw myself hard against the door and I'm outside, I'm running, I'm running down streets I know but haven't seen in years. The coffee shop I studied in, the Mexican restaurant where Eric and I had our first date. Buildings jump in front of me, throngs of people crowd the sidewalks, causing me to stumble several times, others clutch at my clothing, wanting me to stop. I pull away, run into the street. The van revs close behind me, but somehow I outrun it, dodging down side streets, cutting through yards. An angry man with a lawnmower yells at me to stop, grabs at my ankles, I twist away, jump a fence and cut through more yards. Children scream at me, a dog chases me, a woman threatens to call the cops. I get away and away and away and suddenly find myself at the steps of my old apartment building. I'm inside in seconds but the halls are different, longer, darker than I remember. The doors aren't numbered and I get turned around, lost. I rattle every door knob until one opens.

It's my old apartment, but backwards, the kitchen where the bedrooms should be, and crowded with broken-down furntiture I don't recognize. There's a hole in the ceiling revealing darkened sky, even though I know there are two floors above this one. "Lisa!" I yell, stumbling toward toward the kitchen. I glance down and there's a hole clean through my left hand, the size of a quarter. The skin around it bubbles, but there is no blood. "Lisa!" I yell again, turning on the faucet and running my hand under the water. The water hitting the dishes heaped in the sink sends a tsunami of millipedes, cockroaches and spiders spilling across the counters and onto the floor, covering my feet. I jump back and Lisa appears, looking worried.

"I left Eric and took Jacob with me! Please, you have to help me find him before Eric does, I can't, I can't let...." my voice is too quiet again, sounds trailing into the aparment that is so much smaller than I remembered.

Lisa grabs my hands. "It's okay, it's okay. You are still pregnant, remember? Jacob isn't here yet, remember?" I look down and my belly, my entire torso, is swollen, and I remember, yes I think I remember....

Lisa's voice is soothing. "You should rest. Come, I'll help you lie down in your room."

She disappears down the hallway to our rooms but it's the wrong hallway and I try to follow but I'm so pregnant and so tired and so slow and then Eric's mom steps in front of me. "I found her!" she hisses into her cell phone. Panicked I stumble back into the kitchen and out the patio door where I inhale deeply, then brace and jump to the street two floors below.

The impact jars me awake with a sharp breath. I lunge up in bed, panting and surveying my surroundings -- the full sized bed, the framed photo of me and Lisa on the night stand, the disco ball on the ceiling. It's my college bedroom, and in a few deep breaths I come to understand I am actually in my college bedroom, and that I myself might actually be the college version of myself. I slowly run my hands over my belly -- flat, decidedly not-pregnant. I startle at a sharp snore next to me, then look down and see twenty-something Eric, sleeping peacefully.

I briefly consider smothering him in his sleep. Instead I rouse him, ask him to leave.