easygoing, willing to let her run the house and, generally, their lives
as well. But he was capable of anger if pushed far enough, and on
those rare occasions when he lost his temper, he could be tough.
If Paul learned of the abortion after the fact, he would want to know
why she hadn’t told him, and he would demnd to know why she had
approved of such a thing. She would have to be able to provide a
cogent explanation, a passionate self-defense. Right now, however, she
didn’t know what in God’s name she would say to him if he ever found
out about the abortion.
Twenty years ago, when she had married Paul, she should have told him
about her year with the carnival. She should have confessed about
Conrad and about the repulsive thing to which she had given birth. But
she hadn’t done what she should have done. She had been weak. She hid
the truth from him.
She was afraid he would loathe her and turn away from her if he knew
about her mistakes. But if she had told him back then, at the very
beginning of their relationship, she wouldn’t be in such serious
trouble now.
Several times during the course of their marriage, she had almost
revealed her secrets to him. When he had talked about having a large
family, there were a hundred times when she almost said, “No, Paul. I
can’t have children. I’ve already had one, you see, and it was no
good. No good at all. It was a horror.
It wasn’t even human. It wanted to kill me, and I had to kill it
first. Maybe that hideous child was solely a product of my first
husband’s damaged genes.
Maybe my own genetic contribution wasn’t to blame. But I can’t take a
chance.”
Although she had been on the brink of making that confession countless
times, she had never given voice to it, she had held her tongue,
naively certain that love would conquer all–somehow.
Later, when she was pregnant with Amy, she almost went out of her mind
with worry and fear. But the baby had been normal. For a short while,
a few blessed weeks at most, she had been relieved, all doubts about
her genetic fitness banished by the sight of that pink, giggly,
supremely ordinary infant.
But before long it occurred to her that all freaks were not necessarily
physically deformed. The flaw, the twisted thing, the horrible
difference from normal people–that could be entirely in the mind. The
baby she’d borne for Conrad was not merely deformed. It was wicked, it
radiated wickedness, it reeked of malevolent intent, a monster in every
sense of the word. But wasn’t it r. conceivable that her new
girl-child was just as . wicked as Victor, except that there were no
outward signs of it? Perhaps a worm of evil nestled deep within the
child’s mind, out of sight, – festering, waiting for the proper time
and place to emerge.
, Such a disturbing possibility was like an acid. It ate away at
Ellen’s happiness, it corroded and then destroyed her optimism. She
soon ceased to take any pleasure in the baby’s gurgling and cooing.
She watched the child speculatively, wondering what nasty surprises it
would spring on her in the future. Perhaps, one night, when the child
was grown tall and strong, it would creep into its parents’ bedroom and
murder them in their sleep.
Or perhaps she was crazy, perhaps the child was as ordinary as it
appeared to be, and the problem was in her own mind. That thought did
occur to her rather frequently. But each time she began to question
her sanity, she remembered the nightmarish battle with Conrad’s
vicious, bloodthirsty offspring, and that grisly, vivid memory never
failed to convince her that she had good reason to be wary and
afraid.
Didn’t she?
For seven years she resisted Paul’s desire to have another child, but
she got pregnant in spite of her precautions. Again, she went through
nine months of hell, wondering what sort of strange creature she was
carrying in her womb.
Joey, of course, turned out to be a normal little boy.