The cool November breeze blew through an open window in the waiting room. It traveled down the cold and chilling hall of the hospital, and passed by a single closed door. Through the thick wooden door a loud scream echoed throughout the building. A woman lay on a hospital bed staring at the ceiling. The sweat on her face had frosted due to the cold wind coming from the air conditioning. Doctors and nurses crowded around the bed mumbling words under their breath unheard by the woman. She looked over and saw a birth certificate sitting on a table waiting to be filled out.
A cold breeze swept through the small brick house. A young woman named Jeannette sat in a rocking chair looking at a scrapbook filled with photos of her and a little boy. She smiled as she came across her favorite photo. A photo of her holding the boy in her arms as he smiled with the brightest smile in the world. She heard a cry from a room at the end of the hall. She let out a soft groan as she rose from the chair to tend to her crying child.
“Peter what is it now?” she asked the bawling kid. The boy screamed even harder as a response. She couldn’t handle him anymore. All he did was scream, cry, and kick. He never did as she said which angered her. Her child never learned to respect others and had tantrums all the time. It was worse in public. It was a hassle to calm the screaming boy and pry him off the legs of strangers passing by, and she had to constantly apologize for his behavior. Jeannette sat in her room with her hands covering her ear, hoping the screaming would stop. She felt like the sound was going to tear her apart. Jeannette tried everything she could, specialists, pediatricians, therapists, but none of them could help her. None of them knew what she was going through. None of them knew what she had been through. None of them knew of the anguish she felt. Her mind drifted off into the hazy clouds of her memory… A bright light clouded her vision. She couldn’t feel anything. A struggled breath escaped her cold cracked lips. She looked down and saw the big red stain. She looked up with fearful eyes as the doctors pushed her back onto the bed “It’s all going to be alright”...
Her mind was pulled back to reality by the Peter’s continuous shrieks. Jeannette got to her feet and stormed into his room. She eyed the plate of food, still uneaten, she had left for him. She picked up the silver tray and hurled it across the room, which finally got his attention.
“Would you stop screaming!” Jeannette shrieked in a manner similar to Peter. “can you for once be quiet and just act like a normal child!” She took short, deep breaths as she tried to collect herself. Nothing but a whimper came from Peter, and Jeannette realized she’d hurt his feeling.
“Peter I’m sorry I don’t know what came over me,” she inched towards Peter. He whimpered again trying to distance himself from her. She sighed and walked over to his cabinet. She looked around through the various bottles until she found a small bottle containing a clear liquid. She reached into a drawer and took out a shiny metal needle. Peter’s eyes widened and a muffled cry came from him as he kicked his legs to move away. Jeannette knew how much he hated shots, but he had to take his medication every day or he could become seriously ill. She took Peter by the arm and put the needle close to his skin. His eyes watered as he cried out.
“Peter I know you’re afraid but it’s for your own good. Now stop struggling so I don’t mess up,” she tried giving him a reassuring smile, but knew it wouldn’t calm him down. She quickly inserted the needle and injected the liquid into him.
“Now get some rest,” she laid him down on the mattress and watched as he drifted off into a relaxed slumber. Jeannette smiled to herself as he slept. She missed seeing him like this. Jeannette looked out the small window and noticed how late it was. She decided it was time for her to get some sleep too seeing as she’d been so tired the entire day. She went to her room and buried herself deep under the covers, and let her dreams carry her off …
A team of doctors swarmed around her. A nurse covered her mouth and let out a gasp. Jeannette felt a lightness inside of her, and she felt herself slipping slipping away.
“Ma’am you’re gonna be okay, just hold on for a little bit longer,” the doctor said. She didn’t know what he was talking about. She felt perfectly fine. She remembers waking up in the same room, but this time there was only a single doctor in front of her.
“Jeannette we regret to inform you…” the voice trailed off. Jeannette looked white as a ghost. The doctor continued talking, his voice inaudible. Jeannette only stared at the man, then at her stomach, anger churned inside of her…
The sound of her front door being kicked down forced Jeannette out of her memory. She awoke dazed and confused as a team of policemen rushed into her room and pinned her to the ground. Jeannette lashed out trying to get away from the men, but they held her down. She screamed out,
“What do you want with me!” to which one of the men responded,
“We want the child.” Jeannette felt a deep sense of panic. She didn’t know why they were taking away her child.
“We found him,” a voice yelled from Peter’s room. An unfamiliar man walked into the room and tossed one of the policemen the bottle that once held the medication she gave Peter.
“Chloroform,” he said pointing to the bottle, “commonly in anesthetics.” Jeanette's face contorted as she tried to comprehend what she was just told.
“But… it was his medication,” she thought. Her thoughts were halted by the men dragging her away, away from her home, away from her son. A flyer flapped in the wind on a tree outside. The words “Missing” and the face of a boy were printed in black and white …
“... you had a miscarriage,” the doctor informed her. Jeannette couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She didn’t want to believe what he had just said. She knew it couldn’t be true. She knew he had to be lying. Her son was alive, and he was out there. She just had to find him.