Free Cry Baby by David Jackson Page B

your hope, or your fear?’
    ‘It’s my expectation. People like me don’t live long in a situation like this.’
    ‘You want an end to it?’
    ‘Sometimes.’
    She can feel her tears starting to build. He’s giving her all the right answers. All the wrong answers. Unwittingly, he’s taking down the barriers. Almost giving her an invitation.
    ‘Then why do you carry on? What makes you keep going?’
    He thinks on this for a while. ‘Cowardice,’ he says. ‘I keep going because I’m too scared to stop. Too scared to deal with things. I move on. I’ve always moved on. It’s what I do. What I am.’
    ‘Do you want it to stop?’
    She sees the whites of his eyes. Sees a glimmer of understanding in those tired eyes.
    ‘What about you?’ he asks. ‘What is it you want?’
    She steps toward him. Even this close she can’t make him out too well. She can hear his heavy, animal-like breathing.
    ‘I want my baby. Will you help me get my baby back?’
    ‘I… I don’t know. Can I do that? Do I have that power?’
    ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘You do.’
    And now her tears are flowing. The end is in touching distance.
    She says, ‘Can I… Can I hold you?’
    The man works his jaw. She hears him swallow, and then a small murmur deep in his throat. She suspects she has touched him. A deeper touch than he’s had in a long, long time. She thinks he might be crying too. But she doesn’t want to know.
    She moves into him. Presses herself against this big bear of a man. Lays her head against his chest and hears a pulsing of pure emotion. A song of sorrow and of regret and of ungrasped opportunities.
    And in her own head she hears the voice. Screaming at her to do this. Almost apoplectic in its demands for her to make the final move.
    She ignores the words. This is not for him. Not to satisfy the thirst of his deranged mind. This is for Georgia. Solely for Georgia.
    May God forgive me.
    The motion is swift and simple and brutal. She almost doesn’t realize she’s doing it. It’s as if something mechanical takes over, completing without feeling what she began. A single forceful thrust.
    She hears a grunt, and she takes a small step back, her fingers still wrapped around the handle of the knife. The man stares into her eyes, then down at the knife buried deep in his gut, then back up again. He does not show rage or fear or surprise, and when he speaks his voice is low and calm.
    ‘You killing me, girl? Is that what this is? You killing me?’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘It’s for my baby. You’re saving my baby.’
    ‘I am?’ His mouth twists into a semblance of a smile. Perhaps the first time he has felt cause to smile in a decade. ‘Then that’s good. That’s a good thing.’
    He lifts his arms from his sides. Wraps his big bear-paw hands around hers. They tighten, and for a moment she is afraid he will crush all her fingers. He pushes her hand away, and he grunts again as the knife slides out of his belly. He holds her like that for a while, and now she’s not sure what to do. Try to run? Try to stab him again? And while her mind races, the voice keeps yelling at her, issuing its commands, its threats, its promises. For that brief time, nothing seems real. She is in a fantasy world, where she fights a bear while unseen demons shriek and wail.
    ‘Tell me the name,’ says the man.
    ‘Who?’
    ‘The baby. The baby’s name.’
    ‘ Georgia. Her name’s Georgia.’
    And now his face cracks into a real smile, an unmistakable smile reflecting fond memories.
    ‘I knew a Georgia. Long time ago. She needed me too. I let her down. I won’t let your baby down.’
    And with that, he forces her hand upward. Brings it to him again, the tip of the knife pressing into his chest, just to the left of the sternum.
    ‘Here, girl. Here.’
    She is crying. She cannot see. She can only feel. She is deaf to the voice, blind to what she is doing. She wants it to stop now.
    When it happens, she is not sure how much of it comes