STACY

Twelve days, eleven hours, twenty three minutes, six seconds and counting. That’s the approximate time she lay shattered and devastated beside her daughter’s frigid putrefying body. Had not the police been notified via an anonymous tip about a questionable foul smell coming from a house located in the tiny town of Parkview, the likelihood that she too would have been discovered all dry and bones snuggled together with the corpse of her daughter was quite high.

When the officers of the law walked into the moderately lit room, they were met by an awful effluvium of the decaying body of six months old Stacy Marshall. But somehow, for Winnie Marshall (Stacy’s mum), the miasma emanating from the room was not as immense as the anguish, the tribulation, the emptiness, the cheerlessness, the despondency she felt. She was inconsolable. Her face, pallid and haggard was reminiscent of a gambler who had staked out his entire life savings on a hand he thought was winning only to suffer a huge bad beat. Except of course in the gamblers case he could start from scratch and earn more savings but nothing could bring back the exuberance and felicity poor Winnie had had from the moment she discovered the little life growing in her.

She had gone to hospital to seek treatment for her relentless abdominal pains, constant feeling of weakness and headache and the doctor had vaguely hinted the possibility of her being with child. Night did not reach before Winnie bought a home pregnancy kit and anxiously tested only to get a positive result.

She had been euphoric and exhilarated. Her eager self had sprinted all the way downstairs knocking over a couple of things on her way to call her husband, who as usual was tied up at meetings and business lunches and seminars.

I’m pregnant! she’d shouted even before her husband could said hello.

I’m pregnant, I’m pregnant, I’m pregnant, I’m pregnant, I’m pregnant …. she’d repeated countless times as if she was singing along to a rock song where one phrase is repeated a million times, until her husband cut her short.

That’s cool honey but I’m in a meeting right now. Talk to you when I get home, " the voice on the other side had quickly but calmly asserted.

And then there was a click and the phone was disconnected.

Although Paul didn’t exactly sound excited, she understood. She understood his job as a lawyer was quite demanding, she understood his long working hours and early mornings, she understood when he couldn’t pick his phone or reply to a text, she understood when he had to cancel dinner or movie night, she even understood when he had to suddenly leave in the middle of the night to go and follow a lead on a case. All these things she understood. Even before they got married she knew what to expect and what she was getting into. Of course Paul’s occupation was an issue of concern to both her friends and family and their announcement of engagement caught everyone by surprise and was met by several opposing opinions, but I guess nothing conquers love.

Nonetheless, her husband’s sombre mood was not enough to ruin hers. She rushed upstairs to fetch for her diary- the only thing that knew all her deepest darkest secrets, her desires, her goals, her everything. She wrote about how this was the happiest day of her life, she wrote about how she felt like the luckiest girl on earth. She scribbled down a list of all cool boy and girl names she would give the unborn baby. Ironically, Stacy was not one of them. She wrote about how she’d love and cherish her daughter or son, whichever the case would be.

She then rushed to call almost everyone in her contacts list to give them the good news. Her twin sister Jennie was the most excited of all.

I’m gonna be the best aunt in this whole universe! she’d shouted at the top of her lungs.

Winnie and her sister were inseparable and unbreakable , kind of like rubik’s cube. There was no Winnie without Jennie and no Jennie without Winnie . Ever since they were kids they’d trick people and make fun of them just by virtue of them being twins. Sometimes, however, twin hood came at a cost -somewhat of a sacrifice. One time Jennie was too lazy to attend her classes and decided to play rookie so Winnie had to double as both her and Jennie and attend most (because it would be an impossibility to attend all) of her sister’s classes to save her from the innumerable punishments and consequences that came with skipping classes.

Other times it came with its advantages like getting free stuff twice. So when Jennie heard that her sister and partner in crime was gonna be a mum, her overzealous reaction was completely justified.

Her mother, just like her sister had been so ecstatic that she nearly burnt her hand taking out the cake she was preparing from the oven.

I love you sweetie

I love you mum.

That was how a two hour long conversation between mother and daughter had ended.

And now here she was, in a room full of people she didn’t know. People who wanted to take her daughter’s remains away. People who kept saying that all would be okay. People who couldn’t in a thousand years grasp the magnitude of her loss.

It was a struggle -the kind you see when an alcoholic mother is denied custody of her children by a hoard of ‘ merciless and cruel ‘ judges after months of battle in court – before she could let go of the body of her only child for the police to take.

It was a struggle before she could get out of the baby cot where she and her long gone daughter had been curled up for days.

Her doleful face, downcast demeanour and forlorn expression spoke volumes of the magnitude of her loss. The tear lines on her face were a poignant distressing reminder of the unjust nature of life. Her eyes, which were a fiery deep blue were lachrymose both from the loss of a child and the loss of all the good memories that once lit up the walls of that room.

I could try but I doubt whether I could comprehend the enormity, the immensity, the weight of her affliction. I have seen many, both foes and friends, acquaintances and confidants, neighbors and relatives lose their dearest ones. Even I have lost one too many people in my life but this was different.

Different not just because it was the life of a little girl who had been unfairly denied the joy of growing up and getting to do all the girly stuff girls do like having her hair braided into cornrows or some of the crazy hairstyles in the market these days(or perhaps having it dyed).

Different not because an innocent girl had been unjustly denied the joy of going to dances and proms and having a boyfriend to hide from her mother. No. Neither was it different because the doctors had in not so many words told Winnie that she could not have another child because her uterus was “seriously damaged”. No. This was different because Stacy, young and pretty as she was died at the hands of someone who was supposed to protect her. Someone meant to fend off all the malevolent looking , baleful, malicious, ill natured people yet they turned out to be the maleficent ones.

Watch out for part 2!!