Legacy of Lies

by Laurie Larsen

Excerpt

Prologue

Twenty-five years ago 

“Go! Go faster! Oh my God, can’t you push this pile of junk any faster?” When she received no reply from her friend but a harried shake of her head, Penelope Livingston pried her attention back to the matter at hand.

Her breathing.

When had a perfectly natural act like breathing become so difficult? Puffing furiously, yet rhythmically, she managed to sneak a glance down—past her engorged breasts that had been sore to touch or even brush against, for every day of the last nine months—to her ridiculously enlarged stomach. Toting that load around, as she had for as far back as recent memory allowed her, caused a certain degree of difficulty in everything.

Every little thing. Walking. Sitting. Lying down. Tying her shoes. Getting dressed. Eating. Breathing.

Cursing the huge appendage that her stomach had become, she puffed in ragged, panting breaths.

“I think you’re doing that wrong, Penny,” her friend Marsha, the driver, managed.

Penny looked at her from the passenger side. “What do you mean? The book said to breathe.”

“Yeah, breathe, but slowly. Long, cleansing breaths, to bring air into your system and slow everything down. Not pant like a dog in the summer, desperate for a bowl of water.”

“What do you know anyway? You’ve never been pregnant,” Penny fumed. She continued panting quickly until she realized that her limbs were tingling, and she could see little fairies and stars floating in front of her eyes.

Maybe the skinny chick had a point.

With a Herculean effort, Penny stopped panting. For thirty seconds she held her breath, and then concentrated on slowly drawing air into her lungs, while absentmindedly brushing both her hands around the gargantuan lump of her stomach.

Marsha looked over from the driver’s side. “That’s better. Do you feel it? Is it improving?”

For a moment, it improved. Penny glanced at her friend with a look of dawning realization. And gratitude. She’d evolved. She had this childbirth thing down pat. All she had to do was relax. Breathe deeply. Calm down. And it would just happen, serenely, as it had for millions of women since the dawn of time.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” The scream was a primal outlash that was conceived in the base of her soul and expelled, unwelcome, from her mouth. “Oh my God, Marsha. It hurts so bad! The breathing ain’t cutting it.”

“You’re in labor, Pen. I’m driving as fast as I can. Just concentrate on breathing slowly, and we’ll get there soon.”

In a few minutes the pain was manageable again. The deep, slow breathing helped to calm her until the next gut-wrenching cramp hit her. “How do you know so much about labor anyway?”

“I watched my sister go through it. I helped her until we got to the delivery room, then her husband went in with her.”

As they passed a large blue sign with a white H, the pains returned and Penny screamed.

“We’re passing a hospital, Pen! Why don’t I just pull in there? Why do we have to go all the way to Chicago General?”

A tidal wave of agony warring inside Penny’s midsection made it impossible to reply. She panted and moaned, and after a few minutes, she could sit up straight again and form words. “That’s St. Mary’s. They don’t have free doctors. Only Chicago General will deliver your baby if you don’t have insurance.”

Marsha nodded. “It should only be a few more minutes. The good thing is, your baby decided to make its appearance in the middle of the night, and there’s hardly any traffic.”

Penny’s stunned gaze shot to Marsha’s face. Marsha looked at her, her eyebrows forming a silent question. “Baby?”

Marsha nodded and glanced back at the road.

“You said the B word, Marsha.”

“Yeah, Penny. Your baby’s coming today. Soon. Today’s the day, pal.”

Another contraction delayed Penny from thinking of the inevitability of what today would bring. But once her uterus had calmed again, Penny drifted into silence and pondered her situation.

She knew, obviously, that there was a baby in this monstrosity of a stomach. And she knew, even though she’d skipped the birth preparation classes at the hospital, that she’d be pregnant for nine months, and that she’d keep growing and growing until she looked and felt like she was a child’s overgrown soap bubble, ripe for explosion.

She knew it wasn’t healthy to smoke or drink during the pregnancy, so she hadn’t. Much. She wasn’t a smoker anyway, but occasionally she’d had a drink when life had gotten a little too tough to deal with.

She knew she should eat balanced meals, and she’d tried. As balanced as they could be, when her mother was out of the apartment before Penny even woke up, off to her first job of the day at the diner, leaving Penny to fix her own breakfast. At a time of the day when she couldn’t fathom sticking anything in her mouth that wouldn’t intensify the morning vomiting that had become a much-hated tradition. And by the time Penny was home from school, and should be eating a balanced dinner, her mother was off to her second job, placing telephone calls to people, interrupting their dinners, asking for money for this credit card, or that magazine subscription.

So Penny had eaten when she was hungry, but hadn’t paid too much attention to the value of the food she stuck in her mouth. After all, what did a fifteen-year-old girl know about nutrition?

Penny knew that at the end of this pregnancy, she would have a baby. But she avoided thinking about that part.

Another contraction hit, and she moaned in pain, gasping at the spasm that seared her abdomen. Then it calmed, and Penny looked gratefully at her friend. Thank God for Marsha. They’d been best friends since Penny and her mother had moved into the apartment house six years ago. They had bonded immediately and been assigned to the same fourth, fifth and sixth grade classrooms, a happy coincidence they knew was Fate.

In junior high they planned their classes together. By the time they were ready to enter high school, Marsha had come up with a plan to go to college.

“I’ll need to take the upper level classes and do well,” she’d told Penny. “No more note passing and giggling through class.”

Penny was crushed, but refused to let her know it. If Marsha wanted to abandon her, let her. As if their friendship had meant nothing to Marsha. Penny had no intention of going to school even a minute longer than she had to. She’d considered dropping out when she reached her sixteenth birthday, but Marsha had convinced her to graduate.

But despite Marsha’s ambition and the unintentional wedge that drew between them, Penny soon realized that her friend had no desire of abandoning her. They still hung out after school, in the evenings and on the weekends. Marsha was still someone she could count on when it mattered.

Like now, when she needed her the most.

“Here we are!” Marsha sang. She pulled her car into the Emergency Room parking lot and ground to a halt. She was out of the car, had run around to Penny’s side and opened the door before Penny knew what was happening. They had to wait till the current contraction ended before Penny could manage getting out of the car. Penny resting heavily on Marsha’s arm, they hobbled quickly across the parking lot and through the big glass door, which flipped open automatically at their arrival.

They stumbled into a small foyer. Another glass door stopped them from going any further. Feeling like a puppy in a pet store, Marsha darted a look around the glass enclosure. She spotted a guard behind a small glass window and tapped on it briskly. “Let us in! This woman’s about to have a baby!”

Penny winced. There was that B word again.

“Is she pre-registered?” the guard asked tiredly.

Marsha looked at Penny, who shook her head in a daze. “I don’t think so.”

The guard pressed a button and the glass door swung open. “You’ll have to go to Registration.”

Marsha pulled Penny, bent at the waist and gripping her stomach, toward the area marked Registration. She helped Penny sink into a cushioned chair and sat with her in the waiting area. She patted her hand and helped her count through three contractions. They were definitely coming more quickly now, leaving Penny with less time in between to regroup.

“Penelope Livingston?”

They looked up and saw a young woman with a clipboard gazing expectantly at the small gathering in the waiting room. Marsha helped Penny to her feet and they walked warily across the way to the woman’s miniscule office. Penny bit on her lower lip through one particularly painful contraction and wondered how long this all would last before it was finally, thankfully, over.

Marsha was beginning to look like she was going to leave, and Penny felt a rush of panic. Leave her here with no help to get through the next contractions? Her lip would be in shreds by the time she returned.

“I’ll be right back, sweetie. You answer the lady’s questions, and I’ll be back before you know it.”

Penny took a deep breath and nodded. What a helpless wimp Marsha must think she was. Maybe when this was all over, she’d actually care.

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