She Wept
She wept. She wept for her husband, Dennis. She wept. She wept for her sick son, Richard–but she, and only she, called him Ritzy, for when he was born he resembled royalty, with bright blue eyes, cornsilk-blond hair, and the smoothest, palest, wrinkle-free skin one could imagine.
For the first few months of Ritzy’s life, she would tell whomever came to see Ritzy that he was a gift from God.
But being the small town it was, those that had known Dennis and Fay the longest, well, they began to talk after visiting Richard. See, Fay had curly black hair, brown eyes, and was a bit of an eater. While Dennis, even before he got sick, didn’t have a hair on his head. So Jerry, Dennis’s friend since grade school, revealed to those that would listen that Dennis had also had black hair once, and since Dennis also had brown eyes, Jerry posed the question: How could Fay and Dennis have a child with blue eyes and blond hair?
Fay wept. Fay wept for Jerry. It was Jerry who stopped by the day Fay and Dennis had packed up their car to go on “vacation.” It was Jerry who noticed Dennis did not take his fishing gear, for Dennis always took his fishing gear on vacation. Thus, it was Jerry who was the first to die after visiting Richard. Some said it was the look Richard gave Jerry, for no one could deny there was something not ordinary about Richard’s eyes, though Fay thought everything about her Ritzy was normal and innocent.
See, Fay had wanted to find happiness in her husband, Dennis, but as is the wont of humanity, we must leave something of ourselves behind, no matter what the cost. Fay and Dennis had tried for years to have a child, and after some time it became obvious one or both were at fault. With age came desperation, so they reached outside the community: to a clinic two towns over, to a place where promises were made, and kept.
Still, Fay refused to believe her son was anything but innocent. But Dennis knew. He knew what they had created, what the men and women in the white coats and white masks had put inside Fay. Perhaps if he, if they, knew the whole truth… Fay wept for Dennis.
It was Dennis who began to look ill upon Richard. Dennis did not call him Ritzy; he did not even call him Richard. He called him “the child.” Soon, “the child” began to look ill upon Dennis. Moreover, “the child” filtered something through that look and Dennis’s ill took form as a growth somewhere inside his body. But soon the growth brought forth pain; and that pain brought forth bleeding; and that bleeding brought forth the radiation treatments; and the radiation treatments brought forth infections; and the infections brought forth death. Fay wept for Dennis.
Those people who once talked about Richard began to whisper about “the child,” and soon even the whispers no longer carried on the wind as fear squelched all originations of Richard, Ritzy, or even “the child.” Then the people from the clinic came to take “the child,” and Fay wept. Fay wept for the men and women from the clinic for what they had put inside her, but mostly, Fay wept for herself, for now she was alone.