Gregg Olsen - Fear Collector

Peggy looked out the window, searching the gray Tacoma horizon for something with eyes that brimmed with tears. Anything.

“Figured,” Donna said, her reflection spreading over the window like an oil slick. “You are so stupid. Now, fat and stupid and with a bastard boy to boot. Your life just couldn’t get any better, could it?”

Peggy turned to face her mother, holding her emotion as tightly as she could. “Nice to see you, too, Mother.”

Donna unzipped her black-and-white nylon tracksuit jacket. “Well, where is he?”

“He’s in the infant care unit, if you must know. There were complications.”

“Life is full of complications, Peg. You’re an expert at creating them.”

Saying the shortened version of her name brought back years of bad, awful, humiliating memories. Donna used to introduce her daughter as Piggy or Pig to strangers, and then pretend that she’d said it correctly.

“Oh, you misheard me. I said Peggy, not Piggy!” And then she’d laugh. Except it was never funny. Not to the sad-eyed little girl who ate too much and knew she was a little overweight. Nor was it funny to the audience of her mother’s pretend non-joke.

Peggy did what she’d always done to survive. She changed the subject.

“Aren’t going to ask what’s wrong with your grandson?” she asked.

Donna slithered across the room and perched on her daughter’s bedside. “I asked. He’s going to be fine.”

Peggy brightened a little. Mother asked. She must care some. At least a little bit.

Donna looked around and smiled. No flowers. Good. No cards. Even better.

“What are you going to name him?” she asked.

Peggy’s eyes met her mother’s. “I was thinking of naming him after his father, Theodore.”

A look of exaggerated puzzlement came over the older woman. “Theodore? That’s a hifalutin name for a bastard.” Donna stopped herself for a second, the wheels turning. “That must mean you know who the father is, which I suppose is a minor miracle for a slut.”

Peggy’s face reddened. Her mother always knew where to stick the knife.

“Get out of here,” Peggy said.

Donna shrugged it off. She tugged at her tracksuit jacket as if it needed straightening.

“Aren’t you the brash little bitch, telling me to get out when I came all the way here to see you and your baby, my bastard grandson?”

“Leave or I’ll ask the nurse to call security, Mother. I don’t need this. When you said you were coming, I don’t know, I thought just maybe you’d finally be what I wanted you to be. For once.”

“That’s funny coming from you. I thought you’d be what I wanted you to be-a decent daughter.”

“Decent? Now you’re almost making me laugh. You’ve had more live-in boyfriends than anyone in a trailer park, Mother-that’s right, more live-ins than anyone in a trailer park. That’s saying a lot about you, Mother.”

“You disgust me,” Donna said. “You always have. Your father was no good and you carry his poisoned blood.”

“He left you, remember that? He left you!”

“I was glad he left. He’s dead to me. Just like you.”

A nurse entered the room, but backed off a little before finally speaking. The atmosphere was tense, brittle.

“Is everything all right here?” she asked.

“We’re fine,” Peggy said, her eyes riveted to her mother’s. “My mother was just leaving.”

“Oh… did she want to hold her grandson?” she asked.

Donna looked at the nurse, a young woman with strawberry blond hair and freckles like a seabird’s egg. “I don’t want to hold him or see him. My daughter, you see, is an unmarried woman and the baby is a product of one of her many one-night stands.”

“Good-bye, Mother,” Peggy said in her calmest tone, refusing to take the bait.

“All right then,” the nurse said, opening the door and motioning for Donna to exit.

Donna, her face tight with anger, did something remarkable just then: She said nothing more. No parting shot. No cruel remark to make Peggy feel lower than the bugs that crawl in the darkest depths of the forest floor. Not another word.

“Are you all right?” the nurse said as the door closed.

Peggy nodded. “I am. I’m fine. My mother and I have a complicated relationship.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” the nurse said, surveying the physician’s charts.

“I guess so,” Peggy said. The door was open a crack for a little sympathy, but she didn’t seek any more of it. Her mother was her worst enemy. Her mother was her tormenter. Her mother never once gave her a drop of human kindness. Yet she didn’t hold that completely against her. Her mother was all she had.

“Have you named your baby?” she asked.

Peggy brightened a bit. Her baby. That was someone wonderful. He was only a few hours old, but already he was the best thing that had ever happened to her. “No. I was thinking of a name, but now I’m not so sure.”

“What name are you thinking of now? There’s no rush, of course. I mean, it is nice to have a name before you leave the hospital. It helps with the paperwork, you know.”

“I had thought of Theodore,” Peggy said slowly as she measured her words.

The nurse didn’t say anything right away. The hesitation clearly bothered Peggy.

“You don’t like it, either,” Peggy said, pushing the button to lower her head in the motorized bed. The hydraulics rumbled.

“It isn’t that,” the nurse answered. “I dated a guy named Ted once and it wasn’t the best experience of my life. Kind of a control freak who thought he was better than anyone else. But that’s got nothing to do with your naming your little boy. Just a reaction. Sorry.”

Peggy wondered if it was her Ted that the nurse was indicating. Her heart beat a little faster and the monitor at her bedside began to pulse more rapidly. Certainly there were plenty of Teds around Tacoma, but even so the idea of another girl being involved with her Ted was a painfully sore subject. She wanted to be the only one for him, the only one he ever needed. Indeed, the only one who ever really understood his deep, deep hurt.

“Was that here in town?” Peggy finally asked. Her voice was soft and a little shaky. The monitor’s light quickened.

The nurse set down the chart, looked at the monitor, and shook her head. “Oh no, back in Detroit. Just kind of funny how names carry the weight of past experiences-good and bad.”

Peggy turned toward the window again, looking out and thinking.

“My mother was dead set against Theodore, too.”

The monitor slowed.

“None of my business, but she seems like a very negative woman. She probably wouldn’t like any name you selected. I’m thinking out loud, of course. And I have no standing here. Just putting it out there. A lot of families pressure each other, you know. You’d be surprised at how many change their minds on the names they’d once thought were perfect.”

Peggy nodded. “Understood. Thank you. When can I see my son? When can I see Jeremy?”

The nurse smiled. “I like that name,” she said. “Let me ask the doctor if your son can come into your room.”

“He’s better?”

“He’s just fine. We were just keeping an eye on him. Rough delivery, but I don’t have to tell you that.”

Peggy allowed a smile to return to the pretty blond nurse. She liked the name Jeremy. And as much as Peggy hated her mother, she didn’t want to make her a greater enemy. Jeremy might need family someday. The boy didn’t need his father’s name to prove a damn thing. Being Ted’s son was greater than a mere label.

Outside Peggy’s room, the nurse met up with her supervisor, an African American woman of about fifty who had been working at Tacoma General for almost three decades.