The Junkie's Son, Part Iii

III. Making it worse, the doctors had told her that great damage had been done by the birth, she could never carry children again, was bound to be childless on this earth, for months she was just a big ball of hurt. And when she thought of the junkie boy’s fate she felt growing inside a ball of hate. It made no sense, why God would do this to her, but reward someone who had done such wrong. She’d always lived her life the best she could, and tried to operate by morals strong, even when it meant she wouldn’t belong. But the degenerate got to have kids despite all the awful things that she did? She felt like she was being punished for something, but what it was she didn’t know. And what kind of God would reward evil yet lay upon a good soul such a blow? Then break her womb, and leave her without hope. Maureen slowly stopped going to the church, would worship no one who left her in the lurch. Her mind would just fume, it went on for years, thinking of that damn crack-baby out there, living out the life her son was denied, no doubt trapped in a world of great despair, and she knew just how that child would fare. Trapped in the system, born of ruined stock, to be in trouble until cell doors locked. That’s what had been preferred to her own babe, to such a wasted life God was endeared, a worthless cast-off nobody wanted, Who would grow to cause many people fear, that was what the Almighty wanted here. For years she just limped on, angry and bereft, so much so that Mark eventually left. About ten years on she normalized a bit, enough that she started to work again, swallowed the pain, save for her son’s birthday, when she walked to the hospital and then the pain would return, fill her ever sense. That was all that Maureen cold bear to allow, she stuck to this as if she’d taken a vow. But way back in her head the hate remained, for the junkie and the boy she gave life, and no matter that mask that she put on she knew the world was evil, and not right, she just no longer had then strength to fight. This pattern continued many years more, until one brisk day when she was fifty-four. CONCLUDES IN PART IV.