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  "Okay," Nina said shakily. "I love you, Trish."

  "I love you too, sweetie."

  Joseph and Nina’s child was born on Saturday, December eighteenth at three thirty in the morning. The tiny infant weighed in at just four pounds, nine ounces. A frightened Nina was strapped down on the surgery table like a crucifixion. Two plates were splayed out on each side for her arms, the left arm straightened out as far as the pain in her elbow would allow. The anesthesiologist was at her right, monitoring her IV. A rubber tarp was spread like a shield across her chest so she couldn’t see what was going on below. The doctor and nurses made small talk over her body and she felt like an inanimate piece of meat ready for butcher. Once they began, she could feel pulling and tugging on her midsection, and her mind balked at the thought of what they were doing. She saw pieces of gauze flying in her peripheral vision. Near the end she peeked at someone standing over her, Dr. Scott probably, her head covered with a surgical cap and mask, and saw in the doctor’s glasses a reflection of a grayish looking blob being slipped from her uterus. She watched as the uterus plopped down on her stomach outside of her body. She averted her eyes.

  "It’s a boy," someone said.

  "Is he alright?" Nina asked her voice barely above a whisper.

  There was no answer. There was no cry. Nina couldn’t hear anything but the clink of surgical tools.

  Raising her voice, Nina asked again, "Is my baby okay?"

  Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Nina heard a woman’s voice from the far side of the room. "He’s looking good."

  More agonizing minutes passed until her baby was brought to her side. She caught a glimpse of a tiny wrinkled up face which now had a healthy pink color.

  "I’m taking him to the neonatal unit now," said the nurse and carried him away.

  Nina was stitched up and transported to post-op where she spent two hours being fed ice chips and having her abdomen painfully massaged every fifteen minutes by the nurse. "Have you passed gas?" She was asked over and over. Apparently it was important that she release any air that could have gotten into her abdominal cavity. Nina became irritated—surely her baby was more important than this? After another endless wait the neonatal nurse who had taken her baby away came back and informed her that her baby scored a seven on the Apgar scale, which meant he was able to breathe on his own, but would stay in the neonatal unit to receive oxygen and an IV for nutrients until he was strong enough to feed. Nina was returned to her room where Trish was waiting.

  "Did you get a hold of Joseph?" She asked.

  "Yes, I did. I told him a short version of the story, but I don’t think he heard much after I said you were in the hospital about to have a caesarian. Don’t worry, honey. He’s on a six o’clock flight and his plane lands at eight thirty. How’s the baby?’

  "It’s a boy," the statement brought home the reality. She had her baby! She had a boy!

  "They said he was doing fine, he just needs to be in the intensive care for a while until he gets stronger." Nina breathed a sigh of relief.

  "Nina, that’s wonderful!" Trish stroked her hair back from her forehead. "Congratulations, honey!"

  "Thanks Trish."

  "I also called your brother and he said he would tell George. He wanted to come and see you right away, but I told him to wait until you had some rest. You look totally wiped out, Nina."

  "Yes." Nina felt immobilized. The epidural was wearing off and despite the morphine they had given her in post-op every bone in her body ached. There was a huge bruise on her back side where she fell and no matter how she shifted, she couldn’t avoid lying on it. She could barely move her arms. The left one hurt too much and the cut on the right one felt like it was going to split open every time she moved it. As if on cue, a nurse entered the room with a tray on wheels and said that she was there to stitch up Nina’s arm.

  "We'll do that first, before the cut starts to scab. Then you’ll be taken to X-ray to look at the other arm," the nurse said.

  "Oh, goodie," Nina said. The nurse rolled her tray over and removed the bandage on Nina’s arm, exposing the raw looking gash.

  Trish took one look at the cut and said, "Um, I’m going to go find some coffee."

  "You wimp. Go on and get out of here, then," Nina said.

  "I’ll be back." Trish exited the room in a hurry.

  After her arm was stitched up and bandaged, Nina was taken to X-ray where it was determined that she had an olecranon fracture. There were no bone fragments floating around, so all she had to do was wear a sling for a few weeks. The nurse fixed her up with one and she lay back on the hospital bed, exhausted. All she could think about was seeing her baby, but she wanted to wait for Joseph. When she got her first full look at their son, Joseph should be by her side. She pushed the button for the pump to give her another dose of pain killer from her IV and shortly after she drifted off.

  Joseph sat beside Nina’s hospital bed and watched her sleep. She looked so small and fragile. Tears started in his eyes as he saw proof of the ordeal she had gone through. I should have known, he thought. I should have been prepared. I failed to protect her. He reached out and placed his hand on hers, cautiously avoiding the bandage covering the stitches. The IV was giving her a saline drip of electrolytes and antibiotic. The pain killer button sat on the bed near her hand. Josephs’ heart clenched. My poor baby.

  "Hey."

  Joseph looked up and saw that Nina’s eyes were on him.

  "Hey, yourself," he gave her a gentle kiss. "You look beautiful."

  Nina smiled. "Smooth talker. Is it the urine bag hanging off the side of the bed?"

  Joseph smiled back. "No, you truly look beautiful, Nina. Thank God you’re okay. How do you feel?"

  "Well," Nina paused and considered. "I feel better since I slept. I think the morphine is helping. I can’t say that I’m comfortable, but I’ll manage."

  "This is my fault," Joseph said. "I’ll never forgive myself for putting you and the baby in danger. I never should have just let it go if there was even the slightest chance she would come back into our lives. This wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been so careless. I am so sorry, Nina. From the bottom of my heart, I’m sorry."

  "Don’t." Nina squeezed his hand. "We have a son, Joseph. Our baby is fine. You couldn’t have known that something like this would happen. And it’s certainly not your fault that she’s psychotic. Please, don’t blame yourself. Right now let’s think of our baby. Everything will be alright. She hasn’t taken anything from us."

  "I want to get a bodyguard. I don’t care what it costs. And we’ll get a new security system at the house. She won’t get a chance to do anything else, I promise."

  "Alright." This time there was no argument from Nina. "You know, it was my fault too. I knew as much as you did, but I just forgot about her. So, don’t beat yourself up, okay honey?"

  Joseph kissed her hand and laid it across his cheek. "You’re amazing! I’m just astonished at how strong you are. You did good, babe!"

  "Hey man, respect." Nina made a fist and giggled when Joseph pounded it. "Now, let’s see if the nurse will let me out bed so we can go see our son."

  The hospital staff made Nina stay in bed through the afternoon before she could walk. Joseph waited with her until she made her first two steps to a wheelchair and then wheeled her and the IV pole down to the NICU where they gazed with awe and wonderment at the infant they had created. The little guy was in a small hospital bed with a heated roof. A tube for oxygen snaked out of his nose and an IV for saline and nutrients was taped to his tiny arm. He was crying lustily, but when Nina was allowed to touch and stroke his little head he immediately stopped his wailing and rooted around with his mouth for food.

  "See?" Joseph whispered in the dimly lit room, "He knows his mama!"

  Nina felt her heart swell with love and happiness. This miracle, she thought. We made this miracle.

  She and Joseph spent two hours with their baby until it became too painful for Nina to si
t up. Back in her hospital room, they received visits from Trish and George and also Luke and his wife Dana. Word had spread and the room filled up with deliveries of flowers and balloons. Later that evening they went to the NICU again to be with their son. When the day was over Joseph folded out the chair bed next to hers and slept by her side all night long.

  Karen was ravenously hungry. She hadn’t eaten anything since Starbucks the morning before. She needed to get to LA before the cops started asking questions and her sister found out what she had done. She needed to get to her sister while her guard was down from the death of their mother. She saw a sign for Burger King and exited the freeway. She ordered a whopper with cheese and crammed the greasy, fat and cholesterol loaded burger into her mouth. Then she pulled back onto the freeway and headed to her mother’s house just outside of Culver City.

  Karla answered the door in her nightgown.

  "Where have you been? It’s past one. I’ve been trying to call you." Karla stepped aside so Karen could enter.

  Karen did something that she hadn’t done in more than twenty years. She gave her sister a hug. "I’m sorry, I lost my cell phone and just now found it. I had no idea. How are you?"

  Karla, momentarily distracted at her sisters behavior came back to herself.

  "How am I? What do you think? I sat at the hospital all night last night." Tears clogged up her voice as she continued, "Mom’s dead, Karen. She just toppled over and she couldn’t speak and I didn’t know what to do so I called an ambulance and they said she had an aneurysm and like five hours later she was dead. She’s just gone."

  "I’m sorry, Karla," Karen said again. "Even though we didn’t get along, I am really sorry she’s gone. Is there anything I can help with? What about funeral arrangements?"

  "She made arrangements to be cremated. Paid for it in advance and everything. Do you think she knew she didn’t have long? I found a will in her dresser. She didn’t have much, just the mortgage on this house and a few thousand dollars in the bank. It says I can stay in the house or sell it. Whatever I want." Here Karla looked a bit defiantly at Karen, as if challenging her to argue the decision of who would get the house.

  Like I would want this piece of crap. Karen looked at the dingy white walls, the old and ugly beige furniture and the threadbare carpet in the house that her mother had lived in for the past five years. "That’s fine, Karla. So, what happens with mom now?"

  "The mortuary will cremate her body on Monday, and we can pick up the ashes on Tuesday. She didn’t want a funeral or any kind of service. I suppose we could have a memorial."

  Karen headed to the kitchen. "Do you have something to drink? I’m thirsty."

  "There’s a jug of apple juice in the fridge."

  Karen got the juice and two small tumblers out of the cupboard. She made sure Karla wasn’t paying attention while she poured the contents of the vial of Rohypnol in one of the glasses and added apple juice to it. Then she came back into the living room and handed it to her sister. "Here. Let’s sit and talk about this memorial." She sat on the couch and took a sip of her juice.

  Karla sat on the recliner across from her and also took a drink from her glass. "Thanks. So, we could probably invite some people from her work and her arts and crafts club. Maybe some of the neighbors would want to come?" She took another drink and then another. "I just can’t believe she’s really gone."

  Karen set her glass on the table in front of her. She had never really liked apple juice. That was Karla’s deal. She was more of an orange juice girl. "Yes, we could tell the neighbors. Do you know them very well?"

  "Not really, I mean I’ve seen them from across the street and waved a couple of times, but have never really spoken to them. Mom went next door all the time to have coffee with Mandy, so we could start with her." They continued talking for several more minutes until Karen saw her sister start to droop on the chair.

  Karla looked confused. "Why are you being so nice to me?"

  Karen said nothing.

  Karla moved forward to set down her glass and missed the edge of the table. The glass and the remaining apple juice fell to the floor.

  "What?" Karla mumbled, slumping back in the chair. "I don’t feel well."

  Still, Karen said nothing. She saw realization dawn on her sister’s face.

  "You bitch!" Karla tried to stand. "Need to throw up, oh God!" She rolled sideways off the arm of the recliner and landed face first on the floor. "Fuck," she said, her last word muffled by the carpet as she passed out.

  Karen waited a few moments to make sure she was really unconscious and went back into the kitchen and found a metal measuring cup. She took the heroin out of her makeup bag and dumped the entire contents of two balloons into the cup. Now what? She wondered. Water? Do I cook it? Does it matter? Would it weaken the potency? Recalling one of the scripts from The Edge, she added some water to the cup and used the tip of the plunger on the needle to smash it and stir the black tar around. Then she searched for Karla’s purse and found a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Using a dish cloth to hold the metal handle, she slowly heated the mixture until it bubbled. She tore a small piece of filter off of a cigarette and plopped it into the cup. Then she uncapped the syringe, stuck it into the filter and drew it up to the top full of heroin. There was some left over in the cup so she poured it into the sink and washed the measuring cup with some dish soap.

  "Illegal substance abuse one oh one," she said out loud, holding up the syringe like a nurse about to give a shot.

  She went over to her sister and kneeled on the floor beside her. "So sorry, dear sister, but I need to use your name for a little while and it just wouldn’t do to have both of us walking around as Karla Wassenbaum, now would it? The best way, really. It's poetic justice that you should go out like this."

  A tourniquet! She set the needle on the coffee table and went to the bathroom, coming back with a hair scrunchie. She looped it twice over Karla’s forearm and pushed it up tight above her elbow. "There we go! Now, to find a vein." She looked at the inside of one arm and found nothing but scar tissue. "Damn, girl! Couldn’t you have saved one for me?" There was nothing on the other arm, also. Karen was undaunted. She continued to look for a good vein all up and down Karla’s arms, hands, wrists and ankles. Nothing!

  She got up and walked around the unconscious body. The neck! The snake tattoo covered one side, but the other side had a clearly visible fat vein up the side of her throat. Karen grabbed the strap of her sister’s purse and wrapped it around her head until the vein bulged. "Well that one is just begging for it. Pick me! Pick me!" Karen chortled as she got ready to poke. Knowing that she couldn’t plunge it straight in, she made sure the needle was at a slight angle, but almost parallel to the vein. The needle slid in and Karen drew back on the plunger slowly until she saw a flash of blood. "Bingo!" she said and pushed it home.

  "Who knew that I would be so good at shooting up? The things we can learn from TV and the movies!" Karen left the needle and the purse strap as they were and began searching the house. On the kitchen table she found her mother’s handbag and a small stack of paperwork from the mortuary. How convenient! She would call the funeral home in the morning and ask if they could hold onto the ashes for a while. There was sixty dollars in her mother’s wallet. Then she looked through the dresser drawers in both her mothers and her sister's bedroom. She found all of her mother’s utility bills and the payment book for the mortgage. In her sisters room she found the old pocketbook of Karla’s with all her important papers. She took it all.

  She had six hundred dollars cash and some change left after buying the car. That should be enough to get down through Mexico. Once there she would risk a withdrawal from her offshore account, open a new account in Karla’s name. She'd keep the ring she took from that woman and only sell it in an emergency. She thought the Bahamas would be nice for a while. Or maybe catch a cruise boat from Cabo. She went back to her sister and got down on the floor beside her, looking for signs of life. It didn’t lo
ok like she was breathing. Karen laid her ear against her chest. She heard nothing. Karla’s heart had stopped. She stood up.

  "Well you’ve certainly done it this time. You’ve overdosed and gotten yourself dead, haven’t you? No more scumbag Karla knocking at my door! You shouldn't have threatened me."

  She strolled back through the kitchen and went outside to the small, overgrown backyard. Up against the outside of the house was a large sub-zero freezer. Inside she found a lot chicken and steaks wrapped neatly in zip lock freezer bags. Back into the house she found her mother’s big suitcase under the bed. She loaded the meat into the suitcase and went back for her sister.

  Before she put the body in the freezer she plucked the needle out the vein and unwrapped the purse strap around her neck. Then she got her sisters cell phone and used the camera to take several photos of the snake tattoo on Karla’s throat. She didn’t plan on getting this tattoo. Really, who in their right mind would get a tattoo like this? But, it was better to be safe than sorry. If it was safe to come back she would wear turtlenecks or scarves or something. She removed the SD card and tucked it into her wallet next to the other one.

  She dragged the dead weight of her sister across the living room floor, through the kitchen and to the back door. She looked around outside. It was pitch dark and silent. Using all of her strength she lifted the lifeless body from the floor and put it over her shoulder, once again in the fireman's carry that she had used when her sister overdosed the last time. She carried Karla to the freezer and tipped her inside. To make her fit into the box Karen folded the legs underneath her so it looked like she had fallen backward from a kneeling position. She closed the lid quietly, noticing that there was a latch for a padlock. Karla needed to stay in the freezer for the time being. The bank wouldn't care who made the payments on the mortgage as long as they were paid for the next couple of months. She would also pay the utilities until she found out the lay of the land.