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THE PATH: A JOURNEY INTO THE LIGHT
THE UNTIMELY LIFE OF SAMANTHA BREEDLOW
Breedlow - Top
The story of Samantha, an unborn baby who finds out before the due date of her birth that her presence may be an unwanted event in her parent's lives. What does it mean when Jackson tells Renee, "You just got to fix it, Renee? You just got to fix it?" Fix what? Samantha ponders this while floating anxiously in her mother's womb.
INTRODUCTION
It’s rare to have a chance to relive your life—not to change it but to understand what happened to you all those years ago. At 59, that adds up to quite a few, especially if you intend to go back to the very beginning—I mean the earliest point in your conscious existence—in the womb.
That was the place I first became aware of myself as a living being. It was when I first realized that I was not alone, at least not entirely, and that other beings had a genuine, intense interest in my presence and in the outcome of my life. These beings, who I later learned were the ones who participated in creating me, thus giving me a chance at having a life, were also capable of stopping my life at any moment for a considerable period of time if they so choose.
I have since learned that the people we come to know as parents do not all go through a process of co-creating a new being and then a heated and, sometimes, bloody debate over whether or not to keep the creation, this life, and allow it to be born. Some become so stunned, shocked, and conflicted that they scarily resolve to end the matter––and the life––at all cost. My parents fell very quickly into that category. Between the two of them, conflicted and scarily resolved, was the emotional terrain that gave expression to and formed the earliest years of my existence.
Looking back now, instead of being there, will give me a completely different take on the situation. But for me to give you the most complete picture of what happened, I must do both. Be there and observe me at the same time. Now, how do I do this? I’m not entirely sure now, but I will figure it out before too long. Perhaps I will be the narrator and give myself a name and a presence utterly separate from me.
This way, you won’t get this detached feeling of watching me, my parents, and my extended family from a distance. You’ll have the chance to feel closely connected to everyone, including me, and in your way, help me to sort out and understand what occurred in my life. By explaining it all in a way that makes sense to you, I will do the same for myself.
You now have front-row seats to this story that is my life. Settle down and get comfortable; we’re going to be here awhile. I must go off now and get into my former life. From now on, you will know me as Samantha. My name is Samantha Breedlow, and I have a story to tell.
PROLOGUE
I am a disposable mistake. An 'It' without a voice to vote yay or nay.
My delicate fetal heartbeat rattles and thunders in mournful cries of protest at the uncertainty of my fate. Fear rumbles inside my tissue-skinned belly, deafening my tender eardrums to the angry shouts and desperate pleas that surround and invade my tiny world. I float aimlessly like driftwood in the unfriendly waters of my mother's conflicted womb, chilled from flesh to bone.
"My dear mother, if I could nurse from the river of bitter tears that you have shed for me, would their salt sweeten on my tongue?"
My mother tucks and sucks me in, discreetly hiding me from a world I may never see. But I am here. I am alive enough to nurse a beer with her at dinner's end and endure my father's threatening rants that rattle my sleep like nightmarish nursery rhymes. I feel the bruises and the sorrow born out of the futile attempts of my mother's slender hands to knead away the unwelcome 'It' that sprang from nowhere and was never wanted or planned. I wonder if my mother's thrusting womb will deliver me to life or become a darkened tomb denying my existence and flushing me away like refuse.
"Mother, my eyes cannot bear witness to your unimaginable pain, but the certainty of your fear is the evidence of my claim."
"I am here."
Chapter One | It
My first awareness of being alive is the terror of the unknown. I exist in a storm of uncertainty about what will become of me. I know that no matter what happens, the dangers that lie ahead are real. My eardrums, so tuned to absorb the teary cries and angry shouts that have already begun to rise, ring painfully from the wails of hopelessness and regret. I can feel the bitter edge of fear twist inside my delicate heart. Fear is all I know of this life, so far; this life I have yet to live.
I am aware that I did not create this torment that binds me tight in such a threatening and unrelenting way. If I am not the culprit, the one who made this terrible state of doom, then who is it? Who created me? Who started this journey in the first place, and why are they allowing me to drift into such anguish and doubt?
They call each other Jackson and Renee. I can hear them speaking and grasp their meanings by how they make me feel. As I listened, I began to understand that they were responsible for my being here; together, they made me somehow. But they are unhappy with themselves and what they have done. I hear Jackson say to Renee, "Having it would be a mistake." I soon realized I was the 'It' he was referring to. I am the mistake.
When he speaks about me, he yells and shouts at Renee, sometimes threateningly. Whatever they did to create me, they did it with each other. But, somehow, Renee is the one to blame for this mistake they made. It is her fault; I am 'her mistake.' Jackson tells Renee she has to fix me, whatever that means. He says, "Just fix it, Renee, fix it."
Chapter One
But I'm not broken. At least, I don't think I am. If being afraid can make you broken, then I may be. It doesn't seem like it, though. Everything feels okay inside of me. Nothing is missing or out of place, that I can tell. But Jackson is angry just the same. He believes I am broken, and Renee needs to fix me. Can I let him know that I am okay? Maybe then he will feel better and stop yelling and shouting at Renee.
I can hear Renee's frantic and agitated thoughts. She is desperate to find a way to fix their mistake–her mistake. Or will I 'fix' myself and disappear? I am caught in her panic that any solution she chooses will be the wrong one. Renee's longing to find relief from me and the problems I am causing saddens me and wrenches at my heart. Her desperation mirrors my pain and growing regret. Renee and Jackson are not alone in this. I am in her, and between them, a guilty party to the upheaval washing over their lives.
I may be a mistake, stumbling on the precipice of life, but in the deepest part of my being, there is something more hopeful than the fearful choices that Jackson and Renee are constructing. I can sense the presence of another option, another way to go. It wafts over me like a familiar scent, an airborne memory that lightly touches the outer reaches of my thoughts. Something keeps reaching out to me from another time and another place. I may be newly created, but I was sure I had been elsewhere. When or where, I do not remember. But I am sure that wherever it was, there was another choice besides fear. I wonder if I'll ever see or feel that place again.
When I can find spare moments of peace from the rising tension in Renee's conflicted womb, I feel a deep yearning to return 'home.' That is how I think of that better-feeling place I cannot fully remember. Home. But if that is home, then what is this? Why was I taken away and brought to this place of dark uncertainty with these two beings called Renee and Jackson? Who are these people, and why did they bring me here?
As they continue to curse and wrangle over my unwanted presence, I begin to understand the real meaning of the word mistake. They will not welcome me into their lives. They do not want me to leave Renee's belly and enter their world. They invited me here by accident and now want me to go away.Renee and Jackson are making other plans for me, but I need to find out what they are.
What is going to happen to me? Where will I go? What will they do with me if they decide to stop me from joining them? Will someone else be there to care for me? I feel all cold and wrong inside. My belly aches, and Renee's heart is beating much too fast. I want to crawl inside my own heart to find safety from the terror rushing towards me. I am in trouble, and I am alone. There is no one here to protect me.
Chapter Two | Renee
Renee was caught like a deer in headlights just before a Mack truck struck it. Jackson was demanding that she kill her baby. What in the hell was she going to do? He wouldn’t wait much longer for her to ’fix it.’ How was she supposed to do that?
Renee grew up in a house filled with needy and demanding children. As the oldest daughter of a brood of nine children, four boys and five girls, she knew all about babies. Renee remembered changing diapers and burping the air from their little tummies when they were young. She was their babysitter and protector, her mother’s little helper. Her siblings all looked up to her, relied on her, and depended on her.
Tending to her siblings gave her a strong taste of what mothering and raising children was all about. Early on, She started to ponder whether surrounding herself with crying babies was something she would choose for herself if she had a choice. As a child, she most certainly did not get to decide what her circumstances were or whether she wanted to leave or stay. All of that was decided for her by her parents. But when she became an adult herself, she believed she would be able to choose. She would be the one to decide how she felt about having children in her life. But Renee found out that the choice wasn’t entirely up to her. In truth, it wasn’t her choice to make at all.
In her heart, Renee has always loved children. She spent so much time with them growing up that it was hard for her not to. But in every other part of her being–her adventurous mind, shapely body, restless limbs, dancing feet, and young spirit-she did not want to have them close around her anymore. She was full of babies and children, like how you feel when you overeat a good thing. Your belly is so full, and your mouth is so tired of the taste of it that once you’ve digested and disposed of all that goodness, you can’t imagine wanting to eat anymore. You’ve had enough. That’s how she felt about having children in her life. Growing up, Renee just had too much of a good thing.
Chapter Two | Renee
But she discovers that despite how she feels, she has no choice. She doesn’t get to decide whether or not she is going to have this baby. Not when it was conceived and not after they had done the deed. She remembers the tired look in her own mother’s eyes when her mother smiled and announced that she was pregnant again for the sixth time. Renee always thought what she saw in her mother’s eyes was the look of a woman who never got to see the light of day without a baby on the way.
From dawn until sundown, her day and life filled up with birthing and raising children. But she now believed that tired look was telling a much deeper story than it appeared. Renee wondered if, once upon a time, her mother had felt the same, that she had the power to choose whether to bear and raise children. Only to discover, as Renee had, that no such power existed, not over her body or life.
Renee didn’t want to have children, but her body had betrayed her. She was young and married. Everyone expected her to have at least one child, preferably two or more, to secure her status as a capable wife and mother in her household and community. Otherwise, with their old-fashioned Southern roots and values, what would her people think of her? How would they ever accept her choice to let Jackson take her, almost without asking? Would they think she foolishly married him because he was dangerous and handsome, older than her, and believed to be out of her reach? That he had hounded her to suck out all of the sweetness from her young body, sweetness she eagerly offered up because she wanted him, no matter what?
Jackson, her dark knight with highly questionable honor, made no secret of his player instincts and his need always to have one foot outside the door. But she loved him in that sick, twisted kind of way that chained her to him with a steel-like grip. Renee didn’t marry an upstanding man in her community. She married Jackson, a man who lived to be cool and dared to dream the wildest dreams of a free, unencumbered life.
Dreams that did not include having babies and raising children. Jackson’s heart was dead inside on that score. Instead of being angry with his father for damaging his young heart seemingly beyond repair, he was furious with Renee for stirring the cold embers of a heart that stealthily hid even a flicker of a flame. Jackson said he wouldn’t have any babies in this life or ever. Renee believed him and knew that he meant it––every word.
Renee was clear about her ambivalence towards this baby. Just the threat of her bringing a child into their lives had already begun to pull down the curtains on her romantic dreams and notions, especially with a man like Jackson. He was the kind of man who bristled at having to share the space in his bed with her or share her with anyone else. But killing babies this soon would surely be a sign to everyone that he didn’t love her. He only wanted one thing from her, as her mother had warned.
Renee knew he most certainly did marry her to have that “one thing.” He wasn’t interested in anything coming out of her, only what he could put into her. But she didn’t mind that in the least. Renee knew––or thought she did at the tender age of 19––that she would live her life to please Jackson if that’s what it took to have him, to belong to him, and to stay married to him. She loved her man with every beat of her heart.
There didn’t seem to be a workable solution to this disaster looming before her. The Mack truck was almost touching her skin now. She could betray her own body––as it had betrayed her––as well as the society of family and friends that had shaped and informed her life since childhood, or she could betray Jackson. Both choices came with a hefty price and an unspeakable pain to endure.
Chapter Three | Jackson
Jackson had style and a natural flair about him. It was part of his game. A man with his reputation had to stay sharp and be quick on his feet. Spinning records at juke joints was a chill hustle, an easy way to earn hard cash and dazzle the young ladies with his charms. Playing Lady Jazz was his first and only true love––that is, until he met Renee.
She strolled in with a few girlfriends one night while he was deejaying at Club Duke. She stood out, eyes spellbound by him and the tunes he kept throwing down. One look at her fine figure swaying to the beats and her sweet, girlish face fixated on his told him she had fallen hard and fast––or had he? After stubbornly refusing their caution, Renee's girlfriends reluctantly left her in his dubious care. When Jackson finished his last set, he whisked her back to his place. He stole her virginity and her heart, and she hooked him on the spot.
They didn't call him Candy Man for nothing. Sure, his sets were the sweetest around, but his moves with the ladies stole the show. Women would drape their arms around his six-foot frame like tinsel hanging on a Christmas tree. He always got over on them––and the men, too––when they tried to get in his way. He didn't have to cut any throats to do it, either. The Candy Man's method of going in for the kill was slick, smooth, and mean. It didn't hurt that it was well-known around town that he was always carrying.
But his magic wasn't working anymore with Renee. The woman had gone and gotten herself pregnant. He had to put his foot down. No babies. She needed to fix it. She kept pleading and crying about killing babies. No sweet words from him could make doing that sound okay to her. So, he started using meaner ones. He told her. "That baby that's sitting in your belly is just a bunch of gunk. It isn't even alive yet, so how can you kill it?" He towered over her threateningly, hoping to scare her into submission. He didn't intend to resort to violence if he didn't have to.
Chapter Three | Jackson
Jackson knew Renee's body better than she knew it herself. It wasn't that he expected her never to get pregnant. Women's bodies, rigged to conceive and deliver babies, would do so even with the best-laid plans to the contrary. It was bound to happen anyway, at least once or twice, especially if you were having sex with the same woman, day in and day out.
Before he got together with Renee and started playing house for keeps, he already had a game plan in place for how to handle this very predicament. And, she wouldn't have to drink some poisonous concoction brewed and offered by the neighborhood witchy woman. The one with the home remedies that would just as likely kill you as fix whatever was ailing you. He had also heard of women using coat hangers and other curved, hook-like instruments to try and pull their babies out by themselves. The idea of any of this happening to Renee was unthinkable. She would not have to suffer such nonsense.
Jackson had the name of a man who had schooled himself in the ways of aborting babies. For a suitable fee, he would discreetly––and safely––take care of the problem. Renee would only need a few days to recover from the procedure, and they could continue their lives. He had anticipated that this would not be an easy sell when he first told Renee. He could understand that. It would probably hurt, and there would be some blood loss. But in the end, a little pain and weakness was a small price to pay to be relieved of the burden of having to raise a child. That was the bottom line for Jackson; the only thing that mattered about all this was that he did not want to have a child, not now or ever.
Jackson loved Renee. She was the first woman who ever moved his heart and made him feel anything more than the mild contempt he always had for the female sex. He never clearly understood them or what their true purpose was. Maybe it was because the thing that they did so well–– making babies––held no interest for him. He wasn't the least bit impressed that they could do it, although he knew that women had to give birth to new babies for life to continue. He just didn't want to contribute to the process.
Once you were a kid and witnessed firsthand the unhappiness your presence brought to your parents, how could anyone choose to create that again willingly? The shame and guilt you felt every day for just being alive and a burden to your parents. The thought of becoming a parent and feeling like his parents felt all those years, or having a child who would indeed cause the same unhappiness in his life, sickened Jackson to his core. It was just a bad situation all around for everyone involved. He knew that if he had kids, he would most likely resent, even hate them. And they would most likely feel the same about him. Renee didn't know it, but he was doing them a big favor by stopping her from having one.
Jackson never believed, for one minute, the stories that Renee told him about her childhood. She grew up in a house filled with unwanted little mouths to feed, believing that her parents liked having them there. What a load of crap! Everything her parents sacrificed to care for her and her brothers and sisters must have used up the best of them and their lives to do it.
No matter how much her mother told her that it was worth it, that they did what they had to do because they loved them, she was a fool if she believed any of it. People don't like to suffer because of other people, and why should they? People always try to cover up the truth to be acceptable or avoid hurting someone else's feelings.
No matter how much her mother told her that it was worth it, that they did what they had to do because they loved them, she was a fool if she believed any of it. People don't like to suffer because of other people, and why should they? People always try to cover up the truth to be acceptable or avoid hurting someone else's feelings.
But Jackson knew firsthand, from reeling day after day, as he endured his father's embittered punches and verbal lashings, the cost of being an unwanted child of an unwelcoming parent. He had seen, felt, and heard enough. He wanted no part of any of it ever again. Marriage wasn't for him either. It wasn't what he had planned when he left his parent's home to make it alone. He had seen what it was like to feel tied down to a woman with kids and demands stacked up in endless piles of need. He married Renee because he wanted her, which was the only way to have her. He stayed angry with himself for being unable to figure out a way to snake around her stone wall of a mother. Instead, he had allowed her to bully him into putting a ring on Renee's finger.
His father taught him, with his brutal beatings and his constant ridicule, that you had to fight to be a man in this world if you wanted to survive. You couldn't be soft and could never trust anyone but yourself. Especially not a woman or a wife. He was 16 the last time his father whipped him, leaving him broken and bleeding, with his pride shattered in a million pieces. That day, something raged up deep inside him, "I can't take no more of this!" And, he knew he was done. That was when he left his father's home for good and never looked back.
Jackson remembered his frail and delicate mother, standing in the doorway with tears streaming down her face. She felt terrible for him, and he knew it. His mother couldn't help him, though. Never before, and not then. Just like he had been, she was his father's prisoner. But unlike him, his father never had to try and break her. She came to him that way. Now, Renee was a different breed of woman, and Jackson knew it. More than her pretty face and shapely body, her spunk and her spirit were the things that jazzed him the most about her. But her bawling and stalling had gone on for too long now. He wondered if it was all just a show while she figured out a way to get around him––and keep the baby. He was not his daddy, but he would break Renee if it came to that.
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