The Sewing Lady's Daughter
by
Sheila Lee Brown
Published by Sheila Lee Brown
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 by Sheila Lee Brown
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The Sewing Lady's Daughter
“You’ve reached Christine, The Sewing Lady. Please leave your name, number, and a brief message and I will get back to you shortly.”
Rona waited patiently through the answering machine message and the beep that followed.
“Pick up, Mom,” she said. She knew her mom, Christine, would be sitting by the phone, listening.
“Rona?” Christine’s voice was soft, but demanding. Rona nodded to herself. Her mother was a mystery, even to her. It was no wonder that most of the business her mother received came from people who were just curious about meeting the woman who rarely came out of her house and who was also the one of the best seamstress’s in the business. “It’s been over a week. Is everything all right?”
“Of course it is.” Rona said. “I just didn’t have anything to share until today.”
Her mother was silent.
“The doctor said everything is fine.” Rona continued. “I’m ovulating normally now. Steve and I shouldn’t have any problems having a baby.” She paused. Christine was silent. “Don’t you have anything to say?” Rona asked. She wasn’t exactly offended. Christine was never like other mothers. But, Rona had expected more than just silence.
“You know how I feel about this.” Christine said in a low voice.
“And, you know how I feel.” Rona answered. “I thought hearing that I shouldn’t have any problems having a baby would change how you felt about it.”
“It has nothing to do with whether or not you can have a baby safely.” Christine said without emotion. “You obviously don’t believe what I’ve told you all these years.”
Rona glanced across the living room at her husband Steve. He was sitting at his computer, typing away at something, apparently oblivious to the conversation. Rona wasn’t taking any chances. She walked into the kitchen so he wouldn’t hear.
“Of course I don’t believe it.” Rona said sternly. “And, I wish you wouldn’t talk about it. It makes you sound crazy.”
“It true!” Christine said fiercely. “All of it.” Her voice grew shaky with emotion. “If you love Steve, you will not do this! Do you want to go through life knowing you were the cause of his death?”
Rona’s grip tightened on the phone. Everyone knew her mother was eccentric, but Rona was the only one who knew this side of Christine. This was the side that bordered on insanity.
“You know it wasn’t just a story.” Christine pleaded. “Deep down you know it.”
Rona took a deep breath, remembering the story her mother had told her as a child. It was a sweet story, about a spider that had had fallen in love with a human man and out of her love she had spun her own human body. Exhausted from the effort, the spider had lain down within her arachnid body. When she awoke, she was seeing out of the eyes of her new human form. The web had become flesh. And, the two had lived happily ever after.
The story had become darker as Rona got older. The spider in the story became a black widow and the moment the spider-woman became pregnant, she murdered her beloved and nearly killed herself in the madness and despair that followed.
Christine wanted Rona to believe that this was her real story. That she had killed Rona’s father. And, while Rona knew that her father had been murdered and that this had been a source of much of the curiosity surrounding her mother and herself during her youth, she felt like her mom had made it all up to deal with the pain. Rona never dared to tell anyone about her mother’s delusions. Christine was the only family that she had.
“Have you seen the spider yet?” Her mother asked.
“What?” Rona brought her attention back to the conversation.
“When you see her you will know for certain.”
“I see spiders all the time and I haven’t had any grand epiphanies yet.” Rona replied. Christine ignored her and went on.
“I didn’t know what it meant when I saw it, but now I think I do. It was a reminder of what I was and a warning. I didn’t heed it, but if you see it, see her, remember what I have told you and take caution.”
Rona was standing at the kitchen sink. She happened to look up at the cabinet by the window over the sink. A movement there caught her eye. Two spindly, black legs disappeared in the crevice between the back of the cabinet and the wall. She thought she might have briefly glimpsed a patch of red on the black body.
“I’ve got to go.” Rona said abruptly and hung up the phone. Christine didn’t try to call back. “What are the chances of that?” Rona thought, staring at the crevice. She tentatively opened the cabinet. No spider could be seen. Rona didn’t take any chances, though. She didn’t like spiders. She had some poison in the garage and she emptied the cabinet and saturated it before she and Steve went out for the evening. Her body temperature was up. They had plans.
Rona could hardly keep her mind off of her mom and the spider at dinner. Even though she felt quite sure that her mother must be out of her mind, the whole scenario troubled her. Maybe she should get her mom to talk with someone. Get her some professional help.
When Rona and Steve got home, he led her to the bedroom. If he sensed her reluctance, he didn’t show it. She laid in bed afterwards, thinking, as a feeling of strangeness crept over her. She felt some unusual presence in the back of her mind and then it came: kill, Kill, KILL! Rona felt the force of the compulsion behind it and her body moved instinctively to attack Steve - kill, Kill, KILL! Logically, Rona knew that Steve was strong enough to fight her off, but he was drowsing and she also knew he would never expect it. One tiny snap of the neck…
Steve was awakened as Rona hurled herself off the bed and ran from the room. He found her on the couch in the living room, sobbing. He tried to find out what was wrong, but she would not tell him.
“Please, just leave me alone for a while.” She told him. “I just need some time alone.”
He went back to bed frustrated.
Rona sat up for several hours. She was pregnant. She had to be if what her mom said was the truth. For the moment, she couldn’t find the happiness she felt sure she would have had in knowing that. After a while, though, the flow of tears stopped. If the story about the spider was really true, then she had overcome the instinct when her mother could not. Perhaps there was hope! Rona touched her stomach, aware that something was now growing in there. Her mind strayed to the crevice and the spindly legs and she walked into the kitchen to look at it.
At first there was nothing, and then she saw a flicker of red and black.
So it wasn’t gone yet.
“I beat you.” Rona whispered to the opening. “I beat you.”
However, the words seemed hollow as she said them. She even knew why. Nine long months stretched before her, and she still felt the tingling of that odd presence in the in the back of her mind, what she was beginning to think of as the spider presence. She thought of her mother and her warnings and wondered how long she could fight the irrational desire to kill the father of her child.