Sutures
By Nathan Poole Shannon
Mama sat in a hard plastic chair in the lobby of the police station. Papa was at the counter, talking to a helpful reception-type person, tall with a buzzcut, in full uniform. Papa and he spoke softly.
The officer who’d come to the house was standing by a door leading deeper into the station, his hands tangled over his belt buckle. He had introduced himself as Mario, and was very compassionate and soft-spoken at the house but looked bored in the station. Once, Mama noticed, another officer poked his head out the door, spoke to Officer Mario in a hushed voice, and withdrew.
Papa was wearing his pajama bottoms and a heavy plaid coat with his omnipresent ballcap. He pulled his wallet out of the coat pocket and slid his driver’s license under the window. She knew he wouldn’t want to be here in his pajamas, but Mario had said it was urgent. Papa’s heavy work boots weren’t even laced. Mama herself had pulled her heavy winter coat over her housedress like a shawl and they got into the cruiser parked out front.
Mama looked around at the empty public area of the police station. On the walls there were posters about calling 9-1-1 and various community services, including a smiling cartoon mascot, an anthropomorphized badge. No one was ever happy to be at the police station, despite the brightly colored, false cheeriness on the walls. She looked back at Papa pocketing his wallet, away from a bulletin board which was mostly tear-off posters for bail bondsmen or sleazy-looking lawyers.
Through the station windows the first thin line of dawn was beginning to show. The caged clock on the wall read just before six. Mama wondered if the alarm clock would go off at home in a few minutes. She couldn’t remember turning it off.
Come, Mother, Papa said to her. His eyes were red. He’d stared unflinching into the night on the ride here. The rain running down the cruiser’s window had cast trickling shadows on his face, mostly masking his tears.
She noticed that Officer Mario was standing straighter. Papa came to her, holding out his hand. Oh, dear, I don’t want to stand up out of this chair, she thought. As unpleasant as the waiting room was, she knew that what waited behind the Mario-guarded door was worse.
She had her left arm crooked at the elbow, through her purse handles. For just the fleetingest moment, in the plastic shell chair, she had gently run her fingers across the zipper-like scar on her abdomen. She remembered the day she got it, the day she gave birth to Mike, April 14, 1997. The doctor had tried to make it sound easy but she’d never forget the words: Caesarian section. The birth was difficult and they had gone that route. She agreed after hours of labor and no baby, her hair matted to her scalp with sweat.
She’d been so gentle, so delicate those first weeks with tiny Michael Lee in her arms. Even on bed rest, taking such care with the baby and also with the sutures in her lower belly. So afraid that she’d tear a stitch and have to go to the hospital and be away from tiny Michael Lee. Papa had been so good helping with the baby until she was healed up. He did everything he could.
Come along, now, Papa said. She pulled her hand away from the scar on her belly and Papa helped her up. She didn’t want to go. Nothing bad had happened in that chair, her refuge, her safe place for the last fifteen minutes while Papa had shown identification and signed forms. She knew what was waiting in the back of the station. As much as she didn’t want to go, she allowed it. Papa gently guided her towards the waiting Officer Mario, smiling softly. He reached for the doorknob and opened it. She and Papa went in the back of the station.
It was a normal hallway with offices and more posters. There were signs painted on the doors: Captain Of The Watch, Printer/ Copier and, most alarming, Armory. Another, unsigned door opened off to the right, and she saw barred cells beyond.
Mario walked briskly past them, she and Papa moving softly, slowly. He walked about ten paces ahead and stopped at another door. Gravely he turned to face the oncoming couple.
“Right in here, Mr. and Mrs. Hostetler,” he said, that calm voice seeming far away, distant. Mama felt her head swim and she held Papa’s arm a little tighter.
She remembered earlier, halfway down the stairs, seeing Papa standing at the door opened to the wet darkness outside. She clutched the neck of her housecoat close around her, and heard Officer Mario’s voice for the first time. Mister Hostetler? Papa’s back straightened involuntarily and Mama descended the rest of the stairs to stand with him. Is your son Michael Lee Hostetler?
Um, Papa said with a barely noticeable nod. Mama thought she could feel, actually feel without touching, the C-section scar for the first time in years.
The first thing Mama saw was that he had his hat respectfully off, tucked under his arm in the rain. His face was apologetic, sad. I’ll need the two of you to come to the station with me. His eyes slid from one to the other. There’s been an accident.
Now, he regretfully held open a door for them, past the Armory, that read in the same stenciled font: Morgue.
The zipper-like scar on her belly began to ache, feeling the pull of the long-gone sutures as Mama passed through the door. Her legs, sturdy and strong, felt like water as she entered and saw a sheet-draped body on a metal table pulled out from the far wall.
Nathan Poole Shannon is an emerging writer of the strange and macabre. Creepy and weird stories, whether they be modern or historically set, are his specialty. From crawling shadows to cryptic specters, he is only beginning to share with the world. He lives in Ottawa, Canada, with his spouse and a small menagerie of pets who are decidedly not creepy- but from time to time, inspire something that is.
