A Monster Unseen #Frankenstein200

Shelly sat in the nursery. She neither held a child or watched one sleep. She longed to be a mother but nature had never granted her the gift of fertility. A knock came to the door.

“Hey Shelly. It’s time for your shots.” It was her husband, Frank, Prompt as usual.

“Of course it is.” She was beginning to wonder if it would ever happen. She would have been okay with adoption or foster care, but Frank had insisted that a new line of research could give her the fertility she so desired.

When they started he’d promised results within a year. Slowly she turned her small office into a nursery. Five years later it had been made perfect without a resident.

Slowly she followed him down to the basement where he kept a home lab. Shelly had never really understood what he did there but she trusted him. Frank had a degree and enough experience to make her believe in him. He had always taken care of things. She simply was there to do for him and make him happy.

She hiked up her skirt and waited for him to administer the last set of shots. They would have to wait another six months to start again should it fail this time.

After a few weeks of hard waiting Shelly took the a pregnancy test. She had taken one every few months since they had started. Today, it was positive. She was so ecstatic she almost tripped over herself trying to find Frank. She could barley speak when she found him. Once he understood her, he simply smiled at his own success. The same day they began more serious tests to confirm and prepare for the babe.

As her pregnancy progressed she began to notice how proud her husband was. Slowly he took more possession of her. Frank would dictate her diet, when she could bathe, and even restricted when she could go out. She was never unchaperoned and he often locked her in an empty closet when she misbehaved.

When the day finally came she was so excited she was willing to bare the pain of child birth without medication. Frank had felt the pain medication would harm his work and that women had been baring children for centuries. She never thought it selfish of him and never considered her own rights as a being.

It was a bright sunny April morning when, after hours of hard labor, her son was born. They named him Samuel, after Frank’s father. Shelly was so proud to have a son. She didn’t care what her friends said about her and Frank. She was a mother and it was happy as she could be.

He was a beautiful child. He grew quickly and had a good nature about him. His father however could only find fault with him. His eyes were too close together, his hair a shade too light. He didn’t catch on as quickly to games and puzzles as Frank had expected. He played too loudly and was always falling down and hurting himself in his own clumsiness.

By the eve of Samuel’s second birthday Frank had quite had enough. Shelly had just gotten Samuel into bed for the night and was finishing some preparation for the following day. Her mind was occupied with thoughts of lists and wonders of forgotten tasks when Frank interrupted her work.

“We need to have a talk. I’m afraid Sam isn’t as well as I had hoped.”

Shelly stopped cold. Fearing, as any mother would, that something was terribly wrong with her baby. He’d never had more than a cold, but she had always wondered. In the way he was conceived, her worst nightmare was something would be wrong and she couldn’t help him. She had always felt that her own inadequacies were somehow the reason Samuel wasn’t all Frank had expected. She spent all day with him and taught him all she could think to teach him.

“He’s stupid and clumsy. I won’t have it in a son. I’ve decided we will have another and give Sam up for adoption as I fear it is too late to terminate the experiment. Some simple family will be happy to have him.” He said in his ‘matter of fact’ tone.

“I don’t understand. He isn’t sick?” She watched her husband carefully, thinking maybe he was playing a joke.

“He just isn’t good enough. I’ll take care of the details tomorrow. We really couldn’t expect perfection in the first try.”

“NO!” She shouted. “I wont give him up. I don’t understand how you can’t love him. He’s just as any little boy should be. You can’t just take him away on a whim.” She started to cry. How could he expect her to understand in a matter of minutes. She knew he had never been very affectionate with Samuel. He had looked after all of his medical needs but had left him to cry with his mother if he was hurt.

“Don’t be stupid. You’ll have another. You really shouldn’t grow so attached to him.”

“I don’t want another. Sam is mine, my boy, my baby.” She begged him but he seemed so apathetic in his resolve.

Frank walked away and sat in a chair. He hadn’t thought she would put up so much resistance. She was always so perfect for him, so docile and quietly competent. Perhaps that was the problem. His work was thorough and he came from a line of successful people. The fault could lie with Shelly, the boy too much like his mother.

“Shelly.” he said, bringing her out of a stupor. “You won’t convince me otherwise. My mind is set. Tomorrow he shall go and you and I will begin again. I have a fresh Idea.”

“Fine. If you won’t have him then you also won’t have me.”

“I will see you in your grave before I see you independent of me.”

Frank was so angered at her outburst, he suddenly rose and slapped her. He demanded that she was his. He could do as he liked and that their child was nothing more than a collection of cells he himself had brought into being. She was lucky he hadn’t done away with him earlier and that he had put up with all of her shortcomings.

“You have it in your mind that our son is some kind of fiend, but you have no love in your heart. You are a monster, and you will never be loved.”