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Nightmare · (07-13-2013)

One Year Later

Jennifer Cameron is stood on the pier looking out to sea. Her hands are gripped tightly around the handles of the buggy that is carrying her 3-year-old boy. It is five thirty am and Jenny knows the workers will be arriving at the pear soon to begin there long day.

Ever since the death of Samuel, the love of her life and the father of her child her life had spiraled somewhat out of control. Her friend Margaret had married and moved across the country to set up a new life in Boston so she found herself and her young child all alone with no friends. She had also been unable to make any payments on the house, as she didn’t have a job or anyone to turn to be able to help her with her child while she went out to work.

It wasn’t long before they were both evicted from the house and forced to briefly live on the streets begging for money or food with only the clothes on their backs and a blanket that she had managed to save from her repossessed house. She soon found slight comfort for her child in a shelter that a woman she had met on the streets had told her about, but although it was big improvement compared to living out on the open in the streets, it still wasn’t a great place to raise a child.

The shelter was average sized room with fifteen single bed positioned throughout and it currently housed twenty-three people who had all fell upon tough times. Jenny was lucky to be offered a bed for just her and her child to share where as others you would find three or four to a bed. She would lie in bed at night holding here young boy and she would hear the noises of intermittent drug use and sexual actions taking place all around her. She would cry herself to sleep every night dreaming of her lost love and her former life.

Every morning she would wake up and gag as the smell of drugs and excrement would almost choke her, she would then pick up her child and place him in the buggy and quickly leave for the day only returning at night when it was too late and too cold to remain outside.

One night she noticed new people entering the shelter but in the morning they would be gone again. She thought this was strange and one morning when she was leaving to get out of the stinking hellhole of a few hours she was accompanied by another young lady who had been living in the shelter for about a year prior to Jenny’s arrival. After getting talking about their pasts and all that had happened to assist in them ending up in the situations they are Jenny bought up the subject of the new arrivals that only ever seemed to last a night and they would be gone again in the morning. “It is bad in there, but it’s better than being out here on the streets” she said as they walked down towards the local breakfast joint hoping to find some scraps in the bin down the side ally. “It’s a good way to make some money” The girl explained as she pulled a hundred dollars out of her pocket. Jenny couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw the money as the girl asked her if she wanted to come inside the café for breakfast today.

Jenny took her up on her offer and they stepped inside. As they did the other patrons all looked over as Jenny could imagine they can’t have been the most wholesome smelling of people with the shelter only having one bathroom for all people it was sometimes days before they could have a decent wash without somebody being in there doing drugs off of the toilet seat. The stares and looks of disgust didn’t affect the young girls as they both new they were getting some real food for the first time in a long time and Jenny young child could finally eat something that anyone else wouldn’t feed their dog. Jenny had her child on her lap as she fed him and herself still talking to the person she felt of as her savior. She finally got up the courage to ask for the details on where the money had came from even though she did already have an idea in her mind. It came to be that her thoughts were spot on as the young girl confirmed that she was selling her body for her cash to eat. The questioning continued as Jenny’s curiosity took over her as she found all the information should could about the young girls ways of feeding herself., she found out where to go to get the customers, how much the girl charged and everything. She just sat listening taking it all in but at the same time feeling upset for the girl who was going through all this to just feed herself.

That night Jenny was laid in bed holding onto her son and she heard the doors open and a couple of men walk in, she closes her eyes as she thinks about her new friend and what she was going to have to go though just so she could feed herself.. She suddenly jumped as she felt a hand touch her shoulder she turned to see her new friend leaning ion close to her. She handed her a fifty-dollar bill and smiled and nodded her head towards one of the men stood in the doorway. Jenny said no and handed the money back to her friend who shrugged her shoulders and returned to the two men and earned her monies worth. Jenny began to cry as the only way she could blank out the noises was by thinking of her poor child having to live like this. She needed to get him out of here, but there was no way of doing that without money, which she didn’t have.

The noises stopped and she heard the two men leave. Jenny got to her feet picked up her child and headed over to her friend and asked her if she could look after him for a few a little while. Her friend agreed and Jenny headed out of the shelter and into the street.

About an hour later…

Jenny returns to the shelter followed by an unknown man. Her friend smiles at her as Jenny leads the man across the shelter past the sleeping occupants. She looks at her son asleep on the bed next to her friend and a tear forms in the corner of her eye. She reaches her bed and from here does everything she can to make sure she as money to feed her son tomorrow and hopefully begin to build up enough to finally be able to leave this disgusting shelter. Once finished the gentleman pays her the money she requested and leaves immediately. Jenny hides the money in her pillowcase and retrieves her son from her friend. This became a routine for the next few months. Jenny hated what she was having to do but she was desperate for her son to have food and a better life, she would hide every penny she made inside her pillow case just taking out a little every now and then to be able to feed her young son a decent meal rather than the slosh they were given at the shelter.

One day Jenny returned to the shelter with her son after going out for a midday walk. She sat on her bed with her son in her arms and just cried, cried uncontrollable tears. Thinking about Samuel and what he would feel of think if he could know what she was doing now just to try and feed their child and herself. What had she become? Some guilt began to manifest it’ self inside her as she laid and cuddled to her son on their bed. She decided that enough was enough, no more men. Perhaps she could find a job that would allow her to bring her boy along? Or perhaps she could see if her friend could watch her boy when she was at work, she knew she could trust her, they had been almost inseparable since their first meeting. Jenny turned in her bed and looked over towards her friend in the shelter but she wasn’t there. This was odd Jenny thought to herself, she was always here at this time of the day. Jenny asked one of the other occupants if they had seen her.

“She left this morning. She said she wouldn’t be back.” Jenny’s heart sank when she heard this news, he only friend had now gone, but why? Where? And how had she afforded to go, she hadn’t saved up that much money yet for her to be able to get out of the shelter.

Jenny’s eyes began to fill with tears again as she got up off her bed. She couldn’t stay here now the only person that was keeping her on top of everything had now gone, she had to get out. She packed her son into his buggy and picked up all her belongings. Lastly she reached into her pillow case for the money she had saved. Her heart sank once again when she realized she couldn’t feel the rolled up notes she had stored inside. She quickly in a panic whipped the pillow out of the case in search for the money she had saved but it was gone, all of it, gone. She quickly looked around at all the others all of them completely oblivious to her desperate look. The only person who knew about the money apart from her was… her friend that has now gone missing. She wouldn’t have took it would she? Jenny thinks to herself. She looks around again at the other guys in the shelter but she knew not one of them knew she had that money, only the person she thought as her friend, the person she trusted with her own child. How could she do this to her?

4:30 am Jenny leaves the shelter for the last time. She takes her son with her and heads down to the pier. It is a cold, windy morning and when she reaches the pier she walks all the way down to the far end. There are building site scattered all the way down, every one of them empty as she had hoped for at this time of the morning. She knew the workers would be arriving for about 6 am.

As she stared out to see she looked down at her boy and she began to sob. She stepped around the buggy and crouched down in front of him. The wind coming ashore from the ocean stings on her face making the tears that are rolling down her cheeks cold.

“My darling boy, I am sorry I have let you down. You were and are the best thing to ever happen to me and I will not make you grow up living the way we have too anymore. I love you darling”.

She kisses her child on the head and gets to her feet she looks back out to sea and rubs the tears from her face. She then turns trying to avoid any eye contact from her child as she walks away leaving the child to be found by one of the workers who would soon be arriving. Hopefully her baby can have a better life now.

An hour or so later the small boy was finally in the warm as he had been discovered just as his loving broken hearted mother had hoped. The police had been called and the site foreman was entertaining the obviously upset little boy in the site office. “Who would just leave there child like this?” the foreman thought to himself as he bounce a ball he found in his desk draw towards the child who just pushed it back slowly.

The police arrive and take the child away. Hopefully they will find his family the workers all think as the police car pulls away from the pier.

Stood atop of the Golden Gate Bridge, her hands gripping onto the rails Jenny Cameron leans herself out looking down the 260 ft drop to the ocean below. The morning mist rising up making her face along with her hands cold, Her fingers are beginning to turn numb. She thinks about her child and the better life he will have now that she has stopped being selfish and let him go, she then thinks of Samuel than man that made her so happy years before when they were bringing up their child together. She misses Samuel.

She releases her grip from the rails.

To be Continued

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