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6 months
Alana knows she has waited too long to tell. It’s becoming increasingly obvious, even though she has only recently started showing, much later than expected. Her doctor informed her that she has a retroverted uterus, which is why she is only just starting to significantly show. And if anyone has noticed that she has been wearing much looser fitting, flowing clothing than her usual form-fitting wrap dresses and tops, no one has commented on it.
But it’s time to tell.
Applesauce runs up to greet her as she steps out of her car, having driven throughout the day from her parents’ home in Canada, whom she had visited to tell her news.
“Thank you for watching her,” she tells Will, who is walking towards her, followed closely by Winston.
“It was no trouble, Alana. How’s the family?”
She bends down gingerly and hooks Applesauce’s leash onto her collar. Her loose dress bunches up around her belly. She stands quickly and glances at Will. He is looking away but there is a flush on his cheeks.
“It’s the heat,” she thinks.
“They’re doing well. I haven’t seen my mother in so long. She looks a lot stronger since going into remission.”
He nods, his mind clearly elsewhere. “Come inside. I’ll get you a drink.”
She follows him inside. “Just water please.” She sits at his little table as he takes a glass from the cupboard and fills it from the tap. He moves to sit next to her and places the glass of water beside her hands resting on the tabletop.
“You’re pregnant, aren’t you? Why didn’t you tell me, Alana?” Will asks, his hand moving to rest over hers.
“Because it’s his,” she cries. Will pulls his hand from hers as if scalded.
“Dr. Lecter’s.” He stands, his chair clattering to the floor behind him.
She nods.
“You’re actually going to carry Hannibal Lecter’s child to term.” He paces, agitated.
She nods again, her words having departed her during Will’s outburst.
“Who knows? Does Jack know? Do your parents know whose child it is? Does he know?” His voice rises with each spoken question, until he is nearly yelling the last.
“Jack knows, has known for awhile. My parents don’t know what he did. And yes, he knows. I don’t know how he knows, but he knows,” she whispers.
Will runs his hands through his hair, causing it to stick up on end. “Get out.”
“Will…”
“Get out. I warned you, and you didn’t…you didn’t listen.” His face is flushed, his eyes dark and wild. “You sicken me,” he spits out.
She stands abruptly, her own chair falling to the floor with a crash. She pulls Applesauce from the house.
Will’s door slams behind her.
---
7 months
Alana opens her car door and swings her umbrella around her swollen belly, and then presses the button to open the umbrella. It opens with a whoosh and she steps out of her car into the rain.
She can feel his pull even from outside the building. And his push. She is like a magnet that cannot decide its polarity; she feels alternatively compelled to run into the building, and run from it.
“Why am I even here?” she wonders as she makes her way to the entrance. She has no answer for herself. She just wants the dreams-the nightmares- to stop. Alana doesn’t know why she thinks seeing Hannibal will stop the nightmares. If anything, seeing him runs the risk of making the nightmares worse. But here she is, standing in front of the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.
She opens the door of the hospital.
---
Dr. Chilton’s replacement is a young doctor named Herveaux; he greets her with a Louisiana accent, old Creole and French in his voice, surprising because of his youth. He doesn’t even look at her bump when he greets her, and she wonders if that is naiveté. Is it foolish of him to allow a pregnant woman around Hannibal Lecter? Or is this an experiment; will he be recording the conversation between her and Hannibal, as Dr. Chilton surely would have done? She finds herself filled with distaste for the young doctor. She doesn’t want him using her conversation with Hannibal as a tool in his attempts at treatment. She finds comfort in the knowledge that Hannibal will not allow Herveaux to manipulate him or dissect him.
“Ms. Bloom?”
“Dr. Bloom.” She corrects him.
“Ahh, yes, Doctor. Sorry, ma’am.” He clears his throat and continues, “When you get to his cell, do not touch the bars. Do not approach the bars. If he attempts to pass you anything, do not accept it.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“He’s dangerous, ma’am.”
“I know.”
Herveaux finally glances down at her swollen abdomen. “I know you do.”
So he knows then. She places one hand on her bump and holds her head high, glaring at the young doctor.
He doesn’t flinch. “Follow me then.”
She follows him down the hall, walking behind him in silence. She loses herself in the maze of turns; left, right, left, left, right again, through many sealed and locked doors and corridors.
She enters the long hallway where Hannibal resides at the end. “I put a chair out for you. Remember my warnings, Doctor.” He turns, flashes his badge at the beeping reader, and exits. She is left standing alone at the end of the long corridor. She walks down the hall, ignoring the catcalls and jeers from the other inmates.
She stands before the chair and waits. Hannibal turns.
“Alana. I must say, I’m surprised you called on me.”
“I’m surprised too.”
He motions towards the chair. “Please, sit. I see you’re still wearing heels. Your feet must ache at this advanced stage of your pregnancy.”
He sits, and though she hesitates, she sits as well. He is right, of course. Her feet constantly ache.
She is suddenly engrossed in a memory of her formerly delicate ankles in his large hands as he massaged her feet after a long day.
Sometimes she still has difficulty putting her memories of him together with killer, with cannibal. They don’t fit, don’t mesh. When she looks up at him, it is as though he knows exactly what she is thinking; his eyes gleam in the low light inside his cell.
She waits for him to speak; she doesn’t want to be the one to break the silence. He stares at her, head cocked to the side, as if she is a particularly interesting specimen in his office, or perhaps, on his surgical table. She wonders how often he thought of eating her.
“Constantly,” he answers her unspoken question. She jumps in her chair.
“I don’t know why I’m here,” she whispers.
“You are here because you are still drawn to me, perhaps more than ever, now that you carry the child of our union within you.”
“I hate you,” she spits out.
“You hate me precisely because you loved me.” He leans forward in his chair as if he is a bird about to take flight. “You hate yourself, Alana. Because you still love me. How do you sleep at night, aching for me as you do?”
Tears well at the corner of her eyes and she lowers her head. “I don’t sleep well.”
“Of course you don’t. Think of the fetus, Alana. Think of our baby. You need to take better care of yourself,” he chastises her, his voice teasing and light. That is what makes it cruel.
She didn’t come here for this, to break down in front of him. She grits her teeth and raises her head. She will turn the tables; she will take control of the conversation. “Who is Mischa?”
He scoots back abruptly in his chair, as if she has just hit him. “You didn’t come here to talk about my sister.”
“I did,” she contests. “You want me to name my baby after her.”
She scoots closer, now almost at the bars, ignoring Dr. Herveaux’s warnings. “Tell me about her, Hannibal.”
She stands, hands on the bars of his cell. “Did you eat her too?”
He growls, low in his throat, and the baby kicks her as if in response.
An orderly is suddenly at her side. “Ma’am, back away from the bars please.” He gently takes her arm and leads her away.
---
When she makes it outside, she leans against her car, letting the rain wash over her, umbrella unopened in her hand. She clutches her stomach, feeling the baby kick and kick, and cries.