Unwanted child - страница 4

The little boy was fed three times a day. Once in the morning before Lars went to work, once at lunchtime, and once when the man returned from work. The boy was remarkably quiet for an infant. But, like any other child of that age, allowed himself to be capricious from time to time. including waking his father up at the crack of dawn.

Inessa was discharged home three weeks after the birth. According to the doctors, her condition was already stable enough that she did not need outpatient treatment. However, she was still weak. The disease was eating her from the inside out. The woman's appearance was pale and tortured. Lars was faced with another problem. Now both had to be taken care of at the same time. Davel spent most of his time taking care of his wife, sometimes forgetting about the child. Only when Inessa reminded him that he needed to feed the baby or change his nappy did he remember.

With Inessa's discharge, Lars' life became more complicated, as Inessa constantly gave him a lot of tasks to do and made sure that the baby was clean, clothed, fed and as happy as possible. With the arrival of the mother in the house, the baby, on his tiny face, finally began to appear a sincere and good-natured smile. Inessa herself, in spite of her unenviable state of health, was also greatly transformed around the child. She found extra strength to babysit him, talk to him, rock him and feed him. She had to feed him with formula milk, as she did not produce milk due to the same illness. Doctors were amazed that such a sick mother had a perfectly healthy child. After all, there was very little chance of the baby having such health, given the mother's problems with a large number of organs.

A couple of years went by. The child was growing up. Lars saw how reverently Inessa treated the baby and began to soak up her warmth and affection for this tiny creature. Unfortunately, the disease did not share their feelings. The disease had its own plans for the child's mother. Inessa was getting worse and worse with each passing month, until it came to the point that she had to be hospitalised again, as home treatment with medication alone was no longer sufficient. Constant medical supervision was required. Lars had to quit his job completely, hire a couple of other people, and become a housewife, torn between hospital and home. Only a couple of times a week, he stopped by the restaurant to check on his condition. As a result, the quality of service deteriorated and the flow of customers decreased, followed by a significant reduction in the income of the establishment.

For the last few days, Inessa had been almost completely immobilised from the illness and the large amount of chemical drugs. She had become so skinny that the outlines of bones and veins were visible through the stretched skin. Her head resembled the skull of a living dead person who had not yet had time to decompose, with deep pits and hollows. Her uncombed hair had already begun to peel away from her head, and whole strands of it were sliding down her pillow, falling to the floor. In place of the torn hair, her head was a patch of dark maroon-coloured, inflamed patches, some of them even showing pus. Her hands trembled frequently, the nails on them beginning to flake and fall off. It was not a sight for the faint of heart. And Lars, every time he saw his wife, doomed to death, so helpless and defenceless, could not hold back his tears. They poured from his eyes every time he sat down next to her hospital bed.