Page 37 of Lagoon

She wanted it, what he had.

She should have realized it was because he was a man.

And she should have realized that—being a man—he’d be ruthless with her in the way men were with women.

At first, maybe they were equals in his mind, she couldn’t be sure.

She didn’t think either of them were capable of thinking that another person was actually superior to themselves. She certainly couldn’t, and she was pretty certain he had some kind of god-complex. But she thought, for a time, they admired each other as equals.

And then he knocked her up.

And she became property, immediately.

Inferior.

Not even human, really, which wasn’t saying much because neither of them placed much value on humans, anyway.

Certainly no longer an equal.

And he was worried, now, about what she’d do to his offspring.

“Our kid needs an actually loving mother, don’t you think?” he would say.

“And a loving father,” she’d say.

“Sure,” he said noncommittally. “But a mother’s the most important thing.”

She tried to get rid of the baby; he didn’t like that. He was pretty sure that the combination of them was going to be incredible, but he said that they couldn’t leave it to chance. “The baby needs to be really loved,” he said.

So, she was locked up. She was forced to give birth. The baby was taken. He did it all through legal channels. He had her declared unfit.

She knew she could have fought it. She could have gotten to a news outlet and told a journalist. He’d have fought back, but she could see it working. A pro bono case with a lawyer looking to make a splashy name for herself, and she could have had custody. But… it was weird. The baby, she sort of… cared in a strange way.

Anderson had the baby with a couple who were raising her, and the baby was happy. Anderson sent pictures and life events. She got a little update each day on her phone, and she did everything he asked of her—pathetically—just for that, for those moments, seeing her daughter playing and watching videos of her laughing and talking. She lived for it.

In the end, Anderson had her by the throat.

She knew, even though she was enamored by her daughter, that she wouldn’t be doing nearly as good of a job at raising her as this couple was doing. She didn’t even want to, really. The little girl was fascinating and delightful, but mostly because she was Nancy’s, a sort of extension of herself in a way. The day-to-day elements of motherhood, she likely would botch them.

It was better this way.

She didn’t know what Anderson would do if he found out the extent of how much things had gone to shit out here. He didn’t know, because she hadn’t told him.

She wasn’t even entirely sure why at this point. Maybe he’d be angry? Maybe he’d stop sending the updates about theirdaughter? Maybe he’d hire some team to come bomb this little settlement right off the map?

She wouldn’t put anything past Anderson, not in the end.

Her thoughts were interrupted, however, because someone was banging on her door.

She thought about yelling for whoever it was to go away, but she doubted they would. So, sighing, she got up and opened the door.

What she saw there was too awful to be real.

She tried to shut the door on it, close it away.

But they thrust their limbs in the way of the closing door, and they made their way in.

She recognized them now.

---