Post # 8: Motifs

Spring drifted off again. She woke to the gentle shakes of a nurse. The woman was petite and blonde. She looked frenzied. Spring read the name "Holloway" on her name-tag. “Linda is okay,” the nurse said.
“Who?” Spring said drowsily.
“Linda, the woman you called 911 for,” she said. “She’s okay.”
“Oh...good, great,” Spring said, waking up a little bit. “What about the baby?”
“We had to induce, but the baby is fine. It’s a little girl,” she said.
Spring smiled and felt as if she might cry.
“Linda would like to speak with you if you are willing,” the doctor said. She motioned towards a door down the hall and then hurried off in the opposite direction.
Spring rubbed her eyes. She felt exhausted. She'd been dreaming about Robbie again. Robbie and a tiny heartbeat inside her chest. She shook her head fervently.
Getting up slowly, the scent of the hospital came back to Spring. The fluorescent lights and bare white walls mingled with the scent, and Spring was reminded of ghosts.
She paced slowly down the hall to the room, poking her head in. Linda lay in the bed. She held a tiny white bundle and was surrounded by balloons and bouquets.
“Spring,” Linda said. “I’m so glad you’re still here.”
Spring didn’t know what to say.
“I just had to thank you. What you did...it was amazing. I owe you my baby’s life,” Linda said.
Spring looked at the tiny baby girl and smiled, still speechless.
“Would you like to hold her?” Linda said.
Spring barely managed to get out a “yes.” She took the little girl in her arms, examining her tiny features.
“Spring, I can’t thank you enough. I wish I had the words, but I don’t,” Linda said. “Instead, I’d like to do something to show you my thanks. She grabbed her purse, pulling a slip of paper out of the pocket. She held it out for Spring.
Spring took it, adjusting the baby in her arms. A glance at the paper revealed that it was a check. A longer look revealed the amount:
$10,000.

Blog 7: the past is always present

Spring woke with a jump. Squinting around, she almost forgot where she was for a moment. She was slumped in the straight-back chair against the wall, and the realization came to her that she was still in the hospital.

The hospital clerks had given Spring permission to leave once the woman’s husband arrived, but Spring wanted to make sure the woman was okay. Spring knew what hospitals were like. The last time she had been in one, she was completely alone. She didn’t want to leave that woman alone. 
Suddenly, the blank walls and the acidic, cleaning-product smell of the hospital began to overwhelm her. She didn’t want to think about the last time she’d been here, but the sights, smells, and sounds were too familiar.
Spring met Robbie when she was 15. They had gym together. She was a freshman and he was a senior. She noticed him watching her one day taking laps around the field. From that point on, she would put on a show for him during physical fitness, strutting around, flipping her hair. She hoped it would encourage him to ask her out.
It did. They started dating and were always together. When Robbie graduated, he went to the community college in order to stay close to Spring, even though he could have gone to the big state university on a basketball scholarship. His parents didn’t approve, but Spring and Robbie were going to get married and start a family and always be together.
Along the way, they accidentally mixed up the order of their plans. At 17, months from graduation, Spring got pregnant. This was okay, though, just fine. It just meant they could be a family even earlier. They perfected their plan: Spring would finish high school and then join Robbie at the community college. They would each take a lighter load of classes in order to take care of the little one they expected. Robbie wanted to know the sex, but Spring wanted it to be a surprise. She had always wanted to be a mother; it didn’t matter if it was a boy or girl.Spring’s father had died when she was young, but her mother couldn’t have been more happy about the pregnancy. She started planning the wedding and fixing up a nursery in the house. Robbie could move in to Spring’s room, and they would all be a family together.
Four months in, Spring woke with pains in her abdomen. She told her mom she felt sick, she wasn’t going in to school. Her mother went to work, and Spring went back to sleep. She woke again to much stronger pains and blood on her sheets. Panicked, she called 911 and went to the hospital.Doctor’s examined her and shook their heads, but no one would tell her anything. She shouted, wanting to know, but they just put her under.
When she woke, her mother sat across from the hospital bed, tears in her eyes. She began to speak but Spring cut her off. She already knew. She didn’t need to hear it out loud. Robbie came to visit, pale and anxious. He wouldn’t look her in the eye. He said he had to go after just 30 minutes.Spring went home later that day. A letter was waiting for her in the mailbox without an envelope. It was from Robbie.
He was sorry about the baby. But he wasn’t really ready to be a dad anyway. And he didn’t think it was right to get married just because of a kid. Spring had been holding him back, really. He had another chance to play basketball in school. It wasn’t as great as his first offer, but he needed to go on to bigger and better things than what she and this town had to offer. She didn’t see him before he left. After graduation, Spring went to work at the Rolling Rink with her mom, helping raise her younger sister, Trish, whose high school sweetheart married her at 18. They had a baby boy.

Blog 6: The Crime

Hours later, Spring had yet to return to her car. She had spent the majority of the day wandering around Poplar Avenue, save for when she slipped into the small café to waste a few hours.

She was getting tired of the same buildings, faceless windows, and cracks in the sidewalk. She was even beginning to become familiar with a smear of old gum on the curb that she had passed at least a dozen times. Time to make a detour.

Halfway down Poplar, as dusk was settling over the street, Spring made the turn onto H. Street. A rush of adrenaline went through her, as this was the "riskiest" and most interesting decision she'd made all day.

There wasn't much on H. Street, either. A gaggle of petite, blond teenagers crowded outside the now-restored Forever XXI for some sale. The manager of the cheap shoe store next door was attempting to coax some of them into his shop, without much luck.

Across the street stood the old Sawmill Theater. For the first time, Spring really looked at the abandoned building. She had lived in Cityblock her whole life, but she never remembered the theater being open. It was if it had always been closed, yet never purchased, renovated, or torn down.

With a sudden wave of curiosity and spontaneity, Spring curved right and walked closer to the run-down theater. She shook the doorhandles, but they were locked. So were the windows.

Spring ambled around the side of the building, finding a staircase leading to a door that apparently opened onto the second floor.

Thinking it she may have luck opening it, she climbed the stairs to the door. She turned the handle. No suck luck.

At that moment, Spring heard a woman's shouts and frantic footsteps. Leaning over the railing, Spring looked down to see an extremely pregnant woman sprawled out on the sidewalk, the contents of her purse and the grocery bags she was carrying spread around her. Just yards away, a figure was sprinting around the side of the theater and around the large shed behind it.

Spring opened her mouth, finding her voice catching in her throat.

"H-h.... Hey! HEY!" she finally got out. "Stop! Hey!"

Spring sprinted down the steps to the woman still on the sidewalk, clutching at her bulging stomach and sobbing.

"Ma'am! Ma'am, are you alright?" Spring nearly shouted.

The woman's words were hard to make out between sobs. "I-I don't know. M-my-my baby! Pl-please help me."

With trembling hands, Spring dialed 911 into her phone.