The Chosen One
by Sandra Crook
part 1
On the days when Helen emerged from beneath the black cloud that had dogged her waking hours and was again able to indulge in logical thought processes, she realized that her family had probably gone too far with their philosophy. “You’re special because you were chosen.”
Helen and Tom were always so careful to nurture Ellie’s self-esteem, so ready to reassure her that even though she was adopted, she was at the centre of their universe. As a result, Ellie developed from a shy, underconfident waif, always lingering in the background, to a plump, happy and active eight-year old, for whom nothing in life presented a problem.
Somewhere along the line though, something had gone wrong. Helen’s unexpected pregnancy was the turning point. Years of failing to conceive had blunted her awareness of her own body, and she had been almost three months pregnant before she realized what was happening. She and Tom were both overjoyed. And of course, as the books said, they were careful to include Ellie in the excitement.
“It’s a present for you,” Tom said, “a little brother or sister for you to look after, a friend for the rest of your life.”
Ellie was overjoyed at the news too. “It’s going to be a boy, I just know it,” she declared. “I always wanted a brother.”
Helen and Tom had been told that Ellie did have a brother somewhere; however, if Ellie remembered him, she had never spoken of him.
They sensed no resentment on Ellie’s part about the baby. If anything, Ellie was perhaps a touch overenthusiastic, a little invasive with her curiosity about the pregnancy. Whilst Helen thought this was a good sign and was initially amused, in time she became slightly exasperated with Ellie’s questions and constantly-voiced opinions.
For an eight-year old, she could be at times a touch overbearing, and her thinly veiled disapproval of Helen’s behaviour was occasionally irritating. Ellie’s little round face would set into a frown when Helen, racked with morning sickness, wearily pushed her uneaten toast aside.
“You’re eating for two, you know, Mummy,” she would say, waving her plump fingers in the air, as she munched her cornflakes. “The baby needs his vitamins.”
Tom laughed when she told him that night, when they were in their bedroom, getting ready for bed. “Wow, she’s really taking an interest, Helen. Aren’t you pleased that she’s taking it so well? It’s such a relief. Can’t be easy when you’re adopted and then the ‘real thing’ comes along.”
Helen froze. That’s an unfortunate choice of words, she thought, and she turned to find Ellie hovering in the doorway, with a strange expression on her face.
Tom apologised to Ellie quickly. “I’m sorry, honey,” he said, kneeling before her and putting his arms round her, “that was a thoughtless way of expressing what I meant. Those were completely the wrong words to use.”
“What words should you have used then?” asked Ellie, her saucer-wide eyes fixed on his face and the corners of her mouth beginning to droop.
Helen watched Tom struggling to find a better way of expressing himself, as he dug himself deeper with even more inappropriate phraseology. Words like “birth child,” “natural” and “conceived” seemed only to cause Ellie greater consternation, and Helen guided her daughter out of the bedroom, dropping a kiss on her head and murmuring “silly Daddy” as she helped her get ready for bed.
But Ellie forgave him. Forgave them both. They were bringing her a present.
When the baby was born, Ellie had been upset on learning that the baby was a girl. “I wanted a brother,” she said, her earnest little face creasing in disappointment. “Why couldn’t you get me a brother?”
However, on the day Tom brought Helen and the baby home from the hospital, Ellie was over the moon, hanging over the edge of the little white crib, cooing and singing to the little bundle beneath the quilt.
“She’s so pretty,” she said, extending a finger, round which the angelic child curled a tiny pink hand. “Can I hold her?”
“She’s just been fed, Ellie,” said Helen, easing herself gingerly into a chair. “Let’s wait for an hour or so.”
Exactly one hour later, Ellie returned to the crib and demanded that the baby be awakened and put into her arms. “I want to hold her, Mummy, you said I could.”
Helen balked at this, but Tom flashed her a warning look, so she picked up the baby, who immediately started screaming lustily at being awakened, and reluctantly handed her to Ellie.
Ellie walked up and down, cradling the child, jiggling her from side to side and making soothing noises. As Helen had expected, the baby’s cries only became worse. Eventually the baby was violently sick, and Ellie promptly handed the child back, her nose wrinkled in disgust.
“She’s a very naughty baby, isn’t she?” she exclaimed. “Didn’t they have any good ones?”
It took Helen a while to calm the baby down. And it wasn’t until Ellie was safely in bed, that she began to recover her own composure.
“We must be careful to include Ellie in everything,” said Tom, sensing Helen’s coolness towards him. “Don’t you agree?”
“You’re right,” said Helen, feeling slightly guilty. “I’m just a bit tired, that’s all.”
During the days that followed, both Tom and Helen were careful to make sure that Ellie was involved in the baby’s daily routine, and watched her carefully for any signs of resentment.
“You know what we could do?” Tom suggested one evening. “We could ask Ellie to choose the name for the baby. That might be another way of making sure she feels included in what’s going on.”
“But we agreed on a shortlist of names,” protested Helen, surprised at the sudden surge of resentment she felt.
“I’m not suggesting a free choice, love, just which one of the three it’s to be. After all, we were happy about all three of them, weren’t we? So it won’t matter which she chooses, and she’ll feel as though she’s had an input.”
After a particularly trying day, when it had seemed to Helen that Ellie was having an input everywhere, she eventually agreed. But Ellie wanted free choice.
“It’s got to be either Taylor, Jade or Fiona,” insisted Tom, dismayed at Ellie’s choice of ‘Georgie.’
“But I like Georgie. I wanted a brother, and I want her to be called Georgie.”
One of her fat little legs kicked out towards the pram, in which her tiny sister lay.
Helen’s resentment flared quickly. “Taylor, Jade or Fiona,” she hissed, making both Tom and Ellie jump at the intensity of her tone. Ellie’s bottom lip protruded, and she glared at her mother.
“Oh, Taylor, then,” she said dismissively, waving a plump little hand as she sensed her mother’s determination. “It’s closest to a boy’s name I guess.”
At the christening, Ellie smiled in delight when the vicar named the baby Taylor Georgina Watson. Tom had persuaded Helen that this would keep everyone happy. Everyone except Helen, of course, who had wanted to name her new daughter Taylor Jade Watson, as they had agreed.
One morning, a few weeks after the christening, Helen dressed Taylor in a clean, pink baby-grow suit before placing her back in the crib whilst she went upstairs for her shower. When she came back, the baby was dressed in a yellow baby-grow suit, and her cheeks were damp with tears. Ellie was playing with her dolls on the floor beside the crib.
“Why have you changed Taylor’s clothes?” Helen asked, her voice hoarse with an emotion she found difficulty in identifying.
“So that she matches my doll,” Ellie explained, gazing at Helen with a mixture of fondness and exasperation, buttoning up the yellow dungarees on her favourite Barbie doll.
Helen stood surveying both her daughters, clenching and unclenching her hands, struggling with a wave of annoyance that was mingled with something else, something slightly more unnerving.
What on earth is wrong with me? she thought, heading for the kitchen to try to compose herself.
That night, at dinner, Tom tried to placate Helen again. “She’s just playing at being Mummy,” he said. “I think it’s a really good sign. You’d be complaining if she wasn’t getting involved with her.”
Helen drummed her fingers on the table, staring into space. No I wouldn’t, she thought, I’d feel a damn sight better.
At times, Helen tried to rationalize her behaviour, embarrassed about the resentment and exasperation bubbling inside her. She’d loved Ellie like her own all these years and hadn’t noticed any of the irritating and, at times, unnerving characteristics that now were apparent. With their encouragement, Ellie had developed into an independent child with a will of her own, but this had never been a problem before; they had always sorted the issues out between them.
Ellie’s overpowering interest in the new arrival, together with what Helen could only describe as her “controlling behaviour,” were worrying. It seemed now that they were continually at loggerheads over the baby. Ellie wanted to feed her, wanted to change her, would always insist on hanging around the bathroom when Helen was trying to bathe Taylor. Helen grew weary of the constant mantra: “Let me do it, Mummy, let me do it.”
With some guilt, Helen began to enjoy the long days when she had Taylor to herself while Ellie was at school. She bathed and changed the baby, relaxed and content, humming to her and watching her with a love that threatened to burst out of her heart, while the baby smiled up at her with her big blue eyes and little rosebud mouth. Everything between them seemed so idyllic, so relaxed, so peaceful. They were lost in each other. Until Ellie came home.
Copyright © 2011 by Sandra Crook
