A field trip to the Cloister’s Museum of Art was where a bunch of literature kids went on in early May. All planned on enjoying themselves, because hey how often do you get to go out of school for a trip to a grand mid-evil art museum? They were to look at sculptures, and other works of art that sat around for hundreds of years and are in really good condition. Then one student named Penny went to study a sculpture of a woman lying on a bed. The stone woman’s cheeks were pink, and her hand was to her head with a look of guilt, confusion, and agony. Lying right next to her was a baby smiling with wide eyes. Total opposite of what was thought to be her mother. Penny observed closely and felt surprised at the overwhelming power the stone statue was giving off. It didn’t look religious as all of the other statues. She didn’t look like Holy Mary, and the writing describing it didn’t say either. She was just a mother with child. Upon observing for about fifteen minutes, Penny wondered what she went through, and had sequences running through her mind…

“What are you doing?” an abusive voice said to a woman who was washing clothes out near the stream. She jolted back and looked around. There he was… her bipolar husband. She got up slowly trying not to hurt her baby she was pregnant with. It was about eight months into the pregnancy and she was famished. Her clothes were rugged and she looked as if she were a slave. But she wasn’t. She was just a wife of an abusive husband. She shouldn’t even be doing work at this state in her pregnancy.

“Washing clothes, dear,” she responded not looking into his green eyes. He pushed her back towards a tree by means of shoving her stomach. She waned in pain and crouched to the ground. “This baby isn’t going to have a brain if you keep hurting it, Derek,” she said in a low voice.

“It would be intelligent if you were smart by being done with the laundry and cooking dinner by now!” Derek yelled. His pale face turned redder and if he could turn into the Hulk his pastel red and white clothing would have been destroyed and his wife would probably be dead. But even if Derek could turn into the Hulk, he would never kill his wife; he did love her after all. Just when things didn’t go his way, he gets abusive.

“I’m pretty much done. Now I will go and make dinner for our guests tonight,” she said in a sarcastic tone. Derek snorted and then took a breath. He sighed and smiled at her and looked in a better state of mind.

“Great, thank you Phoebe,” he said in a calm voice. He grabbed her and kissed her on the cheek. Phoebe walked away without smiling, sure Derek has those times when he’s sweet, and that is why she is married to him. But when he gets abusive he thinks he can get away with stuff, because he never apologizes. He longed to see her smile once again, but could never find out how.

She walked back up to the manor stumbling along the way hoping for Derek to help her, but he didn’t. When she reached the house all the food was already made just not set in order. How did all of the food get prepared already? she thought to herself. Derek couldn’t have…could he?

“Surprise, surprise!” came Derek’s voice as he walked in the kitchen. “I thought I could help you out a bit, and I wanted you to see what I did for you, but you took a million years getting your butt up here to see it so I got angry.” He waited for that smile.

“Thank you, I really mean it!” Phoebe said, still with no smile. “I’ll just put things together and lay them on the table for your parents when they get here.”

“Great,” he said. He looked at her and then at the food; she looked at the food then at him. His face grew red. Something was wrong. “WELL GET GOING ALREADY!!!!!!” he screamed, turned around, slammed the door leaving Phoebe to her job.

“I’m so… tired,” she gasped and then passed out falling right on her stomach. Derek heard her fall and then ran in. He grew even madder. He lifted her up slapping her face.

“Get up! Get up!” he yelled. Phoebe didn’t respond. He threw her over his shoulders and carried her to their bedroom. He threw her on the bed and turned to walk out. Derek stopped at the door way and turned back at her. His emotions went down and he felt sympathy and went to lay her straight and on her back. He kissed her forehead and then left to attend the kitchen duties.

Phoebe awoke about an hour later, hearing Derek’s parents entering the home. She groaned and sat up feeling severe pain coming from her stomach. She stumbled to the living room and looked at her parents-in-law. Derek smiled at Phoebe and nodded. After about ten minutes of his parents hallucinating over the baby, totally oblivious that Phoebe was in bad shape; he walked over and kissed her on her cheek.

“Any day now we’ll have a bundle of joy coming,” he said joyous. His parents smiled and they walked to the dinning room leaving Phoebe standing in the living room screaming internally with pain. Derek’s parents weren’t bipolar but they were so flaky that even if Phoebe was on the floor about to spontaneously combust they wouldn’t notice. She couldn’t stand his parents, and was falling out of love with Derek everyday since his disorder had gotten worse. She knew it wasn’t his problem, but she couldn’t deal with it anymore. Phoebe knew she couldn’t leave, because knowing Derek he’d get abusive and possibly kill her or hurt the baby even more then it was already. She knew she had to do something to get them off her back.

“Are you coming, Phoebe?” she heard Derek scream from the dinning room. She managed to yell back a ‘just a minute’ to him and as quickly as she could she went back into the bedroom. She wanted to end her misery; she couldn’t deal with it anymore.

Phoebe kneeled on the floor opening a hidden door. She pulled out a box and opened it up. Inside there were five vials all different colors, one red, one black, one white, one green, and one orange.

She grabbed the white one and shut the box, put it back in the floor, closed the door and walked to the living room. Hiding the vial in her pocket, Phoebe stumbled to the dinning room.

“There she is!” Derek said in a sweet tone, hoping to see Phoebe’s smile. She didn’t show one and sat in the chair next to him. Phoebe loved when he was happy, and started to grow depressed about having to part with him forever. But she quickly shook that thought away; she had to stop thinking of not going through with it. This form of life had to end. As Derek and his parents were occupied over talking and stuffing there mouths, she took her cup of water and poured the white fluid in. It quickly dispersed back to the clear water, and looked as if nothing were in it.

The time to act was now.

Phoebe put the cup on the table and stared at it, making sure that all the fluid was absorbed. Derek looked at her and then at her cup and asked, “Something wrong with your drink, Phoebe?” She sat back rubbing her stomach and shook her head.

“I’m just looking at it,” Phoebe said.

“Let me see,” he lifted it up and Phoebe reacted quickly pulling it out of his hand breathing deeply. “Okay then,” he said, and Phoebe nodded. They talked for about a half hour and Phoebe still hadn’t taken a drink out of her glass. She went on acting normal without any smiles. Half the time she was silent in her own thoughts.

This is taking to long, I have to drink it and stop hesitating. I know the baby will die too but with all the pain it went through it has to have a problem by now, and I might as well put it out of its misery already… Should I wait until it’s born? No… who knows how Derek would bring it up… it’d need a normal home to live in… I’d have to be its mother to protect it… Then I can’t kill myself… I’ll have to put up with this, but how?

As Phoebe pondered in her thoughts, she looked around at the table. There was no way she could bring up a child with psychopaths. She took her drink in hand about to drink it, but then fell down screaming in pain.

She was going into labor.

Every one came to her side. After ten hours of excruciating pain, the baby came and it was a boy. Phoebe passed out from the labor, and Derek put a wet cloth on her head. He took the crying baby and cleaned it off, then wrapped it in a white cloth and held it. Phoebe woke up a half hour later, begging to hold her child. Derek gave it to her, and she looked at the newborn. He appeared to be healthy, and had no problems. She closed her eyes and prayed the boy would be okay.

She still didn’t smile. Phoebe was stuck in thought over what was going to be the near future. Before her thoughts could go in depth, Derek interrupted.

“Isn’t he a handsome one? I think we should name him Luke, don’t you?” he looked into Phoebe’s blue eyes and smiled. She didn’t give a grin back but nodded. She did like that name after all.

The next day Phoebe sat in the kitchen feeding baby Luke. She looked over at the counter where she put her cup of water with the poison in it the day before. She rocked back and forth in her chair and thought. Derek wasn’t around, and so she gave a faint smile to her child. This day was better then the last. She could feel it.

The door in the living room closed as Derek’s parents left. They probably weren’t to be seen again. They only came around for occasions. The last time they came was for the wedding five years ago. Derek walked into the kitchen patting the tyke’s head and kissed him. He looked up at Phoebe and smiled to her. She didn’t back.

“It’s going to be better,” Derek said. “Now that Luke is here we’ll become closer again.”

“The only reason we fell apart was because of your disorder, Derek,” Phoebe hissed. “Maybe if you sought some help from the herb medical store in town you’d have better control of yourself as you did a year ago.”

“I stopped taking those herbs because I don’t need them anymore.”

“Hmm… let me think Derek. Ever since you have stopped you have gotten worse and I’ve fallen more out of love with you. You have no self-control anymore and I can’t take it,” Phoebe looked at Derek. Her eyes grew glossy as she saw Derek’s face drop. She got up, put Luke in the crib and hugged Derek. She knew this moment wasn’t going to last. In another ten minutes he would just be off the hook and could possibly hurt the baby.

She let go and took the cup with the poison in it and held it up. “Derek, you put me through hell…”

“Phoebe… I really have no memory of harming you, but if what you are saying is true I might as well leave and not be a burden. I don’t know how I’ll go on with out you but I’ll find a new life.”

Derek’s disorder took full hold of him, and instead of having a normal breakdown he fell to the floor crying his brains out. Phoebe wanted to cry but kept her cold poise. She could easily take advantage now, and get her revenge for her suffering. She knew that all Derek could think about was dying right now, so why not help him in ending his misery?

“I know what is in that cup,” Derek whispered. “Poison, I saw you put it in yesterday, and Phoebe you aren’t going to drink that, I won’t let you.”

Phoebe stood there surprised over what she just heard. She put it on the counter and grabbed Derek. “I wasn’t going to –”

“Stop it! If anyone should die it should be me! I am not wanted in this world!” Derek shoved Phoebe on the ground and drank the glass; he then fell to the ground pale. Phoebe broke-down over what happened. What possibly went through her mind to do this? She knew that she shouldn’t have ever made him depressed because he’d just go and kill himself and that is what he did. After seeing him fall to the ground, she felt an overwhelming guilt trip on what she just did. He drove her insane…. Her insanity led her to wanting to kill him… and now that it’s done, she realized nothing good came from it. She killed an innocent man…

Phoebe took her tyke in her arms. Luke was smiling away not knowing what was going on. Phoebe went into the living room not saying a word, and crying internally. She put Luke on the floor and lay down beside him with her hand to her head. Guilt over taking advantage of a mental human overwhelmed her… Confusion over what was going to happen next ran through her mind… Agony over her life came around… Life would never be the same again…

After that scenario ran through Penny’s mind she backed up looking at the statue. At the moment where Phoebe felt the most depressed in her life was shown frozen in a stone statue to be shown to the world. Penny took one last look at the woman lying next to her smiling child and left pondering in thought about it for the rest of the day.