Field of Blood by Wilson, Eric (pdf e book reader .TXT) 📕

She felt as though they’d been holding separate handles of the same baggage, trying to drag it through the mud while heading in slowly divergent directions. Jed was as torn up as she by the loss of baby Jacob, and their son’s precious few hours on this earth had forever joined the two of them as a mother and father. That couldn’t be taken away.

The whole wife-and-husband thing? That was less certain.

Jed left in a U-Haul, and Gina waved good-bye from the sidewalk. She wore a brave face, refusing to let her emotions stop him from going off in search of himself. He was still young, and his grief was as real as her own. His left hand out the window was the last thing she saw as he headed down the hill.

She gave her two-week notice at Ruby Falls.

Shared one last cigarette with her coworkers.

Earlier, she had e-mailed a private orphanage in Arad, stating her desire to help and explaining her own childhood in the region. They’d accepted her application with exuberance, after criminal and background checks. With the HIV-infected kids and severely abused, the need was great. They would take anyone willing to serve.

Gina figured she fit the bill.

She shared a tense but cordial lunch with Nikki and said only that she was planning to save money by living more communally. Nikki assumed hippies. Gina let her think what she wanted. Later, she could send a letter of explanation.

She put an ad in the paper and sold off her remaining things. Half of the items were infant related: a crib, mattress, stroller, and car seat. They were all brand-new, but she sold them for a pittance. She had no desire to profit from Jacob’s death, and she hoped the items would be helpful to someone in need.

She kept only the black walnut chess set and a suitcase of clothes.

Using the name Lazarescu from her Romanian passport, she combined her final paycheck and her sale earnings to buy a one-way ticket to Bucharest—Bucuresti, as she called it in her mother tongue. She wondered how it would be to find herself inundated again with the sonorous flow of a Romance language. Would it all come tumbling back? Would the food and culture feel like old buddies, or like friends that had parted ways?

She arrived two days later at Otopeni International Airport, with only seven hundred dollars of savings in her front pocket, her dual citizen-ship in her back pocket, and the orphanage’s address on the other side of Romania.

And she felt free.

Gina Lazarescu never felt sorry for the kids. The Tomorrow’s Hope Orphanage staff members, muncitors, marveled at her connection with their young wards. Most of these children had played the “poor orphan/ poor HIV baby” act for so long they knew nothing but pity from others. Accordingly, their emotions were amplified, their behaviors unrestrained.

Here came Gina. She spoke their language and gave straight answers. She showed scars on her arm, neck, and legs that paralleled wounds that many of them felt, but which most only knew how to demonstrate through tantrums or withdrawal.

She had broken free, even lived in America. Then come back.

Now, she was one of them.

She learned that in 1989, more than a hundred thousand kids had filled orphanages across Ceaucescu’s ravaged land. Inexplicably, many had become infected with HIV.

“No one knows how?” she asked a muncitor.

“There are theories, naturally.”

“But no one’s tracked down the guilty party? That’s crazy. What if some irresponsible doctor was reusing needles for vaccinations? I mean, that kind of thing has to be stopped. Am I wrong?”

The muncitor wore an expression of disinterest. “You’ve been too long in America, with your naive notions of justice. Things such as this were commonplace during our days under communist rule. Really, who had energy to be concerned with anything other than survival?”

“These children, though. I mean, if I ever find out who—”

“You want to help?”

“Yes.”

“Then get to work, Ms. Lazarescu. We have beds to make.”

“Right away.”

During her first few months at the center, Gina found out that many poorer families had seen no choice but to surrender newborns to the government. The catch was that they could retain legal rights to their offspring, so long as they came to visit once every six months.

With some of the children now getting closer to an employable age, parents made sure to show their faces, counting on future paychecks from their juvenile workers.

However, certain kids would never be employable.

The gypsy orphans, for example, were societal outcasts with centuries of prejudice that kept them from good jobs. They were destined to be street sweepers and garbage collectors. This only encouraged their thievery and cheating, which then reinforced the ugly perceptions of them.

Though Gina had grown up around this struggle, she boiled with indignance when she overheard a fellow muncitor berating one of the gypsy wards in the fenced play area: Hai prostule!—come here, you stupid one.

“He’s only as smart as you’ll let him be,” she barked back.

Word got around that she was the big sister—the one ready to defend, while never showing too much pity. Building relationships with the kids took time, and she made many of her first connections as their sister through the love of games.

The boys were convinced she would be easy prey at the chessboard, a notion she dispelled in a hurry. She earned their respect through her no-gloating policy and her aggressive style of play.

With the girls she played remi, a game using numbered and colored tiles. The real focus during these sessions was unguarded girl talk around the rec room table. Many of them were victims of sexual abuse. At ages ten and eleven, they were showing interest in related topics, and she was a nonthreatening advisor who gave real answers, with hard-hitting cautions against the risky behavior in which some were already engaging.

Daily, Gina found herself smiling at the small victories.

Every night, Jacob’s unmarred, beautiful face flitted before her eyes.

“Are you happy to be back?”

“Definitely, Petre.”

There was no