Chapter 2

I wanted to be alone with him. He was mine. But in my present state, I could not be left alone. Rose, or Eglantine, or Estella or Esme or Rose’s mother….they were always hovering over me, over him. Checking to see that I wasn’t dripping blood down my thighs, that my stitches held; that I stayed abed, that I ate what I was given. I could feel my body getting softer and softer as the days went by. Every muscle that I had built up in the last year, last months…gone. Melted into a soft bedspread.

And they were just standing there, watching, as the person that I was disappeared.

My only time with him, was when he had to nurse, and only then were they content to leave me be. He was a hungry boy, my Faramir. It was nothing short of what I expected, for such a lovely hobbit babe. He ate twice in an hour for the first two weeks. Then once an hour, after that, as he began to nurse longer, and fill his tummy more.

When I wasn’t feeding him, someone else would come and pluck him from me, tell me to sleep, or rest, or eat, while they rocked and cooed at my son. I lay in an empty bedroom and cried.

I was deserted.

Pippin couldn’t bear to look at the baby, sent cringing glances my way. Once we were both safe from death, that first day, he left. I think Faramir broke his heart. Those eyes of his…even I saw the resemblance, though I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how it had happened….

I don’t know if he came back, or how often. I spent my days in my round little bedroom, staring out the window, cut off from the rest of the house. I hadn’t even set foot in the kitchen in the four weeks since Faramir had been born. Not even the privy, since the chamber pot was brought in. I felt like a prisoner.

Frodo also, did not come. I did not ask him to. The shards of his broken heart would no doubt, turn to tatters what was left of mine. I missed him, a dull ache that escalated into a full burning. I missed how he treated me, how he knew what I was thinking. I pictured him with Faramir in his arms at least once a day. And still, for all of my yearning, he never came.

It was another somber fall day, morning dawned gray and impassive. A wall of clouds held back the sun. I rolled over, the other side of the bed, cold, unwelcoming. I listened for Faramir’s cry, and heard nothing. It wasn’t an hour then, since his last feeding. How long had I lain awake, I wondered. I sat up cautiously, my nightgown stuck to my side with sweat. I peeled it off, and shivered in the cool room. Standing, I walked over to the bureau. My feet at least, made no note of discomfort, but goose bumps rippled along my skin.

I gathered up shift, dress, and a sweater to put around my shoulders, and walked back to the bed, to sit and get dressed. I stopped in front of my long mirror. I almost didn’t recognize myself. I was so used to being round that my deflated stomach was a shock even now.

Cautiously, I stripped off my bottoms and stood, turning this way and that, to look at myself.

My hair had gotten so long…the curls of it brushed the tops of my shoulders. It was lackluster, and heavy with oil. I hadn’t fully submerged in water since Faramir’s birth, in constant fear of upsetting the wound between my legs.

My face was slack, gaunt. They told me constantly, that I did not eat enough. I ate what I could, so that I would produce enough milk, but I put no weight on myself, and by the looks of it, had lost some.

Everything else was soft. My arms.. .my breasts, still large and full of milk. My stomach was slack, and pale like the belly of a fish, though the breastfeeding was helping to draw it back into place. My legs…soft, buttocks, soft.

I was hideous. A pale reminder of the woman who had ridden kingly horses, traveled by foot through half of Hobbiton, the woman who had loved, and fought fiercely for those she loved.

I dropped the clothes into a pile on the floor and slipped back into bed, nude and ashamed.

Who could possibly love the soft, sallow, cringing, hobbit that I had become?

ooo

She was depressed. We all knew it. No one had expected this outcome. She was so healthy, so vibrant, when she was pregnant. Sad, maybe, for spells here and there, but strong. It was impossible to imagine that this is what she would become. So different from her former self, so as to almost need a new name.

Pippin couldn’t bear it. The few times he went back, she was asleep, or crying softly in the back bedroom, so that he left with murmured thanks after only minutes. He told me he couldn’t bring himself to see her that way. I knew he couldn’t bring himself to see the baby either. Faramir was a good baby, calm, quiet, awake. And his eyes…it was odd enough to look at him the way it was, and I was not supposed to be his father. Again, Pippin had managed to take every strand of his life and snarl it into an unfixable mess.

The girls tried to help her, Estella told me about it every night. She said it was like talking to a ghost. Merna made no attempt at conversation. Fed the baby, and allowed him to be taken from her. Made no protest. She was not strong. That’s what Estella told me. And that sentence alone gave me shivers.

She used to be one of the strongest of us all.

OOO

A new chapter…I cannot believe it has been this long. To all of you who stayed loyal, I am going to continue this story. I have missed these characters. Merna especially--This one is for you.

Thanks! I hope to hear from some of you.

Yours somberly, and finally,

PLK