Prologue
February 1993
Enormous snowflakes fell from the sky like bricks being tossed off a twelve story skyscraper. A layer of thick frost covered the windows of every vacant car on Mavenhurst Drive. Hannah liked the cold. It reminded her of the way she felt inside, frozen and empty.
A stifling gust of hot air blasted from the vents in Hannah’s 1990 Sunbird. Fumes from the exhaust expelled from the tailpipe crawling along the snow-covered streets like a swarm of insects. Hannah had been parked, waiting in front of the sandy brick suburban townhouse for the last hour, but to her, that hour felt like a decade. Hannah had never been a person with patience.
Fidgeting, she drummed her fingers against the steering wheel; the soft thud of her fingertips against the hard rubber rang out like the echo of horse hoofs against a cobblestone street. She checked her face in the rearview mirror, and smoothed back wisps of her auburn hair, tucking the loose pieces underneath her white knitted hat.
A cry filled up the confined space. A needy incessant cry that turned into a howling wail, coming from Hannah’s two month old infant in the back seat.
“Hush now.” There was nothing soothing or loving in the way she’d said the words. Even though the baby was a part of her, Hannah felt nothing for the tiny infant boy. She didn’t possess any motherly instincts.
She recalled a visit to her obstetrician months ago where she’d been surrounded by a group of happy and excited mothers to be.
“How far along are you?” A friendly woman next to her had asked.
“Twenty weeks,” Hannah replied with a smile.
The woman rubbed her bulging belly which as Hannah remembered was grotesquely large. She must be close to her due date, Hannah thought.
“I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I could love anything more than this little peanut inside of me.” The woman leaned closer and had lowered her voice. “Not even her father.”
Hannah laughed. It was a fake laugh, but apparently believable to the kind woman because she had laughed right along with her.
A part of Hannah hoped that she’d feel something for the child growing inside of her. She’d hoped that maybe as her pregnancy progressed, she’d grow to love another person for the first time in her life. But that didn’t happen. And towards the end of her pregnancy Hannah contemplated ripping the child from her stomach herself just to get it out of her.
Even after he was born and she held her son in her arms she still felt nothing. Her son stretched in her arms, mini limbs flailing as his tiny mouth opened to let out a yawn.
After she’d left the hospital with the infant, Hannah thought she’d try to force herself to fell some sort of attachment to the tiny human being that was half of her. But she couldn’t. Every time she looked at her boy the only thing she could think was how much better off his life would be without her.
Hannah always knew that she was hollow inside. She was a cold fish that lacked a soul, had no conscience and she never felt remorse for her actions. But she didn’t expect the empty feeling that swallowed her on a daily basis to affect the way she felt about her own child.
On the drive over, she knew she had no choice. She’d tracked down her son’s father, followed him to Minnesota, and now she sat in front of his townhouse with their son waiting for him to come home.
Hannah was pulled from her thoughts when red tail lights reflected from her right side mirror. She slid down in her seat as car doors slammed and a man and woman’s laughter echoed in the frigid night air.
She listened intensely as another door slammed and in seconds she was out of her car with the baby carrier on her arm. She climbed a set of cement steps and set the carrier down in front of a door with the address 16 Mavenhurst Drive hanging on it in gold letters. Then she reached into the pocket of her heavy fleece coat and removed an envelope and placed the letter on the chest of her infant son who was now fast asleep.
Hannah crouched down and examined the baby one last time. She brushed a finger against his round cherub cheek. Inside she wished that her experience had turned out differently. She wished that she was capable of loving her son the way a mother should. “Goodbye my beautiful boy,” she whispered.
Then Hannah rang the doorbell several times, sprinted down the cement steps, got into her car, and took off into the darkness.
Chapter 1: Inside My Head
The urges started when Adam Jacobs was ten years old. He sat on the toilet, observing as his father stood in front of the bathroom mirror, eliminating line after line of thick, white shaving cream. It reminded him of the homemade frosting his mother spread across a batch of freshly baked cupcakes.
His father brought the razor down and cleaned it off in a pool of water that rested in the sink. “You see, son,” he said as he elongated his neck, bringing the razor back to it, “this is what you’ll have to do when you become a man.”