Chapter Ten: "Memory Lane: Closed for Repairs"

 

Chapter Ten: “Memory Lane: Closed for Repairs”

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            I opened my eyes and felt the soft bed underneath me. A smile came unbidden to my face as I turned to my right and looked at the beautiful brunette woman lying next to me. Lilith… Her name was Lilith, and she was tied for the most beautiful thing in my life.

            Her competition was in the crib on the other side of our room in our modest apartment. I got up out of the bed, careful not to wake its other occupant, and walked over to gaze down into the crib at our beautiful little angel; our beautiful little Maggie. She had curly blonde hair, from her mother’s side of the family, the cutest little nose I had ever seen, and was altogether the most beautiful little 5 month old girl anyone had ever seen. And that was more than just parental pride there. It was just plain fact.

            I spent a few moments gazing at her sleeping form, making extra certain that her breathing was regular and strong. I knew that worrying over a sleeping child would only stress the parent out, but I just couldn’t help but to make sure our beautiful angel didn’t go back to heaven early.

            I left the bedroom and went into the small kitchen and started up a pot of coffee. As I moved about the kitchen, I heard the sounds of shifting floorboards coming from the bedroom. I smiled, as it seemed that Lilith had awakened finally and would soon be joining me, right after she made her own check on Maggie.

            I was just pouring two cups of coffee, plenty of sugar and creamer for her, just creamer for me, when I heard something that froze my heart so cold that I wasn’t sure if it would ever thaw out again.

            “Leo! It’s Maggie! She’s…She’s not breathing!”

            The cups of coffee hit the floor, the hot brown liquid creeping its way across the tile floor as I raced to the bedroom, already knowing the future in my heart.

           

            The doctors said it wasn’t our faults. They said there was nothing that we could have done differently or any better. They said it was SIDS. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome claimed the life of about one out of every five hundred infants. They said there were no warning signs, no hereditary factors, nothing that would have told us that our little angel would get her wings so soon.

            That didn’t make the pain in our hearts any less.

            After the memorial, Lilith stopped going to her job at the daycare center where she worked. She said that she couldn’t look at another child’s face without imagining Maggie’s in its place. She took to sitting in the floor by the crib clutching a picture of Maggie in her cutest outfit to her chest in the early evening to early morning hours.

            Soon that’s where she stayed all the time, day in day out.

            I continued my new job as a paramedic in Huntsville. Someone had to pay the bills and keep food on the table, although I couldn’t coax Lilith to the table to eat. I would occasionally be able to bring her a sandwich or something and she would wash it down with a glass of water, and go right back to grieving. I comforted her when I could, but mostly she was as gone from this world as Maggie was.

            And I hated her for it.

            I knew it was wrong and selfish of me, but I was growing angrier with her with each passing day. I was angry that I couldn’t grieve the way my heart was crying out for me to. I had to make sure Lilith ate, slept occasionally, and basically stayed alive, since she lost all of her own will to continue living. I loved her with all my heart, I really did, but my heart was crying for its own mourning.

            One day I came home from work on my lunch break, and went about making two sandwiches in the kitchen; one for my lunch, and one for Lilith, if she would have it. I was mostly done, and decided to add some tomatoes to the sandwiches as the finishing touch. I grabbed a whole tomato from the fridge, and opened a drawer underneath the cutting board. We only had one knife that worked well for cutting vegetables, and it was a fair sized knife, very sharp and handy. It was also missing. Without thinking, I called out to Lilith.

            “Honey! Have you seen the good kni-?”

            The ice around my heart just refroze over in that instant. I began to walk through the apartment towards the bedroom. I opened the door and looked around. I didn’t see Lilith on the ground by the crib. I did, however, hear the sound of running water from the bathroom attached to our room. Normally I would be overjoyed by this apparent sign of recovery, but I just had a bad feeling. I slowly walked up to the door and, taking a deep breath, opened the door.

            The first thing that assaulted my senses was the color pink. Now, if our bathroom had been decorated in this color, then that would have been fine. However, that, couple with the coppery scent in the air and the pink water creeping around my feet told me the truth of what happened.

            There in the bath tub she laid, still clutching the picture of Maggie in her best outfit, only this time her hand and now the frame was stained in a deep crimson color. I was hoping against hope that I was wrong in my assumptions until I saw the knife I was previously looking for laying discarded on the floor right by the bath tub, its edge also stained crimson.

            I sank to my knees, letting the pink water soak my pants. I began to sob as the feelings assaulted me. Sadness…Guilt…And the final one, which I think was the worse of all…

            Emptiness.

 

            One week after the funeral found me lying in my bed, silent and feeling as empty as a black hole. The next week was kind of an improvement. I was on the couch that week, with a couple of bottles of whiskey lined up next to me from my brave outing back into the cruel, harsh world. The following days, or weeks, were all a blur to me. I slept when I passed out from either exhaustion or alcohol, and paid little attention to bodily needs unless it was very dire. I might have gotten alcohol poisoning a couple of times. I’m not entirely sure.  But I am pretty sure that at that point in time, I really didn’t give a damn.

            One day, I was sitting there, wasting away like I had done the previous God-knows-how-many-days, and felt the faint stirrings of hunger. I was probably actually starving, but I was too drunk to really, truly acknowledge it. I didn’t really feel like moving from the couch, the chosen place of wasting, so I scanned the immediate area searching for anything edible, even though I was pretty sure I wouldn’t find anything within easy reach.

            Aha! I cried out in glee. Or at least I tried to. What came out of my mouth at that moment was a cross between a burp and plain nonsense. But it didn’t matter! On the table was a fortune cookie left over from some Chinese takeout I ordered before the closest place asked me not to place any more orders after I threw up on the last delivery person. I reached over and grabbed the tiny package. Somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind, (you know, the part that was still sober), I knew that the little confectionary treat wouldn’t sate my hunger, but I cared not. I tore the weak plastic that was keeping the cookie from the outside and ultimately, my stomach. I popped the treat into my mouth and chewed it for a moment. As I tried to swallow, I noticed something was sticking to my tongue. Blinking, I pulled the offending object out of my mouth. I then remembered that fortune cookies come with fortunes. I straightened the moist paper out and tried to read it. This took a while since my vision was dancing all around. Eventually I made out the message.

            Your life is the question. What is your answer?

            I blinked a couple of times, and said the first intelligent thing in the past month.

            “Oh s**t… What have I been doing?”

            I gave one final burp, and stumbled to my feet. I knew what I had to do, and it involved water in two major ways. A lot of it to drink, to sober up as quickly as possible, and a lot of it to wash off all the filth and grime that tended to accumulate from just sitting on the couch for days on end. I needed to see if I still had my paramedic job, and I needed to get on with my life. I gave one final whispered apology.

            “I’m sorry Maggie. I’m sorry Lilith. I won’t waste the opportunity to answer on the wrong one.”

            And with that, I began to clean myself, my apartment, and my life up.

            And that’s when I woke up…

2:35 p.m.

            “Urgh,” I said, raising up and clutching my head. As I was waiting for the pain in my head to recede, I looked around at my surroundings to try to remember what happened. Seeing two cops and an EMT standing around, I remembered what happened with the scared kid. I instantly felt of my chest, trying to feel where the bullet penetrated. To my surprise, my shirt wasn’t even torn. Upon further inspection of the surrounding concrete, I saw the phonebook I had been lugging around all day lying there with a hole in it. Seeing that I was awake, the EMT came over and kneeled down next to me.

            She was a young brown haired lady with highlights done just right, and of a medium height. Her hazel eyes looked me up and down one more time, checking for injuries like I knew any good EMT would.

            “Hey, Mr. Garcia. My name is Tabitha Bishop. Some punk tried to shoot you and in a weird stroke of luck, that phonebook you were carrying was between you and the bullet. How are you feeling?”

            I thought about her question for a moment. My head and chest really hurt, but I would live. However, that dream…Or memory rather, was what hit me hard. So I just nodded to her and stood up.

            “Yes, I am, Ms. Bishop. Do you know if the authorities were able to catch the kid?”

            She shook her head in response.

            “No. He was long gone before anyone came to investigate the gunshot. The boys in blue over there wanted you to give your statement once I gave you a clean bill of health. I’d suspect you’d be sore for a while, but other than that, have fun with those stiffs!”

            She gave me a playful wink and left to get back into the ambulance she had arrived in. Once she was gone and I felt like I could handle more policemen, I walked up to them and began to give them the story.

Reviews

[Emily In Disguise]

Oh wow... Kurt, this is really good. Love it.