The Ocean in the Fire

by Renee N. Meland

  Blake rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “Any idea what they were doing? Where would he be taking Drew? I’m sure he still hates him even though he saved you. That much animosity doesn’t just go away.”

  “I don’t know.” Poe moved away from the window and sat back down on her bed. She peered over the edge and for a moment watched Jackson as he slept. “I couldn’t sleep…even before the apocalypse. I guess you were right…he could sleep through a train driving through this room.” She kept her voice normal, but her insides were still shaken.

  “I hardly sleep anymore. It’s true what they say…that when you’re a parent, you never sleep again. Even when you get past the SIDs danger zone, there’s still plenty of other things to worry about.”

  “Like what?”

  Blake smiled. “Oh, just pick one. It’s amazing the stuff you can come up with as a mother.” She grabbed a toy off the floor, and put it back on a small section of shelf that Poe had cleared off for Jackson.

  “Could his father sleep?” As soon as Poe said it, she wished she could take it back. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.”

  “It’s okay.”

  A question swirled around in Poe’s mind, and she wondered if it was an appropriate one. After some thought, she decided she had already broached the subject, and she might as well continue. “It’s just…you never talk about him. Where is he?”

  “In St. John’s Cemetery.”

  Poe leaned back, the weight of that answer knocking her off balance as much as her father’s mysterious errand had, if not more. “Oh my gosh I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

  “Poe, it’s okay, really. Not many people do.” She got up and took a seat next to Poe and slid her feet under the top blanket. “His name was Julian.” A smile spread across her face. “He was going to be the best father. He was amazing. We were going to get married after he finished his second year as a cop. I had picked out the place and everything.” Poe smiled as Blake spoke, despite knowing that the story ended with a fatherless child and a wife-to-be who was married to the pain of her loss instead of the man she loved. “It was going to be in this little garden… you know the one by the community center that the kids put together? I think it was there when you guys were still around.”

  “I do remember. We went there on a field trip once.”

  “He volunteered there as part of an outreach program at the precinct. He helped every one of those kids plant a flower or a vegetable in that garden. He had such a good memory that he could have told you who planted what. His mind…if he hadn’t been a cop he would have been a fantastic lawyer.”

  “What happened to him?”

  Blake still smiled, but she wrung the sheets of Poe’s bed with her hands. “So stupid. Just a routine traffic stop. Some guy had a tail light out…and also an arrest warrant for armed robbery. When Julian was on his way back to the guy’s window after running his license through the system he opened fire.” She paused. “They left him there. On the side of the road.”

  “I’m so sorry, Blake. It’s so unfair.” They sat silently for a moment, Poe holding Blake’s hand and Blake letting her. Poe hadn’t held someone’s hand before, at least not someone who wasn’t related to her. She liked the warmth, and the closeness that it seemed to symbolize. “Do you ever…nevermind…”

  “No, what?”

  “I can’t imagine having to raise a child without his father. I think it could be the worst thing in the world. Do you ever wish you’d just never met?” She hoped Blake wouldn’t take her hand away.

  Blake nodded. “Not a day goes by where something doesn’t happen that I wish I could tell him about. The time Jackson learned to throw a ball, his first word…all of it.” Her chin trembled a bit. “There were so many nights where I would put a smile on my face for Jackson, and just ache for the minute he went to bed so that I could curl up on the couch and cry. When someone you love dies, every inch of your body physically hurts: your lungs, your muscles, every bit, inside and out. I ached every morning when I got out of bed and every night when I crawled back in, if I ever did. Sometimes I didn’t sleep at all. But there is something worse.”

  “What?”

  “To not have experienced that love at all. Even if it was only for a moment in the grand scheme of things. It’s a moment that will sustain me for the rest of my life.” Blake tucked a curl behind her ear. “He was just the best person and he still is.”

  Poe looked at her, still unsure. If the situation were reversed, Poe knew she would have crumbled long ago. Blake was somehow still standing, and it made Poe feel a weakness inside herself that she never knew was there and didn’t like one bit. She wondered if it had always been there, the story just bringing it to the surface, or if somehow the story itself placed it there. “You don’t think it would be better? You don’t think it would hurt less?”

  “Of course it would hurt less. But then there would be nothingness in its place.” Her voice started to quiver. “He was my person. And he gave me that precious little boy. I see Julian looking back at me every time I look at him. And not just his face, but his laugh, the way he loves hockey and hates vegetables. Little bits of Julian pop up right in front of me every single day.”

  Poe gave her a hug. “Thank you for telling me.”

  “Thank you for making me want to.” She sighed. “I haven’t talked about him in a long time. Seems wrong not to…I never want to stop talking about him, even if it hurts. It hurts not to.” Blake got up and crawled back into her sleeping bag.

  Something stirred inside Poe that night. Like the weakness she had already felt, she could never be sure whether it had always been buried or if it had just been born after hearing Blake’s struggle. All she was certain of was that she wanted to experience love, the kind that Blake was talking about: the all-consuming, makes life worth living kind of love that buries itself in your soul and never lets go.

  And she knew she would never be able to do it if she stayed at the compound.

  She was about to talk to Blake about it if she was awake, and purposely wake her up if she wasn’t. But a loud sound from outside let her know that it would have to wait, and the multiple sets of headlights slowing to a stop in the driveway let her know that things were about to change forever.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  DREW

  The day Drew found out about Kate Holloway’s miscarriage, he was sitting on the back porch of his office, drinking a cup of herbal tea and eating the tuna sandwich that Vera had packed for him that morning. He inhaled the tea’s rich aroma of ginger and honey and held it in for a moment, letting it out slowly as he took a sip. There were little blue birds on the tea bag tag and he wondered why they had switched brands. A moment later, his nurse opened the sliding glass door, and the look on her face told him that whatever message she was about to give him couldn’t wait. He’d only seen that look on a handful of occasions, and each time had left a tear in his soul that would never heal. The thought of having to live with another made him weary. “Connor and Kate Holloway are here. They are sitting in the waiting room and won’t leave until they speak with you. I could call the police if you want.” She hesitated, and Drew waited for the other part of the news. “The wife looks a little pale.” A tingling feeling swept over Drew’s body, and somehow he knew that whatever happened during the conversation he was about to have would stick with him for the rest of his life.

  He put his lunch down on the stoop, not bothering to hide his sandwich from the birds who had been eying it the entire time he had been sitting there. As he rounded the corner and walked into the waiting room, his hands started to shake, though he wasn’t sure why. He knew in a few short moments, he would find out. “Mr. and Mrs. Holloway, what can I do for you?”

  Connor’s face was rigid. “I just wanted you to have the opportunity to face the woman whose child you murdered.”

  Drew felt the eyes of the other people in the waiting room fall upon him, and for a moment, he froze. He wondered if they would
wait for his answer to convict him, or if they had already decided he had committed the crime he was being accused of. Either way, after hearing such a thing, a part of them would always wonder. He knew he would have if he were in their position. “What on earth are you talking about? I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “Oh, you don’t remember?” Connor’s laugh sounded like that which rang through the halls of mental asylums: unbalanced and desperate. “Of course, why would you? We’re the crazy people who hide up on the mountain right? Can’t even pee on a stick correctly…” He gestured toward Kate. “Tell this woman why you didn’t give her a blood test to see if she was pregnant. Tell her that it’s your fault that she lost her baby.” He paused and gestured to his audience. “I looked it up. There’s a chemical in a pregnant woman’s body that is there very early in pregnancy, but if it’s really early, it might not show up on a urine test every time.” Facing Drew again, he said, “Why did I have to look that up, Doctor? All I did was type that into the internet, something that you should have already known. Did you know? Or did you just assume since you’re the doctor and all, you would know the answer?” He paused again, and Drew felt as if he were on trial in a court of law. Maybe he was, and the prosecutor was closing in. “Or…did you think we were crazy, so instead of relying on medical science, you relied on your own opinion?”

  Drew looked at Kate, and immediately recognized the pain that he’d only seen once during his years as a doctor. The first time, he was working as a resident, and it wasn’t his fault. This time was different, the burden falling solely on his shoulders and he felt himself break apart like the ground after an earthquake. As much as he wanted to defend himself, he knew he had to focus on Kate. He didn’t do right by her once; he would now. “Oh my God. Kate, I’m so sorry for your loss.” Even though it wasn’t professional, he reached for her hand. She pulled it away. “Please, let me take you inside so we can make sure everything’s okay with you.”

  Connor stepped between them. “Everything is most certainly not okay. And she’s not going anywhere with you.”

  Kate looked at her husband. “Connor, I need to get looked at. Just to be safe.”

  Drew watched as Connor squeezed her hands between his own. “We’ll take you somewhere else.” He glared at Drew. “We’ll have you see someone we can trust.”

  “Connor I want this to be over. I just want to get seen and then go back to the house and never talk to any of these people again.” He hesitated, but as Drew motioned for her to follow him, he stood fast and didn’t stop her.

  As he started to close the exam room, he heard Connor shouting at the other people in the waiting room. “What are you all staring at? Each one of you helped make this happen. All of you! You’re all poison. You spent your time spreading vile rumors to each other and your misguided opinion of us cost a child its life!”

  Drew motioned for Kate to sit down and he went back out to the waiting room. “Connor, please come in.” He tried to keep his voice low and steady. As he spoke, an image flashed in his mind. When he was ten, he and his father drove over a bridge on their way home from a neighboring city and saw a man standing on the edge of it, clearly thinking about jumping. Drew’s father didn’t know it, but as he tried to talk the man down, Drew had rolled down the window to listen.

  This was how Drew spoke to Connor.

  “Kate needs you. Just come with me.” His voice grew louder than he had planned. “Come with me.”

  “What’s the matter? No one here can handle hearing the truth? Typical. Or is it that you just don’t want anyone to hear what you did to our family? Is that it?

  “You’re a joke, Matthews, a joke. All these people, they may not believe me now, hell, maybe they do and don’t care. But you’re all going to pay for what you’ve done to that woman in there. You’re all children, and you’re going to find out one day just how fragile you are!”

  Drew had enough. He couldn’t have a person who was clearly not in his right mind standing in the middle of his office threatening the rest of his patients and staff. One of the other patients was a rather muscular man who Drew had known since he was young. He glanced over at him, and both men seemed to understand each other. As Drew moved toward Connor, so did he, and together, they managed to grab one arm each and push him out the door, locking it behind him. He spoke to Connor through the glass. “I will send Kate out when we are done. You’re going to have to wait out here.” He turned away, and tried not to listen to the pounding fists that echoed behind him.

  He considered calling the police, but didn’t. Maybe it was because he didn’t want to incite Connor’s rage even more than it already was. It was a small town, and Connor could find out where Drew and Vera lived very easily. He probably already knew. Or perhaps it was because somewhere deep inside him, he knew Connor was right.

  When he arrived back in his exam room, Kate was sitting in a white paper gown with her hands folded in her lap. Her wedding ring sparkled in the fluorescent light. “Was that Connor?”

  “Yes.”

  Drew assumed Kate would apologize for her husband’s behavior. She didn’t. Instead, as she stared off into some unknown space only she seemed able to see, she said, “We were going to name her Emily. After Emily Dickinson, the poet.” As he listened to her heartbeat with his stethoscope, she added. “It’s a nice name, don’t you think?”

  He willed his voice not to shake. “It’s beautiful.”

  ***

  Vera asked him why he was so quiet when he got home that night. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and what would normally make him feel better felt in that moment like she was stealing his air. He gently pushed her arms off and got up from his chair. “I don’t really want to talk about it if that’s all right.” She seemed perplexed, and he couldn’t blame her. They talked about everything, from the mundane trivialities of their daily routines, to whether their belief in God waxed and waned with the passage of time and circumstance. So to be told he didn’t want to talk about it would certainly make Vera very concerned. But despite his desire not to upset her, his mouth remained closed, and he journeyed upstairs. “I’m going to take a shower.”

  “Okay, sweetie. I’ll be up soon,” she said.

  Vera had always seen the best in him. They’d fallen in love in college: a doctor of the mind attracting the attention of a doctor of the body. He would make up friends with mental problems in order to have reasons to talk to her, and she would let him. Years later she told him she always knew. He asked her how. “No one can have that many mentally ill friends.”

  How was he supposed to tell her what had happened, he thought; especially as hard as they had tried. Vera had wanted children more than life, more than oxygen itself. So how was he to tell her that his careless mistake had cost a child its life? How would he tell her that the mother had been certain she was pregnant, only to have him tell her she was wrong? Mother’s instincts are one of the most certain, proven forces in the world. How dare he assume he knew better? What harm would it have done to just humor her and give her the blood test she had asked for? He tried to think back to that day. Was he slammed with paperwork? Were his appointments getting backed up? Had he, as Connor claimed, let the town’s prejudice against his patient make him think it was acceptable to rush her out the door? The more he tried to remember, the more he realized that it didn’t matter what had distracted him. He clenched his fist and pounded it on the grainy white tile in the shower, then cursed himself, worried that Vera would have heard it and come in the check on him. He couldn’t face her, not right then. He needed to be alone, partially to save himself, partially for his own retribution. He deserved to be punished, but he wanted to be alone as he did it.

  Tears stung his eyes as he squeezed them shut, trying to keep them in, afraid that if he started letting them go he would never stop. He slid down the wall of the shower and folded his knees up to his chest. As it became obvious that the crying was coming whether he asked it to or not, he folded his arms across his le
gs and buried his face down upon them as tightly as he could. Perhaps between the rushing water and his arms muffling the sound, Vera would stay unaware of the terrible mistake he made for just a little while longer. Then again, he knew he should have just told her right away: no amount of holding it in would hide the pain in his eyes. Even if he stuffed it down, Vera had a way of seeing it bubble over, out of the depths of his very soul. So with a heavy limbs and a heavier heart, he reached up and turned off the water, dried himself off, slipped on a t-shirt and jeans then asked Vera to join him on the window seat in their bedroom.

  Even though he was sure she knew that night would be different than any other, she appeared with a glass of white wine for each of them, just as she always did, perfectly chilled with condensation running gently down the glass. “What’s on your mind?”

  Of course, she would get directly to the point. Drew took a long sip of wine, a stall tactic to prolong his journey into the inevitable. “I made a mistake; I made a mistake and because of it, someone died.”

  Vera gently put a hand on his knee. “I’m so sorry honey. Truly.”

  He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “A baby.”

  Her face started to change. “It’s horrible of course. But please understand that in your profession, you’re not going to get it right every single time. It’s tragic, but it was going to happen at some point.” Her mouth said the correct words, but as he said the word “baby,” he noticed a slight coolness in her eyes. No matter how many niceties she came up with, no matter how much she comforted him so perfectly, he was different to her now: that baby was gone, snuffed out before it even had a chance to decide if it would be a saint or a sinner. As she reached over and squeezed his hand, giving him the most loving smile, he was certain he felt her press against his fingers just a little too hard, and he saw just the slightest strain in her cheeks. “Please, Drew; you need to get some sleep. A good night’s sleep and I’m sure you’ll see clearly in the morning.”