She had just walked out the door, and the room was rendered silent by her absence.
Silent except for the steady beeping of the heart monitor attached to Brad. That was a noise I loved; his steadily beating heart.
When I looked at his face, a thousand emotions flooded into my brain at once.
While his face was so serene, torment ran through every fiber of my being.
His breathing was even. His chest rose and fell with long breaths and when I bent in low, I’d close my eyes as I felt it fan my face, so happy I still had him with me.
His eyelids fluttered, and I stopped breathing for a moment.
I silently prayed, please this time.
Please God this time.
And as if my prayers were answered, he slowly opened his eyes. He briefly stared at the ceiling, then closed his eyes tightly. I sat staring like an idiot as his thick black lashes fluttered again, and I could see he was trying to focus. I watched his pupils slowly get bigger and then shrink.
Sensing his discomfort, I jumped up and rushed over to the windows, quickly closing each blind, casting the room into semi-darkness.
Then walked back to my chair and sat up straight, my eyes never leaving his face. There was a stiffness in my spine that I attributed to the great amount of tension I’d been under, and the uncomfortable chair I’d spent the better part of the past four days sitting in.
His lids fluttered again. But this time, this time, they opened. His piercing blue eyes slowly scanned the room. I watched him, as though in a trance. He turned and they slowly settled on me. I kept looking at his pupils opening and closing, slowly trying to focus on me.
“Hey babe.” He mumbled somewhat incoherently. His voice was gravelly and thick.
I let out a muffled gasp and my hand slapped over my mouth as quick as silver. I remembered that that was also something my father used to say.
“Bradley?” I whispered. Knowing he most likely had the headache from hell, so I tried to hold back my excitement.
“Sarah.” The sound passed through his lips so softly. It was like a song. I closed my eyes briefly wishing we could be away from here, far away.
“I’m here. I’ve got your hand. Do you feel me?” I asked. The creaking sound that left my throat was more of a choking sound than my actual voice.
“I feel you.” He murmured, then stillness. His chest rose and fell in even breaths once again and I sat back, despondent. I wanted him to wake up. There was so much I wanted to tell him. I needed to apologize for so much. I needed to know I would have a chance to make him love me again, like he used to. I wanted to tell him how sorry I was for letting that man into our lives.
I sat and waited for hours, wanting, no, needing more. I don’t know when, but sometime during the night I fell asleep in the chair. My arms rested on the edge of the bed ready, poised for any movement. I was bent over, my head laying on the edge of the mattress.
“Sarah.” His voice was clear, lucid.
I slowly opened my eyes.
His fingers reached for me and grazed my face. Within seconds wetness from my tears cascaded down my face.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
“I’m here, Brad.”
“Is the baby okay?”
At first I didn’t think I’d heard him right. I shook my head, trying to clear away the cobwebs of sleep.
“Brad. I’m okay.” I thought he must be delirious. I reached out and held my hand over his brow and was happy to find his skin was cool under my hand. Damp, but cool.
“Thank God.” He whispered, his voice craggy and coarse. “Is she okay?”
I was so confused. He woke me in the middle of the night and I wasn’t prepared to answer questions that came from a mind under siege.
I looked at him, dumbfounded. Thinking he must be referring to someone else.
“Is who okay, Brad?” I asked him.
“The baby.”
Those two words had the power to knock me over.
“What baby? Brad, it’s me, Sarah.” I was sure he was confused.
“Our baby.”
My whole body went numb taking my brain cells hostage.
“When you fell, did you lose the baby?” he rambled.
I choked back a sob.
I was trying hard to come to grips with the fact that he too may lose his memory. I knew the brain was a mysterious organ all too well.
I was prepared, to some extent, that he too would be missing parts of himself, and may sound a bit weird and more than a little confused.
What a pair we made the two of us.
I almost laughed out loud.
“Shhh Brad, you just need to rest, everything will be okay. Just sleep. I’ll be right here.” I said reassuringly, rubbing his forehead, then his face.
Four days of stubble had grown in and I got a glimpse of what he would look like with facial hair. I smiled a bit as I ran my fingers over the growth. I was so lucky to have a man who would look gorgeous no matter what. Facial hair, shaving his head; no matter what, this man would look just as perfect.
I leaned in and kissed his warm lips as I have done countless times since he’d been brought here. They were a little chapped so I opened my ‘lucky’ Chapstick and slowly ran it along his lips. Then to make sure it penetrated, I kissed him again. There was little else I could do but wait. I was getting good at the waiting. And praying, holy cow, I was praying so much God himself must be saying ‘Jesus Christ’.
I watched his chest rise and fall steadily and sat back down in the chair, preparing myself for another four to five hour haul before I saw him open his eyes again. Praying…sorry God…that the next time he’d wake up for good.
I knew the doctors said this would happen. I knew I was supposed to remain patient until his body healed itself. I shuddered to think how many days and nights he spent at my bedside just hoping I would open my eyes.
I suddenly remembered his words.
Baby?
Where would he get that idea from?
I shook my head as I stretched my arms above my shoulders. I was getting stiff from sitting so long, so I stood and walked over to the window.
It would be light out soon. I glanced back at Brad as I tried hard to fight off tears that I knew were just waiting to spill, mostly due to stress and anger. I wish I could just cry one big cry and get it the hell out of me.
I looked a mess and I didn’t care. The only thing I wanted now was to have Brad back again, to his normal self. I needed him and it scared the hell out of me not knowing whether or not he wanted me back.
Baby?
I thought for a few seconds, trying once again to put together a puzzle that I couldn’t visualize in my mind. I hated that I wasn’t able to remember my life. I didn’t know the joys, the sadness…the emptiness.
Emptiness?
I suddenly remembered a conversation I had overheard.
Okay—a conversation I eavesdropped on.
“She’ll come around soon enough Mr. Brad.”
“That’s what I’m worried about.”
“Why would you be worrying about such a thing?”
“I’m just afraid if she finds out what really happened…”
“I’m sure you’re getting yourself all worked up over nothing. She’ll remember it the way she should.”
“Neither you nor I want her to remember everything.”
Remember what?
What in God’s good name where they talking about?
My curiosity overruled any good judgment I might have had and I walked back over to Brad’s bed. Before I could think it through, I gently shook his heavily sleeping body.
“Brad?” I whispered.
His eyes moved and slowly opened.
“Was I pregnant when I fell?” I know it was totally out of left field, but I had to know. Of course I realized my method was a bit unorthodox and this was the last thing that Brad needed to hear.
“Brad?” I said again, close to his ear.
“Yes. Is the baby okay?” He admitted.
I stood up straight as a rail and my body went numb.
I was pregnant when I fell.
I…I was pregnant when I fell?
That is what Terry and Brad were talking about when I overheard—listened in—on their conversation.
“Oh, Bradley. I’m so sorry.” I wailed softly and began weeping. Each tear representing something I lost. My memory, Brad’s love and trust, a baby I don’t remember anything about. A baby I would never get to hold and love. How many more hurdles was I expected to jump?
I was overwhelmed with pain and sorrow, all due to the choices I made.
“Sarah.” Brad’s voice startled me and I turned to face him.
One look in his eyes told me he too felt the pain of our loss.
“I’m so sorry.” I sobbed.
“Don’t be. We can try again.” He gritted his teeth, looking very much in pain. I know his head must surely be pounding, but there was another kind of pain, one he felt in his heart, “I love you, Sarah.”
You know how many hurdles? As many as it takes!
I gave into the wave of emotion that just washed over me.
“I love you too.” I said between sobs.
I lowered my head to his and kissed his full lips, as my tears ran down onto his face mixing with his own.
“I hoped you wouldn’t remember.” His voice was weak.
“I don’t, but I do feel an emptiness inside.” I unconsciously placed my hands over my belly. “Do we know what it was?” I asked, knowing the answer would not make the pain greater or less.
“A girl.” He whispered.
A few more tears ran down the side of his face onto the pillow below and my heart broke for us both. We had been through so much. I leaned in and kissed the small trail they left behind.
“I want us to get married right away. I want to have your babies. Lots of ‘em. I want us to be happy from now until forever.” I wiped the tears from my face. “I love you, Bradley Hunter.” Feeling my smile return with my declaration.
He smiled along with me.
“Sarah, all I want is to love you for the rest of my life.”
“Then you shall.” I professed.
I heard him chuckle lightly.
“What?”
“I love that you are still corny.”
Epilogue
To my relief, Bradley was released five days later. He was very lucky. The brass sculpture, used as a weapon to hit him over the head, didn’t crack his skull. It did, however, give him a severe concussion. He also suffered a tremendous amount of blood loss.
He was back to work less than two weeks after getting out of the hospital.
We were married six weeks later. It was actually like watching an old comedy, something like a Marx Brothers movie, seeing my mother totally frazzled trying to make all the arrangements in the short time allowed, but the wedding turned out quite beautiful.
“Missy…you are soooo lucky I love you to death.”
“Mother…” that was beginning to sound more normal to me, “it was Brad’s idea, but I concurred.”
“You concurred? Since when did you get to sounding so pompous?”
I loved it! It was like I had the chance to redevelop a relationship with my mother as most infants do, when I was an adult. It was a strange twist on the ‘norm’ but I loved it nonetheless.
“I don’t know.”
We both laughed until our sides hurt.
It was a simple ceremony and the reception small, consisting of our close friends, and immediate family.
Afterwards we surprised my mother with good news for a change. We were pregnant and expecting our first baby in seven and a half months. Brad was beside himself with pride,
And me…
I couldn’t be more pleased with my ‘new’ life. I had a wonderful mother, the most perfect man madly in love with me and a little one on the way. I still don’t remember much since the accident. There are times when I get flashes of a vision or remember a certain phrase, but I stopped trying so hard to get back a life I couldn’t remember and began to focus my attention on enjoying the life I was lucky enough to be living. It was all about the quality of life to me now. I figured I should leave the past where it belonged, in the past.
It was strangely freeing.
The one bummer to my fairytale life is that I don’t remember how to do my job, and I wasn’t willing to go back to school and get another degree, so I ended up selling my business to the three architects I had working for me. It was rewarding to know that I was really good at it at one time, but with the baby coming, Brad and I both decided it would be in our family’s best interest if I stayed home full time to raise our child, and possible future children.
True to his word, Brad made me fall in love with him all over again. He brought me bouquets of daisies and took me regularly to the Connecticut farm to visit Jez.
My Jezebel. My sweet, sweet Jezebel. The doctor said I would be able to ride her again, but advised against jumping. Whereas in the past that would have bothered me, I now had reasons to stay safe.
Paul Anderson, known as Kevin O’Shea to me, who had killed three women had finally met the justice he deserved. Unfortunately, Mary Elizabeth Walker, Julia Robbins, and Tanya Richards-Green would never know their murders were avenged. Three innocent women, who had wanted nothing more than someone who would love them for who they were.
I pray for them each and every night.
There was a short time where I thought I might be facing criminal charges, for that son-of-a-bitches murder, but it was ruled as self-defense. And the fact that I didn’t technically kill him, the detective did. I guess between the bodies that were found in the basement, and their personal items, which were found in the boxes he collected, it was pretty clear what his intention for me would ultimately be.
And as I sit in my grandmother’s rocking chair in the bedroom we just converted into a nursery, I rubbed my growing belly, loving every kick and jab I felt. It is indeed a miracle to have a life grow inside you. This baby would have two parents that loved it more than either of us can describe.
We are truly blessed to have one another, memory or not.
The End
Ever, Sarah Page 24
