Life After Death: A Story of Love, Loss, and Living

by Jamie Hitchcock

  “But I have to go to class! Can’t I just have one peek?” Amara pleaded. “You haven’t let me see any of your drawings.” She scooped the pile of books into her bag and swung it over her right shoulder.

  “When it’s done,” Henry replied firmly. He closed the cover of the sketchpad. “I want to make sure it’s perfect before I show you.”

  Amara folded her arms across her chest with an exaggerated pout. “All right, fine. If you insist.”

  “Thank you.” Henry glanced at his watch. “Oh, I’ve got to get going, too. I have to get all the way across campus for my next class.” He popped up from the ground and tucked the notebook under his arm. “Dinner tonight at my place?”

  “Sound’s great. I’ll text you when I’m out of my lab.”

  Henry gently grabbed her arm and pulled her in close.

  She sealed their departure with a soft kiss on the lips and turned to cross the path toward the science building. At the door, Amara glanced back behind her to catch one last glimpse of Henry before he disappeared around the corner. She caught herself smiling foolishly. Laughing, she shook her head at her own silliness and stepped through the doorway.

  *9*

  Summer was coming to a close as the sun began its slow, orbital descent. Nathan and Cece rode in his old, red pickup truck down the windy highway along the coastline.

  Nathan slowed as he steered around a tight turn then pulled off the road onto a small strip of pavement on the edge of a cliff. A single-level brown building rested among the trees, perched halfway on the cliffside while the westward half jutted out into the treetops above the bay, supported by a network of wooden stilts.

  While modest on the outside, The Eagle’s Nest was most appropriately named for its full-length bayside windows that offered a spectacular bird’s-eye view of Bellingham Bay, as well as a real-life nest of bald eagles that had been coincidentally constructed in a treetop not fifty yards from the building. The view and fresh seafood menu combined made it a hidden treasure to the locals and birdwatchers alike.

  Nathan shut off the ignition and slid out of the driver’s seat.

  Cece waited eagerly in the passenger seat while he strolled around the hood of the truck to open her door and offer his escort. She checked her lipstick in the visor mirror one last time before happily accepting his hand. Stepping a heeled foot onto the gravel, Cece clung tightly to Nathan’s hand to keep her balance. She wore a rose pink, tight, floral dress that accentuated her condition. With her heeled sandals, she stood just about shoulder-height next to him.

  He straightened his tie and smoothed back his short brown hair before offering her his arm.

  She smiled in delight and graciously threaded her arm through his. With her other hand, she softly stroked his cheek. “You’re looking dapper,” she crooned.

  He smiled softly. Together, they stepped onto the patio in front of the restaurant.

  The light inside was dim, a combination of incandescent lamps and fading sunlight. Far below on the coastline, a cluster of sailboats bobbed in the surf. The towering bare masts resembled the bony ribs of a sea creature cresting lazily out of the water. Fresh air blew through a small opening in the lofty windows, billowing the floor-length organza curtains.

  Cece fretted over her hair in the breeze, tucking the loose strands back into the bun at the base of her neck. “Do you think they could close the windows?” she asked. “It’s so windy.”

  “It’ll be fine,” he assured her. He put his arm around her waist and led her to the table, giving her the seat closest to the wall before taking his own.

  They indulged themselves with a full three-course meal. Cece ordered the calamari to start, but being plagued by morning sickness well into her second trimester, became nauseated by the smell and sent it back. She settled for a bowl of tomato soup instead. Nathan ordered a hamburger.

  They sat in comfortable silence most of the meal, either staring out at the bay or enjoying their food, occasionally commenting on one or the other. Conversation had never been a strength in their relationship. It wasn’t that either of them was reserved so much as they just didn’t have many common matters to discuss. Their initial attractions had been of a more physical nature, and any shared interests were thoroughly exhausted within the first few months of dating.

  “Do you remember that tree fort in my back yard?” Cece asked dreamily as she stirred her soup, her attention clearly elsewhere.

  “Of course I do,” replied Nathan. “What about it?”

  “I was just thinking, wouldn’t it be nice to have one for our kid? We used to have so much fun playing in it, remember? I’d pretend to be a princess and you would come save me.”

  “Yes, I remember. You always used to make up some other dragon or monster I had to slay before I could rescue you. It’s a miracle I finally got to you at all.”

  Nathan reached across the table to hold her left hand resting on the table. He caressed the back of her hand affectionately with his thumb. With his other hand he signaled to the server for a round of drinks.

  On cue, the waiter brought two glasses of sparkling golden liquid, champagne for Nathan and cider for Cece.

  “Cecelia, I can’t even begin to describe to you the feelings I’ve had these past few months. Everything’s been happening so fast, but maybe that’s what I needed. Sometimes, I think I get stuck trying to figure out what to do next. I’ve been stuck for a while ...”

  Cece raised her eyebrows in anticipation.

  “No, I don’t think that came out right,” Nathan corrected. “What I mean to say is, you’ve given me something to move forward toward, our little sea monkey inside of you.”

  Cece bit her lip to contain her laughter. Afraid her reaction would startle him, she stifled it quickly and urged him to continue.

  Setting a small box on the table, he proceeded, “I want us to be a family, all of us, with a treehouse and everything. And I want you to be my wife. Will you marry me?”

  Tears welled in Cece’s eyes and she allowed them to flow freely as they streamed down her face. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. In fear of him withdrawing his offer without an immediate response, she nodded vigorously in reply. He pulled the square-cut diamond ring from the box and pushed it onto her finger. She grabbed him by the neck, pulling him close enough to kiss him passionately on the lips.

  When he closed his eyes, Nathan only saw one thing: their little baby wrapped in blue.

  When they parted, Nathan immediately felt the energy in the room buzzing with excitement. An older lady from the couple at the neighboring table leaned across the aisle to congratulate Cece and admire her ring. The lady’s husband extended an arm to Nathan and clapped him with a firm handshake. A perky young waitress appeared at their table with a complimentary slice of cheesecake. She cleared the other plates slowly, admiring Cece’s diamond from as many angles as possible. Nathan sat back and admired Cece’s radiant beauty as she basked in the attention.

  Autumn

  *10*

  Henry was planning a surprise for Amara. A few weeks back, Amara had confided in him her secret desire to learn how to salsa dance, so he planned to surprise her with a private lesson in a studio downtown this Sunday afternoon. Henry also knew she didn’t really like surprises, but he enjoyed challenging her sometimes. He loved everything about Amara: her laugh, the way she wrinkled her nose when she was thinking, and how she challenged him. He even loved her neuroses, like how she always insisted on driving even though she hated it because she hated being stuck in the passenger seat even more, except on Henry’s motorcycle. He took a certain degree of pride in her sense of security on his bike. He didn’t have the courage to express his feelings to her just yet, but he was fairly confident she felt the same about him.

  It was the first of September, and campus would be opening again in a few weeks. Soon, Amara would be back to her studies, and she definitely wouldn’t be as amused by a surprise dance lesson then. Henry admired her studiousness, bu
t he’d already learned in their short time together that she tended to become deeply absorbed in her work, so he was going to make the most of their last few weeks of freedom before classes captured all of her attention again.

  Since the lesson didn’t start for a couple hours still, Henry decided to make some food before taking a quick nap. He hadn’t been sleeping well lately, probably from the heat. He pulled some leftover lasagna from the fridge and tossed it in the microwave. As much as he hated to admit it, sometimes it wasn’t so bad living close to home, especially when his mom brought him homemade lasagna.

  When the timer beeped, he retrieved his warm food and padded over to sit at the small bench seat by the window. His single-bedroom apartment was technically the third floor of an old Victorian-style house that the owner had converted into three separate units. The kitchen clearly originated as a small bedroom, which left minimal room for a seating area once the appliances and cupboards were installed. Therefore, he ate most of his meals perched on the makeshift window seat above the radiator. He rather liked this spot, though. It was always warm, and he could see nearly all of the downtown square in Bellingham from behind the glass.

  With a full belly, Henry lay down on the couch to rest. The small room was warm with the afternoon sun, but a light breeze from the open window cut through the stagnation. He let his eyelids fall shut. Little glowing dots remained in the dark, tracers from the light on the other side of the shades.

  Suddenly, the dots began to swirl. His head lolled back. Snapping his eyes open, he draped his foot onto the floor to ground himself, but the spinning wouldn’t stop. His stomach roiled. He was going to be sick.

  Springing off the sofa, Henry darted down the hall to the bathroom just in time to fling the toilet seat up and expel the contents of his stomach, over and over again, until red sauce dripped from his nostrils. He wiped it away with the back of his hand.

  “Damn it!” he swore aloud.

  An hour later, Henry still couldn’t make it past the threshold of the bathroom without becoming violently ill all over again. By this point there was nothing left to regurgitate, but that didn’t stop his body from trying. His ears rang, and his vision wavered.

  He tried crawling from the bathroom, thinking he might make it farther if he remained somewhat horizontal, but only made it an arm’s-length into the hall before immediately recoiling. Dance class was entirely out of the question.

  Over the next hour, Henry tried obstinately to leave the reeking bathroom, just to reach his cellphone, which he’d left on the kitchen counter, but failed repeatedly. Every time he was called back by the threatening nausea whenever he moved.

  Eventually, he retreated to rest in a fetal position with his back pressed against the cool wall of the tub. Closing his eyes offered minor relief, but the pressure behind his left temple was throbbing. He drifted into a fitful sleep.

  *11*

  Cecelia had complained loudly and incessantly about not wanting to be a “fat bride,” which meant that the wedding would be postponed until after the baby arrived, against adamant objections from the Newman household. Nathan’s parents, being of strong Christian background, had voiced their opinions on the matter of his child’s impending damnation on more than one occasion.

  On this particular Sunday in early September, Nathan was trapped in the car with his mom as she dragged him to volunteer at the food bank. The air inside the car was stuffy, filled with a noxiously odorous air freshener. His mom took full advantage of his predicament, being trapped in a car speeding down the highway. She even refused to let him roll down the windows lest the noisy breeze compete with her sermon.

  With a casual tone, she began. “I saw the most darling wedding dress the other day in a store window, with a poofy skirt, like a princess would wear. Cecelia would look beautiful in it. And I bet the puffiness would even conceal her belly.”

  Nathan rolled his eyes. Here we go, he thought.

  “I bet she would love to hear all about your idea to make her look less pregnant by adding ‘poof.’” Nathan threw his fingers up in air quotes to emphasize the ridiculousness of his mother’s poorly worded proposition. “She’s six months pregnant. No amount of poof is going to hide it now.”

  His mom pressed on. “Well, I’m sure we can find her something that would work. The longer we wait, the bigger she is going to get. I still think we could get Pastor Geoff to do a short ceremony at the church if we asked him. Or maybe at the yacht club? That would be a nice view in front of the bay.”

  “We’ve already made a plan. We’re going to wait until after the kid comes. We have a venue and everything. And Cece already has a dress. Why can’t you guys just let it be? You wanted me to be more responsible. Well, here I am trying to take charge and make a plan, and everything I do is wrong. It’s not the end of the world if we don’t get married before the baby is born.”

  “Maybe it’s not the end of the world, but it’s going to affect your child for the rest of its life. You know full well our pastor won't baptize the baby if you two aren’t married.”

  There it was, the same tired argument they’d been having for a month now.

  “I don’t care about that. What my kid decides to do, or think, or believe will be up to him. If the church isn’t willing to accept a newborn baby without a wedding, then fine, we don’t need it. Maybe he decides to be baptized later. That's fine too. Maybe he wants to be a Buddhist, whatever.” Nathan wrinkled his brow, wondering what he would do if his kid actually decided to be a monk.

  Sylvia’s head snapped to him, focusing her stare so long that Nathan thought she might crash the car. “Him?” she asked pressingly. “It’s a boy? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  The intensity of her tone startled him back into reality.

  “What? No, I don’t actually know what it is. That just came out. You know Cece and I decided to wait to find out, after that first ultrasound when they couldn’t really tell. And then Cece kind of liked not knowing. We want to be surprised.” Nathan’s eyes drifted to the blur of trees lining the highway.

  “But how will people know what to get you for gifts?” Sylvia started to argue but changed her mind directly. That was a conversation for another time. She’d save that discussion for the car ride home.

  She retreated to the original argument. “Whatever. That’s not the point. You are gambling with your child’s soul. It’s bad enough that you and Cece are in this mess. I thought we taught you better, but now you are going to deliver this baby in sin. How do you expect it to turn out?” Her voice was tight with alarm.

  “Mom, it’s not a big deal. I get that you guys believe in it, and that’s fine, but you have to see the hypocrisy here. We are on our way to volunteer, for God’s sake!”

  Sylvia flashed him a warning look.

  “And you’re going on about condemning and rejecting my unborn child because Cece and I aren’t married yet. Whatever happened to loving all of God’s children? How can you show compassion for these random strangers at the food bank, but you can’t give a little to my family?”

  “You can’t judge the poor and hungry,” Sylvia said resolutely. “They didn’t choose to be that way.”

  “Neither did my kid,” Nathan said firmly.

  Her voice lowered tensely. “No, that’s true. You made that choice for him.”

  Nathan chewed on that thought for a while. Her argument wasn’t wrong. But what it really came down to was Nathan’s belief in the church, or more specifically, his doubt. He believed in God, or something like God at least, but he had less faith in the church. Why would he resign his child to an institution that would judge him for something beyond his control?

  “I am giving him – I mean ‘it’ – the choice. Whatever it is, I will let it decide for itself,” Nathan argued obstinately. He stared resolutely through the windshield.

  His mother huffed her disapproval but didn’t say anything else on the matter, for now.

  After another painfully tense ten minutes, Sylvi
a cautiously steered her little hybrid sedan into the parking lot, choosing the space closest to the entrance. They climbed the few concrete stairs, passing a small line of waiting families. Most were young mothers from nearby agricultural communities whose large families used up every penny of their low wages. The irony of their situation, having worked countless hours collecting food for others while earning little for themselves, was not lost on Nathan. He watched as the women organized themselves along the wall, many of them wrangling infants and toddlers in their wake. A little boy with large brown eyes peered up at him from behind his mother’s leg, unblinking. Nathan gave him a half-hearted wave.

  For the next few hours, Nathan was relegated to restocking the non-perishables while his mother greeted each family and processed them by size and grocery needs. He watched as she smiled measuredly to each customer, flipping her big hair out of her face between transactions. Nathan sighed. Carrying box after box, he stalked back and forth down the aisles of pasta, canned vegetables, chips, soups, and instant mashed potatoes.

  A dreadfully long hour passed, then another. After daring a glance at his watch, Nathan rolled his eyes. He was supposed to be here for another two hours. He scanned the shelves up and down, undiscerningly. There were no gaping holes in the display, which he deemed worthy of a small reward. Stealthily, Nathan slipped through the plastic flaps that hung in front of the doorway to the rear storage area.

  Out back, Nathan sat down on the ledge of the loading dock and pulled a flask from his inside jacket pocket. He took a long pull. An involuntary shudder coursed through him. Across the street, some kids were organizing a game of pick-up soccer in a field behind the high school. He watched them as they played, yelling and laughing as they ran back and forth down the field, free from any expectations beyond the rules of the game. He chuckled as one of the boys did a lively victory dance after an impressive shot.

  “Goal,” Nathan said in a slow drawl under his breath.