by Amo Jones
I smirk, and then rock myself over him, his cock bulging through his slacks. He flips me over and I scream as he dives on top of me. I use my feet in attempt to push the waist of his slacks down as he flicks open his button. The sound of his zipper dropping singing through the silence.
He sucks my nipple into his mouth and I groan, grinding against him.
Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.
The next morning, I roll over to Nate who is sleeping with his arm slung over his eyes. I peek under the sheet, getting a better look at his tattoos when Micaela starts stirring in her crib. I stand, throwing on my tank and some panties before tossing my hair into a messy bun.
“Good morning, baby girl!” I beam at her. Her little face lights up like I’m her very own angel. Her small lips stretch wide over her gums giving me the most beautiful smile ever. That looks like her father’s. Picking her up, I bring her back to the bed, laying her on the covers.
Nate rolls over sleepily and grins. “Is that my girl?”
His arm hooks around Micaela, and he squeezes her into his chest. My heart explodes with emotion, so I quickly reach for my phone, snapping a range of photos. These memories might fade one day, and I don’t want to forget them if they do.
“You feeling better today?” I ask when Nate has rubbed his eyes and is clearly awake.
“Yeah.” He clears his throat. “I’ll go see Hector today and see what last night was about. Sorry about flipping out on you, it’s just when it comes to you and her, I won’t take any chances.”
“Nate,” I sigh, shaking my head. “I love that you would do that for her—”
“—and you…”
I smile, trying to ignore how that makes me feel. When you’ve wanted someone and something for so long, when it finally happens, the feeling is surreal. “And me. But this is your world. Your family.”
He shakes his head. “Baby, if they come for you or her, they will no longer be any of those things. In fact, they’ll be my enemies.”
That scares me. Not because I know Nate can’t hold his own, because God knows he can, but this is The Kings. There’s no way.
“Okay,” I answer instead, keeping my frantic thoughts to myself. “Well, maybe call Hector, and you can see him later tonight? I sort of want us to have a family day today. You know, since we haven’t had one of those yet.”
A lazy smile spreads over his face. “Yeah, I’d like that. Give me a second.” Reaching for his phone, I pick Micaela up and take her into the bathroom to change her. He’s still on the phone when I enter the bedroom, but he’s not being hostile, so I take it as a good sign.
“Yeah, good,” he murmurs, and then hangs up the phone.
The truth is, I don’t know what he and I are, or where this is going, but over the last twenty-four hours, there has been progress. So I’m going to go with it and see where that takes us.
“What’s the plan, do you have one or had you not thought that far ahead?” Nate asks, taking Micaela from me and heading into the kitchen to feed her.
“I hadn’t, but I’m sure we can think of something.” Normal. I want one normal day.
The day goes rather quickly. Nate decided to take her to a small beach that his mom used to take him to as a young boy. He just couldn’t resist himself when we walked past a Tiffany & Co store and purchased a little silver charm bangle for Michaela. Her first of many, was his exact words. We snapped a whole bunch of photos and even went as far as to burying Nate in the sand with Micaela next to him sprawled out on a towel, laughing. Her eyes are always on her daddy, and his on her. Their bond is something indescribable. Unmovable. After the beach, we went to get ice cream and Nate fed her up on a whole bunch of sugar and food that no child her age should be having. It’s sundown and Micaela is yawning when we finally head home. Taking the steps two at a time, Nate’s hand touches mine just as I’m entering the pool house.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” I answer back, searching his eyes. I saw Nate today. Really saw him, in his element with our daughter, and it was a beautiful thing.
His fingers graze my cheek. “I might be out late, but I’ll come in in the morning.”
I smile, knowing that this is probably the closest I’ve ever felt to him. I want to wrap this feeling around me and keep it forever. “Okay.”
He leaves, after kissing me and Micaela on the lips and I get busy with her bath. I put some random playlist through the sound dock and wash her up, dressing her in nice warm pajamas. When it’s time for her to go to bed, I pull out a children’s book that I found in the closet. The worn crinkled edges exhibit the age. I’m guessing over one-hundred years.
“Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies…”
Minutes later, I’m lost in the story when I hear Micaela snoring softly, her body limp. I take this time to twirl one of her curls around my finger, smiling down at her. She may have come unexpectedly, and her father and I may battle like War and Peace, but if everything I have lived through would bring me to this very moment, I would go through it over and over again just to have her in my arms, like this, snoring her sweet little head off. With my heart full and my legs throbbing from our long day, I gently tuck her into bed and press a few too many kisses on her warm forehead, closing my eyes as her soft inhale and exhale of breaths mist against my cheek. I gave life, and I would take one if it meant saving her.
“I love you, my angel. For always and forever.”
With a smile on my face, I slip under the covers, turn the lamp off and drift to sleep. In the back of my mind, I argue with myself on whether or not I locked the door, and just as I get up, I remember pushing the lock in after Micaela’s bath. Sleep sucks me deep.
When I was thirteen, I had a crush. This one was different from my last. Jordan Samuel was innocent. As innocent as butterflies fluttering in your belly. This one was electricity, zapping through my guts.
“What’s your name?” I asked the boy.
He had been following me since my twelfth birthday. I noticed him one day, standing at the gate of my school. He looked odd, out of the ordinary, standing stagnant in black overalls and a suit like shirt underneath. He must have been a little younger than I was. I wasn’t afraid of him. The first day at school, he watched me as I walked out of the gate and headed back to our trailer. He followed me all the way there, and I don’t know why, but I never asked him what he wanted. This went on for weeks. We didn’t speak, he would just watch me walk home, every day. Following a close distance behind me. On the sixth week, I decided to walk beside him.
Again, we didn’t say anything, I just walked beside him right until we got to the trailer, and then he would leave. To where, I wasn’t sure. Today was the first day that I had spoken to him. A stranger I had become so comfortable with, a stranger I had developed a crush on. I never noticed until today how his long lashes curled around his dark beady eyes. Or how his ivory skin was blended to perfection, or how his cherub bow lips managed to always stay in a flat line. I crushed on him, and I crushed on him hard. For six months. Now, it was time I asked him what his name was.
He stopped, just short of the trailer park gate. He opened his mouth, his eyes attempting to say the words that his mouth could not. I waited for him to speak. I had dreamed of what he might sound like. Would he have a cute voice? But he just turned and left. Clouds caved into the sky and rain started pouring down from the heavens.
That was the last time I ever saw him.
And I never got his name.
I wake the next morning, stretching my arms wide. My sleep last night was quite broken, and I don’t know why, but I found myself tossing and turning all night. Waking up at 3:05 a.m., I even went so far as to check my messages and then curl back to sleep. I never wake through the night. Once I’m out, I’m out, but something about last night had me sitting uncomfortably, even if I wasn’t completely aware of it. It either has to do with the dinner party at Hector’s, or me remembering my crush.
Noticing
Micaela not doing her daily wriggle routine from her crib, I smile, whisking the blanket off my legs.
“Well at least one of us slept like an angel.”
I tiptoe toward her crib, and my smile instantly drops. Terror seizes every inch of me when I see that she’s not only not moving, but her skin has turned purple.
“Micaela?” I whisper, shock capturing my hands. In a rush, I tear off her blanket and pick her small body up, noticing how heavy she is. No, no, no. She doesn’t feel right. She doesn’t feel right. “Micaela!” I scream, cradling her to my chest. “No. No. No.” I shake my head, rocking her back and forth on the ground. “I’m dreaming. I’m just dreaming. I will wake up, this will be a nightmare.” I squeeze my eyes closed, and then open them. I’m still here, in the pool house, with Micaela in my arms. I look down at her sweet face, her lips are parted slightly, with lines circled around her mouth. Her eyes are closed peacefully, and her cheeks are swollen purple. I graze my finger over them, the old hard sensation so unfamiliar. “No.” Tears pour over my face. “It’s a dream.”
I stand from the floor, gently placing Micaela on my bed. I tuck her small blanket into the sides of her body and rush into the bathroom. Yanking open the drawers and cabinet, I search for the one thing that will be able to pull me out of this dream. This nightmare. My eyes land on the silver razor and I grab it, rushing back to the bedroom. Even in my dream, I don’t want her to be alone. It’s okay. I will wake up and my beautiful baby will be here again. The angels can’t have her. She’s mine. I press the tip of the razor into my wrist and watch as blood spills over the incision, and then I yank the blade downward, toward my elbow.
Nate
Have you had your world ripped apart so fiercely that it leaves you with nothing but the shell of the man you used to be?
Because I have.
Tillie
A beeping clock echoing off of empty walls. The sound of haunting church bells on a Sunday night mass. Pain. Empty thoughts from a vocal mouth. My eyes open, and I don’t move. The throbbing sting from my arm is enough proof that last night happened. It happened. I shoot up from the bed, tearing the lines out of my arm. Madison and Tate are curled together on a small sofa, sleeping.
“Where’s my daughter. Where is she.” I rip the sheet off me and swing my legs over.
“Tillie!” Madison rushes over, her arm coming around my back.
“Where is she. I need to see her. I need. We, I, we read The Wizard of Oz last night. She needs to know how it ends. She needs to know the end of the story. I need to tell he—”
“—Tillie.” Madison’s cheeks are wet with tears, but I don’t care. I need her. I need Micaela.
“We can see her soon. Not right now, okay?” Her coaxing me only makes me angry.
My eyes go to Tate who is now sitting up, sniffing back her tears. “I’m—I’m sorry, Tillie.” Tate bolts out the door, bursting into tears.
I have nowhere inside of my head that I want to retreat to. Everywhere is a memory of Micaela. I find myself looking directly into Madison’s eyes. Smoked Macha powder stirred with honey. “Where is she?”
“I’m sorry, Tillie…”
“Stop fucking saying sorry and tell me where she is!” I grab my chest and squeeze. Waiting. Waiting for simple words to extensively split me open.
“She passed away in her sleep—”
My legs give out, dropping to the ground. Reality blurs in and out. She was right here. She was mine, and I was hers. I was supposed to take her for her first day of school, be the tooth fairy when she lost her first tooth. I was supposed to watch her grow and mature into the girl she was going to be. I will never know what she was going to grow to look like. Whether she would be sassy and smart, what her voice would sound like when she’d ask me for another cookie.
Another pang of pain slices through my chest, and my breathing becomes slow and labored. I can hear the gushing of blood pound behind my eardrums.
“The angels can’t have her,” I whisper, rocking back and forth on the ground.
I can see Madison out of the corner of my eye, crying hysterically while trying to get me up, but her movements are in slow motion. My once colorful world has now fallen to a dull sepia.
I lost my angel, now I want to sin.
I stand from the ground, straightening my shoulders. Madison swipes the tears from her cheeks.
“Tillie. We can leave. Come on.”
I shake my head, trying to build a wall where my broken heart lays beating to a strum that orchestrates the sound of death. “I can’t leave without her.”
“Okay,” Madison says, and then walks toward the same doors Tate departed out of. “Give me a second.”
“Madison.” I stop her movements. She pauses, her hand on the door. Like she knows what I’m about to say and she’s dreading it. “Where is Nate.”
She sucks in a breath, and I watch as her shoulders tremble.
“I’m sorry, Tillie.”
Then she leaves, the swing of the doors the only thing left inside this room. My eyes close and I lean over the bed, my hand coming to my stomach. After everything she went through. My head throbs and my fingers itch for something. Anything to take this pain away. To take away the hollow pit that’s now leaking residue out of my chest. Madison returns with a man dressed in a long white coat and a woman attired in a blue plaid dress that hangs down to her shins.
“Hello, Tillie, I’m Doctor McIntyre and this is one of the nurses, Jenny. I’m very sorry for your loss. Are you prepared to have a talk, or it can wait for another time?”
I take a seat on the bed, shaking my head and swiping away my tears angrily. “I want to know everything right now.”
I zone out but hang off of every word that he spews. “There are no known causes for SIDS, just that recent studies have shown it may be connected to a defect in the portion of the baby’s brain that controls breathing…” I hear the word “healthy” said every two seconds, and that it is very “common” in children under the age of one.
Something feels wrong. Blinking back the tears, my eyes come to his. They feel heavy and lazy, tired from being awake. Tired from being alive. Tired of breathing air that I do not deserve to breathe. It should be her breathing, not me.
“When can I see her?”
His hands come to the front of his body, and I watch as his thumbs twirl together like small tornados. Maybe it’s a nervous trait. Who knows.
“We can release her into family care as early as tonight.”
I look to Madison. “Her funeral.”
Madison hasn’t stopped crying and I have to fight the urge to scream at her. I know she loved Mi—my daughter. But I need her, someone, to be strong for me right now because I’m not feeling very resilient. I feel like Icarus, flying too close to the sun, only my wings don’t melt off because I fly straight into the core and burn myself to ash. I need to be able to break down. I suck in a breath.
“I will go back to her father’s house and start making plans.”
“One more thing,” the doctor says, his eyes dropping to my arm. I follow his line of sight, pressing down on the thick bandage.
“I wasn’t trying to kill myself. I thought I was dreaming. I tried to wake myself up,” I admit truthfully.
His eyes crinkle around the edges. “Very well.”
Madison signs me out after I’ve changed into some clothes Tate had brought to the hospital. I’m guessing The Kings have some sort of play into how fast I was discharged, but I don’t question it.
Tate brings her car around the front of the hospital. The silence is haunting, and every single mile we drive away from the hospital I feel like I’m letting her down. She will be all alone. Alone without me. What happens on the other side when people die? Will she be sitting in purgatory wondering where her mommy is? Will she be playing with the angels? Will they know that she likes her milk a little warmer than average and that I didn’t get to finish The Wizard of Oz? Will they read it to her for me?
&
nbsp; I swipe the tears that fall down my face.
“She’s all alone,” I whisper, tucking my head between my knees. “Why did this happen to me. Why her. Why. Why would God do this, take my daughter. Who would be so cruel.” I have never considered myself a religious person, but I’ve always thrown the word “god” around the place when I’d need to accentuate a point of safety or serenity. Now the only place I’ll be throwing his name is in the trash. I’m a fucking atheist, a heathen, a goddamn vixen with no soul.
Tillie
Seven. That’s how many people have asked me where Nate is. The next person who says his name, I’m going to punch straight in the face. We arrived back to Nate’s house a little over two hours ago, and since being here, Elena and Joseph have started arranging the house for visitors. I want to bring her home so all those close to her can say our final goodbye. Elena and Joseph agreed. Elena hasn’t stopped crying, and Joseph has a constant painful look in his eyes. I’ve been curled in the corner of the sitting room that overlooks the backyard and pool for the past hour, a bottle of Jack Daniels in hand. Alcohol has never been my go-to, in fact, I don’t drink much at all compared to other girls my age—friends included. I just need something. Anything to numb the everlasting pain that’s throbbing in my chest. But every sip I take, the more my feelings become heightened and the reality of everything comes crashing into me. I haven’t been into the pool house, and I won’t. So instead, I rummaged through Daemon’s clothes in his room to put on one of his hoodies, but Daemon owned suits, not hoodies. I grabbed a black velvet suit jacket and rolled up the sleeves slightly, treading back down to my spot. I can’t go into Nate’s room, that would mean seeing M—my daughter’s bed and items she had in there. I could go into Madison’s room, but she has locked herself in there since we got back. I don’t want to disturb her. I’ve never felt grief like this before. Daemon was the only person I lost who meant something to me, but even his death seems like the shallow end of the pool when it’s matched with this. My chest is hollow with nothing but a gaping hole where my heart used to be.
