Courageous: Afterlife Book Four (11 page)

My mother froze. She stared at the hands connecting our two worlds. When I let go, she gasped for air. She lifted her eyes and stared into mine. This time I could tell she knew it was really me and not some product of her imagination. A tear escaped from the corner of her eye. It rolled slowly down her cheek and ended on her upper lip. Another tear followed it. My mother reached out her hand once again and tried to stroke my cheek. It went better this time and I felt her gentle touch. The love from that small stroke went through my body like waves of electricity. I felt my eyes tearing up as well.

"My dear Meghan," she whispered with a thick voice.  "My dear child. How I have longed for this moment, how I have longed and prayed to once again see you." Her body was shaking, my stomach cramping trying to restrain myself from bursting, from crying. I knew if I let it go I would never be able to stop again.

"I've missed you too, Mom."

She caressed my cheek gently while the tears rolled over her cheeks. "You have no idea how your dad and I have been searching for you. For years and years we have been waiting for you to come home. Some days I just sit on the porch and wait. The loss has been hard on your dad. He's not ... well he's not quite himself. He's been depressed and been drinking. It's like he can't snap out of it again, like it's holding him down." She paused and gazed upon me. Then her eyes seemed shocked once again. "You're ... you're ...?" She looked at me searching for some kind of explanation.

I nodded slowly. "Yes, Mom. I'm dead."

She sucked in air in shock and started hyperventilating. "Does that mean ...?"

"Yes, Mom. I have left Earth, but I have gone to a better place. A place that is so much fun. A place where you get to fly and walk on rainbows and ..."

"So she did do it?" my mother asked.

"Who?"

"That woman. That horrible woman who claimed she had killed you. She did do it?"

I smiled, and then nodded again. "Yes. Rosey did kill me, but I have come to understand why. She wasn't well Mom."

"I don't understand."

"It's all in the past now Mom. I have come here to give you and Dad peace of mind. You have struggled for too long searching for me, trying to find out what happened to me. I'm here to tell you that I am well. I am very happy now." I glanced down at my growing stomach. My mother's eyes followed mine. She stepped backwards with another gasp.

"Oh my!" she exclaimed. Then she stared into my eyes. "How?"

"I'm married," I said. "I found a guy and we are married now and we are going to have a child in a few months."

My mother stared at me in disbelief. "I'm going to be a grandmother?" She said with a shaking voice.

I wiped tears from my eyes while nodding. "Yes, I guess you are."

My mother suddenly turned pale. She held a hand to her head. "I need to sit down."

"Of course."

My mother went towards the bed and sat on it. She put her hands on her knees and sat rocking back and forth for a few seconds.

I still had the drawing in my hand. My mother looked at me. I floated closer and showed her it. She smiled when she looked at it.

"You made that one when you were about five," she said. "It was the first one you made of you and him."

"Him?" I asked.

 "Don't you remember him?"

I looked at the drawing again. It wasn't very detailed. "No. I don't think so."

My mother sighed deeply. "He was your best friend in the whole entire world. Imaginary, of course. None of us could see him, but boy how you loved him."

"And he could fly?" I asked.

My mother chuckled lightly. "Yes. You wanted to be able to fly like him so every Sunday you and your dad rehearsed your flying. You would climb the garbage can outside and jump from it. Your dad would encourage you to 'flap those arms' and then catch you in the air before you hit the ground." My mother laughed at the sweet memory.

"I don't remember that," I said.

"That's too bad. It's one of your dad's favorite memories."

I looked at the drawing once again. I put a finger on the floating imaginary friend next to me. How come I couldn't remember making him up? Was it because I was too young?

"How long did I have this friend?" I asked.

"Oh my. He was with us for years and years. You made him up around the time when your dad almost died from that burst appendix, do you remember that? He was in the hospital for days and we didn't know if he would live or die. The doctors had no hope, they told us. It had burst inside of him and he was going to die a slow and very painful death now. But you never gave up hope. One day when we had visited your dad in the hospital and I took you home to get you to bed you told me that Dad was going to be alright. I will never forget those words coming from your mouth. You were so convinced that it was almost frightening. I asked you how you knew and you answered that your friend in the hospital had told you so. You told me you had prayed and God had sent someone to save Daddy. You told me he was your new best friend. Only a few hours after you had gone to bed the phone rang. It was the hospital telling me that your dad was improving miraculously and that they believed he would wake up soon. I ran to your room and woke you up to tell you the good news and all you said was 'told you so, Mom.' Your friend stayed with you ever since then and we let you have him in your life. We thought he was good for you, since you didn't have any siblings it was good to have a friend to talk to when things became difficult for you, so we let you. The doctor said it was no harm and that many kids had imaginary friends like him. He stayed with you for always. Even as a teenager you still told me he visited every now and then and you were always looking forward to his visits."

I shook my head while staring at the drawing. How come I didn't remember any of all this? "Do you have any more drawings or paintings of him?" I asked.

My mother lit up. "Well of course. You always drew pictures of him. He was constantly on your mind."

My mother reached down into the box and pulled out a couple more drawings. She handed them to me. "Here are more."

I grabbed them and stared at the first. Then the next and the next. I gasped for air. The realization was like receiving a punch to my stomach. The older I got, the more detailed the pictures became and one thing they all had in common was that my imaginary friend wore a hat. An old-fashioned black top hat along with white gloves, grey pants and a white shirt with a vest and a wide black tie underneath his jacket.

"Do you remember what I used to call him?" I asked.

"Of course. How can I forget? You spoke of him constantly. It was always Mick this and Mick that."

C
HAPTER 20

I
STARED AT
my mother's lips as they moved. She was still speaking but I wasn't listening any longer. All I could think about was her last sentence. She was smiling and gesticulating widely while telling funny episodes from my childhood.

I grabbed her hand and held it in mine. "Mom, I have to go," I said. I the room was closing in on me, like I was about to suffocate and I needed to get out. Right now. I didn't tell her that. She looked disappointed.

"I have to get back," I said.

"Will I see you again?"

I smiled and hugged her. "Of course. Just don't tell anyone. Mostly for your own sake. People will think you've lost it."

She nodded agreeing. Then she sniffled. "I'm so glad you came," she said.

"Me too." I hugged her again.

I got up from the bed and looked at her once last time. She grabbed my hand just as I was about to leave her.

"Promise me you'll come back."

I smiled again. "I will."

She let go of my hand with a relieved smile. I turned my back at her, and then streamed myself through the wall.

I didn't tell Abhik anything on our way back, not even the fact that I had accidentally shown myself to my mother. I wanted to digest everything before I talked about it to anyone. It was all a lot to take in at once.

"You're so quiet," Abhik said when we were above the clouds.

"Well it was hard to see them again, especially like this," I said with heavy heart. "Especially when they are not doing well. It's hard, you know?"

"Are you sorry we went there? I wanted to cheer you up, not put you down," Abhik said.

"I know. You always want the best for me. It was great, really. I am really happy that we did it. It's just a lot, you know?"

Abhik nodded. "I know. It was hard on me too. I went to see my parents right after graduation. It was good though to do it. It was nice to see that they had moved on even if they missed me a lot. The hard part was the visit to my oldest sister. She wasn't doing very well. I have been thinking about trying to help her ever since. I just don't know how to do it."

"Well sometimes people need to find their own way out of the darkness, right?" I said. "We can help them to be courageous but they have to do the fighting themselves."

Abhik nodded. "I guess you're right. Maybe I'll just need to let her go. Like you had to let go of Jason and let him fight his own struggle."

"Precisely. I almost wore myself out trying to save him but the fact was that this was the life Jason chose for himself and I couldn't do much about it."

We reached the castle beneath us and began descending. The many white towers appeared through the clouds. Thousands of rainbows framed it from the air. It was a gorgeous sight.

"I'm staying in one of the guest chambers," Abhik said when we entered the castle and found ourselves in one of the many hallways again.

He leaned over and kissed my cheek. "Will you be alright with Mick and all?" he asked.

I nodded. "I'll be fine. He doesn't bite as bad as he barks," I said laughing.

"Good. But remember. I'm there for you any time of day or night, okay?"

"I know. You are always so sweet to me," I said.

"Good night then."

I grabbed his hand as he was about to leave. I pulled him back till he looked at me.

"Thank you."

He smiled his pearly smile. "You're very welcome."

C
HAPTER 21

I
T WAS DARK
in our chambers as I entered through the thick wooden door and I thought Mick hadn't come back. Then I spotted some light coming from the corner and looked into Mick’s glowing blue eyes in the darkness. He was sitting in a chair in the corner in silence. I jumped.

"Mick you scared me!" I said startled.

"Where have you been?" he asked.

"Does it matter?"

"Of course it matters," he growled. "I come back from the kitchen to take care of you and you're not even here? Don't you care that I was scared senseless that something had happened to you?" He threw his arms in the air. "Don't you care about anything anymore?"

"Well I didn't mean to scare you and I'm fine as you can see," I said dismissive. I wasn't about to get into another fight with him.

I felt his eyes on me. They were like piercing nails.

"I asked you a question," he said. "Where have you been and who were you with?"

I inhaled, exhausted. I didn't need this right now. "Well if you must know, I went to Earth to visit my parents."

Mick got up from the chair and floated towards me. "You went with that Abhik, didn't you? Didn't I just tell you that I didn't like you seeing him? Didn't I? Answer me!"

I backed up not caring for the tone to Mick's voice. His eyes became flaming red. His movements were aggressive.

"Answer me!" he yelled again.

"You did, but ..."

"But what?" He was gesticulating wildly and aggressively now. "But ... but ... you just don't care? But you chose to not care about me, about my feelings and just go ahead and do exactly what I told you not to?"

I felt the anger grow inside of me. I restrained myself, tried to keep calm and speak with composed voice. I wasn't going to play his game. I wasn't going to get upset and aggressive like he was. "Abhik is my friend. You don't get to decide who I'm allowed to be with."

Mick stormed towards me and I backed up further. "So you just do exactly what you want to now? Just like that, huh? Don't I count for anything in your life anymore? We've only been married a few weeks for crying out loud. Already you're stepping all over me, dishonoring me in front of the entire school? Do you think that's fair to me?"

That's when I finally lost it. I couldn't hold the anger back any longer. "You know what?" I yelled back. "I am sick of your honor, I'm sick of your pride of all your crap. I'm sick of you manipulating me, of your deceit and lies."

"I'm not the deceitful one here," he snarled.

 "Oh is that so?" I said. "Well maybe it's my turn to tell a little story. Do you want to know what I found out in my parents’ house? Do you? I think you do. I think it's very interesting. I actually don't think I'm the one who owes you any explanation. I think it's the other way around. I'm sure you'll agree with me in a minute."

"I don't owe you anything," Mick said.

"Well I think you do." I pulled out one of the drawings my mother had let me keep. "Can you explain this, Mick? Can you?"

Mick gasped and took the drawing. Then he looked into my eyes. "Meghan ... I ... I can explain."

"I really hope you can," I said snorting in anger. "Because I don't seem to understand this at all. This seems to tell me something, Mick, something I find very hard to believe."

I paused and caught my breath. Mick was staring at me while biting his lip.

I spoke through gritted teeth. "You knew me, Mick. You knew who I was all along. You knew where I came from all along ... Why? ... Why Mick? Why did you lie to me? All this time we have spent together, all those hours talking, getting to know one another, all those days you heard me cry over not knowing my parents, why didn't you say anything?"

"I wasn't supposed to, you know that," Mick finally said.

"But you could have told me after my graduation? There has been plenty of time to tell me, Mick, plenty of hours and days, plenty of opportunities to come clean and tell me that we knew each other."