Authors: Kellie McAllen
Determination steeled his veins and he puffed up his chest as he rose to his feet in front of Emit.
“I won’t leave her, Emit; I don’t care if I was intended for Colby.
I’m not
meant
for him, I’m meant for her.
Falla can watch Colby till they marry and then we’ll all be together,” Michael insisted.
“It doesn’t work that way, Michael,” Emit shook his head.
“Our assignments are critical to the future of our charges.
There’s no telling what the future will look like if you refuse to follow the prescribed course.
Colby is coming tonight, Michael.
He needs you.”
“Well, you seem confident in Falla’s abilities, so Colby should be just fine under his care.
God just doesn’t realize how much Jessica means to me, how perfect we are for each other.
If he did, he’d understand why I have to stay.”
Emit just frowned at Michael’s stubborn logic.
Didn’t he understand the Sovereign at all?
Emit was not privy to every detail the Master knew, but he knew Michael’s disobedience would have lasting consequences.
He had tried everything in his power to convince him, though, and Michael wouldn’t listen, so he would have to learn for himself the folly of rejecting the Sovereign’s plan.
“Good luck to you, Michael, I hope only the best for you, but since you have refused that, I pray your sorrows are eventually quenched,” Emit offered as he disappeared, leaving Michael wondering what sorrows he could possibly mean.
Michael stared for a few more minutes at his cooing princess till she settled into a deep sleep, her chest rising and falling rhythmically with the beat of her precious heart.
He had made the right decision, he was sure of it.
No one could ever care for Jessica as much as he.
Sarah was watching television while Jessica was sleeping, and Michael could sense her excitement at the upcoming program.
She was humming the theme song under her breath as she carried her popcorn and soda to the living room and settled onto the couch for her favorite show, Dallas, starring the egocentric, manipulative and amoral oil baron, J.R. Ewing.
The show was an illuminating, if slightly over-exaggerated, depiction of the intriguing human experience and Michael had become quite a fan himself, indulging his fascination with all things human when Jessica’s sleep schedule gave him a few minutes to relax.
Michael kept one ear open to the sound of Jessica’s breathing as he and Sarah immersed themselves in the intense season finale, but the loud ringing of the telephone still made him jump when it cut through the drama on the screen with a reverberating clang.
Sarah ignored it, too involved in the story to care about who might be calling.
Her husband was on a plane that wouldn’t land for another hour, so she knew it wasn’t him.
Michael took a peek at Jessica to see if the noise had woken her, but she seemed just as deep asleep as before, so he rejoined Sarah on the sofa.
A few minutes later, J.R. fell to the ground with the boom of gunshots and the surprise was punctuated by a loud crash from the other room.
Their nerves already raw from the cliffhanger ending, Sarah and Michael both cried out and jumped up in shock at the frightening sound, and the shrieks of pain that followed catapulted them towards the source of the noise.
What they found sent currents of agony and rivers of remorse coursing through their bodies.
Jessica, her slumber disturbed by the ringing phone, had awoken and toddled out into the kitchen in search of the fragrant leftover popcorn her mother had left cooling on the stove.
Her typical toddler sense of self-reliance had motivated her to scoot a chair over to the stove and climb on top of it to reach the kettle, but as soon as her hands touched the still-hot stovetop she jerked away and tumbled off the chair and onto the hard floor below, pulling the scorching pan on top of herself and leaving welts on the front and back of her head.
“Mommmmyyyy!” she screamed, tears immediately flooding her eyes as she swiped at the popcorn kernels dotting her skin, the blood from the cut on her head mixing with her tears and coating her face and hands.
“Oh my God, Jessica!” Sarah cried as she rushed to her daughter’s side and embraced her, taking Jessica’s head in her hands to examine her wounds.
The cut on her forehead was bleeding so profusely Sarah couldn’t tell how large it was — Jessica’s entire face had become covered in blood and tears and popcorn oil and her chest heaved, wracked with sobs as she wailed in between desperate breaths.
Sarah held her daughter close and whispered, “shhhh, shhhh, shhhh,” as she rocked her gently back and forth, cradling her daughter’s head against her chest.
Michael stood in stunned silence, watching Jessica’s mother soothe her panicked child and sinking deep into a quicksand pit of guilt and self-loathing.
There was nothing he could do for her now, no assistance he could give that Sarah wasn’t already providing.
He had failed her and it was due to his own obsession with the human experience.
Why had he been so foolishly absorbed in a pointless TV show when he should have been watching Jessica?
It didn’t matter if she was sleeping or wrapped in her mother’s arms or surrounded by a dozen other angels — she was his responsibility!
He should never have left her side, not even for a minute.
Maybe that’s why Emit was so insistent that he return Jessica to Falla.
Maybe Falla was better equipped to protect her.
Perhaps his previous lapse in judgement had been only momentary and he had learned his lesson.
Perhaps if Michael had gone to Karen’s side to watch the birth of Colby, Falla would have protected Jessica from this injury she should have never endured.
Michael’s regret withered his self esteem like a poison, turning the petals of a flower black before they disintegrated into dust that blew away on a puff of wind.
Once Jessica’s crying had calmed enough for her to finally breathe, Sarah scooped her up, pressed a dishtowel to her head, and carried her to the van.
She wished desperately that her husband was home to navigate the vehicle to the local emergency room so she could huddle in the back with her daughter on her lap, but instead she buckled her into the car seat and got behind the wheel, taking a deep breath to calm herself for the ride to the hospital.
Michael followed along glumly, his brain rehashing the same argument over and over again.
He loved her too much to leave her, but what if he wasn’t good enough to protect her?
chapter six
Karen Conrad lay on the couch rubbing her oversized stomach and wishing her husband was home so she could ask him to go get her a glass of water.
It took entirely too much effort to propel her unbalanced body off the couch and into an upright position.
She also didn’t want to miss any of the finale of her favorite TV show and she wasn’t entirely positive she could make the trek to the kitchen and back during the length of one commercial break.
She wished she had thought to bring her glass with her before she sat down, but this pregnancy seemed to be affecting her brain just as much as her belly.
They were both overcrowded and felt like they were about to explode.
She rubbed mindlessly again at the giant orb erupting from her middle.
The boys were all finally in bed after what seemed like an eternity of arguing and insistence, and her husband was making the long drive to the airport to pick up her sister who had so graciously agreed to help her with the boys until the baby was born and she was home from the hospital.
She had been feeling contractions off and on all day, but there had been no consistency or increase, so she figured they were just Braxton-Hicks.
The baby wasn’t due for a couple more weeks and her boys were notorious for being late.
She stretched her legs out on the sofa and tried to rub away the pain, but instead her toes curled under and her body seized up as an intense contraction attacked her insides.
“Whoa!” she cried as she began to pant.
Maybe they weren’t false contractions after all.
A few minutes later another pain ripped through her body and she hissed through her teeth as she rode it out, sweat beading on her forehead.
She might be having this baby tonight, she decided and forced herself to the end of the couch where a telephone sat on the end table.
Her husband would be out of reach for another few hours but she wasn’t sure she was going to make it that long.
She needed someone to come watch the boys so she could get to the hospital.
She was trying to remember one of her friends’ numbers when another contraction hit, this one worse than all the others, and she doubled over in pain as her water broke and fluid gushed down her legs and puddled on the floor beneath her.
Sarah’s number was scrawled on a piece of paper lying next to the phone, so Karen quickly dialed the number, hoping her new friend would forgive the imposition.
The line rang and rang, but there was no answer and the phone eventually slipped from her hands as another contraction hit, this one stronger than all the others combined.
Karen lay helpless as she felt all the strength escape her body and she collapsed into unconsciousness.
When she awoke a few minutes, or maybe hours, later (she really had no idea) she felt the baby’s head crowning between her legs and she forced herself to reach again for the phone.
This time she called 911 first before the pain knocked her back down and she lay on her back, panting and moaning as the baby forced its way out.
Something didn't feel right, Karen thought, as the pain struck her senseless once again.
This wasn’t like her other pregnancies, but the intense contractions left her no energy to concentrate on anything but enduring the pain.
Her other pregnancies had involved plenty of narcotics and epidurals, but still, this pain was too sudden, too intense, and the sensations in her cervix were strange and unfamiliar.
With one last herculean push, Karen felt the baby being expelled from her womb, but the darkness overtook her once again and she blacked out.
She awoke several minutes later, frightened and anxious, to strangers hovering over her, their cold hands touching her feverish body, harsh voices shouting at her to wake up as they shook her shoulders and wrapped an oxygen mask around her head.
“My baby!” she cried, the sound muffled by the plastic covering her nose and mouth.
She reached up to remove it, but one of the medics covered her hand with his and murmured reassurances that they were doing the best they could.
Karen’s eyes widened and her heart began to pound at the implications as blood rushed to her head and overheated her body.
She thrashed her head violently back and forth, trying to catch a glimpse of her newborn, but he was nowhere in sight.
“Where’s my baby?” she cried, fogging up the mask with her sobs, but the medic only looked at her with pity in his eyes.
She lost control, then, waving her arms, struggling to sit up, to tear off the mask, to extricate herself from the crowd of medics so she could find her infant and care for him, but before she could escape a sharp pain pricked her arm and a rush of liquid sped through her veins, bringing instant relaxation with it.
Within moments her limbs had flopped to her sides and her eyes fell shut as she drifted back into unconsciousness.
*
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When Sarah arrived at the hospital, she quickly unbuckled her daughter, whose wails had subsided to whimpered sobs, and carried her into the emergency department.
The triage nurse took one look at the mother and child covered in blood and escorted them to a room separated by long pink curtains that swished along a metal track in the ceiling as the nurse cordoned them in and began to ask questions while examining the wounds on Jessica’s head.
She shined a flashlight in Jessica’s eyes and wrapped a blood pressure cuff around her tiny arm while Jessica clung fearfully to her mother’s chest.
“She’ll probably need a few stitches,” the nurse explained calmly, as if she saw children with gaping wounds on both sides of their heads every day.
“The doctor will be in to take a look in a few minutes.”
Michael was hovering in the corner, feeling worthless and unforgivable, waiting for Emit to come and tell him his negligence had caused the Almighty to revoke his guardian privileges altogether.
He couldn’t stand the look of fear and pain in Jessica’s eyes as she sniffled and cried in her mother’s embrace, her sobs hitching as they caught in her throat with each breath.
Although he knew she couldn’t see him, he couldn’t help but feel like she was looking right at him and wondering why he hadn’t protected her.
When he could stand her innocent gaze no longer, he left the room and began to pace the halls, staring at all the injured humans in various states of distress.
Had all their angels failed to protect them properly?
Maybe angels were not as competent as he assumed.
It was a mystery he wanted to unravel, but he was so consumed by his own guilt he didn’t have the ability to contemplate anything else.