Poseidon (The God Chronicles) (2 page)

I couldn’t think straight. Something was wrong, really wrong. What the man had said didn’t make sense.

I felt bile rising up in the back of my mouth. Somehow I managed to pull myself across the floor and back into the bathroom. It was a miracle I made it to the toilet before I started heaving everything up.

Every part of me shook while my breakfast came up. I cried and cried, making my nose run even worse.

I got
filth all over myself anyway. Once I was done throwing up, I peeled all of my clothes off and collapsed into the bathtub. A minute later, I found the strength to turn the shower on. I huddled in the fetal position at one end, letting the water just wash over me.

“Wake up, wake up, wake up,” I muttered, over and over again until no sound came from my mouth and the water ran cold.

Eventually, I turned the water off and stumbled into the bedroom, pulling my phone off the charger and laying down on the bed.

It must have been hours before I finally called my mom. My hair had dried completely, tangled badly from not being combed.

“Hey, Audrey! How are you today? I was worried when you didn’t stop by this morning like you said.”

“Mommy?” My voice broke and tears started building up again.

“What’s wrong?” she asked in a panic. “Do you need me to come over?”

“I’m pregnant.”

“Oh, Audrey.” The relief was apparent in her voice. “That’s a good thing sweetie. I thought you wanted to have a baby?”

“The fishing company called this morning,” I said haltingly. “John. . .” I started crying again. “His boat got ca
ught in a storm and was lost at sea. They think everyone is. . .” I was sobbing uncontrollably by then. It was a miracle that I even got the next part out.

“John is dead.”  

Chapter Two

I’d seen stories on the news of people missing at sea who turned up in tiny rafts. They were rushed to the hospital and recovered from every traumatic thing that had happened to them.

I would have given anything to see John floating on a piece of driftwood.

The Coast Guard searched for three weeks before they decided that there was no chance for any survivors. I was told that they had searched much longer than they thought it was possible for anyone to survive. They would keep looking until they found a body, but that was it.

After all of my time spent on a boat, numb, helping to look for anything that could point us in the right direction, I was sent home a widow.

I kept closing my eyes, praying that when I opened them I would awake from this hell. Staying with Mom helped some, but planning the funeral made it impossible to not think about my love.

There was no one to say goodbye to at the service. I wanted him there with me—alive and well—the pain might have been eased if I’d been able to hold his hands in mine again, kiss his sweet lips softly, and t
ell him how much I loved him. Instead there was nothing but my favorite picture of John in place of a casket, surrounded by flowers. I’d already hated funerals, but this . . . this was a whole new level of loathing.

The preacher said some nice things about the afterlife and how John was probably educating angels now. Some of his students got up and told stories as well. Even Mom shared a conversation that they’d had right before we were married.

I couldn’t stand up and say anything. It was too painful. No one had known him like I did. I wasn’t ready to share our special moments together yet. It felt like I would be letting him go if I did. Everyone kept looking to me, sad smiles on their faces, as they dared to think they knew my agony.

Mom was the only person who knew about the baby through all of it. I already had so many people asking if I needed anything to help me through—I didn’t want a bunch of belly touching women hounding me as well.

Every dream I’d ever had was now as dead as the husband I was never going to see again. We would never get to grow old together. We would never plan out and build our dream home. He wouldn’t get to win all of those teaching awards that he so rightly deserved. Worst of all, we would never raise a family together. I knew I would love the baby I had inside of me with every fiber of my being. But I would never get to see John as a dad, which he would have been the best at. He’d never follow us to the park with a video camera to film the first time our child went down the slide. I’d never get to see his face when he held our baby for the first time. He wouldn’t be there to help me raise it, guide us through the years, or send him or her out into the world they were all grown.

As the choir from his school sang a song about grief, I promised myself that I would never love anyone like this, risking my sanity, again. My heart couldn’t take
anymore lose.

I stayed with Mom until after the funeral things were done. I could almost imagine that I’d never moved out in the first place. By then, I was nine weeks pregnant and due for a visit to the doctor. Mom had called and explained why I hadn’t come right in. I was supposed to hear the heartbeat at my first appointment.

I drove myself to the office, knowing that I needed to get back to my own home. The desire to pick up what was left of my life was starting to shine through. I wanted to be the best mother I could and knew it wasn’t possible in my current condition. John would have wanted me to be strong—to show everyone that I could still take care o
f myself—and I could fake that for him.

Pulling into the parking lot, I took a deep breath. I still had the baby to hold on to. That alone was going to keep me going. It was just a quick walk through the heat before I was in the rather drab waiting room. A
fter a short wait, I was lying on the uncomfortable bed with my stomach uncovered while the doctor tried to find the beat.

“I’m not really finding anything yet,
Audrey,” he told me, moving the fat, wand-like instrument slowly over my abdomen. Only static came from the speaker.

“Is that bad?” My eyes started to tear up, a million fears racing through my mind.

“No, not at all. Sometimes we can’t hear it until later, that’s all. You should be fine.” He smiled reassuringly at me, slipped his glasses out of his black hair and back onto his nose, and then scribbled some notes on a paper he’d pulled from his white lab coat.

“How have you been feeling?”

“Wouldn’t you and everyone else like to know,” I mumbled under my breath.

“I know it’s hard right now. I’m so sorry for your loss.” He looked up from his pad and frowned slightly as he struggled with what he wanted to say next. “Things will get better,” he said softly. “Probably not for a while, and it most likely won’t be any easier, but you will feel happy again.” He reached out and gently squeezed my hand.

“Thank you,” I whispered, a tear falling down my face.

The lock clicked over in the door and I slowly pushed my way across the threshold, stepping into the apartment for the first time since I’d left to California.

There were pictures of John and
me everywhere. The emotions that had been locked inside of me since I’d first called my mother—pushed down to look strong for everyone else—clawed their way forward, waging war on my fragile being. A shaking hand covered my mouth as terrible, gasping sobs and a cascade of tears broke free. Shutting the door with my body, I slid down it to the floor. His face looked down at me from every angle, the photos mocking my pain and loss. I cried as I looked at them, wishing that I had been able to kiss him just one more time, to pour all of my love into his soul. I should have treasured every moment we had together more. It was hard to recall what his skin felt like or what it was like to wake up in his arms.

After a long while, I pulled my shattered self off the floor. My tears splashed on the frames as I
brought them to me, one at a time, hugging them—John—as tightly as possible. If I’d only offered to work more overtime or get a second job for the summer, he would still be here with me.

I slowly made my way into his office and settled into his leather computer chair. He had left a few handwritten notes out, taped to his computer screen. I ran my fingers over them, regretting the time that I’d told him everything he wrote looked like chic
ken scratch. It was beautiful now, something that he’d left behind for me. The whole room smelled of his cologne, like he was standing right there with me. How I wished that were true.

After slowly going through everything he’d left in his
workspace, I proceeded into our bedroom. The room was simple really, a dresser and queen sized bed. We’d shared many great memories there though, including the creation of our child. I couldn’t look at anything without a recollection of him surfacing.

Going straight to the closet, I opened the doors and pulled one of his oversized t-shirts out.
After stripping my own clothes off, I put it on, relishing in his scent. A quick perusal of his pillows confirmed that they shared the fragrance.

It was only mid-afternoon, but I crawled into bed anyway. Everything was so different now. I hadn’t been ready for the change. We had always talked about growing old together, seeing the world, and spoiling grandchildren. All I could think of now was what I’d lost, what would never be.

It took a while for sleep to claim me, but I finally slipped into a world where my love didn’t have to be gone.

“John, I had a bad dream,” I mumbled as I rolled over. “It was terrible.” I reached out for him in the dark. His side of the bed was empty and cold.

It wasn’t a dream.

I started crying again and hugged his pillow to me, hands shaking. When I moved to sit up, I froze. There was something wet underneath me.

I fumbled with the lamp on the
nightstand, squinting as it jumped to life. Afraid of what I was about to see, I wiped my eyes and gingerly pulled the tan covers back.

There was blood—a lot of it. My panties were soaked clean through, as well as the
sheets directly underneath where I was lying. Red streaked across my thighs. Slowly, like I expected it to all be in my head, I reached a hand down and touched the mess.

It was warm still. I pulled my hand back and placed it on John’s shirt, over my belly. It left a handprint
, like ones in the horror movies. 

The tears returned when it finally clicked in my brain what it all meant. I didn’t know what to do, just that I couldn’t stop it. Something had gone wrong—I had lost our baby, too.

They always tell you not to drive when you’re upset. Maybe that was how I’d ended up in California, staring out at the ocean.

No one knew where I was. I’d already had several calls from Mom, all of which I ignored. I needed this time.

I wasn’t exactly sure where I was, just that there weren’t very many people around.
The early morning hour could be responsible though, so that might change.

Water moved in and out of the giant rocks I stood on in a way that was relaxing to most. To me it was pulling all of my hopes and dreams out and away from me.

I no longer had anything. At least before I was going to have a part of John to keep forever. The doctor confirmed yesterday morning I’d lost the baby. There was nothing anyone could have done to save it. Mom didn’t know.

That night, sitting in our home, crying over bloodied
covers, I decided that I couldn’t handle any more. I broke a vase, threw the bedding into the tub, and got in the car and started driving. Eventually, I ran out of road.

The weather
was uncharacteristically cold. A soft breeze blew through the grey morning. Waves started to angrily splash my pedestal. All of that was in the back of my mind though.

“You promised me you were coming back!” I yelled out to the horizon. “You said you loved me, that you’d never leave me! But you did. And you didn’t even leave me anything to say goodbye to! And then, t
o top it off, you took our baby with you! You left me alone . . . abandoned and empty! What am I supposed to do John? What can I possibly learn from this?”

I cried as I continued to scream, not caring if anyone was looking. I s
houted until I had no voice and then kept going.

“I have nothing left,” I whispered when I was finally finished.

The breeze had turned into full on wind and the water was hitting hard enough to get me wet. I turned to leave, my vision blurred by tears. As I wiped my eyes, my tennis shoes slipped across the slick surface. Panic seized me as I lost control, arms flailing in an attempt to regain my footing. It was no use. I tumbled down in what felt like slow motion, cutting myself on jagged edges and slamming my head onto the cold, unforgiving stone. The world darkened around me as I slipped into the water.

Chapter Three

I needed to kick my feet, or something. The salt from the water stung my eyes, but I couldn’t concentrate enough to actually do anything. A fuzzy feel
ing had invaded my head, distorting the edges of reality and fiction.