The Girl

Is She Awake

The family is all sitting down to dinner chatting away about their respective days.  The mother said quietly, “ I have and announcement to make.”  The little girls settled down and listened intently as the husband looked at her expectantly.  “I just found out today that I am 2 months pregnant.”

The man jumped up and rushed around the table, pulled her up out of her seat and spin her around in his excitement.  They sat down after a few minutes.  The girls laughed and clapped happily.  “Mommatu is going to have a baby!!!” The younger daughter said happily. 

The older daughter looked thoughtful at this statement, “ is  mommatu going to go meet momma then?”

The man looked shocked that this is what his daughter thought.  He had no words for how to respond to her.  Luckily the woman had already talked to someone about how to deal with this situation while the kids were at school.

“Honey, every woman is different as is every pregnancy.  What happened to your momma was due to unfortunate events prior to her delivery of your sister.  I am positive that the same events will not happen to me.”  This seemed to satisfy the girls and they happily went about the rest of the day.  Once everyone was in bed for the night the woman finally settled in and fell asleep.

Beep… beep...beep

This is the only noise that cane be heard in the room.  She felt something warm holding her hand, and something dripping onto the back of her hand.  Opening her eyes proved to be difficult and she finally gave up.  She twitched a finger. After doing so she felt the weight on the hand move, “Briana?” asked a sleepy voice.  “I don’t know what woke me up or why I fell asleep but I wish you would wake up.  I have already lost one person, I just can’t lose you too.”

She thought back to the dreams she had been having.  Throughout them she would hear things that seemed to come from nowhere. “I have another baby girl, but my wife is gone.” A distant voice from the memory.  “Wake up please it’s been so long.”  “Today is your birthday you are 19 now.”  Had that much time really passed?  Was she really 19. She tried again to open her eyes but couldn’t.

She slipped in and out of consciousness over a time.  Whenever she was awake she would here a voice talking to her, begging her to wake up.  One day she tried to open her eyes in the quiet room,  once her eyes adjusted to the light and she began to see things clearly, she saw the officer asleep with his head on the edge of the bed.  She reached over to the button beside the bed and pushed it.  When the nurse entered she put her finger to her lips and pointed at the officer.

The nurse came over beside her and asked,” what can I get you dear?”

“Water please,” the girl rasped out with a dry throat.

“Right away,” the nurse said as she left the room.  She returned shortly with a glass of water.  “Here you go.  You know he has been here for you the whole time you have been here.  He stops in every day for a while then goes home to take care of his girls.  So sad about his wife dying.”

The girl looked at him shocked, “but we don’t even know each other!  We had only just met the day before the accident.” 

“Well you must have made some kind of impression.  That young man cares about you.” The girl studied him for a long time not understanding why he would even visit her let alone care about her.  All this new information made her feel sleepy so she closed her eyes and fell back to sleep.