Here is part one of my fiction piece, "The Speech". Enjoy!
She stood hunched over the sink, staring as the water ran down the drain. Some things in life she would never understand, and she couldn't shake the feeling that this would always be one of them. Life keeps moving; no matter how hard you slam on the breaks and try to pull over, life will move on without you. She stared at the cool water running down the drain, a new thought budding in her brain. Just how much water was the difference between life and death? Surely it would only take a handful or so cupped over her mouth and nose to end the pain... right?
Before the thought could go anywhere, she splashed the water up at her face, turned off the faucet and looked up at her reflection. 'It doesn't even look like me,' she thought to herself before grabbing the towel off the rack and drying her dripping, unrecognizable face.
After brushing her teeth and turning out the light, she crawled into bed. Tears streamed down her face, staining the black streaks of pain onto her pillowcase so she could remember all of it in the morning.
Darkness, more than anything, reveals true emotion. In the dark you could let the tears fly like ravenous falcons. In the dark you could show the one you love just how much you really love them. In the dark you can smile without anyone seeing it. On this particular night, Mac let the tears roll like thunder over a cornfield, low and slow. As the tears died down and she slowly succumbed to sleep, she was startled by a very different sound coming from the bedroom down the hall.
Mac threw back the covers as the screaming morphed into shouting and, "Mommy! Mommy!" began to bounce off the walls. When she entered her daughters room, she found her four-year-old sitting up, her hair stuck to her sweaty forehead as tears glistened on her porcelain skin.
"It's okay baby; mommys here; I'm here; I've got you." Mac hugged Lucy so tightly she wasn't sure if her tiny body would be able to go on breathing. She didn't know what else to do, so she cradled her daughter tight and soaked up her tears as best she could. She would hide them away with her own; keep them close to her heart. Lucy fell asleep crying in her mother's arms. Mac couldnt bear to leave her alone, so she carried her daughter back to her own bed and surrounded her like a nest.
If Matty were here, he would have stayed in her room, sitting in the rocking chair while she slept. He would have fallen asleep in that chair and Mac would have gone in to check on him, only to cover him up with an afghan and kiss him on the forehead. Lucy always slept better with her daddy watching over her. His presence would have come in handy now. Mac cradled her daughter and fell into a deep sleep.
*****
