The bells, the bells!

I feel i may be a little bit more back on track with this chapter. Good times!

 

The bells, the bells!  (damn right I would make a good Quasimodo)

 “Evening honey,” Esmee smiled as she pushed open my jarred door at about nine thirty that evening to take over from the later shift. It was surprising at home much I had missed her over just one day of her absence. I liked it when she was at work and dreaded the shifts when both of them where at home together. It was a stage feeling and not one that I liked very much but something was changing inside me as well. Deep down it felt like I had outgrown these walls, that there was nothing left there for them to offer me. I no longer hated Apple gate house. I no longer yearned for my life back on the other side of the fence. The vast building that had towered over me felt small now and it was almost cosy. A part of me wanted to stay, and that was the reason I knew it was time for me to go. Apple gate house was a safety net. It gave you an existence but not a life and when I arrived that was OK because I didn’t want one. Now - Well I wasn’t sure… maybe I did… if it was with them.

“Is it home time already?” Ava asked with a smile as she pulled herself up from the corner of my room where she had perched on one of my cushions to keep watch. We had made small talk for the first half an hour of the time but after that we had descended into silence while she skimmed through the pages of a magazine while I added details to a picture of Bella. I had stopped drawing her for a while but my heart missed her with an ach still. Drawing somehow managed to sooth it a little bit even if it did make the salty tears bite at the back of my eyes remembering her face. She was another hand that I would never get to hold again.

“It sure is, get out of here while you still can.” Esmee laughed

“Good plan. I have a load of Christmas presents to wrap up still. I bet you are all done being so super organized.”

“Like hell we are,” Esmee chuckled again, giving Ava a breath hug as she hovered at the door. “I have spent the afternoon with Leo, Lenny my mother and Emmet wrestling with Mia a baby and an attic full of Christmas decorations.”

“A baby?”

“oh, yeaah, that happened yesterday. We got landed a one week old as an emergency. They said 48 hours but they have now asked us to have her till New Year and you know what Emmet is like. He can’t turn away a baby, mushy sod,” Esmee smiled before patting Ava on the back and laughing as she left the room waving goodbye to me.

“So how are we doing then sweet? Rough day? Esmee turned her attention to me.

“Something like that,” I moaned clearing a space on my bed where Esmee could sit down, which she did taking my sketch book into her hands for a few seconds and examine the face in the picture with a smile.

“It’s good to see her smiling. She never seemed to do very much of that in her last few months. Poor little girl. You miss her terribly don’t you?

“There’s an ach, it goes away sometimes, mostly when I just wake up and for those minutes it feels like the swelling has gone and I can breathe but then I remember one of them and it sort of comes back . I think you can learn to live with it though, and drawing helps,” I confirmed taking the sketch book back from Esmee when she offered and closing it. I rubbed at my face roughly with my hands to drive away the tears and it worked for a few seconds, like I had managed to pull the fault lines together but the pain come back as they drifted apart and the sickness that come after the ach engulfed me. The thoughts that I hated always came so close after I thought of death that it made it hard to breath. I had lost everyone I had ever cared about at any great length, and I couldn’t care much more about the woman that now lay back on my bed, her head against the wall with her arms wrested on top of her tummy, a relaxed smile on her face. I had tried not to care about her all that much but I had failed. I felt like the grim reaper hanging over her soul ready to strike whether I wanted to or not. She was far too human and far too fragile, are life’s where so easy put out – like candles in a wind.

I shuddered and took in a deep breath trying to bring my head back to the room. She looked the picture of health. She wasn’t going anywhere fast. She had years left of her life and I would be able to spend a few of them with her. I couldn’t ask for much more than that, except maybe a few more, or batter an option of making her immortal. I smiled; Bella would have been a fan of the last idea.

“I have some news.” Esmee said gently after a few minutes of quiet before tapping her tummy once and straightening her back up on my bed.

“I hoped you would have soon. I’ve been waiting for the announcement,” I smiled scouting over on the bed so I was next to her. I paused for a second debating with myself before allowing myself to rest my hand next to hers across her tummy.  

“You already know, well that’s no fun you were going to be the first person I announced it too,” Esmee grumbled in a fake strop, her bottom lip pointing out in the most adorable fashion next to her bright black eyes.

“Know what?” I asked playing dumb for her.

“I’m pregnant honey. 12 weeks. Look.” She took a small white card out of her pocket with the words “the first time you saw me” written on the front in silver.

I had to swallow sickness and hide a grimace with a smile as I curled my fingers around the edge of the textured cardboard so I could open the cover and peer at the grainy image of an outlined baby. I pushed hard back at the flash back that tried to swamp me but it only served to make it worse.  Now only the most painful bits broke through into the forefront of her my memory. I could feel how her hand was on mine – the coldness of the gell and the flashes on the screen – I could remember the elation – here the beating of a tiny little heart. I thought we had had forever.

I squinted hard against the memory’s as I tried to flip open the cover. I pulled my stomach muscles in tight as I dug my nails into the flesh of my leg. Now was not my time to ruin. It was her magic, her baby, her tiny beating heart and I would not ruin it for anything. I could be strong against my own head. I had to be.

“Ok… it’s OK,” Esmee eventually said as I tried with all my effort to make sense of the blurry lines in front of me as his heartbeat thundered like the bells of Notre Dame. She carefully removed the picture from my hand and folded it into her pocket before I could protest that I was fine and I wanted to see properly.

“I’m here.” She budged up closer to me so are side where touching and she laced her fingers through my hand and squeezed tightly, “ We’re going to have this flash back,” she confirmed, “We are going to let It happen, we are going to deal with anything that comes with it then we are going to look at this scan… Together, from now on we are going to do these things together.”