Protecting His Baby Read online

  I can’t explain it. But something in my gut tells me he’ll hurt me.

  It’s twisted, but this chilling fear in the bottom of my stomach makes me want to reach out my hand through the wooden slats of the blinds, through the glass, and through the yards of office space between us, until my fingers touch him. Until my hand presses on his chest and feels his heart beating. Until I get close enough for him to inflict pain on me.

  It’s been too long since I felt anything at all. I’d do whatever it takes to feel something. Even if it’s unbearable, excruciating pain.

  The shiny elevator door opens, and the man steps inside, out of my view.

  But something tells me I’ll see him again. Soon.

  Harper

  “Sorry, Mark. I was planning to come on Thursday.”

  I pause.

  Does he know what day Thursday was?

  “Thursday was my birthday, you know. The people at the office, they threw a small party for me at lunch.”

  I let out a small, nervous laugh. It always feels weird in the beginning, talking to him when he can’t say anything back.

  “It wasn’t anything fancy. They just bought me a cake.”

  A lump forms in my throat.

  Mark used to buy me a cake on my birthday. He never failed to remember. He’d do anything to make it special, to make me feel less alone.

  In fact, when they found his car, there was a smashed cake on the floor. There was white cream smeared on the black rubber mat. It had been sitting on the passenger seat, they told me.

  Tears spring to my eyes and roll down my cheeks. As I take a deep breath, I hear myself sniffle. There’s a certain freedom in just letting it all out.

  All year, I suppress this sadness. Try to be strong.

  My birthday is the only day of the year I allow myself to just be sad. To be weak, for once.

  Mark is the only person who gets to see me like this.

  Or should it be “who got to see me like this?” In past tense?

  I can never get used to speaking about Mark in the past tense. Even though it’s been five years, it feels like he’s still here. Like he has never left.

  And after what I saw earlier this week . . . I’ve been wondering if he truly has never left, after all.

  My fingertips caress the rough headstone. The rain splatters dark spots on it and my touch smears them, spreads the darkness.

  “I miss you so much.” My voice breaks as I run my hand over the stone the way I used to stroke his hair. “So, so much. I thought it would pass. I mean, we were so young. Everybody told me it would. But . . .”

  I let my sentence hang in the air, unfinished. It’s not like Mark would climb out of the grave and ask me what I meant to say.

  I stare at the green grass that covers the ground.

  Right after the funeral, when I came here every single day, there was a rectangular patch in the soil that was brown. Just earth. No grass.

  Even then, I couldn’t imagine Mark lying down there. The Mark I remembered was full of life and laughter. He brightened up every room he entered. He was so warm to everyone.

  Now that there’s just a flat stretch of grass on the ground, punctuated by headstones, it’s even harder to picture Mark six feet underneath my feet. Especially after what I saw at the office.

  “Where are you, Mark?” I ask.

  On my previous visits, I thought about the afterlife when I posed this question. I wondered about the end of my own life, when I would see him again. It always felt like too long of a wait and I’ll admit suicidal thoughts have crossed my mind more than once.

  I’ve been managing those thoughts better since I got a job that paid enough for me to see a shrink.

  Today, though, those black thoughts have evaporated. And it’s not because of anything my therapist has said.

  For the first time in a long time, I wonder if my gut feeling has been right all along. I wonder if Mark is still around.

  After all, I never saw his body. His family wouldn’t let me.

  They didn’t even pick up when I blew up Mark’s phone with calls and texts that got more desperate as time went by.

  I only found out when his friend called to ask me if I needed a lift to the funeral.

  I said yes and stood at the back throughout the service while his parents shot daggers at me with their bloodshot eyes.

  His friends told me a drunk driver had crashed into Mark’s car and killed him instantly. The cake suggested that he had been on his way to my place.

  The roads were slippery that night, and to make things worse, there was a thick fog, too. There was even a blizzard warning. He shouldn’t have been driving.

  Mark’s family blamed me for the accident.

  Nevertheless, I begged them to give me something. Anything. Tell me more about how it happened, how my beloved had died. I wanted to know his suffering. I needed to make it mine.

  But no one from Mark’s family said even one word to me.

  Once his friends had told me all they knew, I started hanging out at the police station, asking for any crumbs of information they could give me. But they were always too busy for me.

  In my desperation, I followed a dirty cop into a bar, sweet-talked him while he was drunk, and let him fondle my chest in a dark alley to get what I wanted. I’m not proud of what I did, but the guy delivered and gave me a copy of the case files.

  I saw everything.

  The jagged pieces of metal. The shattered bits of glass scattered on the gray asphalt. The blood—ugh, there was so much blood. And, of course, the cake.

  In the midst of it all, I saw Mark. I remember thinking how normal he looked. Like he was just sleeping. Like I could tap him on the shoulder and he’d open his eyes, maybe even smile at me.

  “How are you?” a male voice asks.

  I gasp when I feel a hand on my back.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,” the man says. He has a sheepish expression on his face when I turn around to look at him.

  “Oh, hi, Mr. Dawson,” I greet the elderly caretaker of the cemetery. “Don’t worry about it. I’m good, by the way. And you?”

  “Ah, these bones are getting creaky. Soon I’ll be living here full time,” he says, gesturing at the ground.

  I smile. Mr. Dawson’s dark sense of humor used to make me uncomfortable, but I’ve grown fond of it over time.

  “I didn’t see you on Thursday,” he says, smiling back.

  “I had work. I tried to take the day off, but they wouldn’t let me.”

  Mr. Dawson shakes his head slowly, his gray, bushy eyebrows knitted in disapproval. He lets out a big sigh. “It’s no good, someone as young as you making this such a priority.”

  “It’s only once a year.”

  “When my wife passed away, I thought I was just going to wait for my turn. But people helped me live again. My family. The people from my church,” he says, ignoring my flimsy defense. He looks at me straight in the eye. “Your real life is out there. Not in here.”

  I guess he has a point. I’ve spent so much time here, he and I are friends now, to the point where he’s comfortable saying these things to me right now.

  In fact, if it weren’t for Mr. Dawson, I’d still be living here in the small town of Ashbourne, unemployed and hanging out in the cemetery every day. He was the one who told me I needed a therapist, too.

  “I do have a life, Mr. Dawson,” I counter.

  “Do you?” He gives me an unconvinced stare. “What did you do last weekend?”

  “I did a marathon.” A marathon of the new detective TV series, that is. But he doesn’t need to know that.

  “At least you’re keeping yourself healthy. That’s good.” He asks, “Any new boyfriend?”

  I shake my head.

  “It’s been too long, Harper. Way too long,” he says. “I’m seeing someone. It’s great. Makes me feel young again.”

  “Good for you.” I can’t help but smile. “Who’s the lucky lady?”

/>   “An old friend. We went on a few dates when we were younger, but the time was never right.” The big smile on Mr. Dawson’s face is contagious.

  “Until now.”

  “Until now,” he agrees. “It’s time you start seeing someone new, too.”

  “I just haven’t met anyone I like.”

  My colleagues have tried setting me up with some guys they know. To be honest, they were perfectly nice people, and they’d probably make some women very happy. But, I kept comparing them to Mark and none of them measured up.

  In fact, even though I sucked it up for more than three dates with some of those guys, I never felt anything beyond boredom. They were all so dull to me.

  That man at the office who looked like Mark, though . . . In just a few seconds, he dominated my mind.

  I hesitate before I ask the question. I know it’s a ridiculous one, but I have to ask. It has been bothering me for days, and Mr. Dawson is probably the best expert I know on the subject.

  “Can I ask you something? It might be a bit strange . . .” I start.

  “I’ve been around much longer than you,” he says. “I’ve heard it all. Try me.”

  “Have you ever come across . . . I don’t know, uh, people who are supposed to be dead but they’re actually still alive?” I ask quickly before I change my own mind.

  Mr. Dawson’s forehead crumples into a mess of wrinkles. He looks at me with concern in his eyes.

  “I don’t mean zombies or anything like that.” I laugh nervously. “I mean, like, maybe someone fakes his own death.”

  The man rubs his white beard as drops of rain fall on it and mat the strands together. “You asking me if any of these graves are empty? Or filled with the wrong corpse?”

  “Something like that.”

  “You referring to this grave in particular?”

  I shrug, feeling dumb. But, it’s kind of too late to back down now. “Any grave, really. It’s just something I saw on TV. Got me curious.”

  “That’s just fiction. I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.” Mr. Dawson shakes his head and pulls the hood of his coat up over his head.

  “Good to know,” I say as nonchalantly as I can.

  “It’s starting to pour. I should go back to the cottage,” he says, pointing at the small building at the edge of the cemetery. In the old days, the caretaker used to live in that yellow wooden building, but now Mr. Dawson has his own place and is only here when it’s his shift.

  “It’s really nice to talk to you again.”

  “I hope I won’t see you moping here on your birthday next year,” he says. “You should go home, too. You’ll catch a cold, standing there without an umbrella.”

  “Yeah. I just need a few more moments.” I give Mr. Dawson a smile, then breathe a stealthy sigh of relief when he turns around and leaves me alone.

  I stare at the raindrops clinging to the green grass that grows over what is supposed to be Mark’s grave.

  Have I been deluding myself?

  Lots of people say they still feel the presence of their loved ones who are dead. Mostly, I see them on those woo-woo paranormal TV shows.

  I’m not one of those people. At least, I don’t think I am. I don’t believe Mark’s ghost is watching me or anything.

  My shrink tells me when I feel Mark’s presence it just means I’m missing him and remembering him. I agree with her.

  What I saw the other day, though . . . That wasn’t a ghost. That man was real. As real any of my co-workers in that office building.

  Aside from the dangerous aura he exuded, he looked exactly like Mark would, if he had had the chance to grow older by five years and decided to grow out his hair.

  I look up to the sky and let the fat rivulets of cold rain hit my face. Mr. Dawson would disapprove if he saw, but maybe a slap in the face from Mother Nature would drag me back to reality.

  I run my fingers through my wet hair and look around the cemetery.

  It’s empty, except for a group of mourners in black, standing around a newly dug grave just across the narrow strip of asphalt from where I am.

  Fresh grave. Fresh wound.

  My heart goes out to those people. The next few days, weeks, even months or years would be hell for some of them.

  I shield my eyes from the rain and watch them more closely.

  What the . . .?

  My heart races as I notice a certain figure standing around the new grave.

  I can only see his back from here, and there’s a narrow road separating us, not to mention some trees.

  But, the way that leather jacket fits snugly across his back . . . I couldn’t mistake that guy for someone else.

  Before I know what I’m doing, I walk across the wet grass, heading straight toward the man like an arrow.

  As I cross the road, he looks over his shoulder like he senses me coming. Our eyes lock.

  Even though a hood hides his face in the shadows and the rain blurs my vision, I recognize that face. I’d recognize that face anywhere.

  It’s Mark’s face.

  Logan

  At least I won’t have to reschedule twenty appointments to be here.

  Pam always said I was too grumpy, but look at me being all sunshine and rainbows now. At a funeral, no less.

  Too bad she’s not here to see this. Or more accurately, she’s here but she can’t see this.

  Maybe it says something about me, the fact that I can only be positive at a funeral.

  Shit, Pam.

  If I knew her situation earlier, I could’ve saved her. Hell, any of the incompetent interns at the hospital could’ve saved her.

  We had been working together for more than ten years when she told me she wanted a check-up.

  “I haven’t had it done in years,” she said, smiling sheepishly. She was fifty-four, but she looked like a shy little girl when she did that.

  Having worked at the hospital for so long, Pam knew someone her age should’ve been having regular check-ups. But I also knew the hospital didn’t exactly provide excellent insurance coverage for its support staff.

  Pam was just working in the kitchen, after all. She brought the patients their meals, serving them their hospital food. That didn’t exactly make her very popular with the patients.

  But as bad as the food was, it was all I had when I’d just started out as an intern. I was too proud to ask for help but Pam noticed me not eating during the breaks, and she sneaked meals for me—shitty, uninspired food, of course, but beggars can’t be choosers.

  If, at any point in time, Pam had asked me to give her a thorough exam, I would’ve done it in a heartbeat. Pro bono.

  Instead, she had to ask me when it was already too late for me to do anything.

  I remember when a nurse passed me her test result like it was just another one of the patients’. With the patients, it’s easy to remain detached. But just like a starved stray dog, I developed a bond with the hands that fed me.

  As sad as it sounds, Pam was the closest thing to a mother I ever had.

  And now, she’s gone.

  Raindrops gently fall on the hood of my leather jacket. They sound like soft, incessant knocking. Reminds me of how Pam used to announce her arrival at my office.

  As people begin to sing a hymn, I wipe the rain off my face.

  I stop myself from snorting when the priest shakes a silver stick over the open grave to sprinkle holy water on the wooden coffin. With rain this heavy, does that really do anything?

  It’s fitting, rain at a funeral. The soil turns muddy and sticks to the mourners’ fancy, black shoes like a reminder of their own mortality.

  Death was always all around me. But it was only when I held Pam’s test result in my hands that I understood what it meant.

  She seemed so small when she entered my office that day. So scared. She was trembling. She could probably sense something was wrong as soon as she saw me. She was always too fucking perceptive for my comfort.

  It felt like a huge-a
ss metal anvil was sitting at the pit of my stomach when I told her, “Pam, I got your result. And unfortunately, I have bad news for you.”

  She put her hands on the desk, her wedding band tapping on the wood. Her dark eyes filled with fear as she said, “Tell me.” Her voice was shaking.

  So, I told her.

  The whole time, it felt surreal. She had come to me as a perfectly healthy woman. And now, I was telling her she was dying. At the same time, she still seemed like she was the picture of good health.

  I had to let someone from the oncology department treat her while I stayed in the sidelines and monitored her progress. She wouldn’t let me help her pay for the treatments so I went behind her back, talked to her primary care doctor and the billing department myself.

  We beat Pam’s colon cancer—the first time. That was when I decided to quit my job at the hospital and go my own way.

  Then, it came back for the second time, stronger than before. Pam’s body was weaker after the first round of treatments, too, and well, she succumbed.

  Pam’s family decided not to do an autopsy, so I’ll never know if her death was directly from the cancer, from one of the complications of the treatments, or from something else entirely.

  At first, I was enraged by their stupid decision. I was the one who saw Pam through the whole thing, and I felt like I had more say than these people.

  But then again, what do I know about family?

  Besides, it’s not as if knowing would change anything. She’s still dead. Just a corpse in a coffin, soon to be buried six feet under.

  I look around as the crowd of black-clad mourners standing around the open grave sing yet another song. Pam’s sons, daughters, cousins, grandchildren, and friends.

  A big family. When I got here, I got introduced to so many people and shook so many hands I don’t even remember any names. Managing all these relationships seems like a heavy load of responsibilities to me.

  But then again, most people won’t understand how I could stand living alone in the mountains either.

  As people bow their heads to pray, I sense something, or someone, stalking me. I’ve spent enough time in the woods to recognize it.

  I look over my shoulder and find a girl heading straight at me. She stares at me as she crosses the narrow road between us, only blinking when the rain gets in her eyes.