| INNOCENCE
By Jayne Sykes
Have you ever wondered what it feels like to be dead? Well,
have you? Think about it.
Never again to feel the warmth of the summer sun shining on your happy
face as you raise it in salutation. The refreshing wetness of an unexpected
rain shower as you run, laughingly, for cover. To hold the people you
had always taken for granted would be there for you. To keep them safe.
Protected.
I used to wonder what it would feel like. In my darkest moments I suppose
I would even have welcomed it.
When it happens it knocks you for six. I had always hoped for a peaceful
death, my last breath escaping in my blessed sleep. The morning it actually
happened had started off badly and ended even worse. I hadn’t had
a clue. No omens to warn of my untimely demise, unless you counted the
divorce papers landing on my doorstep the previous week.
‘At least he didn’t suffer,’ I heard the constant refrain
at my funeral until I wanted to scream and shout. ‘He had a short
life, but a good one.’
‘What do you call this?’ I had yelled at the top of my lungs,
as I attempted to pick up the heavy ash tray that had always sat in the
middle of my mother’s dining room table.
I guess I wasn’t on the list to become the next poltergeist, for
the cut glass ash tray remained fixed on its spot instead of smashed to
a millions pieces against the wall.
Instead, I had been forced to watch all the people I had known in life
gorging on home made sandwiches and drinking copious amounts of alcohol,
all in the interests of seeing me off into the afterlife.
But wait! I’m digressing, forgetting my purpose.
‘The baby’s crying again,’ Brian groaned and nudged
Angela who pulled the duvet up around her ears, mumbling protests.
‘It’s your turn, Brian.’
‘Nope. I went last time. Besides,’ he opened one eye and peered
at the bedside clock, ‘it’s feed time and unless there’s
any more bottled…’ he let the sentence trail off and reached
over to pat Angela’s back as she climbed, grudgingly, out of bed.
I don’t suppose there are many people who can remember their emergence
into the big bad world. I came into existence the same as everyone else,
naked and vulnerable as I was thrust into outstretched arms eager to nurture
and protect.
It’s obviously part of our genetic makeup to recognise the need
to bond, to strive for security so it was no surprise to find my son suckling
noisily on Angela’s generous breast as I appeared in the nursery.
A room I had finished preparing only days before Angela renounced our
wedding vows.
Angela asking me to move out had been a bigger shock than the lorry that
had slammed into my car that cold, icy morning. Her insistence that the
marriage was over had already killed me, so I suppose dying twice in the
space of a month was quite an achievement.
Now, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. When I opened them a few
seconds later it was to find those big baby blue eyes watching me closely.
‘Hey, little one,’ I murmured, taking a few steps towards
them.
He released his mother’s nipple, his tiny feet kicking out and,
I swear, he smiled at me.
‘What are you looking at?’ Angela stroked his soft cheek and
glanced through me, her eyes squinting in the low light.
In response, the baby chortled and waved his tiny arms, his gaze still
locked on me as she winded him before settling him back down for what
remained of the night.
I followed her back into our bedroom, ignoring the anger coursing through
my lifeless body as I witnessed their harmonious domesticity. That had
been one of the many things I had loved about Angela. Her desire for a
happy, peaceful life.
Well, we were all entitled to our delusions. That had been mine.
‘Brian, are you awake?’
‘I am now,’ he grumbled. ‘Hey, your feet are cold!’
‘I think there’s something wrong with Louie. I might take
him to see the doctor in the morning.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know.’
Brian humphed.
‘He just… all the time I was feeding him, he just kept staring
at the wall. I don’t even think he blinked.’
‘He’s a six week old baby, Angela. He’s hardly likely
to engage you in conversation.’
Angela shrugged in the dark. ‘I might take him anyway. Just to make
sure.’
Brian turned over and snuggled close to her. ‘You worry too much.
He’s fine.’
Of course he was. For once, I was in total agreement with Brian.
I waited, watching until their slow, even breathing told me that they
had slipped back into peaceful slumber. Then I headed back into the nursery.
Little Louie smiled up at me and I stroked his downy soft hair, wishing
I could recall any time in my life when I had felt and looked as innocent
as my small son. To be unaware of the vagaries of life.
If Angela could hear my thoughts now she would accuse me of sounding like
some Victorian fuddy duddy. Not that she would really care.
I let my fingers rest on my son’s soft cheek and knew it was time.
I had been there for his conception and birth. It was only right that
I should be here now. I had never been one for revenge, had swallowed
the bitter pill of Angela’s relationship with my best friend, Brian.
There had been a thought that the child she carried could be his. Now,
looking at Louie, I knew that it wasn’t true. Louie had my nose,
my dark hair. He looked exactly as I had done as a baby.
I had lain in my car after the accident, knowing my time was nearing its
end. The only thought I can recall was the frustration that I would have
to watch another man raise my son. A man who had usurped my trust. That
had hurt more than the punctured lung, the fractured femur.
I promised in that moment that I would always be there for him. Not Angela
or Brian, of course. They were quite capable of looking after themselves
and their own needs. They had done a good job at that for the last two
years so there was no need to worry on that front.
To think they had both cried their sorry, cheating hearts out at my funeral.
I had watched them lowering my lifeless body into the cold, damp earth
and, I too, had been consumed by grief. A sorrow that had soon been replaced
by anger.
I would never know what it would feel like to hold my son. For, in that
moment, I had known that she was carrying a son. We hadn’t wanted
to know the sex of our baby when she had gone for the scans. We had selected
several names for either sex over the months, tried them out to see how
they sounded. As long as the baby was healthy we had no preference for
gender.
That morning, watching her heavy form bedecked in unflattering black,
I had taken some comfort in the fact that I was the father of a son. A
new life to remind them all of my meagre existence.
Louie made a small sound and I tickled his little tummy.
‘Soon, my son, soon.’
Angela hadn’t wanted me in life. She wouldn’t need me in death.
She had Brian. The man who had stood as best man at our wedding eight
years ago. The man I had considered asking to be godfather to my child.
‘Louie,’ I whispered as the morning sun appeared above the
horizon, casting a warm soft glow on the pale yellow walls I had so lovingly
painted.
I had learned that we are not really in control of our destiny. We could
weave our own paths but the ultimate decision was not ours to make. So
as I suddenly stooped down and removed Louie from his cot there was no
sadness. Just a feeling that this was the way things were meant to be.
Brian suddenly appeared in the room and I watched as he peered down at
Louie.
‘Ange! Ange! Phone the doctor! Quick!’
There was a clatter as Angela dropped whatever she had been holding and
ran to join her lover.
‘No!’ she shouted. ‘No! I told you something was wrong!’
She picked up Louie’s lifeless body, kissing the tiny blue tinged
lips as though she could breathe life back into him.
I looked on with a mixture of pain and joy and Louie kicked his little
legs, his innocent blue eyes meeting my own.
As the paramedics bundled them into the ambulance, I saw Angela shrug
off Brian’s arm of comfort as she cried fresh tears of grief. Only
this time, I knew they would be heartfelt, genuine.
A sudden sense of peace descended around me and I turned to leave, taking
one last look around the nursery as I walked out, Louie in my arms.
‘Son,’ I whispered. ‘This is the way it is meant to
be.’
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