Uncaged

“Please!  Help her!  She can’t… Why isn’t she awake?!  Help, please!”  My panic is starting to consume me, and the little burst of joy that just flooded my system is dying.

“Daddy, Mommy is just taking a nap now.  Doctor said so.  He said Mommy would be tired and her body needed more sleep.  That’s silly though because Mommy’s been asleep for a million days!”

“She’s okay, brother.  It’s time to release that breath you’ve been holding for a million days.”

I laugh when Maddox stops talking.  I laugh for the first time in weeks.  It sounds rusty, and I’m sure I look like a complete fool.  But I laugh.  I keep laughing as Cohen climbs into my lap and laughs with me.

And then I take that breath that I’ve been holding since this all started.

I take that breath, pull my son close, and let the floodgates fly open.  Every ounce of fear I’ve had consuming my body comes rushing to the surface so that the joy I’m feeling has room to take its place.

Chapter 14 – Cohen

Mommy is awake now.

I’ve been really scared, but I’ve been a big boy and didn’t tell anyone.  I didn’t want anyone to know.

But I used my magic and sang Mommy her song and it worked.

It worked!

Now it’s time to use my magic on my girls.

I just know it’s going to work too, because my girls know.  They know that I’m their big brother and I’ll never ever ever let anything hurt them.

“Daddy.  I need to see my girls now.  It’s time.”

Daddy looks at me with a really funny face.  I’ve never seen him do that face before, but it’s really funny.  It’s the face that Uncle Axel always makes when Dilbert is running around in those really tall shoes that Aunt Dee wears.  They look like they hurt really bad, but Dilbert is always running around like a funny man.  Uncle Axel makes that face, kinda like he swallowed a fly and he doesn’t know how to get it out.

“Daddy.  We need to go now.”

He looks at Mommy again and then up at Maddox Locke before he looks back at me.  “Right now, C-Man?”

“Yes, Daddy.  Right this minute.”

“All right then.  Let’s go see if we can get them to open the curtain for you.”

I don’t like the sounds of that.  I don’t want to look into the curtain anymore.  I want to touch my sisters so they can feel my magic, but I guess I can figure out another way.

I jump down from Daddy’s lap and hold my hand out for him.  He shakes his head, and I smile when he holds my hand, stands, and gets ready to leave.

“You’ll find me if she wakes up before we get back?” he asks Maddox Locke.

“Yeah.”

I turn back and look at Maddox Locke; he smiles big and winks at me.  I smile back, really big, because Maddox Locke doesn’t smile a lot, but when he does, it’s really cool.

“Cohen, what are we doing?”

I finish untying my cape from around my neck.  It’s not the same as my old one, but I know it has my magic on it because I haven’t taken it off once since Maddox Locke tied it around my shoulders.

“I’m going to fix my sisters.”

I know Daddy doesn’t understand, but I just smile and hand him my cape.

“Uh, okay?”  He looks down at me.  His face is funny again.  And then he looks at my cape in his really big hand.  “What do you want me to do with this, buddy?”

“My girls need it.  But you have to tell them that it’s from their big brother.  They have to know that it’s from me or the magic won’t work.”

“Cohen, son… I need you to clear it up for me because I’m a little confused.”

“Daddy, you have to stay with me here.”  He laughs, but I keep going.  This is important.  “You need to take my magic in there.  My girls are in their box and they need my magic!”

Why doesn’t he understand?  If I could go in there and do it myself, I would, but they won’t let me in there.  They say I have to stay out here because I might have germs.

“All right, Cohen… Let me see what I can do.”  He waves over the nice nurse lady who always smiles at me.  I can’t hear what they say when she steps out of the room my girls are in, but I really don’t like her funny face.

I want to yell when Daddy hands her my cape, but I keep quiet and watch her walk back into the room.  I can see my girls sleeping in the same box.  I hate them in that glass box.

He picks me up and holds me high so that I can see in the room a little better.  I keep watching as the nurse weaves through the stuff in her way until she reaches my girls.

The nurse looks over and smiles at us again.  I hold my breath when she takes my cape and lays it across my girls’ glass box.  She smiles again, waves, and gives me a thumbs up.

I look over at Daddy.  His face looks funny again, but this time his eyes are wet.  That’s okay; I won’t tell anyone that he cried.  I smile again because this time I know that everything is going to be just perfect.

Chapter 15 – Melissa

Soft singing pulls me from my dreams—that beautiful, deep baritone I’ve heard in my dreams for what seems like ages.  The feeling of love drips from each word, instantly warming my soul and easing my mind.

It takes me a few minutes to understand where I am and why I hear my husband singing to me about going to the ends of the earth, and it makes me feel his love.  Why my eyelids feel as if they weigh a hundred pound each, my body is sluggish to my commands, and almost every inch of my body hums with pain.

I briefly remember opening my eyes earlier and seeing Greg in a hospital room.  It’s hazy, but I remember him, Cohen, and Maddox standing right inside the doorway…and then nothing else.

In those minutes, I noticed one thing with stark clarity.  I didn’t feel my babies.  The pressure and dull pain I had become accustom to over the course of my pregnancy, the rolling of their bodies, the jabs and kicks—all of it was gone.  I can feel my panic starting to peak, knowing that there is something gravely wrong if my babies aren’t here.

Oh, God!

In little flashes, like a projector playing slides of my last moments of consciousness, I remember.

Cohen being Cohen, making me laugh with his innocence and wonky train of thought.  Looking up in the mirror to meet his smiling eyes.  Driving through the green light and that terrible sound of horns and colliding metal.  Screams from my boy and his sobbing voice telling me he loves me.

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