Hope from the Ocean: (The Prequel to Fireflies )

by P. S. Bartlett

  Owen and Sarah found a small, one bedroom farmhouse about ten miles from town. By the time the ground was peeking through the snow, Owen was seeing patients daily and coming home to Sarah each evening, carrying fresh baked bread, pies and homemade preserves. He brought money as well but fortunately they had no bills to pay. The town and mining company covered his salary so they were happy for the full pantry more so than the few extra dollars.

  Sarah’s first crop of vegetables came in as rich and healthy as she’d dreamed and they had plenty of help building pens for their animals from the off-duty miners Owen treated. He took Sarah to a local horse ranch and she picked two fine horses to add to the two they used to pull their buggy. Sarah was blossoming with their first child and by the first snow, Owen delivered the eldest of his children; a coal black-haired, eight and a half pound boy they called Fagan.

  As the years passed, Owen expanded their home, until by the time their third child was born, the home stood two-and–a-half stories with four large bedrooms and a full attic. Sarah was finally able to unpack many of the fine things she’d brought with them. Owen knew that as much as she loved living in the country, there was no reason not to fill their lives with beauty and culture.

  Each year they’d make the journey to Philadelphia at Christmas to visit his aunt with a new bundle in tow. Kathryn, who spent half of her life childless, was now surrounded every year with more children than she could handle and she reveled in it. Owen and Sarah would manage several full nights of sleep in the Philadelphia house, which was always a blessing and enough reason alone to make the trip. Kathryn would insist on keeping the youngest children in her room, including the babies, and was as energetic at sixty as she was the first day he laid eyes on her at the port.

  * * *

  When Sarah carried their seventh child, she fell gravely ill during her eighth month. Owen returned from his medical office one evening to find the house in disarray and Sarah lying in bed. Fifteen-year-old Fagan tended to the other children.

  “What’s wrong with yer Ma?” Owen asked, clutching Fagan by the shoulders.

  “I don’t know, Da. She said she wasn’t feeling well this morning and asked me to look after the children.” Fagan’s voice trembled.

  “Why didn’t ye come ta town and get me, for God’s sake? We’ve horses in the barn, ye know.” Owen caught himself taking his panic out on his son and looked down at his hands, gripping Fagan’s arms tighter and tighter until the boy’s face cringed with pain. Owen gasped and released him.

  He took the stairs two at a time and flung open the bedroom door to find Sarah soaked in sweat and so pale, he could barely tell where she ended and sheets began.

  “Sarah,” he breathed her name and ran to her bedside, pouring her a glass of water and lifting her head while holding the glass to her lips. Immediately images of Rachel flooded his worried mind and he called to Fagan to bring his medical bag.

  “I feel so weak, Owen. I’ve never felt this way before with any of the others. Somethin’s wrong. I think somethin’s terribly wrong,” she managed to say before her head fell back and she fainted in his arms.

  Owen laid her flat and put his hands on her stomach. He could feel her contracting as her abdomen tightened beneath his touch. He ripped the blanket and sheet away from her body to find the bed beneath her covered in amniotic fluid and blood.

  “Please, not yet child. It’s too soon,” he whispered to himself.

  “Here, Da,” Fagan said, sitting the bag down on the floor next to his father.

  “Fagan, grab me the smellin’ salts. Yer Ma’s about to deliver this baby and I can’t do it without her.” He grabbed the smelling salts from Fagan’s hand and waved them beneath Sarah’s nose, rousing her.

  “Owen? Is the baby comin’?” she moaned.

  “Yes. Now Sarah, I need yer help.” He motioned to Fagan to push all of the pillows beneath Sarah’s head and shoulders as he lifted her.

  “But it’s too soon. Somethin’s wrong. I know somethin’s wrong,” she cried.

  “Son, go back downstairs and boil me a pot a water. Go!” Owen ordered, pulling Sarah’s knees up and assessing the progression of the birth. “Don’t push yet, Sarah.”

  “I don’t even know if I can,” she moaned again.

  “Stay with me now. Come on, Sarah. We can do this, just hold on,” Owen begged, gently slapping the sides of her face and pulling his handkerchief from his pocket to wipe her brow. When it was soaked through, he spread the worn cloth out in his hand. The faded embroidery was barely visible. It was then he decided to pray.

  “Rachel Whelan, if yer watchin’, I need ye. I need some help here. God, please, I can’t live without this woman. If ye take her from me, ye might as well take me, too.”

  “Owen? I…have ta…push,” Sarah panted, barely loud enough for him to hear.

  “Da, here’s the water.” Fagan carefully sat the pot on the floor next to Owen and ran out of the room. Owen reached into his bag and poured alcohol all over his hands and ripped the top sheet from the bed, tearing it into large pieces.

  “Owen!” Sarah let out a scream and began to push.

  “Sarah, please! Not yet love! Not yet!”

  “God help me! Please! Don’t take my baby, please don’t take my baby!” Sarah cried over and over.

  “Okay, Sarah, go ahead, push,” Owen said calmly, as he saw the top of the child’s head begin to emerge.

  Sarah bore down as much as her poor weak body would allow but it wasn’t enough.

  “It’s alright, Sarah. As ye know too well, they don’t come on the first push, love. When yer ready, we’ll go again.”

  He’d barely spoken the words when she let out another scream and pulled hard on the bed. Owen pushed her knees back and away and saw the tiny head of the child. He reached down and cleared the child’s face with a damp cloth but the contraction ended and Sarah was nearly spent.

  “One more like that and I’ll have this baby in yer arms.”

  Another contraction wracked her body few seconds later, and Owen managed to get the child’s shoulders out and with a final scream from Sarah, the baby landed in his hands. “Happy New Year! Sarah, we’ve made another boy!”

  Sarah fell back onto the pillows exhausted, while Owen held the infant, as limp and blue as he’d ever seen. He plucked at the baby’s feet, and then patted them, turning him over to clear his mouth and nose.

  “What’s wrong?” Sarah called out faintly. “Why isn’t he cryin? Oh God, why isn’t he cryin?”

  Owen wiped the infant’s face and mouth with the wet cloth and placed his mouth over the child’s and blew a short burst of air into him. The child’s chest rose and fell with each breath. In his despair, he tied and cut the cord, wrapped the baby in a clean sheet and threw his arm over his brow to wipe the sweat away before trying to revive the child...one last time.

  When he laid the baby down on the bed, believing the pale, lifeless boy was lost, Sarah’s head lifted from the pillows. “What’s the matter with ye? Give him to me? Can’t ye hear him cryin’!”

  Owen thought Sarah was delirious, until he noticed the sheet moving and color starting to fill the infant’s face.

  “Dear God in Heaven!” he shouted. As he scooped up the infant and wiped his face again, he let out a wail the likes of which Owen had never heard. He pulled the child to his chest and kissed him over and over. “Cry, son, cry out as loud as ye can!”

  The bedroom door burst open and Fagan stood in the doorway and tears steamed from his eyes as he wiped his nose on his sleeve. “He’s alright? Ma’s…alright?”

  “Aye! Aye, son, come in and meet yer new baby brother!” Owen allowed Fagan but a moment with his mother and brother and then rushed him out of the room. Once the baby was bathed and peaceful, he helped Sarah to a chair while he cleaned up the bed, and then tucked them both in. The child never made another sound the rest of their nearly sleepless night.

  In the morning, Owen awoke in his chair and found Sarah at
tempting to feed the baby.

  “I’ve been tryin’ for a while. I suppose he’s just too tired to eat after all that.”

  Owen sat on the bed next to Sarah and lightly stroked the baby’s head. “Have ye settled on a name yet?”

  “I want ta call him Ennis.” The infant finally latched on to her and began to nurse. Sarah looked up from the blessing in her arms and spoke, “I can’t do this no more.”

  “What are ye sayin’ love?”

  “This is the last.”

  Owen nodded but lowered his eyes in understanding and continued to stroke Ennis’ head lightly.

  “Check the fire, Owen,” Sarah said. “I feel a chill in the air.”

  “It’s fine love, see?” Owen leaned to the side so she could view the fireplace behind him. He lifted his hand from Ennis’ head, and the hairs on his arm stood up.

  What a curious thing he thought.

  He placed his hand on Sarah’s forehead. She was cool. “Sarah, I forgot ta ask ye how yer feelin’ this mornin’?”

  “I’ve never felt better in me life.”

  “Ye lost a lot of blood love. Are ye certain…”

  “I said I’m fit as a fiddle. However, this one is stayin’ in with me for a good while. I’ll not leave his side until my heart tells me he’s outta the woods.”

  Owen called out to the other children to come meet their new brother. Fagan entered the room with their now second-youngest son Patrick on his hip and the rest pushed passed him to flock around their mother as she held Ennis in her arms. Owen’s heart swelled with pride and thanks as he leaned in the doorway and closed his eyes.

  “Da?”

  Owen looked down at his daughter. “Yes, Teagan, what is it love?” He pulled her up into his arms.

  “Thank you for saving our Ma and the baby,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck and squeezing him hard.

  Owen patted her on her back, kissed her raven hair and lowered her back to the floor.

  “Da, look! It’s snowing,” Connell shouted, pointing to the window at the far end of the bedroom

  “Aye, that it is, son.” Owen walked to the window and gazed out at the fast falling snow. “Connell, tend that fire, will ye?”

  Connell rushed to the fireplace and poked at it when it suddenly roared up, frightening him back and causing him to drop the poker to the floor.

  “Are ye alright son?”

  “I’m alright, Da. What was that?”

  “I don’t rightly know. Come along now, all a ye. Let’s let yer Ma get some rest.”

  “Da? While Ma rests, will you come and read to us for a bit?” Teagan asked, pulling a book from the side table next to her mother.

  “A course I will. Here Teag, let me see that.” Owen reached down and took the book from his daughter’s hands. He turned it over and brushed what appeared to be years of dust from the cover and his voice trembled a bit as he spoke. “Where did ye find this Las?”

  “Here Da, on the table next to Ma. What’s it about?”

  “Why…it’s a ghost story love, but it’s not a scary one. It’s about a man who is visited by spirits.”

  “That does sound a bit scary…though it is only a story.”

  “Not at all. They teach him a lesson about love and life and not to waste any of it on pettiness and greed. Ye sound as if ye don’t believe in such things. Aren’t ye even a little curious?”

  “That’s silly Da. Everyone knows there’s no such thing as ghosts.”

  About the Author

  Sherrie Fornoff Photography

  I was born on Valentine’s Day a long, long time ago in South Baltimore, Maryland, less than a mile from Fort McHenry and Federal Hill. I’m a very simple person. I love my life and am always striving to make it better for myself and my family.

  I write, I draw and I still work full-time. I’ve been married for 19 years and together we have two sons, a daughter and three beautiful granddaughters.

  I write to breathe and I breathe to live.

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