The Survivor Journals Omnibus [Books 1-3]

by Little, Sean Patrick

  The sheer, grotesque horror of that visual picture seemed to stimulate my adrenaline and refill some of my energy tanks. I told myself that it had to be easier the second time, right? The first baby had done the hard work of clearing the path. The other one just had to follow. I braced my feet against the wall at the foot of the tub like makeshift stirrups. I slid my butt down a little farther to get a better birthing angle, and tried not to crush the baby girl when I bore down to start pushing.

  It did feel easier the second time. While I never felt the baby girl moving through the process because of the pain, this time I could feel the second baby sliding a little easier. Don’t get me wrong—it wasn’t that much easier. The baby was still Twist’s child, and had his giant-sized melon. I was still pushing a football-sized creature through a softball-sized opening. It was not easy, but it was easier than the first one.

  I know, over the years, a lot was written about the strength of mothers before the Flu. My own mom had a refrigerator magnet that read, You don’t know true strength until you become a Mother. I figured out what that meant right then and there. After my daughter slid out, I was exhausted beyond anything I had ever felt before. When I needed to get this second baby out, despite having no energy, and no measurable strength left, I somehow tapped a reserve I didn’t know existed and found the ability to complete the birth. It took a few rounds of pushing, but I felt the head slide through. I had to balance my daughter on my chest while I reached down and pulled the second baby out of me, a baby boy! The prophesied Victor was in there! My Latina mother instinct was intact after all.

  When I felt him slide free, my body was shivering from exhaustion. My muscles were seizing from dehydration and exertion. My stomach hurt. My pelvis hurt. I wanted to sleep more than anything I had ever wanted before, but the joy of having these babies out of me and in my presence kept me going.

  I grabbed a fresh towel and brought the second baby around to clean him, and then I froze. One of my worst case scenarios had come true. I saw the umbilical cord wrapped around his tiny neck. The baby was blue and swollen.

  I screamed and started sobbing. I’d had enough medical training to know when something was a lost cause, but I tried anyhow. I cut the cord free of his little neck, and I tried to breathe life into him, clearing his mouth and nose of mucus and fluids and trying to give him CPR. I slapped his back and tiny butt. I slapped the soles of his little feet. I pressed on his chest with my fingertips. I held his body to my ear and listened. I couldn’t hear any heartbeat. I kept trying, anyhow.

  I remember screaming curses to every god in the heavens. I remember crying. Babbling. Making impossible promises to whatever deity would come down and save my baby. None of them did. Scared, Fester ran out of the bathroom where he had been standing vigil on the sink. I scrambled out of the tub, laying the little girl on the floor next to my bed, where she immediately began wailing. She was alive. She could cry. She would be fine. My son, though—the son I had named after my poor, late father—he needed all the help I could give him.

  I kept trying to prod and breathe life into little Victor. I desperately tried every measure available to me, but eventually, I had to stop. I could not do anything more. I had tried and failed. I lost. One of those horrible things that can happen had happened, I had been powerless to stop it, and I was going to have to play the hand that was dealt to me. I had no other choice. It was over. He was dead.

  I wrapped Victor’s little, still body in a towel like his sister. I could not stop sobbing. Every breath in my body was like prickling fire. The cold, logical part of my brain tried to convince me that it seemed ridiculous: I had anticipated one baby, I’d had one baby. Anything beyond that had not even been considered. There had been no promises. There had been no guarantees. I was silly to cry over a baby I hadn’t even known had been there…but, yet…I could not stop crying. My son was dead.

  I slipped on the adult diapers I’d picked up for just this situation to serve as a bandage post-birth. I wrapped myself in my heaviest robe. I picked up the squalling little girl and cradled her in my right arm. I picked up the tiny, blue-tinged body of Victor, swaddled like his sister, and I carried him in my left arm. I walked through the house, which somehow felt far less like my house than it had an hour ago. It felt tainted, somehow. Impure. Tarnished. Cursed.

  I was in a dull, dead-eyed haze, not feeling anything except sorrow and agony. My heart felt like it was broken. No, that’s not right. Not broken--shattered. It lay inside me in a million crystal shards, each with torn, jagged edges that bled me further. I stumbled through the house and into the backyard. The fire in the pit in the middle of the yard burned low. It was enough, though. I slumped in my chair in front of the fire and stared at the two bundles in my arms.

  The little girl, desperately hungry, could sense breast milk nearby and rooted her head toward it blindly. I did not feel like feeding her, but I opened the front of my robe and let her latch on. Her cries ended immediately. I felt horribly guilty at that moment. Traumatically guilty. I felt like I had let my son die, and because of my grief over that, I was somehow unable to fathom that I had a healthy, living child that needed me.

  I could not stop my tears. I felt like a dark cloud was settled over me. I ignored my daughter while I stared at the tiny, still face of my son, and I told him over and over that I was sorry. I apologized. I cuddled him to me, desperate to be his mother, desperate for him to know that he was loved, even though I had not even known he was going to be there. I could not stop saying I was sorry.

  An hour passed. And then another. My daughter finished her feeding by falling into a deep, exhausted sleep. Swaddled against me, she slept peacefully, making tiny, shallow breaths. My body wanted to sleep, but my mind would not let it. My mind knew that my time with the little boy in my arms was limited. My mind was not going to miss a single second, no matter what my body demanded.

  The sun pulled itself from the horizon. A wide swath of brilliant yellow light poured over the farm, lighting everything with a glowing aura. It made me angry. My son was dead, and the sky was turning into a brilliant blue as if nothing was wrong. It felt wrong. I wanted the sky to darken into a steely gray and pour rain down in sympathy for my pain.

  The fire died to nearly embers, but it still radiated some heat. I could not bring myself to rouse out of the chair to put another log on it, though. I felt if I moved, I would have to go back to living. At that moment, I was suspended from life, hovering in a limbo state where I could simply be with my poor son.

  I apologized through my tears to my daughter. I told her I was sorry that her mommy was not being a good mommy at that moment. I promised that I would change, that I would be the best mommy I could be to her, but she needed to give me this time with her brother. It would not last long. I almost envied the fact that she would be able to grow up and have no memories of her brother. I wished that I could say the same thing. I knew that I would never, ever forget a single second of his short time in my life, and I knew that it would always hurt me.

  I hated that the sun was rising, that birds started singing, and that the pigs in the barn grunted in anticipation of their breakfast. I hated that the farm did not care that little Victor was dead, that the world did not care. I hated everything at that moment. I felt like I was alone in my grief, and would forever be alone.

  I heard someone call my name. I could not find the strength to even look around at who was saying it. Was I hallucinating? Was I asleep? Was I dreaming? Who would be calling my name, anyhow? I saw a shadow out of the corner of my eye, but I could not tear my eyes from Victor.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder, as familiar to me as breathing. Twist stood next to my chair. He said something, but his voice was hollow and empty. I could not hear him. I was frozen.

  I felt his fingers touch my chin. He lifted my face. I wanted to resist, but I hadn’t the strength left to do so. He was there. In the flesh. Next to me. I saw tears welling in his eyes. His mouth moved, but I heard no sound. He
was leaning heavily on a walking stick. I saw a bloody bandage on his hip. Behind him, I saw Hera standing patiently, without saddle, bridle, or cart.

  I had a million questions, but no desire to ask any of them. Instead, I looked him in the eye and started sobbing uncontrollably, the combined fatigue and emotional stress the past three days combining to wreck me.

  Twist, with tears wet on his own cheeks, fell to his knees in front of me and wrapped me in his long arms. We sat there, the four of us, suspended from reality for an eternity. I tried to apologize, but I could not find the breath.

  Twist pressed his face to the side of my head and whispered in my ear. “You will be fine. We will get through this.”

  Hearing my own mantra from him only made me cry harder. At that moment, I could not imagine a world in which I would ever be fine again.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Hope for the Future

  Since the Flu began, I have dug several graves. I buried my parents. I buried my high school girlfriend. I buried my dog, a woman who crossed my path, her crazed stalker, some feral dogs, and I filled in the grave of the man I met in Indiana when he passed from cancer. Each of those graves affected me deeply and changed me fundamentally, but none did it as profoundly as the grave I had to dig for my son.

  There was the obvious physical pain of trying to dig a grave while still suffering the aftereffects of dehydration, hyperthermia, the infection in my side, and the damage from the shotgun blast, of course. But, that was minor compared to how much the idea of having to bury an infant hurt. I bled badly from my hip while I worked, but I would not stop. I got thick, angry blisters on my palms. I hurt all over, but the pain felt like it was proper for the situation. I ignored it. Something like this should never be a pain-free task.

  I was going to bury him on the top of the little hill where I married his mother, but Ren stopped me from doing that. “Bury him at the base of the hill. We have a happy memory on the top of that hill, and we should not change that. At the base of the hill, we can still see him from the house.”

  I dug his grave at the base of the hill. It was not a grave that took a lot of time or strength, but yet it was the hardest thing I had ever done.

  Two years ago, I put any thought of being a father out of my head. It seemed like it was something that would never happen. A year ago, I accept a life with Ren without children—who wants to bring children into a world without society? Only a few months ago, I learned I was going to be a father and my entire world changed. And now, I was going to have to bury one of my children.

  Seeing Ren in the yard, her back to me, I had felt like I had returned home after a great and tragic journey. It felt like I had been gone for weeks, not days, and she was the beacon I had been following.

  When I called her name and she did not move, I knew something was very wrong. When I slid off Hera’s back and saw the two bundles in her arms, I was stunned, at first. Overjoyed. But when I approached and saw the differences between the two little faces, I knew what had happened. I stared at the healthy little girl, and then shifted to the son we had anticipated for so many weeks. Poor little Victor. I would never be able to teach him to hunt, or swim, or ride a horse. His short time on the Earth had passed before it even had a chance to begin.

  Ren blamed herself for his death. I blamed myself. If I had been there to help, I maybe he would have lived. Maybe I could have gotten him out before…or, maybe it would have done no good at all.

  I took my daughter from Ren’s arms and clutched her to my chest. Ren refused to let me take Victor. She tightened her arm around him and shrugged my hand from her shoulder. I let her keep him.

  She did allow me to help her from the chair and lead her to the house. I walked her to our bedroom and made her lay down. Our little girl, still asleep, I put into the bedside bassinet we’d prepared for the arrival. Ren continued to hold Victor. She fought sleep. I could see the exhaustion in her bleary, red-rimmed eyes. I could feel the exhaustion in my own.

  I turned to leave, and for the first time since I got home, I heard Ren say something other than I’m sorry. “Where are you going?”

  I turned to face her. “I am going to dig a grave for Victor.” Each word out of my throat felt like knives cutting soft tissues. They burned and bled as I said them. I choked on the blood in my throat.

  Ren’s face went through a whirlwind of potential reactions, twisting first from outrage, to sadness, to acceptance. She inhaled sharply and nodded. Nothing she could do could change what happened, so we could only press forward. “Yes.” She nodded again and hugged the little boy closer to her chest. “Please do.”

  There was a pause between us. Tears burned hot at the corners of my eyes, but I tried not to let them fall. I wanted to be strong for Ren, and for our little girl, even though I was dying inside.

  “Make sure you put him somewhere in the sun. I want him to be in the sun.”

  I held my son for the first, and last time, as we prepared him for burial. After I dug the grave, I assembled a hasty coffin out of pine boards I had in the garage. I made a simple box and hammered it together in short order. I used a chisel to carve his name on the lid. I lined the coffin with a cartoon baseball-player comforter we had intended for his bed. I put a tiny pillow at one side. Ren dressed him in a cute little blue-and-white outfit that she said reminded her of an old sweater her father used to wear. After the baby was dressed, she wrapped him in a blanket again and let me hold him for the first time. I sat in a chair at the table in the kitchen. No more tears came. The physical exertion of grieving while digging his grave had taken them from my body. “He’s handsome.”

  “Like his father.” Ren held our daughter, who was feeding again.

  After the little girl had eaten, Ren dressed her in a little dress that was in one of the many bags of baby clothes she had scavenged from homes in the area. She wrapped her in a blanket to keep her warm, despite the Texas heat.

  When Ren, herself, had dressed in a simple black dress, she cleared her throat and announced, “I’m ready now.”

  I carried Victor to the grave where his little coffin lay waiting. Ren carried our little girl. We said goodbye to the baby who never had a chance. We hugged him and kissed him one last time. I placed him on the little bed I had prepared in the coffin. Ren cried over him some more, but our grief was ebbing. We would never forget him. We would never stop grieving him. But, we would adjust. We would continue to survive. Victor’s sister needed us now. We had to acknowledge that, and we had to keep pressing forward.

  I nailed the cover onto the little coffin. Each tap of the hammer hurt. The sound of the nailing scared my daughter and she cried and fussed until it was done. I lowered the little coffin into the ground, and my heart broke again when it gently thumped onto the cold clay far below.

  I used the shovel to help me stand again. My hip was throbbing. “Should we say something?” I wanted to provide him with a fitting eulogy, but no words were coming to me.

  Ren wet her lips. “This baby…he is for my parents, and for your parents. They should have been here to share in the joy of a new birth. They should have been here to hold their granddaughter, but since they cannot, we send them their grandson. They will watch over him for us, until we can be there with him ourselves, wherever that might be.”

  The lump in my throat felt like it was going to choke me. I swiped at my eyes with the back of my forearm. I had to fight to produce words. “I’m sure my parents would like that.”

  “Your mom is going to have to physically fight my mom to hold him. Hell hath no fury like someone who stands between a Venezuelan abuela and her grandchild.” The corners of Ren’s mouth twisted into the briefest of smiles, but it fled all too quickly.

  “My dad would have made him watch Notre Dame football games.”

  “My dad would have made him be a Mets fan. Screw the Yankees.”

  “I never got to see him alive, but I love him more than I thought I could love anything.”

  Ren l
ooked down at the little girl in her arms. “We will have to love his sister twice as much now. We have to make up for what we cannot give him.”

  I looked down at the little pink face in the soft, angora blanket. “I don’t think that will be a problem.”

  I stuck the shovel into the pile of dirt next to the grave. “Goodbye, Victor. I love you.” I turned the spade of earth upside down and the hollow down of dirt on the coffin seemed to echo through my heart, and through the sky.

  Ren crouched and grabbed a handful of dirt, casting it down into the grave. “I love you, too. I wish you could have stayed here with me.”

  Then, one shovelful after another, I filled in the grave. Ren and the baby watched until I was done. When the last spade of dirt was dropped, I smoothed over the scar in the ground at the base of the hill, and I dropped the shovel into the grass.

  Ren fell toward me, and we hugged each other fiercely. We still felt real to each other, even though nothing else did at that very second. Our grief was a lead weight that threatened to crush us both, but we sought strength in each other. We clutched at each other and shared our sadness. She was there for me, and I tried to be there for her, despite the choking fog of sorrow. It was just the two of us—now three with the baby in Ren’s arms—against the world. Even if that was all we would ever have, at that moment it was more than enough.

  The animals were fed and pastured. Ren told me of her battle with the lion. I told her of Enrique’s clan, and of Chet, and how Hera found me and helped me get home. Ren told me about giving birth. When the baby was fed and sleeping, we napped as best we could. Neither of us wanted sleep, but the physical and mental tolls had worn our bodies down to a breaking point. We caught light naps here and there, both of us waking to check on the baby frequently. No chores were done that day, outside of the necessary care of the animals. No real meals were made. We snacked, instead. All food tasted bland. I made Ren drink plenty of water. She made me drink plenty of water. We started the long process of healing, both physically and emotionally.