Chapter Twenty-Four: Aiden
I pulled into the driveway and examined my house all the way until I had come to a complete stop. I sat there for a moment, trying to calm myself more before I entered the house and interrogated him. The lights were all on. Nothing looked out of place; it looked just like it had when I left. I stepped out of the car and steadied myself against it. I was dreading the next few moments. I knew it had to be done. Slowly, I moved towards the house, but soon my pace quickened and I was running up the walkway, trying not to slip on the ice. I threw the door open and flew into the house.
“Aiden? Aiden? Where the hell are you? Aiden?” I screamed at the top of my lungs. I heard my voice echo.
There was no reply. I ran upstairs and looked in his room first. The bed was made perfectly, military style. I could have bounced a coin off it. I peeked into the bathroom, even though there were no lights on, but he wasn’t there, either. I ran to my room, hoping to find him napping from our recent activities.
Just as I turned to search downstairs, I caught something out of the corner of my eye and it made my heart beat wildly. The tray from lunch was sitting on the floor to the side of the bed. Everything was there but something was terribly wrong. My head was having a very hard time processing what I was seeing. I moved closer, almost afraid of it, rubbed my eyes, and mustered all my strength to take a good look. There were two cups of coffee but only one had been used. My sandwich had been eaten, but his sat untouched. That wasn’t possible. I had seen him eat it. I had watched as he had two cups of coffee. This wasn’t sitting right with me.
“What the fuck? What the fuck? Aiden? Please answer me.” I said the first part under my breath, but yelled his name as loudly as I could. It wasn’t very loud at all. I had no breath in my lungs.
I ran to the bathroom again, because I needed to be sure I wasn’t dreaming. My fear was quickly confirmed. There sat only one toothbrush in the holder, and it was mine. None of his things were there. I started to think maybe he knew he would get caught using someone else’s ID and had packed up and left while I was gone. But it didn’t explain the tray of uneaten food.
I stifled a scream as it built up inside me. No. No, they were the same person. The same. Aiden Thane was the man in the picture Cheryl had shown me. It was my Aiden. I knew it was him. There was no mistaking it was him. Did he have a twin? I surely would have been able to tell. It had to be the only explanation. But it listed the name Aiden. Had he taken on his deceased brother’s identity? I began to use this thought to make sense of it in my head. Aiden had told me he was the youngest of three brothers. He had never mentioned a twin. What was he hiding from? But the tray of food! My head was spinning. I couldn’t completely rationalize anything that was happening.
I ran back downstairs. I stood in the middle of my living room, spinning around, looking up and calling for him.
“Aiden. Aiden!” I hollered and then broke down, sobbing uncontrollably. It was all I could do. There was nothing left in me. Nothing made any sense.
“Sydney.” I heard his voice come softly from behind me. Instant relief washed over me. I spun around to face him, but my heart sank as soon as I saw him. There he stood, in full dress uniform. My body went completely cold. I felt a strong chill run up my spine, and my skin broke out in goose bumps.
“Aiden. What the hell is going on? I don’t understand. What the hell is going on? Tell me!” I was fraught, throwing questions at him.
“Sydney, I don’t know where to begin. Please calm down. You’ll understand everything shortly. I promise you. There will be no more questions, and then I can explain it all. I promise you.”
“Are you real? Are you Aiden Thane? Are you?” I threw the accusation at him, daring him to respond.
He nodded his head solemnly.
“How? How can that be? I saw your deceased file. I saw it. I held it in my hands. I saw it!” I was hysterical. My words came out as frantic shrieks.
I heard muffled words and then someone putting a key in my door. Aiden turned his head. I swung around and glared at the front door. It opened slowly, and Cheryl and Gina came into the house.
“Why are you two here? How did you get here so fast? I just saw you at work. How did you get from there to here with time to pick up Gina? Is this whole thing some kind of sick joke?”
But they didn’t answer me. They entered my home and it was evident that Gina was crying and had been for some time.
“I can’t believe this is happening. I told her not to leave. I told her she was in no shape to drive in that condition. I told her! It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have let her leave.” Cheryl was crying, too.
“Cheryl, I’m right here. What the hell is wrong with you?” I said. She ignored me.
“I’m so sad. I thought she was finally going to find love and be happy, and now this. I can’t believe she’s gone.” At this point, Gina turned in my direction and proceeded to walk right through me.
I gasped for air. I clutched at my chest. I felt her. I felt her move right through me! I felt her inside my very soul. My eyes grew wide, and my body went tense and cold. I felt like I was frozen. I spun around and stared at Aiden, hoping to see him as shocked as I was. But he wasn’t. His expression remained exactly as it had been.
“What the hell just happened? Why can’t they see or hear me?”
“Sydney, remember.” His voice chilled me. I suddenly felt like I was in a fog. Images started to flash through my mind.
Meeting Aiden at the office.
The hum I felt when we touched.
Making dinner together.
Cuddled up on the couch with him watching a movie.
Kissing him.
Our picnic at the park.
Holding him after his episode in bed.
The dread of him leaving me.
The joy I felt at his return.
Finding his scars.
Making love to him over and over again.
Talking with Cheryl.
Seeing his picture and his deceased file.
Running out of the office.
The panic I felt.
Driving down the highway.
Skidding on the ice.
Seeing the light post.
And then… hitting the light post.
Everything went black. I was back standing in my living room with Aiden, Cheryl and Gina.
“I didn’t miss that accident, did I?” I managed to squeak out. Aiden solemnly shook his head no.
“Am I … I’m … dead?”
Aiden nodded again.
“And you, you’re dead as well?”
“Yes, Ma’am. I died in the line of duty almost a week ago. The day we met. The moment we met.”
“I don’t understand. I can’t understand any of this.” I was getting frantic again. “How can this be happening? This isn’t real!”
“But it is real, very real. Well, in a sense,” he told me.
“But I could feel you. Touch you. I made love to you.” I was still so confused. My thoughts were foggy and twisted in my head.
“Because what we had … have … It’s a gift; a gift from fate. Sydney, you and I were supposed to meet when I came home from the war. You were going to be my case manager, anyway. We were supposed to fall in love and get married, have children. But I saved all those men and lost my life. So our love wasn’t to be. But fate made a deal with me, because I saved those men … and because you and I were supposed to be together. Ours is one of those loves that is timeless. The kind everyone wishes they could find. True love. Till death do us part doesn’t truly apply here.”
“So you came back as a ghost to seduce me? And then to let me die with you?” I was angry with him for taking my life away. What kind of cruel game had be been playing?
“No, Sydney, it’s not like that. When something changes fate, fate needs to make adjustments. Had I lived, we would have both been alive for a long, and very happy life together. But since I died, your destiny was unbalanced. Fate was go
ing to let you die, anyway. But I begged for you. Once I was on the other side, I could feel your life force. It was calling me. Everything we were supposed to have had together. We needed to be connected; we needed to be together. So I searched you out and found you. I needed to let you fall in love with me so you wouldn’t die alone. If we’d never met, even this way, we would have spent eternity looking for each other. Always missing something. Fate gave us that chance, to be together this way, in death. It’s why I had such a hard time letting you leave this morning. I could feel your time getting shorter.”
“So you knew I would die today?” He nodded. “And we can be together, like this?” I gestured between us.
“Forever, Sydney. Life can be whatever we want in our world. We can go through all the motions we would have in life. We could do anything. It’s our choice. In death, you can be what your heart desires. That’s what heaven is. I don’t care how we do it, all I know is I want to be with you for eternity. Come with me.”
I looked at my friends crying over my loss. I looked at the love of my life, which was truly everything I could have ever wanted in this life, anyway. He reached his hand out to mine.
I took it, and as soon as I did, every thing was right. I understood it all. It flooded over me like a huge wave crashing on the shoreline. This life we treasure was just a stepping-stone. Limbo. What was real was the love Aiden and I shared; nothing else mattered. Not materials things. Not stress. Not work. Love. Just love.
I had accepted everything that had happened. I was ready to go with him.
Chapter Twenty-Five: Sydney
I was awoken out of a very comfortable, deep sleep. It was a sudden rush of excitement and joy. It was strange how strongly you felt what the living were experiencing if you were tuned into it, here on this side.
Aiden and I had moved on to our first existence together, where we lived in a small cottage on the beach. We were married in this life, and spent our days doing whatever our hearts desired. I made him teach me to surf. There was never any fear of getting hurt, because technically, we were not in a fragile human form anymore. We were, for all intents and purposes, ghosts. I had been very interested to learn that I had been on the right track with my thought process on death. The soul actually was that spark of energy, as I had been convinced of in life. It just carries on for infinity.
To each other, we were as human as we had been in life. We could experience all the same senses, just enhanced. There wasn’t anything we couldn’t do or feel if we wanted. I know I felt love for him. It was overpowering at times. Emotions here were so raw and real. But they were only comprised of pure love. I never felt any anger or resentment. Those were egocentric emotions, only for people left in life to feel. There was never a reason to be upset here. We ate, drank, slept, took walks, and made love as often as possible. Of course there were no worries here. We never fretted over bills or things gone wrong. There was no reason to. We had it all and took full advantage of it.
I stayed connected to Gina and Cheryl the entire time. I wanted to follow the pregnancy. I would have, anyway, had I survived the accident. I still wanted to be a part of it, and so did Aiden. We watched as the baby prepared to enter the world we had just left. I guess it was an inside track. We heard every heartbeat, felt every movement, and could see how healthy the baby was. We could feel the life force. We often spent time laying on our backs, holding hands and feeling the baby together.
I turned over and reached out to wake him. “It’s time, Aiden. The baby is coming today. Cheryl is freaking out and Gina is ready. Come on, Cheryl freaking out? You know you want to see that as badly as I do. There’s so much joy between them. We have to go. We need to be there.”
“Yes, I can feel it, too. What are we waiting for? Let’s go.”
He took my hand and we wished ourselves to what used to be my house. I had left Cheryl and Gina the house and my money in my will, so they could raise their child with no financial worries. They got everything.
All of my worldly possessions surrounded me here, but they no longer had any hold over me. They were just things. I looked around. They hadn’t changed very much in terms of decor. A few pieces of my furniture were even still here.
“Look, they kept most of your pictures out. I guess they miss you a lot.”
I glanced around my living room and noticed the pictures of my parents and I were still scattered throughout the room. Among them also, were now framed snapshots of Gina, Cheryl, and I. I reached out and grabbed Aiden’s arm, directing his attention to a shelf in the corner. There sat his picture from his deceased file. He looked so handsome in his uniform, smiling and in the prime of life. He could still make me melt with that smile. Next to the frame sat the American flag from his coffin, in a mahogany case, and all his medals proudly displayed.
“I’m so touched they included me. How very thoughtful of them to do that. I feel like they did their best to give me a home here. I feel like family.”
“They’re really very sweet girls, aren’t they? You are part of this family.”
“This baby is so lucky to have been gifted them as parents. Such thoughtful, wonderful people.”
Cheryl had taken a lot of time and effort in having Aiden’s body recovered and delivered to her care. She had contacted his family, only to have them refuse collection of his remains. It had infuriated her. Instead, she took control, and had given him a proper military burial with full honors and a twenty-one-gun salute. She had every dignitary she could contact, anyone who meant anything that she could reach out to, attend that day. It was a full house. A few of the men from Aiden’s platoon had taken the opportunity to say kind words about him. They told stories about how grateful they were for his bravery, without which they wouldn’t be there to speak on his behalf.
Aiden and I had attended both of our funerals. Not because we needed to, but instead, because we wanted to. It was an unstoppable curiosity, as though we had to attend to accept our new life. I could only guess it was some sort of spiritual closure.
Gina had insisted Aiden and I be buried next to each other. We shared a plot that overlooked a garden dedicated to heroes in the military graveyard not far from the base. Our names were engraved together on one headstone, as if we had been married in that lifetime. It was a beautiful sentiment. In this existence, Aiden and I could feel each other’s emotions. I knew he was truly touched, as was I.
There was suddenly a lot of commotion on the stairwell. Cheryl came flying down the stairs with suitcases in hand.
“Breathe. Breathe. Breathe,” she barked up at Gina.
“Can you just relax? We have plenty of time to get to the hospital. Jesus, Cheryl, like I’m going to forget to breathe! Can’t you hear me panting from all this exercise getting down there to you? This little baby is fucking huge!”
Gina emerged from behind the wall. She was enormous. I was slightly shocked that someone with such a tiny frame could carry such a huge weight without toppling over. She was absolutely glowing, though.
“I meant do your breathing from that stupid-ass class you made me sit through. If I had to do it, then you have to actually use it. Now breathe!” she demanded.
Gina just waved her off and took a seat on the couch.
“What the hell are you doing? Are you planning on having that baby here? I’m in no shape to deliver this baby. I’m not even sure I can get you back up on your feet.”
“Oh stop it. I’m … fine.” Gina winced as she said the last part. She was obviously having a contraction. I was so excited.
“You know, they really had better hurry. That baby is ready. Can you feel it?” he said.
“I can. Anything we can do to get her moving faster?” I asked him.
“We can do this!” Aiden swiped at a picture of Gina, Cheryl and I, and knocked it onto the floor. Cheryl and Gina turned toward it.
“Look, even Sydney’s telling you to get your ass to the hospital, pronto. Please don’t make me beg you. We have to go. Now!” Cheryl was
so cute when she panicked. It wasn’t a side of her I was used to seeing often.
“Fine.” Gina braced against the couch but I could tell she was going nowhere fast. “Can you give me a hand?”
Cheryl clapped. Gina shot her a death look. Cheryl helped her to her feet.
“Next time, you’re going to carry the baby! Especially if you’re going to continue to act like that.”
Gina turned her back to Cheryl and headed out the front door to the car. Cheryl stood watching, with her hands up in the air and her best what-the-hell-did-I-do expression.
I gave her a little push on her back. She swung around to see what had touched her. We were face-to-face.
“Sydney?” She shook her head, left the house, and slammed the door behind her with a loud bang. She had been scared. I giggled at the thought of having frightened her.
* * *
We rode along with them to the hospital purely for entertainment purposes. We didn’t actually require a car to get us there. But the banter back and forth between them had Aiden and me in stitches.
“I’m sorry I never got a chance to meet them in their present form. They look like they’re both a blast to hang out with,” he mused.
“You have no idea. I can show you a few if you’d like.” He nodded. I kissed him. We found this to be one of our deeper connections, and I transferred a few choice memories of the girls over to him.
“See, that’s exactly what I thought they’d be like. How lucky you had them both. Fucking hysterical.”
When we reached the hospital, we split up. I stayed with Gina, whom Cheryl dumped at the Emergency Room entrance, and Aiden stayed with Cheryl while she parked the car.
Gina was being wheeled up to the delivery ward when they finally joined us.
“Are you ready, baby? This is it. We’re going to be a family. I can’t wait to hold that baby in my arms.”
“I just want to push. Can I push now?”
The Purple Heart Page 15