Through the Mist

by Ferrell, Cece

  He wasn’t here.

  I had waited too long, so trapped in finding reasons why this could never work that I’d missed all the reasons it could. A fierce kick rocked my abdomen from the inside and I heaved out a ragged sob. My hands found their way onto my belly, caressing it, an attempt to soothe our child while my insides quivered and quaked like a boat caught in a tempest.

  I’d been so caught in all the things that were wrong, things that didn’t matter, and I’d lost it all in the process.

  Somehow, I made my way back to the car and collapsed into the driver seat. I gripped the steering wheel and rested my head on my hands. Soon enough my hands were wet with my tears and my body continued to shake with the sobs I could no longer find the strength to contain. How would I move on from this? How could I live with a hole the size of Archer etched into the very fabric of my being?

  How? How? How?

  The words were an endless refrain in my head, replacing the previous what-ifs that had taken up residence there.

  Eventually an incessant ringing broke through the mournful melody in my head. I glanced at my phone sitting on the passenger seat. Josie was calling. I let it ring through to voicemail as I wiped away the wetness on my cheeks and tried to calm my ragged breaths. After a moment it rang again, and I reluctantly answered it, knowing Jos wouldn’t stop calling until she reached me.

  “Hey, babe, I just wanted to check in with you and see if you made it there okay,” Jos said the minute I picked up the call.

  “Jos, I fucked up. I fucked up so bad. I waited too long. I left him, and I waited too long, and now he’s gone. He’s fucking gone, Jos.” I managed to force the words out through the contracting of my throat before I broke down all over again.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, Ros. Slow down. What do you mean? Where are you?”

  “I’m here at the house and he’s not here. I’ve been here for hours and he’s not here, Jos. He’s gone. He’s. Gone.”

  Broken. I could hear it in my own raw, raspy voice.

  “Ros, what do you mean he’s gone?” She couldn’t hide the disbelief that tinged her voice.

  “I think—I think he moved on. I think once I left, he moved on… for good.”

  I shook my head as I uttered the unthinkable in a hushed voice, as though saying the words out loud finally made them real. Jos didn’t say anything and the silence just stretched between us.

  Finally she said, “What are you going to do now, Ros? Where are you gonna go?” Her voice was as quiet as mine. A respect and finality ran through her words.

  “I don’t know. I made plans to stay with Marie. I guess I’ll go back there for now. But tomorrow? The next day? I don’t know, Jos. I just don’t know.”

  “You can always come back here. We’ll have the baby together, raise her together. We can do that, you know? We can make our own family, Ros. I am your family. Don’t ever forget that, okay? You say the words and I’ll be on the next flight out there.”

  She stopped there, her voice made jagged by the tears she didn’t even try to hide. There would never be a world where we both existed that I wouldn’t love her, where we wouldn’t somehow find each other and form a bond stronger than blood.

  “I know. I love you, Josephine.”

  “I love you too, Rosalind. Call me after you get settled at Marie’s.”

  Instead of going straight to the inn, I decided to drive to the only other place on this island I’d always felt drawn to. I pulled into Eastsound and parked a few blocks off the downtown area, still populated with people on their way to and from a late dinner. I walked toward the small strip of shore that I’d found my purpose on, the same place I’d witnessed the beginning of the end of my marriage.

  The fog I had spotted earlier in the evening had already rolled onto shore, leaving visibility at a few feet. I wrapped my arms around myself and sighed as the heaviness of disappointment weighed me down. I couldn’t help but wonder if a clearer night would have provided the relief and cleansing my battered heart needed. I sat on a large, flat rock and closed my eyes, listening as the waves hit the shore.

  I shivered as the air gradually cooled. I stood, released a long breath and opened my eyes as something inside of me jolted and pulled taut, like an invisible rope sitting coiled inside of me was being pulled tight.

  I gasped as what felt like a million sensations hit me at once: a magnetic pull toward the water. The racing energy of electricity skating over my skin, making the hairs stand on end and my heart race. The heady scent I’d missed so much hitting my nose and drugging me with its familiarity.

  All of these sensations hit me as a figure took shape through the mist. A figure that appeared so achingly real I nearly cried in relief.

  My eyes slammed shut in self-preservation. I knew once I opened them the feelings would all dissipate, and what I imagined to be there would be gone. A moment passed, and then another, but still the feeling persisted.

  “Well, finally,” a deep, melodic voice breathed into my ear with a warm gust of air.

  My knees buckled and my inevitable collapse was only stopped by strong, warm arms banding around my body, right under my chest and above my pregnant stomach.

  These words, the first Archer had ever uttered to me, were reverberating through my mind.

  My eyes flashed open and I looked up into the most beautiful pair of green eyes I had ever seen in my life.

  “Archer,” I managed to gasp out before everything went black.

  Forty-One

  I woke up shivering on a hard surface in an unfamiliar place. I tried to sit up but was stopped by something strong banding around my midsection.

  “What is going on? Where am I?” I said aloud to myself.

  “Ros, are you okay?”

  That voice. That deep, melodic voice that I now only heard in my dreams. And in that moment it all hit: me on the beach in Eastsound, the cold, damp air. Thinking Archer appeared there when I’d known he was gone. Yet here he was, his arms wrapped around me while we sat on a rock on the beach.

  I turned to him them, his arms loosening their hold, but not breaking their embrace. “You’re here. You haven’t left.” I couldn’t hide the astonishment, the hope in my voice.

  His eyes crinkled as they smiled, and it was a sad thing, that smile. Not the one full of joy I had been so used to. His hand snaked up between us, cupped my face, and caressed my cheekbone. I closed my eyes and nuzzled into his touch, a feeling of rightness, of warmth, of home seeping into me.

  “Of course I’m here. Where else would I be?”

  “The other side? That bright white light to oblivion?” I tried to joke, but I choked on the words so thick and sharp with all the things that remained unsaid between us, with all the things that had happened while we were separated.

  Archer shook his head at me. “No, Ros. There was no bright white light, no paradise for me once you left. I fear there never will be. I considered, for a time, trying to seek you out, to make sure you were doing well. I couldn’t bring myself to do that. I knew that if I found you happy with Dan, it was something I couldn’t stand to see.”

  He paused then, and I wondered why he wasn’t as happy to see me as I was to see him. His words made it sound as though he still loved me, but his actions, the emotional wall he seemed to have erected in my absence said something entirely different.

  It was when I looked down at his arm still wrapped around me, resting on the swell of my stomach, that I realized where his thoughts were. His eyes dipped to mine, then down to my belly, and back up to my face. He smiled, but it didn’t even begin to reach his eyes.

  “How long are you here for, Ros? Did Dan come with you?” His voice dripped with anguish even while he tried to sound happy for my current situation. It was obvious he thought Dan was the father and that our time really had passed.

  “I don’t know, Archer. Forever, maybe,” I said with a shrug, trying to send him a message with my eyes, urging him to read between the lines. His face broke at my wo
rds though, heartbreak in every cell of his body.

  I shifted then, turning into his lap, and grasping his face in my hands. I nearly jolted at the electricity that sparked as our bodies connected, that ever-present current that hummed between us. Relief flooded my body with warmth that this part of our bond remained unchanged. I had to resist the urge to lay my lips upon his. The fight against my instinct took everything in me.

  “Archer, it’s just me. I’m here alone. I came for you, if you’ll still have me.” It came out as a statement, but it was just as much a question.

  My heart pounded, threatening to beat right through my chest. I had been gone for nearly seven months, and I didn’t think Archer had fallen for someone else during that time, but I was worried that it was enough time for him to change his mind about me, about us. There wasn’t any logic to the thought, but it was there nonetheless.

  He pulled back and his eyes searched my face frantically, disbelief written all over it. “Repeat that, please.”

  The first tear fell. Then the next. For a minute, I wondered if I had made a mistake. Then I thought back through what it had taken to get me to this moment and I knew that even if this ended poorly for me, even if Archer walked away from me, this risk I’d taken was not a mistake.

  I smiled through the tears. “I’m here to stay, Archer. This is where I belong, and I hope that you’ll be by my side.”

  Archer’s lips quirked in a faint smile and it was obvious he still didn’t quite believe me. He looked down at his hand on my stomach again and his expression dimmed. “And what about Dan, Ros?”

  “We’re done, Archer. The divorce will be finalized in a month. So what do you think?” I didn’t want to let on that his reluctance to give an answer was killing me, that the hope I’d had at his appearance on the beach was slowly starting to fade.

  “I… I don’t know, Ros. I don’t know what to think.”

  Archer turned his head, breaking my hold on him. My hands fell down into my lap and I looked down, unsure of where to go from here. Maybe I needed to give him time to think through this all, to wrap his head around it. Springing something like this on someone wasn’t always the best idea, but here I was and I couldn’t undo it now.

  “Ros, what about the baby? Is Dan fine with you moving so far away with his child? How will that all work out?”

  My head jerked up suddenly as my eyes searched his face. It was there. I swore I heard it, the hint of hope underlying his questions. I stood up and walked to where the water met the shore.

  In all the things I’d planned when I came back here, I’d somehow forgot to even consider how I would explain to Archer the truth of my pregnancy. How had I not even considered that this man might not even believe that he was, in fact, the father?

  I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, exhaling slowly. I would throw the words out there with the understanding that this could end badly for me. It was the only way I could think to move forward and I was done living half a life, letting fear rule over the things I truly desired.

  My skin sparked to life as the scent of sandalwood and tobacco wrapped around me. A second later I felt the weight of Archer’s very real, present body behind mine, the featherlight touch of his fingertips brushing against mine. That magnetic pull, the thread in me connected to the one in him. I opened my eyes then and straightened my spine.

  Now was the time. And for better or worse, I was ready.

  I turned to Archer then, taking him in fully one last time before I let the last truth fall from my lips. “The baby isn’t Dan’s, Archer.”

  He gasped, took a step back, nearly stumbling before he righted himself. He rubbed at his chest as though it pained him, with a look of agony on his face. I realized then with horror that he’d taken the leap I hadn’t intended.

  “Archer,” I began, arm outstretched I took a step toward him. Thankfully he didn’t continue to retreat. “This baby isn’t Dan’s. It isn’t anyone else’s, either. Archer—this baby is yours. Somehow, and don’t ask me how, I can’t even begin to explain it, we created her that night. She is just as much yours as she is mine.”

  I stopped myself then. I let my arm drop and I bit my lip to keep more words from pouring from my lips. I watched as the emotions crossed his face: disbelief, hope, anger, fear, and something else I couldn’t put my finger on. I wished I could skip this part, take away the hurt and pain I was sure he was feeling. Archer shook his head and turned away, walking up the shore away from me.

  My eyes welled up and I didn’t have the strength to wipe them away. My body began to shake and my chest tightened painfully. I knew this was the risk, that he wouldn’t believe me or want what I wanted anymore, and while I had tried to prepare myself for that, there was no way to anticipate this kind of pain. My stomach jolted, and I looked down to see my daughter begin to kick around, her foot or hand pushing outward through my skin. I grunted as she hit what felt like my ribs.

  I looked up then to see Archer right in front of me, silently reappearing in that ghostly way of his. His eyes narrowed on my stomach and looked back to mine in question, so many questions.

  “Are you—? Can I—? Ros…” He looked so confused and he couldn’t finish one sentence.

  I gave him a tentative smile, my heart too battered to hope this was the turning point. I reached out and grabbed his hands and placed them on my stomach. He trembled slightly under my hands as I held them to my abdomen, shifting every few seconds in an attempt to figure out where she would move next. It only took a few minutes before she kicked again. He looked up at me then, such wonder written all over his beautiful face, so many more questions lingering in his eyes.

  “I know this seems crazy, Archer. I didn’t believe it myself at first. There is no other explanation. You are the only person I have been with in well over a year. I don’t know how this is possible, but she’s real and she’s ours.”

  I waited him out, letting him process all of this without saying anything else. I didn’t want to influence his decision in any way, this had to be something he truly wanted.

  “She’s… She’s mine? Truly, Rosalind?” Archer’s voice shook with yearning as a tear slipped down his face.

  I nodded then, smiling through my own tears, smiling so big my face hurt with it. “Yes, Archer. She’s yours.”

  Before I had time to process it, I was wrapped up in Archer’s embrace, my face in his neck, inhaling his scent that I had missed so much. I gripped him back, hoping that I never had to spend another night without this, that I never had to know what it was like to not have him in my arms and by my side.

  Archer pulled back then and wrapped a hand around the nape of my neck, gently caressing the pulse beating in my throat. “And you, Ros? Are you mine, too?”

  I broke then, my knees buckled and the tension in my chest eased in relief. “Yes, Archer. I’m yours. Always, only yours.”

  Archer smiled at me then, that breathtaking smile that finally made its way to his eyes, those beautiful green eyes crinkling with unrestrained joy. He kissed me, a deep, soul-shattering meeting of our lips that breathed life back into me.

  With our lips melded together and his body fused to mine, I knew with complete certainty that I had finally returned home.

  My dearest children,

  I know this is really your mother’s story as much as the story of our love, but I couldn’t help but share some of my thoughts with you as well. I know your childhood was unconventional, to say the least, but I hope in all that craziness you saw the love too. The love I have for your mother and the love we both have for you three.

  When you’ve been dead for one hundred years with no company other than that of those who live their lives around you with no notion that you even exist, it gets lonely. It also gives you a lot of time to think about things. To dwell on all of the things you did wrong in your life, all of the things you’ll never get to have or experience. It’s more than enough time to drown in your regrets. I had many regrets, and as I watched people
live and the world change, I found myself wishing to just disappear forever.

  One day, long after I had given up hope for ever having peace in my afterlife, the door to the home where I had lived for a century swung open, and I heard a voice that made my heart tighten in my chest, made my entire body feel as though it were floating and rooted to that place, all at the same time. Feelings I hadn’t ever experienced in life, let alone in death.

  Then I saw her face and it was all over for me. I never believed in love at first sight. After all that I had experienced and years of solitude spent so close to the living, but just distant enough, I’d never expected to ever experience love. I thought surely, I would never know the inexplicable joy and agony that are hallmarks of losing your heart to another. But for some reason, the universe felt it right to bestow upon me someone so unreasonably perfect, and it was in that moment I knew I’d spent all those years alone for a reason.

  The first great joy of my life, on either side of death, was meeting your mother, loving her, getting the chance to call her my beloved, creating a life with her. My second greatest joy was witnessing the miracle of each of your births. Getting to see you grow, learn, fall down and make mistakes, getting to witness you all live.

  I will never be able to describe to you what it felt like the first time I beheld each of your little faces, red and screaming upon entering the world. I will never be able to put into words how my heart filled to bursting when I smelled your skin and kissed your cheeks. What it was like to see so much of your mother in your faces and see the green of my eyes blink back at me. I hate to even rank these things, as though there is any way to compare these very different joys.