Black Wings

by Megan Hart

  “I know you do. I love you, too.”

  They disconnected, and she went back into the room. Her dad looked as though he were sleeping again, so she was quiet as she took the seat next to the bed. His hand moved at once, though, seeking hers.

  “It’s okay, Dad. I’m here. You rest.”

  He smiled faintly. “Already told you, I’ll be resting soon enough. Right now I want to talk to my girl.”

  “Dad—”

  “Hush, now,” he told her, and Marian hushed. He blinked and looked at her, his mouth working while she waited for him to speak. “I’m ready to go. I want you to know that. I’ve been ready.”

  “Dad, no.” Marian shook her head. Held his hand.

  Her father raised the other hand to wave her to silence. “I took a fall. Misstepped heading out the back door into the yard. That brick patio came up to meet me.”

  “What were you trying to do in the yard?”

  He said nothing for some long moments, long enough that Marian was sure he wasn’t going to speak again. When he did, her father’s voice was rough but not confused. He fixed her with a steady gaze, nothing uncertain about it.

  “I heard your mother calling my name. Oh, I knew it couldn’t be her, you know. But I thought it might be the angels. Never had them come in the middle of the day before, but then, who says angels are bound by the clock?”

  Marian swallowed more tears, not wanting her dad to see her crying. “Did you see one?”

  “I did. A beautiful, black-winged angel. They’re not always white, you know.” He chuckled, sounding so much like his healthy self that Marian flinched. “Just like people. I would imagine a black angel would come to a black man, wouldn’t you?”

  “Oh, Dad.”

  “I know you don’t believe me, and that’s fine. That’s just fine.” He patted her hand, his fingers curling to try and hold it, but not quite able to. “I wanted you to know, though. It’s all going to be okay. I’m going to be with your mother very soon, and I’m ready.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t say that, Dad. You need to stick around. Don’t you want to see your new grandbaby?” Marian forced a smile. Tried a small laugh. It wasn’t convincing.

  Her father’s eyes drifted closed again. “I’ll be able to see everything about him from where I’m going. Don’t you worry. We’re—”

  “All going to be just fine. I know,” she said. “I know.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Marian’s father died a little after six p.m. She’d been holding his hand the entire time. He didn’t squeeze her fingers before he passed. He didn’t open his eyes. There were no last words.

  There was also no dreadful cawing, and Marian wept with grief and gratitude as she bent to press her forehead to her father’s limp hand.

  Death in the hospital is no unknown thing. Within an hour, the staff had laid out what Marian needed to do. They hadn’t rushed her out of the room or anything like that, but they hadn’t urged her to linger, either. There was compassion, but also complacency. All of them had been through this before, thousands of times.

  She drove herself home. She’d already called Dean to tell him the news, and he and Briella greeted her at the front door with hugs and tears. She held them both as best she could around the enormous bulge of her belly.

  “Briella,” she said after they’d all wept for some ten minutes or more. “Where is Onyx?”

  Briella swiped at her tears. “What?”

  “Baby?” Dean sounded wary.

  Marian forced a smile to her face. She put on the bright and plastic grin she’d seen on her daughter’s face so often over the past year. “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “If you called him, though, he’d come, right? He’d come to you?”

  Briella looked frightened. “I don’t know, Mama.”

  “Let’s go see.” Marian took Briella by the hand, tugging her toward the back door in the kitchen.

  Briella dragged her feet a little but didn’t totally resist. Dean muttered his curiosity behind them, but Marian ignored him. Everything had become etched in light, the outlines of every object crisp and sharp and clear. Shining.

  “Call him,” she said.

  Briella’s voice cracked as she whispered the bird’s name.

  “Louder,” Marian said. “He’ll never hear you. Tell him you have a treat for him.”

  “I don’t want to,” Briella said.

  “Do it,” Marian ordered.

  Dean looked uncomfortable. “Babe, you’re upset. Understandably. Let’s just go in, maybe have some tea—”

  “I don’t want any fucking tea,” Marian said through gritted teeth. “Call. Him.”

  “Onyx! Come, Onyx! Treat!”

  And there, from the trees, came the bird. It flew high, then dipped into the pokeweed, yanking a sprig of the purple berries. It dropped them on the porch railing, where they hung for a moment on the edge before falling over the side. The bird landed on the railing, cocking its head to stare at them with that terrible, unblinking gaze.

  “Briella,” it said.

  With a strangled shriek, Marian lunged for it. Her belly made her ponderous, ungainly, slow, but she had the element of surprise and a strength borne from her fury and hatred. She caught the raven around the neck with one hand, a fistful of wing with the other.

  Briella was screaming. Onyx shrieked in the kid’s voice and in Marian’s own, or maybe that really was her own voice. She was the one ripping open her throat with the force of her fury. She was the one tasting blood.

  Dean was shouting too, tugging at her, but not hard enough to pull her away. He was being too careful. Scared for the baby.

  The bird twisted, pecking at Marian’s hand. She didn’t let go. She squeezed. She squeezed and squeezed.

  Onyx stabbed at her again with its beak. The big strong wings flapped. She lost her grip on its wing. Still holding on to it by the neck, Marian groped for the glass ashtray she hadn’t used in months but which remained on the porch railing. She tried to smash the bird with it, but Briella grabbed her arm.

  “Mama, noooooooooo!”

  The ashtray fell, hitting the porch and cracking in half. One piece stayed flat, but the other rolled down the steps. The bird twisted in Marian’s grip, and she lost it.

  It flew upward before diving at her face. Going for her eyes. She didn’t flinch. She grabbed for it again.

  This time, Dean caught her arm and hauled her back. “Enough! Damn it, Marian, enough!”

  A small trickle of blood leaked from her forehead. Onyx had managed to peck her, just once. Marian swiped at the bird and threw off Dean’s grip. She couldn’t breathe. She was going to faint.

  Dean took hold of her again and got her inside, where he sat her at the kitchen table. He put a glass of water in front of her, but she couldn’t bring herself to drink it. Marian put her head in her hands.

  “Mama?”

  “Grampa died,” Marian said. “And I am not all right.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Marian buried her father on a sweltering day in early August, in the plot next to her mother. She wore a black tent dress, the only thing that would still fit over her bulk. She had ankles like tree trunks. Even her nose had gained weight. She was bloated. Swollen.

  Gravid.

  The sickness and vomiting that had plagued her for a few months had mercifully left her, replaced by a vast and ruthless hunger she could not appease no matter how much she ate, but it was more than that. She needed to eat to keep up her strength. She couldn’t be in bed all the time. She couldn’t be frail. Since her father’s death she’d gained nearly all the weight she’d lost during the worst of her illness.

  “You need to slow down a little, Marian,” her OB, Dr. Lopez, told her.

  Marian could not slow down. She moved
through her days from meal to meal, a nonstop parade of nibbling. She ate slowly but constantly. She drank only cool, clear water. No more damned tea.

  It was a common enough thing, Dr. Lopez had told her, to feel out of sorts. The final weeks of pregnancy were difficult enough, but with the added stress of losing her father, it was completely normal for Marian to have some anxiety and to act on it.

  It was not normal for her to attack a wild animal that had been more like a pet and try to strangle it in front of her ten-year-old daughter. Neither she nor Dean had mentioned that to the doctor. They did not speak of it to each other, or to Briella.

  The raven had not come back around, not in Marian’s sight anyway.

  “Talk to me, baby,” Dean pleaded with her in the darkness of their bedroom as she maneuvered herself into the complicated position of pillows she needed just to be comfortable.

  But she couldn’t do that any more than she could stop herself from eating. Or cleaning. Or fussing with the baby’s room, rearranging the bedding for the crib, stocking diapers and wipes and all the things she’d been unable to do while she’d been so sick.

  “You’re nesting,” Amy told her.

  She’d stopped by with a frozen casserole for Marian to stick in the freezer for when she had the baby. Marian had invited her in to visit while the kids played outside. They’d left the back door open, which did nothing to help the heat in the kitchen, but the house was old and the air conditioning didn’t work right anyway.

  Marian paused in slicing cheese to lay out on the plate, along with apples and peanut butter. “Oh. God.”

  Nesting, she thought with revulsion. Like she was a fucking bird. The idea of it sent a shudder down her spine.

  “I was the same way with Toby,” Amy continued, oblivious to Marian’s disgust. “Oh…please, no peanut butter.”

  “Shit. Sorry. I forgot. I’m so sorry. Let me wash this plate,” Marian said. “I didn’t use the same knife on the cheese, will that be okay?”

  “Yes. It’s okay. I’m hypervigilant. I just can’t take any chances, you know?” Amy leaned to look through the back door for a glimpse of Toby and Briella, who were blowing bubbles. “When I was pregnant with him, I’d dream about coming home to an empty crib. As he gets older, it just seems like instead of getting easier, there’s so much more to worry about. Do you feel that way about Briella?”

  Marian slid into the seat across from her and pushed the plate of cheese and crackers between them. She nibbled some, which didn’t relieve the hunger and didn’t even taste that good. “You have no idea.”

  “Tell me,” Amy urged seriously. “I worry so much about something happening to Toby. Jeff tells me I’m going to stifle the kid or drive myself crazy. He’s even said…well, he’s said that unless I can get my worries under control, we have no business having another.”

  Amy looked embarrassed.

  “There’s nothing wrong with worrying about your kid. If anything, I worry that I didn’t worry enough when I should have,” Marian said.

  Marian could hardly describe it, could she? How it felt to look at the child you’d grown inside you and birthed in agony, sweat and blood, the one you’d cradled and bathed and loved, only to see a stranger. Worse than a stranger…something unknown.

  “If something had happened to Toby like what happened to Briella, I’m not sure I’d even be okay with her playing out in the yard by herself ever again. And with what happened to the dog.…”

  Marian had been raising another bite to her lips, but stopped herself. “What about the dog?”

  Amy looked confused. “Well…it’s dead.”

  “What?” Marian’s throat convulsed as she tried to swallow the crackers, gone dry as dust.

  “Apparently Hank found it in the back yard. It was dead.…” Amy’s gaze twitched toward the back door again, through which Marian could see the children still blowing bubbles. “It had been…umm…attacked. Sliced up. Its eyes were missing.”

  Marian jerked forward hard enough to shake the table. “Oh, my God. When?”

  “Earlier this morning. I was walking with Toby to the pond. We like to go before it gets too hot. You know, usually Rufus comes out. He never goes beyond the fence, of course, and we never, ever try to pet him, because you just never know.…”

  Amy broke off again, sending another look toward Briella. “Well. You never know about dogs, and Hank’s been so adamant that nobody get into his yard. But this morning, Rufus didn’t come out to greet us. I thought it was odd, but then on the way back from the pond, it might only have been about fifteen minutes, because I’d forgotten to pack bread crusts for the ducks, so we had to turn right around. So we were heading back and we saw Hank in the yard, hunched over something. I thought it was some yard waste, but it…it was the dog. Hank was crying, so I ran over to see what I could do to help, but I told Toby to stay back. I’m so glad I did, because it was awful.”

  A slow, rolling tension of a contraction began building low in Marian’s belly. Her lower back was now aching, too. She stopped eating.

  “Its eyes were gone,” Amy repeated, sounding both horrified and the tiniest bit gleeful that she got to be the one to relate this story. “Something had attacked it. We think it might have been one of the coyotes that live around the power lines, but…”

  “A coyote wouldn’t eat out a dog’s eyes,” Marian said.

  Amy shuddered. “Then I don’t even want to think about what could have done it. Poor Hank.”

  “Yes,” Marian echoed. “Poor Hank.”

  The kids tramped into the kitchen, begging for Popsicles, which both mothers approved of. Briella pulled out a twin pop and broke it in half, sharing it with Toby but giving her mother a long, steady look as she did so.

  Amy waited until they’d gone back outside before saying, “She’s going to be an amazing big sister. You know she’s more than welcome to stay with us when you go to have the baby.”

  “Thank you, I hadn’t thought enough about what we’d do,” Marian said, then added, “when they’re born, you can’t imagine anything but love.”

  Amy gave her a curious look. “That doesn’t change. Does it?”

  Marian shook her head. There was still love. Of course there was, there had to be. What sort of mother didn’t love her child?

  “It won’t be long now.” Amy gestured at Marian’s belly. “Are you ready for it?”

  “No,” Marian said. “I don’t think we ever are.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The third time Marian got sent straight to Dean’s voicemail, she left a string of tattered curses and a plea for him to call her back right away. He rarely kept his phone on him while at work, but he’d promised her that, this close to her due date, he would be checking it regularly. Her water had broken forty minutes ago.

  By the time he called her back, Marian had her bag by the front door. All it took was her saying “it’s time,” and he assured her he was on the way. It would take Dean half an hour to get home. That would give her enough time to get Briella across the street and settled.

  There was a light on inside Amy’s living room, but because Marian had still not checked the time, she didn’t know if that was a good or a bad sign. Her fingers ached as she gripped Briella’s wrist. Not that the girl was trying to get away. Just because holding on to something that tightly made Marian feel as though she wasn’t going to fly off the face of the earth and up in the sky.

  Everything was tilting.

  “They’re not going to answer the door,” Briella said. “It’s really late. You should just let me stay home by myself.”

  “You’re not staying alone. Babies take…oh. God.” Marian waited until the pain eased. “Babies take a long time to come.”

  Marian rang the bell again, then knocked. A flicker of shadows in the window had her breathing a sigh of relief that was cut short by a m
other of a contraction. Only when Briella let out a whimper did Marian realize she was squeezing way too hard. She let go as Amy’s door opened.

  Amy wore a quilted housecoat and had her blonde hair tied up in a bandanna. Marian blinked for a moment. Amy put a hand to her mouth.

  “It’s time? Oh!”

  The contraction had eased, and in the time between it stopping and the next one beginning, everything around Marian gained an almost supernatural clarity. There wasn’t a way to predict the next contraction. They’d been coming about fifteen minutes apart up until now, strong enough to hurt but not enough to knock the breath from her. Still, there was a growing tension inside her that she knew meant it was going to happen again. Harder, and harder until she couldn’t stop it. The baby was coming.

  This time the pressure was accompanied by a sharper pain, deep inside. It made her want to straddle, squat and push. She had to focus.

  “I’m in labor.”

  Amy’s eyebrows rose in an expression so surprised it almost seemed like she was mocking Marian with it. “Oh my goodness! Yes, of course, I told you she can stay here with us. Oh my goodness, Marian, do you need the ambulance? Come in, come in.”

  Briella went into the living room to settle in front of the TV. Marian bit back a groan. She could not bear the thought of showing any signs of weakness in front of Amy, who, she was sure, would have been able to labor graciously, barely breaking a sweat. Marian, on the other hand, was a mess.

  “I called Dean, and he’s on his way home to take me to the hospital.” Marian gritted her teeth. Sweat trickled down the line of her spine and unpleasantly into the crack of her ass. Her fists were clenched, too, so she released them. “Briella. You’re going to stay here with Miss Amy while Dean takes me to the hospital, okay?”

  “Yeah.” Briella didn’t even look away from the TV.

  Amy fluttered her hands. “Oh, wow. It’s happening! How exciting. How long do you think you’ll be?”

  “However long it takes,” Marian said.

  Amy laughed, and Marian wanted to punch her. “Of course, of course. Babies come in their own time. Well, she’ll be fine here. You go on ahead. Just keep me posted. Well, have Dean do it, I’m sure you’ll be—”