A New Beginning

They were on their way to pick up Marissa and Natalie from school, thinking about what to have for dinner, when a screech of tires bellowed from next to them. The next thing Henry could remember was the paramedics standing above him, blurry and disfigured, and the putrid scent of iron assaulting his nostrils.

The last thing he could truly recall before being enveloped by darkness was sirens–shrill, endless sirens. Then white walls, beeping monitors, voices telling him it wasn’t his fault. That he shouldn’t blame himself, there was nothing he could’ve done to save her.

But he knew that wasn’t true. If only he had paid a little more attention. If only Jennie hadn’t been with him to pick up the kids. She rarely ever was, so why on that day?

Henry Johnson’s brain drifted from memory to memory, but this one, amongst all the others, stood out.

But now he was here. Sprawled on their bathroom floor, clothes damp from sweat and his face feverish and red. He was leaning over the toilet bowl, clutching the porcelain, and vomiting the biscuits he had barely managed to hold down a mere few hours ago.

Henry’s eyes flitted across the bathroom dizzily, inspecting the contents, attempting to focus on something to get his head straight. His wandering eyes landed on a shirt near the bathtub, one he had never gotten around to picking up after the accident. It was  a vibrant pink shirt with ‘WORLD’S BEST MOMMY’ written on it. He quickly peeled his eyes off it, only to find himself looking at a purple toothbrush, already attracting specks of dust.

Deciding the hallway was a better place for his eyes to be, he turned his head ever so slightly. 

A tall figure hovered in the darkness. 

He blinked once, twice, then rubbed his swollen eyes and clutched the porcelain even tighter, his fingernails bleeding. His eyes were back on whatever contents were inside the toilet bowl, his chest burning.

Suddenly, his voice cut through the air, and the quality of it, the utter helplessness and desperation, surprised him.

“She wasn’t meant to die. Natalie and Marissa still need her. I need her.”

Everywhere he looked, there were still traces of her. The smell of her perfume that still lingered in the air, her favourite mug, everything she ever touched held her presence. Every step his daughters took and every word they uttered reminded him of her.

They didn’t understand much. They were only kids, after all. But they knew the way only children knew. They knew their mommy had gone and she wasn’t coming back, and he couldn’t ignore their little sniffles and sobs that were muffled by his shirt as they buried their faces into him, hiding away from the world.

Before he could truly understand why, his eyes flitted towards the corridor again, beyond the bathroom door.

The figure was closer now.

Henry slowly got up, his knees popping, and stepped back as far as the room would allow him.

What surprised him most was how much he wished to believe. How easy it seemed. Yet he couldn’t. Despite the blonde hair that shone in the darkness and the lopsided smile plastered on her face, that was not his wife.

It seemed more like a dream. A lovely dream where she was finally back, and all that had happened in the last month was a particularly bad, vivid nightmare.

Henry shut his eyes. Opened them. Amidst the black, hazy stars, a figure walked forward, the movements rigid and cartoonish.

He fell to the floor with a thump, his body betraying him.

(what about marissa and nata–)

The thought was cut short by a hand caressing his cheek.

He watched as the thing twitched in odd places, mimicking his wife. He remembered a term he had heard once, the uncanny valley, and figured it more than described the thing in front of him.

Daddy!

His breath was caught in his throat, his clothes drenched and damp. Natalie’s auburn, messy hair defined Marissa’s round face, her blue eyes stretching to cover Natalie’s pale skin. 

Henry stumbled back, bumping into the bathtub and landing with an ache.

The creature stretched forward along with him and Marissa grinned, Natalie’s hands reaching for her father.

He watched as his poor, innocent daughters contorted their body, their limbs cracking and crunching, growing taller. The face became more defined, and the signs of age grew and blossomed. Henry stared up at him. 

A him that was more confident and okay than Henry could ever truly be. That Henry didn’t stay up late into the night, wondering if death was better. That Henry was more there for his daughters than this one would ever be.

Just give up. I know how hard you’ve been trying.

Henry could not tell the difference between his voice and this other–this other him. Then, unprompted, a tired chuckle escaped Henry. The thing was stealing every part that defined him. He could see it attempt to understand, a dim light behind its eyes, then finally, after what seemed like forever, it did. 

Along with it, Henry understood, too.

It could take better care of his daughters, and it wouldn’t let the grief keep him in bed. Marissa and Natalie would be happier.

But something scratched at his brain, begging to be heard.

How wrong it seemed.

As Henry stared up at this other him, the inconsistencies glared at him. The too-wide smile. The dim eyes. The perfectly straight teeth. The almost see-through manner that reminded him of ghost stories his older brother would tell him when they were kids.

It was so easy, all he needed to do was lay his head back and accept it.

Henry closed his eyes. Then, with more willpower than he would have ever liked to admit, Henry pried them open.

The figure was gone.

Just the buzz of the light and the pink t-shirt by his side.

He slowly got up, back and knees aching, and crossed the short distance to the bathroom door, then the bedroom door across from it. It took more effort than usual to bring each leg forward, but he managed. Finally, he stood in front of it, a trembling, sweaty hand clutching the knob–and pushed.

Inside lay Marissa and Natalie, each on her very own twin bed, because they were big girls now.

The moonlight spread across the room, coming through a tiny slit in the curtain. He walked, stumbled, really, to Marissa’s bed, and sat. It creaked under his weight, and he worried for a second that they would wake, but they simply stirred and turned around and went back to their dreams. His finger found a small hand and he held it, his thumb caressing her palm.

Henry looked up at the ceiling, at the glow-in-the-dark stickers of stars and a moon he had stuck last year, and finally closed his eyes.