Lost (27 page)

“Mommy! You missed it, the little monkey
was so cute!” Maggie told me, huge smile in place.

“And the
costumes!” Jessie chimed in. “Don’t forget the costumes!”

“Oh yeah. The
costumes! I don’t even really like dresses, but they were so pretty, Mommy!”
Maggie agreed.

“Evanora was my
favorite. You should see her clothes, Mommy.” Jessie sighed with envy.

“Okay. Well, I
take it you guys liked the movie?” I laughed as I tried to get them settled
into bed.

“I loved it!”

“Of course!”

They laughed
and chattered on about the movie for a few more minutes. I sat on the floor
between their beds, as I had done countless times before, and listened.

“Okay. Time to
settle down. I’m tired and want to sleep in my new bed, so sleep!” I told them,
standing up. I kissed Maggie, and she hugged me tightly, and then it was
Jessie’s turn.

“Good night,
Mommy,” Jessie said.

“Love you,”
Maggie finished.

The same thing
every night, and I loved it.

“Night, my baby
girls. Sleep tight,” I told them, blowing them another kiss and turning off
their light.

I walked down
the hall to my bedroom, chuckling to myself. The movie had been a hit. I had
watched bits and pieces of it, but the kids had all loved it. They sat quietly,
taken in by the magical Land of Oz for two hours—two hours of peace and quiet.

I shut my door
and put my nightshirt on—of course, one of Brian’s old T-shirts. Brushing my
teeth, I looked expectantly at my new bed. Hopefully I would get a good night’s
sleep. A week of sleeping on a tiny twin bunk had reminded me that I was
getting older. A few minutes later, I turned off the lamp on my nightstand and
crawled into bed.

Ahh! That feels
good.

“MOMMY!”

A piercing cry
penetrated the fog that swirled around my head.

“MOMMY!”

The scream rose
in pitch, and the terror I heard in their call snapped me bolt upright.
The
girls.

I jumped out of
bed and ran to their room, the boys coming in right behind me.

Right after
Brian died, the girls had frequent stirring dreams—nightmares. It wasn’t
unusual to hear them cry out for me, even if they were sleeping in my bed with
me. But the last four or five months had been quiet. They’d returned to
sleeping in their rooms and were sleeping through the night.

But this scream
was unlike anything I’d ever heard, and my heart was beating a mile a minute.

Jessie had
gotten into bed with Maggie, and the girls were holding each other tightly.
Jessie was crying, and Maggie was as white as a ghost.

I went to my
babies and took them in my arms. “Shh… it’s okay. Mommy’s here. What’s wrong?”

“I saw Daddy,”
Jessie told me, anxiety in her voice. “I saw him. In the window.”

 “Honey, it was
just a dream,” I said, trying to calm her nerves. “It’s okay.”

“No, Mommy. I
saw him too,” Maggie told me. “Daddy was right there.”

She pointed to
their window, and Sam stepped over to take a look. “Guys, there’s nothing
there. It was just a dream, maybe a bad dream.”

Hearing the
girls claim of seeing their Dad, Jimmy and Carey shuffled back into their
rooms. A dream was nothing to get worked up about.

I told Sam he
could go back to sleep. I would take care of getting the girls settled back
down. Thirty minutes later, I was back in my bed drifting off to sleep.

He didn’t mean to scare the little
girls. He had been watching the house and felt compelled to check on the
children.

The little
girl—the one with the long hair—had opened her eyes and screamed when she saw
him. He let himself down and hung from the window ledge, then dropped to the
ground. He ran to the back of the yard and let the shadows hide him.

A few minutes
later, all the lights went on in the house, and he could hear them rushing into
the girls’ room.

He didn’t want
to leave yet. The Woman was around. He caught her stench every so often. She
wasn’t close, but he didn’t want to leave them alone.

And so he went
back to his hiding spot and settled in.

They were safe…
for now.

Ethan’s life was a cliche. His wife
hadn’t liked being the wife of a detective. Too many family dinners
interrupted. Too many nights worrying that she would get a phone call or worse,
that the doorbell would ring. So she had left him 8 years ago. She had
remarried a good guy, Carl—even Ethan thought he was nice. And she was happy.
Because she was happy, she was pretty cool when it came to visitation. Ethan
was a very involved father, and as long as he was good to their son, he could
see Nathan whenever he could.

Since he lived
alone, he and Walt decided that his apartment was the best place to go over the
old files.

“I can’t
believe this is happening again,” Walt said, for what must have been the 20th
time.

“I can’t believe
we aren’t batshit crazy,” Ethan replied. “All that crap... all that shit that
happened 20 years ago, I think I’d written it off.”

Walt nodded in
agreement. They’d never really spoken about what they saw all those years ago,
until now.

“I feel it, Walt.”
Ethan said as he took a drink of his beer. “I feel it. And whatever’s going
down, that woman, those kids are right in the middle of it.”

“Whatever it
is… whatever’s going on, we need to finish it this time, E. What happened 20
years ago, if we can stop it... Well, we can’t let it happen again.”

Ethan looked at
Walter. The man had been his best friend for over half his life. Walt had drawn
his weapon before, but in his 25+ years on the job, he’d never fired it in the
line of duty. And yet, there’s no one Ethan would rather have at his side.

“If this is the
same shit that went down 20 years ago, we won’t let it happen again.”

And they drank
on it.

Twenty years ago, Ethan and Walt were
both in uniform. They had been partners for 5 years and were good friends to
boot. Word started going around their precinct that some psycho was on the
loose. A string of gory murders had left detectives at a loss.

The M.E. swore
that they were animal attacks. But what animal disembowels a guy in an alley
behind a crowded nightclub? There were four murders, and then they suddenly
stopped.

July 20,
1993—that date would forever be engraved in their minds. That was the morning,
the very early morning, that Ethan and Walter figured out who was committing
the murders. That was the day they came face to face with a
nightmare
.

“Oh, come on! Really?” I woke up to a
small hand on my face. Jessie was curled up on my right, and Maggie was on my
left, her head on my leg.

I had been so
tired that I didn’t even know the girls had crawled into bed with me. They were
sleeping soundly, so I slid down the bed between them. I wanted to let them
sleep. Whatever Jessie thought she had seen the night before had scared her
half to death. The girls were tough. Growing up with three older brothers,
they’d learned to be. But that night... I’d never seen them so scared.

I admit that I
hadn’t paid much attention to the movie, but I didn’t think there was anything
scary. I made a mental note to ask Carey if he and the girls had watched something
while I had been out with Jimmy.

Joe had called
a few days prior and left a message. They were ready to install my new
flooring. This was going to be as good a day as any other, so it was on the
schedule. The shower doors and the mirror were in, and they would be putting
those in as well. Which meant come Monday night, my room would be back in
order.

Since it was
early, I decided to relax and take a bath. I had a huge Jacuzzi tub, though I
think Brian used it more than I did. I was a quick in, quick out kind of gal
and just didn’t want to lounge around in a tub. Brian could soak for hours if I
let him. But, this time, I was gonna soak.

I looked
around, searching for bubble bath or something. Whoever destroyed the bathroom
had also decided to dump shampoo, conditioner, and whatever else they could
find all over the bathtub and shower, so I didn’t have much left. I would have
to pick up some treats next time we went to the mall.

I finally found
some Mr. Bubble. The girls would often take baths in our tub, so I figured why
not? There were worse things than smelling like bubble gum. I ran the bath and
took off my nightshirt. I looked at myself, with a critical eye, in the mirror.

Four kids and
almost forty—it could be worse. I looked at my breasts and wished for the pair
I had at 18. I lifted my arms above my head and turned to the side.

See how much
nicer they look lifted, just a little bit.

I squeezed my
arms together, effectively squishing my breasts together for some nice
cleavage. I leaned over to catch a glimpse.

Hmm.

I stood up and
dropped my arms. It wasn’t going to happen. I’d seen an MTV special about
plastic surgery a few years back, and after seeing the way they shove the
implants up in your… show me a Victoria’s Secret any day. I just reminded myself
how many bras I could buy for the cost of a boob job. Besides, I had no one to
impress anymore.

I settled down
in the tub and sighed as the hot water slid up my body. Leaning back, I
understood how Brian could spend 45 minutes just laying in the tub.

Laying there,
with nothing to read, no phone to play with, I started thinking about the
conversation I’d had with Bee the last night on the ship.

Ben and Amy had
turned in early. Anthony, Sam, and Karie were in the casino. The girls were at
a “late night kids party.” And Jimmy, Ant, and Carey were hanging out with new
friends. Bee and I had found a seat in one of the lounges and proceeded to
drink too many frozen drinks. I think I was on my fourth piña colada when she
asked if I had thought about dating again.

“Are you
joking? I’m the mother of five kids, almost 40, and have the boobs to prove it.
Who would want to tackle this?”

Bee gave me a
dirty look. “You’re joking, right? Jules, you are a beautiful woman. I wish you
saw that.”

I scoffed at
her. “I do see, Bee. I see the crow’s feet coming in every time I look in the
mirror, and the white hairs...”

Bee smacked the
table, and I stifled a giggle.

“I wish you
could see… what Brian saw,” Bee said. “Oh, girl, when he looked at you, it was
like sunshine shone out your asshole.”

Bee and I
snorted with laughter and drew a few stares in the process.

“Shh… shh…” I
tried to temper our laughter. “That was a very colorful description.”

Bee was on her
fifth margarita at this point. She loved tequila, but
girl
could not handle
it.

“I’m serious.
It was like there were no other women in the room. Ya know, one time Anthony
told me they went to a gentlemen’s club on one of their fishing trips. And
Brian told the stripper about
you
!”

I was laughing
outright at this point. It wasn’t so much the story as much as it was the
hiccups that punctuated Bee’s sentences.

“I mean, she
probably had her titties in his face, and he was talking about his wife. I bet
that hurt her self-esteem.”

We went back
and forth for at least another hour, and at that point, Anthony had found
us—blitzed, but happy. He just shook his head and took us back to our rooms.

But laying
there in the tub, in the home we made, I couldn’t imagine dating again. It had
been less than a year since I’d lost Brian, but aside from that, I had no
interest.

I’m not saying
I subscribe to the idea that everyone has
one
soul mate out there, but
for me… I’d had the best, and anyone that tried to follow would forever be
playing catch up. I didn’t see any point in bothering to watch someone fail at
every turn. I just didn’t think anyone would live up to Brian.

And you know
what? I was okay with that. I had almost 20 years with a man I adored. I loved
Brian with all my heart. There was never a time when I had to fall in love with
him “again.” I mean, really. What the fuck is that all about? I loved him,
simple as that. The memories could contain me for the next 40 or 50 years, and
hopefully in the next ten years or so, I would have a daughter-in-law, maybe a
grandbaby…

Or maybe I
would get that dog.

“Mommy?” I heard a voice. “Mommy? Are
you in there?”

I sighed. I had
a good 20 minutes of soaking in at this point.

“Mommy? Can we
come in? Mommy?”

They weren’t
going to stop, so I gave them the approval for which they were looking.

The girls
peeked their heads in. “Morning, Mommy!”

The startling
events from the previous night obviously forgotten, as was the late night foray
into my room, so I let it be.

“Morning. How
are you guys?”

“Your bed is
awesome!” Jessie told me as she came over and sat on the floor by the tub.

“Yeah, I want
one just like it,” Maggie said as she sat on the floor next to her sister.

“It is pretty
nice, isn’t it?” I asked them, as I started to shave my legs.

Jessie crawled
over and leaned against the tub. “Daddy said you had dancer’s legs.”

“He did say
that, didn’t he?”

Whatever issues
I had with my breasts, the same couldn’t be said for my legs and my behind. I
was proud of them. They looked pretty damn good.

“When can we
shave our legs?” Jessie asked.

“Oh, well, do
you want to?” I asked the girls. I hadn’t even thought of that.
When did I
start shaving my legs?

“I don’t know.
It kind of looks like a pain,” Jessie answered as she watched me lather up my
other leg.

“I’m not gonna
shave, yet. I don’t even have armpit hair!” Maggie informed us.

I laughed.
“Well, okay then. I think we can put off shaving for another year or so, okay?”

Jessie
shrugged. “What about a bra?”

“What about a
bra?” I asked her.

“You have
pretty big boobs. I looked at your new bras, and it says a size 34 D. That’s
pretty big, isn’t it?”

Did I have
big boobs?

“I guess so,” I
told her. “Sometimes your breasts get bigger after you have babies.”

“Can I get a
bra?” Jessie asked.

I looked at my
little girl, puberty was still a few years off, but a sports bra couldn’t hurt.
“Well, how about a sports bra? They have them at Target in your size.”

“What size is
that? Extra, extra small?” Maggie laughed. “We don’t have boobs yet, and bras
don’t look comfortable. I’m not gonna wear one until I have too.”

Jessie just
gave her a dirty look. “
You
don’t get it.”

Maggie just
rolled her eyes. I had finished shaving and was done, so I stood up and grabbed
my towel.

“You’re gonna
make pancakes, right?” Maggie asked, already licking her lips.

“I’m gonna make
pancakes,” I told them.

“Cool, I’m
gonna go wake up the guys.” Maggie took off toward her brothers’ rooms. I
braced myself for the yelling.

“AGGHH!! NO.
Get out!” That was Carey, and something hit the door.

“GOD! Go away,
Magpie!” Jimmy, louder, but he didn’t throw anything.

And then
laughter. That was Sam. I couldn’t hear what he said to her, but there was no
yelling. Our son. I silently thanked the woman that had left and given him to
me.