The Fine Line Book One Between Worlds Series (29 page)

As Audrey passed by Robin, she glared into
her eyes.

“
You’ll never get an
apology from me.”

After their dramatic day, Robin relaxed in
bed reading a book as Matt played a game on his phone. She then
felt his hand on her protruding tummy. She smiled at him and took
her glasses off. She put her book on the nightstand and placed her
hand on top of his.

He leaned down toward her pregnant belly and
smiled. He lifted her pajama top up slightly and kissed her skin.
“Love you so much little one,” he whispered. Then he looked up into
Robin’s loving brown eyes.

She ran her hands through his thick hair
noticing the dark color peppered with gray. Her attraction to him
only grew, still drawn to him like a magnet.

After some much needed intimacy, Robin
rested in Matt’s arms. It was quiet in the house as she fell
asleep. All at once, she awoke to the feeling of being choked. She
couldn’t breathe or speak. When she opened her eyes she couldn’t
see anything either. Her eyes watered tainting her vision. Then she
saw it; a black mist hovering over her body. Instantly, she
knew.

Her eyes continued watering as she felt her
heart racing. Frantically, her eyes moved about the room as the
figure dissipated. Still, she choked and continued to be
immobilized. She saw the dark figure standing in the corner
watching as she suffocated to death. Finally, relief swept over her
and she sat up in bed screaming.

She felt Matt’s body jerk beside her as she
saw the light from his lamp on the nightstand come on. His arms
felt like a safety net around her. Still panting, she couldn’t say
anything.

“
What’s going
on?”

The anguished sobs came with the coughing as
she dropped into his chest. “It tried to kill me,” she cried.

“
I’m right here,” he
assured her.

“
I couldn’t breathe. It
was choking the life out of me.”

“
It was a
dream.”

“
No,” she said as she
shook her head, “it wasn’t.”

Exhausted, she flopped back onto her pillow
with Matt looking down at her. Horror covered his face.

“Oh my God,” he said softly. Gently he
touched her neck. “How did you do that?” he asked.

She got up and rushed to the bathroom.
Flipping on the light, she looked at herself and couldn’t believe
what she was seeing. Bright red marks covered her neck. It looked
like rope burn, but there were several scratches, too.

“
I didn’t do that,” she
said quietly.

Matt walked in behind her.

“
Are you alright?” he
asked, concern in his voice.

“
Matt, I don’t know how
much more of this I can take.”

She walked back into the bedroom and sat
down on the mattress.

“
I am strong, but I can’t
physically fight this thing.”

“
We’ll be alright Robin. I
promise. We’re going to be okay.”

Going Under

A week passed. For most of the day, Robin
folded laundry and put it away. The house quieted with Olivia on
visitation with Sheryl and Matt outside shoveling snow. It gave
Robin the opportunity to nest a little. She hadn’t even thought
about a nursery. Sometimes, she felt terrible because she wasn’t
prepared; no clothing bought, no crib, no changing table.

Robin walked up the stairs with the laundry
basket to put towels into the closet. She put the basket down in
the hallway and began taking stacks of clean towels from the
basket. The floorboards near the top of the stairs creaked as if
someone walked toward her. She turned her head and peaked around
the closet door. The hallway was empty. Robin assumed Emma may be
looking for Olivia.

“
Emma, Olivia is with her
mom for a few hours,” she said quietly.

She heard the kitchen door slam and Matt
tossing his boots onto the doormat.

The hallway became bone chilling cold. That
had never happened when Emma was close. Once more, Robin saw her
own breath because of the atmospheric temperature change. This
time, nonetheless, she used positive thinking and tried to be more
realistic. She called downstairs to Matt.

“
I think the furnace needs
looking at. This hallway is freezing. I bet the duct is
clogged.”

“
I’ll look at it in a
sec,” Matt called from the kitchen.

She finished putting the towels away, picked
the basket up, and started down the stairs. On the fourth step
down, she felt a tremendous force smack the middle of her back as
if two hands pushed against her. Unable to maintain her balance,
she tumbled down the stairs head first. The laundry basket flew out
of her hand and toppled down the stairs ahead of her. She felt her
head hit the wooden stairs followed by impact to her legs and then
her back. Finally, she landed on her stomach and everything went
black.

When she woke, the white walls blinded her
and the loud beeping noises deafened her. Someone held her hand.
Blinking back into consciousness, she glanced over to see Matt, his
bloodshot eyes looking at her.

“
Hey baby,” he whispered.
“How are you feeling?”

He put his hand on her forehead just as he
had the first time he had ever met her. It was a warm, supportive
gesture and most of all, it brought back fond memories.

“
I don’t know. Where am I?
What happened?” she asked groggily.

“
You’re at the hospital,”
he replied.

“
What
happened?”

His lip shook.

“
Robin, what do you
remember?”

She reflected for a moment.

“
Well, I started down the
stairs and it felt like someone pushed me. Did I fall?”

He nodded, still trembling.

“
You hit your head pretty
hard.”

Reality startled her.

“
The baby. Is the baby
okay?”

She didn’t want to touch her abdomen.

Matt dropped his eyes as tears ran down his
cheeks. He sobbed softly.

Robin shook her head in disbelief as the
horrific truth shook her to her very soul.

“
No… not our
baby…”

“
They did everything they
could,” he said as he looked up at her. “There was just too much
bleeding and too much damage. He couldn’t be saved.”

“
He? It was a little
boy?”

“
Yes.”

Weeping, they held one another not
understanding how to overcome such a loss.

****

Robin wanted a funeral for the baby. They
named the baby Bryan Garrett. With the help of Amy and Doris, Matt
picked out the casket because Robin couldn’t overcome her grief. In
fact she had been sedated since returning home. When she was
conscious, she struggled with guilt for even staying in the house.
Moving would have prevented all of the loss.

Robin stood in the master bedroom looking in
the mirror. Her swelled abdomen offered a gruesome reminder of what
happened. The emptiness inside sickened her. Darkness fell on her
like a shroud as the sorrow consumed her. She felt heaviness all
around her and her weakness crippled her. The darkness in the house
stole the life of her son. Her coping mechanisms failed.

She closed her eyes and put her hand on her
still swollen belly. The presence of the woman from her dream
surrounded her. Tears rolled down her face as her eyes remained
closed and comfort couldn’t be found.

The activity in the house heightened. The
loss of the baby encouraged the woman and Emma to spring into
action. Olivia felt the drastic change in the house. She walked to
the master bedroom, peering in. The woman from the field, who had
lost a child of her own, stood with Robin, wrapping her arms
tightly around her. Then Olivia walked downstairs to the kitchen
where her father stood staring out the kitchen window.

She didn’t understand how something so
tragic could happen; how something so wonderful could turn so
horribly wrong so quickly. She didn’t understand why she couldn’t
see Bryan. Because loss of this kind was new to her, she didn’t
understand the overpowering emotions that came and went.

She observed Emma walking to Matt, taking
his hand. She could tell he felt the cold touch because he looked
down and then sighed. The heaviness in the room saddened her even
more.

The funeral home filled with friends and
family for the visitation and viewing. Charley, Tammy and Terri
stood in the back drinking coffee as the continual line of friends
roamed in and out of the funeral home. Doris sat in the front row
of folding chairs near the casket. Olivia stayed close to her.

Amy, Corbin, Shelley, and Wendy stayed very
close to Robin as she, too, sat in the first row of chairs. Matt
was up and down greeting friends as they paid their respects. Robin
got up some of the time, but when her legs felt weak, she found her
way back to her seat. She composed herself for the sake of her
family and refused to be an embarrassment to them. However, she
knew better than that; she knew grief to be a natural healing
process. Honestly, though, she had no more tears.

Maria kept her distance and stayed outside
the funeral home with her boyfriend, Fred. Because of the drastic
age difference, Maria and Robin weren’t close. Also, Maria’s age
put her at a disadvantage for dealing with such grief.

Katie and Curtis O’Bryan made their way to
the tiny casket. Matt stood beside it. From the corner of her eye,
Robin saw Curtis’s tall silhouette and his wife’s short grey hair.
They had been such wonderful neighbors.

Robin stood to her feet and joined Matt.
Taking her hand into his, they stood united.

Curtis held out his hand to Matt and they
shook. “I’m so sorry for you two. If there’s absolutely anything we
can do, you just let us know.”

Matt nodded and Robin did her best to smile.
“Thank you,” Matt said.

Katie embraced Robin. The warmth of her hug
gave Robin some relief, but she needed more than that.

“
Honey, I lost a baby,
too.

I know exactly what you’re going through.
So, if you ever want to talk, you know where to find me,” Katie
said sympathetically.

“
Thanks so much for
coming,” Robin replied.

Just as she suspected, her knees began to
weaken. She smiled again and dismissed herself back to her
chair.

Friends from the hospital and the agency
came and went all evening. Bill and Leah also offered support and
stayed with Matt and Robin during the visitation.

After the difficult viewing and after
everyone left, Robin and Matt sat by themselves quietly in the
room. They walked up to the tiny casket together. Robin looked down
at the fabric of the blue footed sleeper she chose for Bryan. She
thought that maybe if she focused on something completely unrelated
to the loss, she may fare better, but it didn’t work. Overcome by
the size of the casket, she sighed heavily.

“
Look at this,” she
whispered. “It’s the size of a shoe box.”

Her eyes hollowed as her hands traced the
wood finish. Matt put his arm around her and began crying. Robin
watched him reach for Bryan’s cold little hand, his tears falling
onto the lining of the coffin.

Dread: that is what Robin felt. She sat on
the bed staring out the window pulling her pantyhose over her legs.
She finally felt numb. Matt rummaged in his closet and she watched
as he stared in the mirror at his reflection. Then, he walked to
her and sat beside her as she continued staring obliviously out the
window.

“
This isn’t your fault,”
he whispered.

Finally, there was a hint of emotion as her
lip trembled.

“
Yes it is.” She looked
down at her hands. “I’ve had a distinct lack of respect for all
that’s been happening in this house and because of that, my son was
taken. This is no one’s fault by my own.”

“
Sweetheart, it’s not.
These things just happen.”

“
Not like this, they
don’t,” she bit out.

“
We will get through this,
Robin. We are strong and we love each other.”

The emptiness returned to her face as she
gawked at Matt.

“
I’m not this
strong.”

The church was vacant as Robin and Matt
entered. Robin walked up to the casket first and peered into it. It
seemed impossible that the baby wouldn’t wake with a cry. It was
hard for her to get past Bryan’s size, too. She felt responsible
and inept; she couldn’t protect him even as he grew within her.

Her hand brushed across his little head, his
skin with the lack of life. The tears came quickly even though she
thought they were dried up. She leaned down and kissed his
forehead.