Found

Quick note: If you haven't already read Lost, I recommend doing that first. Or just crack on - this should make sense as a stand-alone story. Please let me know in the comments if you read it on its own, or as a Part 2.

Second quick note: if you are pregnant, or if you have experienced pregnancy loss, please stop reading! It's my considered opinion that this story is not suitable for you. I almost submitted this to Horror. This is your content warning.

This one is a little long - nowhere near as long Vocal claims, but still longer than my average! Please do leave a comment if this is one you intend to come back to.

Still with me? Got a cuppa? Good. Let's go!

+++++++

Six months ago, I buried my mother. Three weeks ago, my husband left me. An hour ago, I stared at two little blue lines.

I actually reached for my phone to tell her the news.

Grief tore me open all over again. She should be here for this.

We'd actually stopped Trying, Dylan and I. For a while anyway. We did actually manage to conceive but it didn't end well. It was rough on us both. I never got to see our baby. A boy, they told me.

Dylan was gentle but insistent. Please, Sara, he said, give yourself time to heal. I can't keep doing this to you. Think what it's doing to me. Please.

It killed me that he was so steadfast in blaming himself. We compromised. We would just stop for now. His shoulders sagged with relief when I agreed to this. We've still got time, he said. Maybe we can try IVF. Or we'll adopt one day. I stiffened. Why did I get the impression he'd already made up his mind about that?

He stopped touching me. At all. Distance grew in the gap those absent touches left. I told myself it was because he was frightened for us to conceive again. To go through... that... again.

Then, before we had a chance to return to some sort of equilibrium together, my mother died.

It shook me. He even suggested therapy. At the time I took it as a sign he saw that I was struggling, but I look back and somehow I think maybe everything was already falling apart even then. Maybe because of the way he looked at me. Was it pity in his eyes? Or fear?

You expect the death of a parent to affect you, even if you aren't close. But it wasn't just that. I couldn't articulate it at the time, and I can't now. Of course I grieved for her. But on top of that, her death was also a catalyst for something else. Dylan said I had some kind of episode the day I went to clear out her house. I don't remember. He says he found me, sitting in her spare room (her "study" she called it,) shaking uncontrollably, and clutching a box bound up in sellotape.

Under and between the tape are the words DONOTOPENDONOTOPENDONOTOPE-

The letters are large and shaky but the hand is definitely mine.

What's in the box, Sara?

I stared at him, blank and flat. I didn't know.

He told me off. What were you thinking, going there alone?

Does he really think me so incompetent? What would he say if he knew about this? Can I really do it? By myself?

+++++++

I hid the box in the loft. I never go up there, so he'd never guess that's where I'd put it. I don't know why I did that.

After he left, I handed in my notice at work, and I moved.

I used the money mum left me and left town. Too many bad memories. I wanted to start fresh somewhere else.

New start, that's what I need.

That's what I told myself. Maybe I was right.

I haven't told him about the baby. Not yet, anyway. He has a right to know. But what can he do? I don't want him to come back to me out of pity, or for the sake of the child. I don't know if I want him to come back at all.

I will tell him. But it's on a need-to-know basis, and right now, he doesn't need to know.

I brought the box with me. It's under my bed. I don't remember sealing it up. I don't remember opening it either. But I know it's important. So far, I've taken my own advice and I haven't opened it.

++++++

I loathe pregnancy, but it does come with a whole boatload of new words.

Hyperemesis gravidarium. Means I'm very sick. Not just the normal amount of sickness you might expect. An insane amount of sickness. Have you ever vomited so much you thought you might die? No dramatics, either, you actually think that? Or even (don't judge me) wished for it a little bit?

I've no idea how my baby is able to grow at all with how little I am managing to swallow, and how much I'm always bringing back up.

I've seen women glowing in their innocence of a first pregnancy, and their good fortune that it is a simple one. Envy. An ugly word. They seem to assume, blithely, that they will still be pregnant tomorrow. That's amazing to me. This might be nerve-wracking for me anyway, because I don't have that innocence. But add to it how sick I am... I'm constantly on high alert for her well-being. Naturally, most mothers are concerned for that at some level, but not, I think, like this. Someone, something, is hitting the Emergency button in my body. Over and over. Relentless.

When I finally manage to sleep, in the small hours, once the nausea has subsided enough for me to drift off... I start awake again in a panic just a little while later. When did she last move? I wait for it, then over-analyse it. (Was that her moving, or did I imagine it?) Finally, bone-tired, I slip back into a dull, fretful slumber.

She - the word I use for my baby. I've no idea whether I am having a boy or a girl. I don't want to find out before she's born. But I catch myself assuming she'll be a girl. Sex is determined at the moment of conception, but we all start off with a female form, don't we? That's why men have useless nipples. So, "she" is as good a default as any. But it could be that carrying a boy ended in such pain. I try not to think of that. Instead I concentrate on the delicious jarring of She as the standard. I lick my lips around the squareness of this peg in a round, round world, and say it with relish. She.

++++++

The midwife - Lisa - is good. When I expressed my worry about how my sickness might affect my baby, she gave me lots of reassurance. The baby is taking from my long term stores. That's why it's important I see a dentist, because that has implications for my teeth long term. (I must book that actually.) It's better if I can eat well... but she told me not to feel bad if I can't. (Nice of her, but I can't help it.)

I feel OK during our appointments. But I feel sore with worry every day... and I don't see her that often. The tide of anxiety starts creeping back as soon as I've stepped out of the clinic. I'm not an anxious person by nature, so it's unfamiliar to me. I'm not well-practised at dealing with it.

Rage. Something I was not prepared to feel, and have little energy to spare for. What bubbles up when people comment on my "neat little bump" (which is all the time). I bite it's bitterness back down with my angry scream.

Is my bump really little? Is she growing in there? Is she OK? I know these people mean well, but they've no idea how hard it is not to stress out about it. Of course, once I notice how stressed I feel, I instantly feel guilty and wonder what effect that will have on the baby. Easier to seethe at the thoughtlessness of strangers.

When I am at my lowest, I'm tempted to call Dylan. I think, if I told him about this baby, he would come back to me. He'd try to make it work. Put his arms around me, strive to comfort me. Say nonsense like, It'll be OK. In my moments of weakness, I want that very much. That warmth, and to hear those words. I even pick up the phone to call him... But I remember the way he looked at me, as though I were a stranger, and I bully myself into putting it down again.

Some of my friends do what they can, but many of them don't even know. I'm too scared to broadcast this pregnancy, in case it ends like the last one. Or even (please, don't laugh, I'm serious) in case I jinx it. I'm also alive to the fact that the more people know, the more likely word will find its way back to Dylan. Words have a way of doing that. I know he has to know, eventually. I want him to hear it from me. Just... not yet. I've told a tiny handful of people I trust, who also happen to be people that he was never really very close with. They are supportive, but they aren't here in the moments I'm struggling.

I haven't been able to hold down a job because of how ill I've been. I've been hospitalised multiple times. I've hurt my ribs and torn ligaments from coughing so much and retching so hard, repeatedly. I've lost a dangerous amount of weight. I'm exhausted. All the time.

I'm showing, now, as well, so I don't look very employable. I know people aren't meant to discriminate, but let's be realistic. An employer sees me walk in looking like death warmed up and with a very obvious bump and she's going to think, "This one will never be here, and even if she is, she won't be for long".

I've been able to take a few temp jobs. And I write. I may as well put my logophilia to good use. Logophile - lover of words. I haven't sold the old house yet, so I've been able to rent that out for some additional income. I've got a tiny flat. I'm managing. I might need to move somewhere bigger, but I don't have the gumption to even think about that at the moment.

The one bright spot is that I can feel her move plenty. It's another thing that keeps me from sleeping, but I tell myself it means she's strong, and I dream of coffee.

This isn't forever.

She will be worth it.

One day at at time.

These are the words I say to myself.

+++++++

There should be a word for the dreams you get when pregnant. If there was a word for it, we might be better prepared for it. No one told me about this phenomenon, but even if they had, I don't think anyone could have prepared me for this.

I've been informed that "it's hormones". Mind you, that seems to be the answer for everything.

The dreams - nightmares - are wild. Really wild, like live things kicking and screaming in my consciousness. The few crumbs of sleep I manage to snatch for myself between intense sickness and anxiety leave me feeling unrested. I wake panting. Skin clammy, heart pounding. Feeling as if I've just run several miles.

I've never been one to remember my dreams, but these are different. They are chaotic and disturbing. I lie, listening to the dawn chorus, the echoes of my own subconscious reverberating nastily in my skull, and I wonder, Did that really come from my own mind?

I hesitate even to share them, but here goes. Lately, a recurring one is a sensation of drowning, but on dry land. I gasp, try to drag air into my lungs, but it's never enough. The air is like knives. I feel the skin tearing on the sides of my neck. Gashes billowing. I clap my hands over them. Sometimes they are bloodless. Sometimes not. I can't brea-

The sight of my own red-drenched hands always wakes me in a panic. That's better than the alternative, stuck drowning in some other world. I always switch the light on and pull the covers back to check for spots of red. And then, in my relief, I curl myself around my bump as if I can protect her. My throat does feel torn, that wasn't just the dream. It's on the inside, rather than outside, but it's real. I breathe carefully, feeling my heart rate return to normal, and the sweat turn cold and sticky against my skin. The darkness bleeds out of the air in front of my eyes.

Don't judge me, but I still haven't told Dylan about the baby. I can't bring myself to call him. If I do, my own weakness will overpower me, and I'll beg for him to come back. I don't know if I love him any more. Did I ever? Or did I love the way he loved me, the way he looked at me? His romantic murmurs against my hair (always, always) that I swore blind I didn't need? Maybe, now that's all gone, there's nothing left.

Resentment. It chews at me. But it doesn't mean "not love".

Still, I'd beg, and then hate myself and berate myself for it.

I'm not weak. It's important remind myself of this. So much of my strength is being used up elsewhere, that's all.

I drag my heavy, bony body to the shower.

+++++++

Anaemia. It's a pretty word. Almost like a girl's name. Not something (else) that will make you feel rotten.

Lisa recommended iron supplements. My levels are low, and that's causing me to be short of breath. Is that why I wake wheezing, groping for lungful of air? She looks doubtful, mutters, "maybe" and then moves on to scribbling or tip-tapping, or talking about something else.

The tablets she prescribed made me ill (don't ask) so I've switched to a liquid one and I take it with orange juice. Half the time I throw it back up again. It tastes even worse on the way back.

The side effects have gone, so that's good. But I don't know if that is because the iron is working, or just because I'm still bringing it back up so often.

I'm still having nightmares though. Vivid ones. They're getting worse. About the birth now. Maybe this is my subconscious trying to get me to face this aspect of things, but it isn't helping. It's freaking me out.

For example, last week, my waters broke, and with them, my baby, carried on a pale pink wave out of the safety of my body. Unformed. Jelly that dissolved under my touch and washed away. The water still going, and washing me away with it, my bones melting to foam-

That hardly needed any analysis.

Last night was worse. I gave birth alone in my tiny bathroom to a red and scrawny little thing. It looked at me with dull, black eyes and wouldn't breathe. I held it close, rubbed its back. It felt... wrong. The shoulder blades were too prominent, too sharp. The skin felt rough under my palms. I looked down at my hands and saw its irridescent crimson scales stuck to them, spotted with my own blood, dark and tacky- Right on cue, I woke with a start, throwing back the covers and hitting the bedside lamp in one frantic motion, almost sobbing at the sight of my unspotted sheets.

I told Lisa a little about my nightmares. Tried not to notice the flicker of concern in her face, despite that I avoided some of the more intense details. She did a great job of smoothing her face into a bland expression, and assured me that it was "probably the hormones".

I am beginning to hate that phrase, almost as much as "have you tried ginger biscuits".

I nod tightly, lips pursed, biting back an terse response. Knuckles whitening, my fingers crushing my irritation into the soulless plastic chair. This is partly because my head hurts, which is aggravating me, and any excessive movement makes it feel like it will explode.

While I grit my (poor, neglected) teeth, she goes on to explain how hormones affect how my brain process things, and this can make for some startlingly weird dreams that feel very real.

Really? Are they normally this horrifying?

I told her they frightened me, but she has an answer for that, too. It's normal for mothers to have concerns. Especially first timers. And women who have - her voice so gentle now - experienced loss. Fears can come up in dreams. It feels scary, but it's not real. The best thing is to call and discuss when these things come up.

I was tempted to tell her the rest of it, the worst of it - not just being alone, and the baby not breathing, but the scales.... the... wings? But I don't want to hear the description of it, least of all in my own voice. I don't want to see her reaction. What could she even do to help me?

Please prescribe me the brain bleach.

I take what comfort she is able to offer like an Elastoplast on a busted leg. Smile, thank her, step outside with the waves of anxiety already inching closer, laughing at my heels. I seek to slow it by hanging on to the memory of the scan, which showed everything was normal. Why doesn't it work?

Because it can only reassure me that the baby is normal.

What about me?

+++++++

Miracle. A word that people associate with happiness and wonder and ease. Amazing, awesome, transformative... But they don't always remember the underbelly of a miracle. The muck of it. The side that is also gruesome and scary and hard. People conveniently skim around the fact that a miracle can leech the strength from your bones and challenge your very Self. Break it apart and knit it back together. Whether you want it to or not.

I am in the middle of a miracle, which feels like a synonym for nightmare.

At last, the sickness is a bit better. I am still sick. A lot. Often. But less.

But the dreams? Worse. The other night, I collapsed with sharp stabbing pains in my belly and privates, finally delivering a creature with stubby horns on it's soft and goopy little head-

Last night it was spines. Sometimes its claws - as delightful as you can imagine. There are almost always scales, and dark, sticky blood that wakes me in a tidal wave of panic.

I have another fun pregnancy thing, another term to add to my expanding dictionary of horrors: Irritable uterus. It means I am having contractions.

I have weeks to go until I am full term. Until she can be born safely. Have you heard of Braxton Hicks? Means, "practise contractions." It's not those. It's much, much stronger.

At first, I thought I was in premature labour. I wasn't able to drive to hospital, not safely anyway. I took a taxi I couldn't afford, only to come home again many hours later. Worn out, shaking with fatigue, and still having fierce contractions. Tightenings, they call them. As if they aren't real somehow. How much realer can they get?

That was weeks ago, and I'm still getting the "tightenings" most days. Vicious, they are apt to knock me off my feet. The slightest thing can set them off. I'm supposed to go in every time, but if I did that I'd never be at home.

It's been weeks since I've been able to work at all. I often don't fall asleep until morning peeps through my curtains. I sleep while I can. I wake near to lunchtime, and at first I still feel horribly sick. I try to eat. It doesn't stop me throwing up, but it's slightly better to do it when I have something to be sick with.

In the early afternoon, for a few hours, I feel better. If I need to do anything - errands, chores, groceries, appointments, writing - this is when I need to do it. I give myself as much time as I can to accomplish anything. Hurrying, stress, too much activity - it can set off pains which won't stop no matter what I do. If I hear one more "have a bath and take some paracetemol," I might break something.

If I'm going to cook, it has to be now, during those soft, golden hours. While I can tolerate the smell of food without heaving. If I'm going to eat - if I'm going to get any enjoyment from it at all - that is the time. For this small window of my day, I feel almost human. I bathe, get into soft clean pyjamas, and sparkle my smile at my swollen belly, and the gentle movements I can see and feel inside. Is this how most pregnant women feel all the time?

I soak in love for my baby, and hope she can feel it. Close my eyes, and send it whooshing along that vital blue cable, to make up for the hours I can barely think of her at all, despite that she's so large in my world.

As afternoon oozes into evening, the comfort dissipates. Wonder wanes, elluding my fingertips. Sickness returns. Contractions begin. My baby's movements get more violent, almost painful. I swallow paracetemol, and, eventually, bile. I steal myself for hours of cycling through different positions, breathing and groaning long into the lonely night.

I have an obscene number of pillows. I pack them around me, head buried into one lavender-stained monstrosity and my bottom waving absurdly in the air. The lavender doesn't help, except it makes me feel like I'm doing something to help.

Eventually I fall asleep, and the dreams begin. It seems I'm no longer afraid of the birth itself, the baby slipping from my body when there is no one near to help either of us. I followed Lisa's advice and went to some antenatal classes. It must have worked.

Like a fucked up game of whackamole, some sick part of my mind has latched on to something else to drive me out of it. Surgery.

When my eyes shut at last, they are abused by the glare of bright lights. I am hypnotised by the glint of the scalpel. There's no screen. Isn't there supposed to be a screen? So I can't see the blade descending to my skin. Sometimes, I can feel everything. Other nights, I feel nothing at all. Not even anxiety, waiting for that first lamb-like cry. The doctor hauls it out and lifts it up limply on one hand, his eyes blank. I'm limp, heavy. No concern, or joy, or love. The relief I have longed for these last months should be sweet, but all I feel is.... empty. Body and soul. My numbness is complete. Not even shock at the tail sprouting above its white little bottom-

I'm so tired of being in pain. Tired of being sick. Sick of being tired. I just want her out. I just want her to be OK.

+++++++

Whatever they pull out of me, night after night, it doesn't even resemble a little human anymore. It has wings, or talons. Or else cold silver-green scales, making eerie flashes under the harsh lights. Usually, nobody talks to me. I'm barely in the room at all. But last time, the surgeon looked right at me. He didn't say a word, just held the little body in his hands, it's tail flopping weakly from side to side. He wore the obligatory mask, and he glared at me through Dylan's eyes-

That one was obvious. Some long-squashed part of me (and there are so many squashed parts,) was trying to tell me it was time and more than time to call him. A sleepy female voice answered. I hung up. I haven't had the courage to try again.

I'm tempted to write these ugly fancies into Story. In the hope that it will tame them. Draw out of me whatever poison is lurking inside. Catharsis. But I'm scared that the tactic will backfire, and preserve the horror, on the page. Congealing.

There is no more powerful formaldehyde than faerie tale.

+++++++

They're getting worse. I feel like I am going mad. I tried to articulate my distress to Lisa, but I can't put words to the horror.

She was understanding, though she didn't understand.

"I'm frightened," I croaked.

She can see my terror, and she doesn't tell me itsnormalprobablyhormoneshaveyoutriedgingerbiscuitsinthebathwithparacetemol...

I love her for that. She takes me seriously.

Her suggestion: Tokophobia. It means fear of childbirth.

"No," I shook my head. "That can't be right..." She listened. I floundered to describe what was frightening me.

"A c-section," is all I could manage to say. It sounds paltry in my own ears. A piffling echo of the terror gripping me, that the doctor hauls a tiny monster out of my stomach, and it shrieks like a banshee, or he holds it up by its tail and it makes no noise at all... and either way it's dripping with tar-like blood, and I haven't got the strength to scream-

She made me an appointment to have a hospital tour. There was a class the following week run by one of her colleagues, and she encouraged me to go to it. She gave me a little yellow leaflet and a questionnaire about maternal mental health. Does she think I'm crazy? A wise woman, she saw the question on my face. She reassured me she gives it to everyone at this stage of pregnancy. I ticked the right boxes and tried to believe her.

++++++

Thanks to her practical advice, I am no longer plagued by surgical nightmares. Sad to say, the game of whackamole continues in my brain anyway.

I notice that, awake, I always think of my baby as "she". When I am asleep, he comes to me as a little boy with a touch of fire in his wispy hair.

I will give you an example: Two nights ago, I dreamed that my baby is here already, and he's healthy and normal. I am giving him a bath. It's nice. It's normal. Then, some crazy impulse took me and I held him down under the water- I woke in a pool of my own sweat. A suffocating realisation settling over me. I'd dreamt of a monster after all.

Last night, I had the same dream, only this time it was even more real and it took longer to wake from. I was transfixed by the bubbles of his laughter breaking the surface, and the slits on the sides of his neck rippling under my hands- I fought my way back to waking and fumbled for the phone before my eyes were fully open.

++++++

The midwives were all very good. I was referred to the perinatal mental health team. I kept stressing to them that, during the day I don't have any thoughts like this. It's only at night my brain plays tricks on me. I've got a team of specialist people supporting me. It doesn't stop the nightmares. It doesn't stop me worrying that I'm not in my right mind.

+++++++

Haven't slept for nearly two days. Sleep gives me no respite at all now.

The last one was the worst. I was back in the theatre, under the lights, surrounded by masks. They all look the same. They're speaking this time, but it's muffled and echoey, and I can't hear them properly. It's like they're speaking underwater. I am an octopus made of tubes, wires, and electrodes, and my hair is wrong. Too long, the wrong colour (rust) and more like seaweed than hair. When they make the incision, I feel it. I thrash sluggishly. My weakness is alien to me. They must have sedated me rather than giving me a spinal. I can't catch my breath to scream. I can't catch my breath at all. One mask turned to another, its tone serious. I strained to hear what was said but I couldn't recognise the language. The last thing I saw before blackness claimed my vision from the outside in was the flashing silver of my own tail, and the dead weight of it on dry land-

I am holding the box on my lap and picking at the sellotape.

It's already late, and the nightly pains have started. I've no idea if it's labour or not, because it's been happening consistently for weeks. It'll get obvious at some point that this is it - right? I can't muster up the energy to do more than assume that. They are sporadic, but strong, ranging from ten to twenty minutes apart, sometimes longer. Sounds like a lot, but this is a lot of tape.

+++++++

The box is open on my lap, and I'm staring at the drawings inside. Mine. From nearly thirty years ago. The shock of it didn't hit me so hard as it did when I opened it back at mum's house.

Last time, when my eyes fell on the topmost sheet of paper for the first time since childhood, the memory lanced my mind like a boil. My own crude lines a key to some locked part of my mind. A series of ethereal images disgorged from there all in one go. One overwhelming rush. A tsunami. Flooding me. Sweeping me away, leaving me gasping. The odd little boy at the aquarium. Looking up at the naked lady in the tank, slightly webbed fingers flush with the glass. Her tail hypnotising me. The scar low on her belly starkly white, and roughly drawn by my little hands dozens of times in the months that followed...

It's a terrible thing, to doubt your own mind. To actually wonder if you're sane.

It wasn't so bad this time. Remembering my remembering wasn't so brutal. It's one step removed.

I put the box down and breathed through another contraction.

Do you know, some women call them waves.

As a little girl, I'd gone back to the place I'd seen her, over and over, looking for her, to try to prove to myself that she was real, I didn't imagine her. Back then, I just wanted her to exist, for the world to have something so wonderful in it. But now right I want to be certain I'm not mad.

I feel calmer than I have in months. Something in me has been washed away, washed clean. What's left is still, like a millpond. It's possible that I'm not completely right in the head, but not because of the deranged nightmares I'm having. Those are just my subconscious, banging on the glass and trying to get me to pay attention. As horrible as they are, they make a kind of sense to me now. I can breathe freely, at last.

No, the thing that makes me maybe-not-completely-normal is I saw something - someone - who couldn't possibly exist.

I breathe through another until it recedes.

Logic. That's the thing. Either she never existed, and I am out of my tree. Or she did exist, and then what? What happened to her?

It's her scar. I keep going back to her scar. I was maybe four years old when I saw her, and from that moment I don't think I ever set a pen or crayon to paper without drawing her. For months. I drew that mark on every single one of those pictures. Why would I do that? Did I even have any concept of where babies came from, let alone how they arrived or what a caesarean was?

I put each picture back in the box, and I put my worry with them. I'll come back to this. Find a way to get to the bottom of it. Return to that aquarium from my childhood. I'll become a marine fucking biologist if I have to.

But first, I need to have this (unscaly, human, normal, please) baby.

Another wave rolls over me.

I've got to sleep. I'm going to need my energy aren't I?

+++++++

He is normal. His hair is black. Black, not copper. His skin is smeared with white, not red. Vernix caseosa. His eyes, not a dull black, but a vivid midnight blue. He cries, hot and slippery against my body. I cry too.

+++++++

My feet retrace my old steps from decades before. Familiar, yet different. Modern and shiny, and things moved around... Yet, if I stand still, and let my eyes un-focus... The lights, the smells, the hushed tones all around me... it's almost like the years have evaporated, like morning mist. If not for the warm, milky weight of my son nestled against me, anchoring me to the present.

Why am I here?

She won't be. Either she is a figment of my imagination, or she's long dead. In the best version of this world, a hero stepped in to save her from the torture of Science and give her back her freedom. Or, more likely, someone with a clipboard and proper government clearance moved her to another, more secure location, to continue the poking and prodding. I push that thought away with a shudder.

Even still, we got on the train, my little Phoenix and I, and we came here. to where it started. Now I'm looking at the clownfish and dogfish and cuttlefish... Feeling less like I've come full circle and more like this is a dead end. My eyes drawn once again to each shadowy corner of the huge tanks, even as I know that is absurd - she wouldn't be here where anyone could see her. Next, my gaze lingers on the doors labelled PRIVATE, NO ENTRY. My brain races. What would I do? What if I got caught? What would I say?

Inexorable. I love that word.

Architecture is like magic. We are drawn, all of us, whichever route we take through the ocean tunnels, and no matter how reluctant we are, to the gift shop and then the exit. Pay to come in, pay to get out.

He was waiting for me on a small chair. He'd grown out his hair, so it was an auburn mop again, like the very first time I saw him. When he saw me, he removed his glasses. I saw him with fresh eyes, the set of his features.

It's him.

How did I not see it before?

Like morning mist off the ocean.

+++++++

This time, instead of turning away and slipping through an unseen door, he walks towards me. Looking at our baby. Wonder... anger... fear? ... flick across his face.

"Is it - I mean, is he - she - "

I hold up a hand, against his words and the wave of hurt and reproach they are carried on.

"Yes, he's yours."

What meagre words. What lies. Yours? No. Mine. My miracle. I went through the pain and exhaustion and physical re-arrangement to get him here. He's mine.

He is shaking his head, and smiling.

"No, I know," He takes another step towards me. "I mean, is he healthy? Is he..."

I see it etched on his face. The same question burrowed in my mind like a tick all those months.

"Normal."

I nod. I make my voice light and teasing, "Ten fingers, ten toes. No spines or horns, no - "

"Scales."

He is deadly serious.

"No," I whisper, "no scales."

There is a pause, in which I decidedly do not reproach him with, "Why didn't you tell me?" and he definitely doesn't say it to me. It hangs in the air between us. The infant stirs. Are we even, then?

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I'm still not sure if I love him. But he is better than love, to me. He exists, and I know I am sane. He's gentle. He says the nonsense words. I don't know if he loves me, either. Maybe he does. Maybe he always did, ever since the first time he saw me. Or maybe I am the only one who knows his secret, and with me, it feels less heavy.

We moved again. We live on the coast, now. He takes Phoenix swimming. I write. He has a half-sister (the sleepy voice on the phone). Her visits are infrequent and brittle. She doesn't know about his mother. We smile too much in the hopes she won't notice we talk too little.

He's had a vasectomy, because I've had a bellyful of miracles. I'm also studying to be a marine biologist, because maybe I only had a taste, after all. It's lit a fire in my belly and I burn to hold the truth to the strange blue light. If only for myself, and the little boy with the sad eyes. Together, we can make sense of the world. What's love, next to that?

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END

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Thank you for reading! Please comment and let me know what stood out to you, and I'll make sure to reciprocate the read. Did anything pull you out of the story?