Fresh Fruit with a Rotten Taste

We drove up the snowy, winding road towards the cozy A-frame cabin. He wanted some quality time. It was his idea to rent this cabin and drive up the mountain in the middle of nowhere. And yet, here I am driving while he’s asleep in the passenger seat as we traverse this darkest country road. As I was moving forward, I saw brief glimpses of beauty all around me but it all fades into lost memories within seconds. Me, I have never truly been able to really figure out where life begins and where it ends, where I begin and where he ends. Like a snowflake, the memories melt as soon as they touch my skin. I don’t want to think it, but I know there is rot inside me. I don’t even know the man sitting next to me anymore. He’s lost to me. I don’t even know who the father of my child is anymore. Where did this all go wrong for me, why has God forsaken me. I look to the sky and I try to pray. I ask God to bless my mind and fill it with Christian thoughts, but the devil has a strong pull. “Idle hands” as they say, but that doesn’t mean anything at the end of this rope. The umbilical cord around my neck like a noose guiding me up to the burning heavens. Or maybe its just another hot flash. I wonder if my baby is as poisoned with Satan’s seed as my mind has been fondled by his hands. If I crash this car, if I just let go and close my eyes.. Is my baby doomed for hell? Am I the reason for it? Or will it all be forgiven and will this child within me be allowed past the golden gates of his grace.

“DING DONG!”

The doorbell startles me. I keep waking up in different places even though I have not been falling asleep. I’m standing outside the cabin waiting for the caretaker to let us in. I’ve been waiting for a while now and I feel myself getting annoyed, again poisoning my baby with my impurity. He deserves better I think to myself but.. I am not that. I am not the loving pure motherly figure that the world would like you to believe all stoic mothers are.

Finally, the caretaker opens.

“Welcome! Let me take those bags for you. Is it just you tonight?”

I get a strange sense of presque vu.. but I reply

“No, my boyfriend is grabbing the rest of our stuff and will return shortly.”

“well then come on in darling! I shall keep an eye out.”

I grabbed the remaining baggage as my wonderful girlfriend went inside the cabin. I had sent her ahead of me to save time, or so I told her, but the truth is I did not want her to see the ring I had hidden in the visor. I know this pregnancy was not exactly planned as well as it could have been, but we had been hoping for a healthy baby boy for a long time now. O, how I could scream with joy but I must remain there for her by her side I know this will not be easy for her. I locked the car and turned around. I walked towards the cabin only to find it not there. I had sent my wife ahead of me with the only source of light. Everything was somehow white and dark, quiet, and immensely loud at the same time. Looking back now it was almost like the trees were yelling and shouting at me, warning me perhaps. I had somehow separated from the love of my life. I thought to myself the cabin is just a few steps ahead.

The snow has impaired my vision. So, I walked, and I walked, and I walked. It felt like hours, it felt like days, by God if I did not know any better, I could even say it felt like I had been out here for months and still I hadn’t reached the cabin. The car was out of sight now as well. I panicked as I realized I was lost. I was lost, alone, and in the cold abyss. The phrase “the white death” came into mind as I started losing feeling in my fingers. I hadn’t even realized that I dropped the luggage some time ago when I had lost all feelings in my hands and now was craving warmth more than anything else. The memory of my “wife” slowly turned into a longing for fire and burning light. My fingers slowly lost color until they blackened all the way. My face has frozen in place and I couldn’t move. All I could do is sit, frozen in place, clinging onto the only thing that mattered to me now, the ring. until all feeling had left my body and the last vision of the light of my life went blank. Like a burning memory I refused to let go of her.

It’s not as cozy as I had hoped, this cabin. My boyfriend had sworn that some of his fondest memories are the ones that he and his family spent here over the winter when he was but a youngling. The only thing heating the cabin is this small generic electric heater. So much for “a peaceful getaway” as the website so kindly declared it. More like an overpriced tourist trap or a horror movie simulator. It’s still cold, my feet are swollen, and no matter what position I take, I cannot, for the life of me, get comfortable. Finally, I just sit down on the chair by the heater, and I struggle to take off my shoes. You’ve got to be kidding me! The baby decided my bladder is a good pillow… again. Getting out of this chair is a huge struggle and as I barely manage to get up the baby moves, and I no longer need to pee. Leave it to my boyfriend to think a change of scenery will stop this parasite from torturing me. I decide to make myself a cup of tea to accompany me while I read my bible and search for redemption in the word of our lord. I get startled by a voice behind me and spill some hot water on my hand.

“MOTHER OF GOD! What do you want?” I turn around.

“My apologies ma’am! I was just… ehmm… I was just getting a little worried for your boyfriend. Do you know where he is?”

And before the caretaker could finish his sentence my mind flooded with repressed memories. How could I ever have forgotten what happened? How could I ever forget that night? Why did I bring him here with me.. why am I clutching onto the ring he never got to give me.. And without meaning to, the words just slipped out of my mouth.

“My husband is dead. He died 8 months ago…”

How could I forget. We came here… to this cabin. To celebrate the conception of our baby. We had been trying for so long and it had finally happened. He used to tell me about the great memories he made with his family coming here for Christmas each year and he wanted to start that same tradition for our family. I pretend to hate him for leaving me… but the truth is… I hated God for taking him from me. I hated God for leaving me here on earth with a constant reminder of my husband. I didn’t want a child without him. I remember now. I remember why I came here. And with a sudden pain in my chest, I start sweating and crying. I stand here before the caretaker all alone in a snowy cabin and I break like a river and overflow with emotions. I simply cannot hold it in anymore. The caretaker lays me on the bed and softly tells me to breathe. I get precious little out of it, but I try to focus on my breathing.

If my husband was here he’d know how to calm me down..

O God how I wish you were here..

Just a moment before everything went blank… frost bite had already taken over but somehow, I could still feel it. I could still feel her. A warm touch on the shoulder, a warm light on the face, that familiar taste of warm tea on the tongue and the last thing I saw before closing my eyes forever... her. My beautiful, kind, radiant wife… I felt peaceful holding her hand and looking into her eyes when suddenly, she turned into the brightest light. I started hearing voices: “Don’t give up” they say, “Keep moving” “push through” and even though my body is frozen I somehow will it to be so. I have to make it to her, for her, for our child, I have to push through the pain. “Push! Push!” yes I’m coming my love “Just one more push!” This overwhelming light consumes me, I feel the touch of a thousand prayers, I am not alone, I see everything, and I feel everything and then all at once… I feel nothing. Pitch black. With this overwhelming extraction of me, I pass through the veil… crying as hard as I once did long ago, covered in blood… in the hands of a familiar stranger.

I look at the caretaker holding my baby..

I’m clutching onto the ring my husband died holding onto like his life depended on it

I am still deeply depressed but somehow..

I feel at peace when I look at my child.. our child..

I feel a familiar light like I once did

All encompassing love but still heartachingly painful

Like fresh fruit with a rotten taste