Part 1 | Part 2

It had been nearly three months since my return from the hospital, with my beautiful baby girl in my arms and my loving husband by my side. I remember that on the way home in the taxi, I could only laugh and shake my head as my husband talked nonstop to the driver about our newborn child. The small infant could barely keep her eyes open and her saliva in her mouth, and had a small smile that seemed stuck on her lovely pink face. I let out a deep breath and looked forward, through the driver’s window at the passing column of shops, ignoring the loud honking of cars and obscenities being yelled by the road ragers of New York, New York. I thanked the heavens for lighting the path as I prepared to enjoy this new chapter of my life with my new family, but what I believed would be a fairytale, would turn into a horror story in a matter of weeks.

While our new child bought hope and joy into our lives, my mother had been right after all – hope cannot pay the rent and joy cannot fill empty stomachs. Three weeks before, William lost his job at the Garrigan Lyman Group, a marketing agency, and our only source of income disappeared in a matter of one white letter of dismissal. I knew that my dreams as a stay-at-home soccer mom were long gone, as I watched William sink into a state of withdrawal and depression. Neither my comforting words, my encouraging words, nor my pleading words could coax him out of his shell and finally, I found a job as a waitress at the La Marmite Restaurant. Soon I realized that one job would not suffice, and found two more part-time jobs during the day while working at the La Marmite during the night. Despite the pain of separation from my precious Natalie, just over two-months old at the time, I had to leave her in the care of my dejected husband.

While William half-heartedly flipped through the classifieds, I worked my three jobs like the loyal family contributor that I was, and came only with only three hours to spare. An hour with Natalie and two hours to rest before my day was to start once more. I got up each morning unsure of where or who I was, but I knew that next to me laid a daughter that needed my care, a husband who needed my support, and outside, work that needed to be done and money that needed to be earned.

Finally, one morning, I woke and looked in the mirror to see someone that was not the person I had once known. I stared, toothbrush poised inches from my mouth, at a woman whose hair had gone thin and limp, whose eyes and cheeks were hollow with exhaustion, and whose skin hung over her bones like an overstretched rubber band. A woman whose eyes were darkened and as black as obsidian stared back, lifeless and brimming with tears, stared silently back. Taking a deep breath, I lowered my head and began to brush my teeth and ready myself for another long day. Outside I could hear the flickering of the television, and I knew that William must have also been awake.

It was one of those days, a day that you thought could only happened in dramas or a day you would only wish on your worst enemy, a day when everything you hoped would go right went wrong. A day when I wondered what I had done wrong for karma to treat me so cruelly. By the end of the day, I came close to believing that I had purposefully missed the bus in order to keep up with the pattern or that it began to rain only to help create atmosphere and setting, had my life been a movie. For some naïve reason, I unlocked the door to the apartment believing that my husband would have taken care of the pile of laundry, vacuumed the carpet, or at least cleaned the dishes from breakfast this morning. With the click of the lock, I swung open the front door to see him the same position he was in when I had left, but at least he had Natalie in his arms this time.

“Welcome home”, he said without even turning his head to greet me. I let out a deep breath, to make it obvious that I had a hard day at work, but he did not seem to notice or did not care to react. Irritated, I walked over to take Natalie from him but he rose and looked me in the eye. “We need more Similac for the baby.”

I could only stare back in disbelief, “You couldn’t buy it on your own?”

“Well you’re home now, so you can buy it.” he answered and walked towards the kitchen.

The anger boiled within me but my body did not have the energy to do anything about it. “Is it so hard for you to help around here? Job or no job you should do something more than memorize commercials on TV!”

He looked back at me with those sharp eyes of his, “I do enough for this house, I take care of her don’t I?” he answered while giving Natalie a shake, causing her to cry.

I shook my head and grabbed my purse, “Isn’t three weeks long enough for you to ‘recuperate’?” I said sharply, “I’m going to get it because Natalie is crying but when I get back—”

“Get me another pack of beer while you’re at it.” I heard him say as I slammed the door behind me. Infuriated, I stormed out of the complex and headed down the to convenience store three blocks away, ignoring the stares people gave me, the stares I could not see because of the tears that clouded my vision. The busy sounds of the urban city resonated in my head and amplified against the bones of my skull.

Suddenly, I heard the scream of a woman, the warning yell of a man, the whistle of the street police and finally the loud, bellowing honk of a large white van. I raised my head and brought my eyes away from the black tar of the crosswalk, slick with rain, to see the flashing red hand of the crosswalk light and turned to see a pair of bright headlights coming toward me. Crash.

I had no idea karma hated me so much.

No sooner had I heard the crunching sound of bones in my body, did the skyscrapers begin to fade into the whitening sky, and I had lost consciousness. My world was bathed in nothing but whiteness for several minutes, and by the time I could open my eyes again, I was standing upright on top of a mangled body that could only be mine. Had my heart still been functional at the time, it would have skipped a beat. How could this have happened? What had I done to deserve this? I had to be stronger than this. I reached out to grab the paramedic that kneeled over my bloody body, with its legs somewhere underneath the van and its arms bent in all the wrong ways.

“Save me!” I screamed at the man just as he announced the date and time of my death – and my clear hand swiped straight through is shoulder. I guess this is over then.

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Part 1 | Part 2