“Shelly? It’s Uncle Mack. Wake up, sweetie, please.”
Hearing my normally gruff uncle sounding as though he was crying had me prying my gritty eyes open. “Uncle Mack? What happened?” I asked, my voice hoarse sounding and scratchy.
“Hang on, let me tell the nurse you’re awake,” he muttered as he left my room.
Looking around, I saw the monitors next to me, as well as the IV in my arm. But it was the small incubator looking thing that caught my attention. “Amberlea?” I cried out. “James? Where are you? Why is our daughter by herself?”
I was trying to get out of bed when my uncle and a nurse came rushing in. “Shh, Shelly, it’s gonna be okay,” Uncle Mack stated as he reached my side while the nurse started checking my vitals.
“Where’s James?” I asked. “Why isn’t he here?”
“What do you remember?” he asked instead of answering my questions.
My memory stuttered and stopped. “The last thing I remember is saying that a truck was about to hit us,” I slowly replied. “Then there are flashes of things, but I don’t know, Uncle Mack!”
Uncle Mack was my mother’s brother and when she died, I went to live with him and his girlfriend, Marcella. They raised me until I was eighteen, then I went to college for a fine arts degree where I met James. It was probably cliche, but it was love at first sight for both of us, and soon, we were living together while I went to school and worked at Uncle Mack’s tattoo shop, Mack’sDesigns, as a tattoo artist. The fact that he was here and James wasn’t scared me, plus seeing my daughter in an incubator had fear coursing through me.
He sat next to me in a chair he had pulled close and took my hands in his. Looking at me, I could see the tears slowly coursing down his face and realized that whatever had happened had shaken him to his very core. He was a former Marine whose experiences during his deployment had hardened him, and he rarely showed the softer side of his emotions.
“The other vehicle did hit y’all,” he replied, “and it caused your car to flip multiple times. Thankfully, several people stopped to offer their assistance, and they were able to get you out of the car after cutting your seatbelt. I’m sorry, Shelly, but James didn’t make it.”
A deep, unrelenting sorrow has me hysterically sobbing while he squeezes my hands. “What about the baby? Why is Amberlea over there?” I wasn’t due for another six weeks so that meant she was early, right? “Why isn’t she in the NICU since she was early?” I asked.
“She’s in a Cuddle Cot,” he replied. At my questioning look, his tears flowed harder. “Shelly, she didn’t survive.”
A memory surfaces and I cry out. “I dreamt I heard someone saying, ‘There’s no heartbeat’, Uncle Mack. But it wasn’t a dream, was it?”
“No, sweet girl, it wasn’t. She’s on a Cuddle Cot so that you can spend some time with her before… before… she has to be buried.”
Devastated, I looked at the nurse and asked, “Can… can I hold her?”
The nurse nodded and, in a few minutes, I was cradling my perfect girl. Ten fingers, ten toes, dark hair, Cupid bow lips. She was absolutely beautiful.
“Dammit, Shelly, this isnothappening,” Uncle Mack shouted. I tried to open my eyes, but I was just so sleepy, it was next to impossible. “Marcella! Start the car, we’ve gotta go.”
I could hear Marcella from far away, like she was in a tunnel when she asked, “Shouldn’t we call 911?”
“We’ll get there faster. Shelly, what did you take?” Uncle Mack asked as he gently picked me up, cradled me in his arms, and ran through the house.
“Mgovble,” I mumbled. My thoughts were in disarray, and I didn’t really understand what he was asking me. All I took was some Benadryl so I could fall asleep.
“It’s not your time, ShellBell.”James’ voice whispered in my head.“I’ve got our girl, baby, it’s time for you to spread your wings and fly. More happiness awaits, I promise.”
After spending three months as a patient at the local psychiatric hospital, I finally had my head on straight again. Apparently, in addition to grieving the loss of my sweet girl, I was also experiencing severe post-partum depression, and the combination led me to take far more of the antihistamine than was recommended. I thanked God daily for Uncle Mack; hesaved me once again, and now, I’m on anti-depressants and going to grief therapy. I still missed Amberlea and James with every breath I took, but whether or not what James said was just a product of my imagination, Ididhave a lot to live for.
“You’re sure about this?” Uncle Mack asked as he finished placing the drawing I’d created onto a stencil.
“Yes,” I stated. “That emblem has become a talking point for others, and it lets them know that regardless of how deep and hard things were, there will always be hope.”
It was a simple butterfly, using Amberlea’s fingerprints as the wings and the semi-colon as the body. Her name was underneath; she was my reason to keep going even though there were still dark clouds that hovered over me from time to time. I knew from my therapy that there would be specific anniversaries that would be more difficult than others—the accident date, her actual due date, the date of the funeral—but I would take each one as it came and perform a random act of kindness for someone else in her memory.
CHAPTER
ONE
Shelly (Present time)
“I don’t knowwhy you didn’t just let me take over the shop,” I grumble at my uncle as he watches me pack my bags.
