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“Yes there is. Twice,” I cried.
“The first time was the accident,” he assured me. “That was out of your control.”
“We need to get things cleaned up,” said Patrick, his voice taking on a slightly panicked tone.
Jonathon lifted me from the sheets and held me against his chest. Patrick pulled the sheets from the bed. The mattress was ruined. Patrick balled the sheets up and tossed them onto the bed in frustration. He gave Jonathon a significant look.
Only holding me with one arm he reached out and placed his hand on the sheets and then on the mattress, lighting them both on fire.
“Keep your eye on it,” Jonathon warned, “while I get her cleaned up. I think I have it under control but if I lose concentration you may have to get Diana.”
Patrick nodded.
Jonathon carried me into the bathroom, turned the water in the shower on, and then striped my clothes. Tears continued to streak silently down my face. He wiped them away. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “Everything happens for a reason.”
“How can you say that?” I asked as he carried me into the shower. He was still fully clothed and his shirt quickly became soaked. “That was our baby,” my voice cracked.
“Because,” he began, “I have to believe that something good can come out of something bad. It’s the only way I’ve been able to survive.”
I nodded my head. “Everything happens for a reason,” I whispered.
Chapter Nine: Miracle
One Year Later
I had another miscarriage after the second one. Three babies all lost. It was completely devastating. I was beginning to lose hope in everything. So much bad had happened to me and it seemed that fate was determined to keep it that way. Some days I felt as though I was being punished. Punished for what? I wasn’t sure. Maybe for being an angst ridden teenager and hating my parents after the divorce. Maybe for being responsible for so many innocent deaths. Whatever the reason, I was sure that I was meant to have no happiness. Just when things had been looking up for me I had my child ripped from my womb and then to have it happen again? It was heart breaking. My resolve was crumbling. My happiness waning. Jonathon and I had been married for a little over a year and instead of enjoying the newlywed stage we were dealing with even more deaths. The loss of our children.
I made it farther along in the third pregnancy. Far enough along that when I lost the baby I was able to hold him. He was so tiny, only two pounds, but he was perfect. Dark little eyelashes, and tiny fingers and toes, a wisp of dark hair, a perfectly curved mouth like his father’s. It was hard to look at my dead son but I wanted to hold him. I wanted to see him. To know that he had been real. I wanted to remember him for eternity. I didn’t want him to be forgotten. We named him Matteo and buried him beside his grandparents. It hurt seeing his headstone. My son, that didn’t even get the chance to open his eyes to the world around him. It wasn’t fair. But life isn’t fair. I cried myself to sleep, while Jonathon held me, every night for a month.
I knew my behavior worried Jonathon, but I couldn’t help it. It was one thing to lose a friend. It was another to lose a child. Especially when you can hold and see the potential that was in that child. Every day I wondered to myself what Matteo may have become. Would he have chosen to turn into a vampire or live out life like a human? Jonathon had explained to me that dhampirs can become full vampires by feeding directly off of a human or they can choose to age. But he told me that dhampirs don’t age like normal humans. They usually live to be two-hundred years old but that they do eventually age and die.
I wondered to myself what kind of person Matteo would have become, would he have been more like me or Jonathon? Would he have enjoyed painting? Maybe music?
So, many things I wanted to know about my son that I never would. I wanted to believe what Jonathon had told me; that everything happens for a reason. But it was hard. I didn’t understand why I had not one, but three, children taken from me. Was I not meant to be a mother?
After we lost Matteo, Jonathon became more withdrawn. I caught him, more than once, with his nose buried in the book of prophecies. I also found him and Patrick arguing quite a bit about something. My curiosity was beginning to peak and I knew it wouldn’t be long before I pulled out the copy of prophecies that Gabriel had made for me. Up until now I had refused to look at the book. Something about it frightened me. But I knew those pages had to hold the answer to something.
And there was another problem… I was pretty sure that I was pregnant again. If I was I would be about six weeks along. But I hadn’t taken a test, or gone to the doctor. I knew why. I was scared that I was pregnant and I couldn’t go through losing another baby. And I didn’t want to tell Jonathon. It was a while after we lost Matteo before he would touch me that way again. And I knew why. He didn’t want me to go through the pain of losing another baby. I didn’t want that either but I still wanted to be a mom.
My doctor, a vampire no less, was baffled by my miscarriages. He said that miscarriages were common with human pregnancies but not vampire-human ones because the baby is so much more powerful. I guess I just had to be different.
But if I was pregnant again I had to find out. I had to do things differently this time. I would not lose another baby. I would do whatever it took to keep this baby.
The boys were gone on a hunt and so it was just me, Diana, and Amelia in the house. I crept down the attic steps, I hardly left the bedroom anymore, and went in search of Diana. I checked her room first but she wasn’t there.
In the family room I found Amelia curled up in an armchair doing some cross-stitching.
“Amelia?” I asked.
“Hmm?” She hummed not taking her eyes from her task.
“Do you know where Diana is?”
She looked up at me. “I think she’s outside on the swing,” she turned back to her work.
“Thanks,” I mumbled, heading outside. I stopped at the glass doors. I had avoided going into the backyard after the battle with Selena that ended in my best friend’s death. I took a deep breath and push
ed them open. It was time to face my fears.
