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I ached to comfort him, both him and Jesse, but grief was pouring from my throat, violently, uncontrollably. It made the baby cry, her tiny wails tearing away my breaths, as my body shook against the brutality of inescapable pain.
“Shhh.” I cupped her scrunched up face in my hand, my vision blurring. “Dawn.” So beautiful and precious, just like her mother.
The stomp of feet surrounded us, voices rose, followed by the sudden wrench of Shea’s crying. But nothing was as loud as the agony thundering in my chest. Holding Dawn carefully against me, I crawled through the pool of blood and wrapped an arm around Michio’s rocking body, hoping to console him, needing to lean on him.
He didn’t give me his eyes, but his hand flew up, searching for mine. I caught his fingers, and he squeezed tightly, pulling me closer with Evie’s body cradled between us. Closing my eyes, I dug deep inside me, and after several struggling moments, I found the strength to administer the sacrament of Extreme Unction.
“In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.” A torrent of tears and misery fell out with the words, splattering the chest of the woman I loved. Once I was able to fill my lungs again, I whispered the prayer I’d dreaded for eight months. “Let there be extinguished in you all power of the devil by the imposition of our hands, and by the invocation of the glorious and holy Mother of God, the Virgin Mary…”
A pair of familiar hands pulled Evie’s shorts on, dragging them up her bloody legs and working them into place. I looked up and collided with Jesse’s red eyes.
He reached for Dawn. “The doctors need to check her over.” He didn’t sound like himself, his drawling accent scratching hoarsely, torturing every syllable.
I released Michio’s hand and lifted the baby, watching as Jesse walked stiffly toward the waiting doctors, his eyes locked on the child in his arms.
Michio’s sobs had ebbed into wheezing breaths, his face buried against Evie’s neck, and his grip on her body showing no signs of letting her go.
With my arms now free, I pried him away from her and held him against me as I finished the sacrament. “By this holy unction and his own most gracious mercy, may the Lord cherish every perfect action you committed through sight, hearing, smell, taste and speech, touch, ability to walk.” As I said the words, I touched her eyelids, ears, nostrils, lips, hands, and feet.
Michio rubbed his eyes then narrowed them at me. “You changed the verbiage.”
I nodded. “The Lord doesn’t need to pardon her sins.”
“She was perfect.” He caressed her face, staring at her with infinite longing.
I knew what that felt like. I ached to hear her voice, to feel her touch, to see her stunning smile just one more time.
Jesse returned and bent over Evie. He gathered her hands in his, pressed his mouth against her fingers, and leaned down to kiss her lips. “I’ll miss you.” His stomach buckled, as if giving beneath a punch. He breathed through it, eyes closed. Then he opened them and kissed her again. “I love you.”
Squeezing my shoulder as he stood, he strode out of the garden and into the dam’s tunnel system.
I lifted Evie’s hand and traced the bumps of her knuckles. Michio combed his fingers through her hair, staring vacantly at her face, both of us delaying our good-byes. Darwin hadn’t left her side either, his furry body pacing back and forth, panting, and letting out whines of distress.
Shea squatted between us, her dark skin glossy with tears, and gripped our hands. “We’ll clean up the baby and prepare…” She stared at Evie, chin trembling before she hardened her jaw and continued. “She told me what she wanted. We’ll take care of it. Go find your boy.”
As she slipped away, I crawled over Evie’s body and touched our foreheads together. “Thank you for loving me. I promise we won’t be alone. I will always love you and worship you.”
I trailed my nose along hers and kissed her lips for the last time. I let myself cry, let my love wet her beautiful face. Then I pulled myself away and found Michio’s eyes. “I’ll wait for you at the door.”
From the edge of the garden, I watched him hold her, whisper to her, and kiss his good-byes. When he finally wrenched himself away, he tried to pull Darwin with him. Together they fought, dragged their feet, and eventually joined me at the door.
He raised his bloody hands and stared at the medallion he’d removed from her neck. “She said she wanted our daughter to have this.”
“I know.” I closed my fingers over it, wrapping around his, and squeezed.
We walked through the dam to find Jesse. It was easy enough, since we could sense one another the way we’d only recently been able to sense Evie. The absence of the bright hum of her aura was yet another emptiness to pile on top of the emptiness.
