As I scan the beach around me, I realize suddenly that I don’t hear anything at all anymore. The waves are silent as they crash around me and the sky is empty of seagulls crying for food.
“Mommy!”
My head turns quickly when I hear the shout and I have to steady myself so I don’t go under the water. My feet have sunk deeper and deeper into the sand as I stood here and let the waves ebb and flow around my legs. I try moving them through the wet sand under the water and force myself not to panic when they won’t budge.
The sight of a baby lying in the sand right at the water’s edge, wrapped in a blue blanket, halts my movements and calms my nerves even though I know he shouldn’t be out here alone. He shouldn’t be this close to the water. Where the hell are his parents?
I scan the beach again and it’s still empty. By the time my eyes make it back to the little bundle, it’s no longer a baby I see, but a toddler. The blue blanket is draped over his shoulders and he’s shivering.
I know him. I’ve seen him before, but I don’t know where or how. I know I’ve run my fingers through his short black hair and I distinctly remember the silky texture of it floating through my fingers. I’ve stared into his beautiful blue eyes, so much like my own, making promises I knew I couldn’t keep. It’s him. How is this possible? He looks so different, but my heart would know him anywhere.
“Mommy!”
He cries out to me again, his arms raised towards me and my heart breaks in two. I’m overcome with the need to get to him as quickly as I can. If I can get to him, hold him in my arms, smell the clean scent of his skin, I know everything will be okay.
“I’m coming, baby!” I yell back, motioning to him with my hands to stay where he is and not come into the water.
I twist my hips and the muscles in my thighs strain as I try to pull my feet out of the sand. Each wave that crashes around me brings the water up higher and higher until it’s at my waist, the sand still refusing to let go of my feet.
“You can’t save me, Mommy.”
The little boy speaks softly from the shore and I stare at him over my shoulder with tears streaming down my cheeks, no longer caring that the water is quickly inching its way up my body and will be over my head soon.
He starts to back away from the water’s edge and my eyes widen in fear.
“No! Stay where you are, please! I’m coming for you!” I yell.
The wind kicks up, forcing the waves to slam against me and whipping my hair around my face as I watch the boy move further and further away from me.
“Please!” I scream, twisting and turning as hard as I can to try and break free from the ocean that refuses to let me go. “Please don’t leave me!”
He’s not the baby I remember, but he’s still mine. He’s mine and I won’t lose him again. I’ve already lost so much time with him, I refuse to lose any more.
I claw at my thighs trying to free my feet as I scream and curse at the water, trying not to take my eyes off of the little boy for one second even though he’s moved so far away that he’s just a blurry figure in the sand.
I cry out in rage and frustration, choking on mouthfuls of salt water as the waves crash against my chest. Bringing one hand out of the water, I try to pull my hair out of my eyes as the wind kicks up even more, obscuring my vision of the shore. A flash of red catches my eye and I stare at my hand, no longer dripping with salty ocean water, but with blood. The wind immediately dies and the water stops rising around me as I look down. I’m no longer standing in the ocean, but in the hallway of a hospital. Doctors and nurses rush around me like I’m not even there, calling codes and pushing crash carts into a room down the hall. I know I shouldn’t go in that room. I know I won’t like what I see in there, but I have to go. My feet move automatically, one in front of the other until I’m standing right outside the door. I see medical personnel surrounding someone in the bed, shouting orders and passing equipment back and forth.
They all back away from the bed and my vision clouds and vomit chokes me as I see myself lying there, my eyes closed, my body lifeless. Blood. There’s so much blood. It covers my lap, pools on the bed between my legs and drips down onto the floor beneath the ‘me’ on the bed.
As a doctor moves towards the bed, carrying the defibrillator paddles to shock my heart, I notice the blood is gone. The blue hospital gown is spotless and the white sheets pushed down around my ankles don’t have a spot on them. I feel something drip down my legs and I tear my eyes away from the scene in front of me and look down.
My dress is covered in blood from the waist down and, before I can scream, I feel a hand press down on my shoulder. I look up and see Vivien and Cole standing next to me, staring into the hospital room at the flurry of activity.
“It’s better this way,” Vivien murmurs.
Cole nods his head in agreement. “It’s not your fault, Olivia. It’s not her fault, either.” He points towards his mother.
I open my mouth to argue with him, to scream and cry and try to make him understand that it IS her fault. She did this. SHE took this away from me. I can’t make the words come out. My mouth is open, but I can’t make a sound.
“I did what I had to do. No one will ever blame me for that,” Vivien says with a smile. “You need to find the person with blood on their hands.”
Someone in the room shouts, “CLEAR!” just as I bring my hands up in front of my face and see them dripping with blood. I scream as the doctor presses the paddles against my chest and I watch as my body bows and my back arches. I close my eyes and scream until my throat aches and the windows on either side of the room explode.