CHAPTER ONE: FOURTH OF JULY


The Fourth of July. A day many would say they could remember vividly. For Oswald Malia Cooper the day was seared into her brain and more then anything... she wish she could forget.

Laying in a hospital bed Ozzie lay, her hand holding the bars on the sides of the bed so hard every five minutes her knuckles turned white and tears filled her eyes.

The pain gone, Ozzie let's go of the railing as her grandmother walks in and smiles at her the first of her grandchildren about to give her a great-grandchild.

Of course the blonde smiles back, only it is quickly contorted into a look of pain as she screams louder then she has since being admitted eighteen hours prior.

Her grandmother rushes to her side as nurses and doctors rush in. Right away they begin talking medical jumbo jumbo, so she turns to her former midwife grandmother to translate.

"You won't be able to have a normal birth sweetheart-"

"I can't have a c-section grams. They'll know what happened if I do!" Ozzie panicked.

Her grandmother with the help of the doctor and drugs managed to calm the golden haired mother to be down long enough to get her prepped and ready for the minor operation.

Inside the operating room Ozzie prayed to God that everything went smooth sailing in her drug induced haze, holding onto her grandmothers hand.

Somewhere along the way though she lost began to drift off. She could hear beeping and see a large pool of red liquid on the pristine white floor before she was taken by the darkness.

Feeling as though she a truck had run over her body, Ozzie opened her eyes to find her grandmother replacing some wilting Daisy's with fusias.

"Hey gam gam..." laughing at her grandmas squeal of surprise, she moved her hand over her stomach, wincing slightly in pain.

Hearing the familiar voice of her grandmother whisper her name. Turning to see her sitting covered by a blanket in the corner she smiled at the old crone. The old woman however wasn't smiling at her granddaughter being awake. Ozzie noticed that she looked sad.

"Grams? Is everything alright?" Ozzie asks. Her grandmother covers her mouth, a choked sob escaping as she stands up.

"I'm sorry, I ca-" Her grandmother looks at the nurse. "I can't." She says before taking her bag and walking out.

"Excuse me, nurse? What's going on?" Ozzie asks the woman, afraid of what upset her grandmother so as Elena Cooper had never been one to cry break easily.

"Things didn't exactly go as smoothly as it was supposed to in during the c-section..." The nurse pauses for a moment. "Do you remember anything? Anything at all before you passed out?"

Ozzie's brows pull together as she thinks hard, finding most things after the epidural and morphine to be a little foggy until-

"Blood. I remember there was a large pool of-" Ozzie looks at the nurse "-was it my blood?"

She nods.

"You were clinically dead on that table. Your grams almost had a heart attack when they were gonna give up after-"

"After what?" Ozzie questions, cutting the nurse off.

"It turns out before the doctor came in he'd been celebrating-" Ozzie combs her fingers through her hair, shaking her head, repeating the word 'no' as the woman continues "-your baby... I'm so sorry for your loss."

Standing in the cemetery with her grandmother and sister by her side, Ozzie didn't speak a word as she watched the small coffin be lowered into the ground.

Looking up from the wood box, her eyes met the granite which stated the birth and death of her daughter, a child that would only be known by only two people and one of them was herself.

On it read:

MALINA GALE COOPER

JULY 4, 2016

"She will always live in our hearts"