She wasn't supposed to grow up alone.
You and Jack had always talked about adding to your family, but something always seemed to get in your way.
Sydney was two when you stopped taking the pill the first time—just as Jack got reassigned to Los Angeles. You were stuck with a toddler, thousands of miles away from your husband, while you waited for your house to sell so you could rejoin him. Three months later, you were finally settled into a new home and your family was reunited.
Jack was sent on a mission to Japan two days later.
Jack's workload increased so much when you first moved to L.A. that the two of you decided maybe it was best to hold off on a second child. "Let's wait until she's closer to starting school," he had suggested, and you had reluctantly agreed.
He, of course, had no idea that you might not be around when Sydney started kindergarten.
Your success as an assassin bought you more time as your alias. You still think that your handler took perverse pleasure seeing you switch from ruthless assassin to loving mother in a matter of minutes. You would watch as he would laugh with glee when he saw you teaching a class, or pushing Sydney on the swings at the playground, or holding Jack's hand as you stood in line at the movie theatre. He knew that you could teach classes on seduction just as easily as Shakespeare; that you could shove away thugs using a far more powerful force than it took to propel a little girl in the air; that the hand that Jack clasped so tightly to his held the blood of those he once knew as colleagues.
By the time Sydney turned five, even your handler was beginning to grow weary of the mission. "You've been here almost nine years, Rina. I know that's longer than we told you initially. But don't worry. We're working on extraction plans. Just a few more months."
You faked happiness that you would be going home soon—although where was your home now, you wondered—as you tried to stall them, pointing out that Jack had an important mission to carry out later in the year, a mission with valuable intel for the KGB. "Are you sure you can last that long?" The panel had looked at you curiously, suspiciously. There had always been the occasional rumor that you were enjoying your mission a little too much, but they had always remained rumors. Until now.
You evenly answered all of their questions, all the while plotting your next course of action. You couldn't leave yet; it was out of the question. Sydney was starting school in the fall. She would need new clothes, and pencils and crayons and watercolors . . . and dammit, you didn't want to leave her.
You just needed to come up with a plan that would allow you to extend your mission. And you knew exactly what would do the trick.
A baby.
For all of their efforts at termination, the KGB was loathe to admit that Sydney was a brilliant cover for you. It gave you the illusion—it was always more than an illusion to you—of a loving family, one that helped you elude your enemies for ten years. Maybe, just maybe, a second child could keep you in the States a little longer.
That fall Sydney climbed the steps of the school bus for the first time and entered a new world of numbers and letters and smiling faces. And you mentioned to your husband that you thought you were ready to try again for another baby. "Maybe this one will look like you," you teased.
You've always wondered if he or she would have had an uncanny resemblance to Jack, as Sydney did to you. But you never found out.
You called the number Jack had given you for emergencies one morning as you sat hunched over in your office. You stopped biting your lip long enough to tell his colleague Ben who you were and that you needed to speak to your husband immediately. Four agonizingly long minutes later, you finally heard his voice on the other end of the phone. It was your undoing. You were crying so hard that he would have rushed across town to be by your side anyway, but it was the words that came through the choked sobs that made him get to you even faster.
"Something's wrong. The baby—I don't know, Jack. It hurts. It really hurts."
The two of you bypassed the waiting room, decorated in hearts and cupids, as you were rushed into an examining room at the hospital. Your vitals were taken, your heartbeat was checked. They couldn't find the second heartbeat.
It wasn't your fault, they reassured you later. It wasn't your husband's fault, you reassured him when he would clench his fists and try to keep the tears from appearing in his eyes.
You didn't even have the KGB to blame this time.
Your plan to extend your mission backfired brilliantly. Not only were you no longer pregnant, but you would never again have the opportunity to carry a new life inside you.
"They couldn't stop it . . . there was so much blood . . . God, Laura, I'm so sorry. It was this or you would have bled to death, and I need you too much . . . they said there's still a small chance we can have another baby someday—okay, miniscule chance, but it's worth a shot . . . and we can always adopt . . . I'm so sorry about this, Laur, but I had to."
How was he to know that he had just signed your death sentence?
The KGB informed you to expect your extraction at any time in the next six to twelve months. You spent nine months on pins and needles, always wondering if today was the day you would get the call. Nine months. Now you can laugh through your tears at the irony.
Jack looks at you now, a question on his face. You shake your head and squeeze his hand as you stare at the slabs of stone in front of you, illuminated only by the new moon.
Your eyes rest on a small stone with a single date on it, and your throat closes once more. Finally you tear your eyes away and shift to the left, past your resting place, over to the granite with an angel etched on the top.
You watch out of the corner of your eye as he fights for control staring at the newest addition to the cemetery. You wrap your arm around him and lean into his shoulder, letting him know you're still in this together, just as you were the day that you buried your youngest.
On that day he tried to lift your spirits. Today it's your turn.
You can't believe she's gone. You can't.
With your family's twisted history, you know it's possible for a second Bristow woman to come back from the dead.
tbc