Chapter 2: Revolution

I felt really disconcerted the next morning.

It was odd first of all to wake without Charlie watching me with his deep blue eyes (the same eyes as our daughter!). It was odder when I realized that it was 9 in the morning, for he was therefore not being kept away by the rules of the hospital, but something else.

About an hour and a half later I was buckling my daughter into the car seat we had bought a month ago.

Charlie was supposed to be driving me home…he was supposed to take this car home last night, and bring it to pick me up in the morning. I was glad I had my extra keys.

Why would he have taken a cab?

I pushed my way through the perpetual New York City traffic and found above our apartment building a really weird sight—someone had projected some sort of green hologram into the sky. It was eerie—a skull with a snake coming out of its mouth.

"It's OK, Mystic. I told your dad that we'd have problems when the creepy new-age techno people moved in upstairs." I cooed at my daughter, trying to comfort myself more than her.

Holding her tightly, I stepped out of the elevator and onto my floor. I walked with great trepidation towards my door, and fumbled with the key. I couldn't open it. Not because I didn't want to, but because there was something holding it shut. I pushed with my shoulder, still clutching Mystic, and it finally gave.

I screamed when I saw the shocked look on Charlie's lifeless face.

"And you couldn't open the door? The body was blocking the door?" The officer asked for the fourth time.

I nodded, my eyes on Mystic, rocking her gently. Shouldn't people have been making me coffee or something and not interrogating me? I was getting indignant. I wanted to be angry with the officer—anything to keep from thinking of what he had said: "the body".

"It doesn't make sense." The officer muttered. He began thinking out loud, and despite my attempts not to listen, I couldn't help but do so. "All of the windows locked from the inside, and the door blocked by the body…he didn't die of natural causes…but there was no way for the murderer to escape. Lady," I could only imagine he was talking to me, so I made eye contact with the despicable man. "I can only assume that it was suicide."

I stood up as quickly as I could, clutching Mystic to me tightly. "It was not." I said this very coldly, and the officer looked at me with something akin to pity.

"I'll put down 'heart attack' on the report." He said, as if this was very generous of him. He stood up, stretched, and left.

And I was alone.

Well, not really.

Mystic wiggled in my arms a bit. I looked down at her, and my face twisted.

I suddenly wished that I'd lost the bet—that she'd had red hair like her father.

I sank into the chair and began to cry. My tiny daughter didn't make a fuss—she hadn't cried since her entrance into the world. Instead she stretched out her tiny arms against me—as close as she could get to a hug, I imagine.

The child held the mother as she cried.

I imagine some painter might've been inspired if he'd seen us, but from that point on, there was no third person.

Just the two of us.

Always.

Mystic was an extraordinary child. She never cried. Literally. She almost always wore a smile, and if she fell or otherwise hurt herself, I was always more upset than her.

I threw myself completely into her life. She came to school with me and lay in a basket under my desk while I taught. I would hold her during my free periods, and I never felt the need to do anything else. Just holding Mystic was a top-priority activity--I enjoyed it that much.

She was tiny for her age, and when the doctors made suggestions, I ignored them. There was nothing wrong with her—just too much right.

As she grew, I recognized more and more of her father in her—her eyes, obviously, and the sprinkling of freckles across her nose. Most of all, her smile, which she wore so often that I could never forget Charlie, even if I tried to.

I never tried.

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Cybell: Thank you so much for reviewing (and even reading!) such a fledgling story! I'm glad it made you laugh…sorry it made you sad, and hope that this chapter wasn't very sad…it will get funnier, I assure you! Thanks again!