"Where am I?"
"I don't know. This is your dream."
She floats easily on the ink-black water. The sky is full of stars, pinpricks glowing gold, yellow, pink, and blue. Orange shooting stars and … she squints….is that a banana?
She blinks, turning to look at him, "What the …."
Her movement upsets her equilibrium, and she rolls under the water.
Panic takes hold and she inhales water, spluttering and coughing as she rights herself on the surface.
The water is warm where it laps at her skin but below that, she shivers and watches gooseflesh break out on her skin.
He is closer now, having moved to help her. "Careful."
She coughs harshly, her throat dry and aching.
She forces her body to calm down. It has gotten much easier to do over the years and she is proud of having mastered control over the panic. At least to a certain extent.
They float in the stillness.
Dimly she can hear talking and she looks around trying to local the source.
What is it? "Do you hear that?"
He frowns, "No, hear what?"
She shrugs, "Nothing. Probably the breeze."
Yet, there is no breeze. No waves. Nothing but them and the stars.
"What is this place?"
"Babe, it's your mind remember."
"Not helpful."
He shrugs and turns, swimming closer to her again. His hand moves to rest on her stomach. "Want to see a secret?"
She looks at him in confusion, "I thought you said…."
"No here." He looks into the water "Down there."
She moves away from him slightly. "We can't"
"Why not?"
"We'd drown. Plus, it's freezing down there."
"Only for the first bit. It will be fine."
She is not convinced. "Who are you?!"
"Babe, it's me. Come on. Don't you trust me?"
And for the first time in her life, she doesn't.
"You're not Henry"
He laughs and the features distort into black nothingness with white jagged lines in place of the mouth.
The lines open and he screeches. She covers her ears, but her bones vibrate at the tone, and she loses her buoyancy, she flails frantically as she is pulled under the water.
########
The frantically beeping of the heart monitor shatters the quiet and causes them all to pause. Before more alarms go off and nurses swarm the room.
They are pushed to the back of the room as orders are shouted. It's controlled chaos. It is so loud until one sound dominates it all, a constant high pitch whine.
"No!" They watch in horror as their father slumps, a nurse ushers them out as chest compressions are started on their mother. It's like a horror movie in slow motion. Each second an hour of pain and terror.
They watch in minute horror at the glass till the blind is pulled. They each lean or slump in various states of distress. This can't happen.
Minutes turn into days and their world is held in fragile hands.
#####
The family room is entirely too comfortable. Big foam sofas in an insipid shade of purple. With the door shut, the sounds of the hospital are muffled.
Stevie rests her head against the cold glass of the window and watches the rain trickle down. She can hear Alison crying softly in the corner. Jason cracks a ruler against the edge of the other window frame, and she wants to tell him to stop but the words die in her throat. She can't look at her father. The blank despair she saw on the short walk here haunts her vision.
They wait.
She wonders if this is how it ends. Not just one life but five.
She can't even consider what life would look like without her mother in it.
The thought itself is too painful.
She doesn't want the news sat on a purple sofa.
She doesn't want the news at all.