Chapter 3

Present Day

"You can be mad as a mad dog at the way things went. You could swear, curse the Fates, but when it comes to the end, you have to let go."
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

I feel myself begin to regain consciousness, but I will not open my eyes just yet-I refuse to see reality. I'm not ready to face what has happened just yet. Perhaps if I say it enough, it won't have happened? No, it doesn't work like that, says the voice in the back of my head.

It's in our human nature to play pretend. A married couple acts as though they are happy and content in public, the spitting image of what a "perfect marriage" should be, but inside they could be angry and miserable together. I am pretending that this whole thing hasn't happened yet. As children, playing pretend and making believe seems like the ultimate game. We have a home complete with a spouse, children, and even a dog. But the more we age, the more pathetic it becomes. Perhaps that isn't the right word. Piteous? Maybe that works better, but I don't really care right now.

I hear a television softly in the background. BBC. Dad must be in the room. And sure enough, I feel a dip at the end of my bed where he is. I move a hand tentatively over my stomach, where my just noticeable bump would have been. We were just entering the fifth month and in two weeks I would have gone for my second ultrasound to determine the gender. But I didn't need a machine to tell me that-I knew my baby was a girl; one of those instincts mothers have. And I would have called her Galatea, after my mother. My mum, you see, died when I was fifteen. Dad never really recovered after that and he retreated to his violin. Mum kept him sane so to speak.

But now he plays mournful tunes as Orpheus once did when he lost his Eurydice and testing the tear ducts of the gods. It's almost too hard to listen to sometimes. Before Mum died, we used to all go to the park down the road from where we lived, and dad would play lively Swedish folk tunes and I would dance and sing-childishly, mind you, tripping over my own feet. I never inherited the musical gene. My dad, Charles Daae, was originally from a small town in Uppsala, Sweden. When he was younger, his father taught him to play the violin. Needless to say, he excelled. When he was twenty, he came here to London, to further pursue his career in music. That's when he met Mum. The rest, as they say, is history. They fell in love, married, and shortly after, had me.

Nowadays, Dad keeps mostly to himself. Except on Wednesday evenings. On those nights, he goes down to the local theatre to play with a small group of people in an orchestra. Purely for enjoyment; he doesn't care much for the grandeur of large performances anymore. Sometimes on warm summer evenings, they'll even play on the gazebo in the nearby park. I don't mean to brag, but my dad sounds the best out of all of them.

I wonder briefly where Raoul could be. Is it wrong that I don't really care? Raoul de Chagny is my husband of three years. We met as children and played all the time-we were inseparable. As teenagers, we both realized that we fancied each other a bit more than just friends. And we had been dating ever since. Everyone knew we would marry-it was expected. Predictable. That's what our relationship is. We married when we were both twenty-one and purchased a nicely sized home just down the street from Dad. I don't think we considered the financial aspects of marriage until we were swamped with bills. Mortgages, loans to pay back to the university, and monthly bills all caught up with us.

On top of that, Raoul is never at home. Being a business major, he was offered a job, selling god only knows what, but there was a catch, as always. He would have to go wherever they sent him for indefinite periods of time. Sometimes he is gone for two months at a time. And just when I get used to not having him around, he comes back and we argue about the smallest, stupidest, trivial things. And I can't wait for him to leave again. How horrible is that?

He was convinced the baby was going to be a boy. He wanted to name him Alexander. But I knew my baby was a girl and I didn't feel like arguing with him. We painted the nursery a cream color-almost yellow. Whomever invented the idea that green is the gender neutral color must be daft-it makes me feel as though I was going to give birth to some amorphous alien. As I was saying, we had been trying to have a baby since we were married-we wanted to feel like a complete family. But every time was a failure. I felt like a failure. And I feel as though I failed my child-I failed her before she had the chance to live.

It's time for me to finally open my eyes. I open my lids slowly. A bright, white light fills them and I snap them shut again. I pray silently that Dad didn't see that. I decide to give it another go and open them again. This time the hospital room comes into focus. A small TV screen rests in the corner and a commercial for Kodak is playing. The walls are white, almost showing an indifference to me.

"Oh! Christine! You're awake!" Dad stood up from the edge of the bed and took my hands in his. His mouth twitches from side to side as if he was going to say something. His eyes are to the floor now and I distinctly notice a single tear roll down his cheek. "You eh…you em…oh god, Christine, you lost her." Oh god, he's said it. I had been dreading that one statement ever since this happened. I had been clinging on to hope and praying this was all some morbid nightmare. But to no avail, of course. Dad begins to sob and a helpless feeling swells inside me. I had been trying so hard to hold the tears back, but they flow freely now.

"They had to do a blood transfusion, Christine. You lost a lot of blood. But they-the doctors-said you should be alright to leave tomorrow afternoon. It'll all be okay, little one." Ah, the other thing I had been dreading. How can it be okay? I just lost my child. How do you pick up from that? It seems like an inappropriate thing to say at a time like this.

And in that moment, everything came back to me. I had been upstairs with Dad finishing up the painting in the nursery. It hurts to even think about that word now. A nursery. An empty one that might never be occupied. The buzzer on the stove had gone off for something I was baking. I wanted to impress Dad with my newly acquired cooking skills and I didn't want what I was cooking to burn. Whatever it was-I don't remember now. So I ran quickly down the stairs. But tripped. I remember screaming. And blood. There was so much blood. I remember Dad running down the stairs and holding me while he called an ambulance. And then…nothing.

Dad broke me out of my reverie. "I phoned Raoul…to tell him what happened. He said he's getting on the first flight out." Just what I wanted to hear. Shouldn't I be glad, though, that my husband is leaving his job to come home to me? I really am a terrible wife. But there really is nothing left to our relationship.

"Thanks Dad," I replied, devoid of any emotion.

"I uh…I know you both are going through a sort of rough patch right now…and I just want you to know that if you ever need to come back home, the door is always open for you, Christine." I smile gratefully at him; I've always been thankful for his intuitive nature.

"Thank you Dad. That means a lot," I gave him a tiny smile. He leaned forward and wiped the remaining tears from my cheek with his thumb. I looked around the room for the first time and noticed a few bouquets of flowers.

"The neighbors obviously know…most of them came while you were asleep." We both went silent for a while and listened to the news. Some local official had just died and the funeral was being covered live. There is a small orchestra playing inside the church, which happens to be St. Paul's Cathedral.

"Mascagni." I say absently, not realizing what I had said. It had rolled off my lips so naturally.

Dad turns and gives me a quizzical look and arches his eyebrow. "What?"

"Pietro Mascagni." Wait, wait, wait. How do I know this? How could I possibly know that name, but not know who he is? And yet, I feel as though I already know him. Does that make any sense? "The intermezzo from his 'Cavalleria Rusticana'." It felt so natural, yet foreign.

"Christine, how do you know that? I never played any Mascagni for you and I know you've never acquired a liking to classical music." He looked incredulous and stupefied.

"I…em…I've heard it before. Either on the radio or in a movie," I lie quickly. Dad still looks unconvinced, but drops the subject. He turned back to the television and gazed at it longingly.

"The inside of that building always makes my breath catch in my throat. It really confirms that there is some sort of higher power up there and He is watching over us."

"You really think so, do you?" I said a bit more coldly than I intended.

He turned to look at me and smiled softly. "I know you're having your doubts right now, Christine. And I understand. I questioned Him too, when your mother passed. But I counted myself blessed-I still have my beautiful daughter and I had the chance to watch her blossom into a remarkable young woman-I thank Him for that every day. And I thank Him for not taking you away from me. I don't know what I would do if I ever lost you, little one. But in the end, it always comes down to faith. I have my faith, Christine."

I didn't know what to say-or think-for that matter. I was stunned. I knew Dad had been religious before Mum died-we all went to mass on Sundays. But after she passed, he had stopped going for the longest time. I'm not sure whether he began going again, or solely went to pray. Thankfully, I didn't have much time to dwell over this, as my best friend, Meg Griffin, bounced into the room. Literally.

"Oh, Christine! I'm so glad you're ok!" She bent over and pulled me into a hug and several of her golden locks went into my mouth.

"Meg!" My other best mate, Jammes Delacour, walked in and pulled Meg from me. "We talked about this before we came here! I told you exactly not to do that; your presence is overwhelming enough." Jammes looked down at me and I thanked her silently. Meg retreated a few steps and clasped her hands in front of her.

"You guys didn't have to come," I said quietly, more to myself. I actually wish they hadn't come. Jammes, you see, has two young children, a five year-old girl and a seven month-old boy. I couldn't bear to look at anything or anyone that reminded me of my loss. They are, however, my childhood friends, although I've known Meg since we were toddlers, as she used to live a few houses down from me. The three of us were inseparable in primary school, and it's been that way ever since.

They are both uncharacteristically silent; normally I can never get Meg to stop babbling. Jammes, though, has always had a quiet, solemn nature about her. But they are both staring at me with concern and it is becoming a little unnerving.

Dad thankfully breaks the silence. "It was very nice of both of you to come."

"What kind of mates would we be if we didn't?" Jammes said quietly and took my hand.

"Speaking of being mates, I bought you a present." Meg walked back over to the bed and produced a gift bag with tissue paper coming out of the top.

"Could it be a bottle of laundry detergent?" Dad asked, with a slight hint of mocking in his voice. When Meg and I were about eight-years old, she thought it would be a brilliant idea to eat laundry detergent. Her logic was that it would clean our insides, and when it was done, we would burp up bubbles. Dad caught us in the act, and was not very pleased. And he never lets Meg forget it.

"Geez, Mr. Daae, you really need to let that go. We turned out fine."

"That's debatable," Jammes mumbled.

"Yeah, I'm still not convinced the laundry detergent didn't mess us up," I smirked. Meg threw her hands in the air in frustration.

"When will you ever stop mentioning that?"

"When the fiery depths of Hell freeze over, Little Meg," Dad said, chuckling softly. "Little Meg" had been Dad's nickname for Meg ever since diaper days. When Mrs. Griffin was pregnant with her, Dad would always pat her stomach and call her "Little Meg", which supposedly angered Mrs. Griffin, who insisted upon calling Meg her given name, Marguerite. But he would make it up to her by playing his violin, which would stop Meg from kicking for a short while. Or so he told me.

"Well, if you are all going to be like that, then I guess you don't want to see your present," Meg said, in a mock huff. She turned from the bed and crossed her arms.

"Oh, stop being ridiculous," Jammes chided. She picked up the bag and carefully set it in my lap. I picked the tissue paper out carefully and pulled out what appeared to be a book. A Midsummer Night's Dream.

"We found another copy at the market and figured you could add it to your collection," Meg said. Her "anger" obviously had disappeared. When I was a child, my mother would always read a part of it to me before I went to bed. Needless to say I fell in love with the story and it's been my mission in life to get a hold of any copy, in any language I can find. I've always been a fan of fairytales. What seven-year old girl wouldn't want to run away to a forest filled with fairies, complete with a king and queen? Plus, the thought of a complicated love that always seemed to work out perfectly excited me to no end.

And it's the one thing I can still connect my mother to.

"Thank you. Both of you." I ran my hand over the cover gently, fighting back the tears that threatened to fall. The satyr on the cover looked up at me with an arched brow. You don't even want to know, I told it silently.

"We saw it and couldn't resist," Jammes said jovially.

I was still staring at the book. "It's lovely," I breathed softly. I saw Jammes turn to Meg and they both gave a quick nod to each other. I knew instantly that they were giving each other the signal that it was the right time to leave. Subconsciously, I knew that they never intended to stay very long. Who would want to subject themselves to an awkward situation such as this one? But I don't blame them. I knew that if any one of them were in my place, I would not know the right things to say or how to act.

And right then and there, I realized that there wasn't anything anyone could do or say to make me feel better. I realized that, for the first time in my life, I truly was alone.

And what a horrible feeling it is to be alone.

A/N: Sorry for the long wait. Again. It's like my teachers don't want me to have a life. Huh...I may be on to something...
I didn't intend to end it there-I actually had a lot more that I was going to write, but after re-reading that paragraph, it seemed like a proper place to end it. I hope I got Meg's character right-I want her to sort of be a foil to Jammes, but without being overly obnoxious. Please review and let me know what you think! There's a nice, big button right at the bottom of the page here.