Remnant Of The Gods

Chapter 2

I was in and out of the hospital in record time. I heard words like miracle being thrown around and I had to smile politely and bear through it. Mary was gone. And I couldn't stop her.

I had woken up to see Simon sleeping on the rocking chair in the hospital room. Simon was one of the two caretakers at the orphanage where I grew up. The TV was still playing whatever movie he had found to keep him up, and by the looks of it, he was on the third film of the series. He must have been here a long time before I had woken up. My heart raced as it hit me that if Simon was here, my mother was gone.

Weaving my hands through cords, plugs and needles urgh I got up and shuffled towards him. I woke him up with a rough shake, inpatient to have a more reasonable explanation as to why he was here. My mom would never deliberately send me back to the orphanage. Never. Even if I used to love it there. The thought slipped through unwillingly and I pushed it aside to wake Simon up even more roughly.

Simon roused in a panic, his eyes meeting mine and immediately dropping them in submission. I wanted to scream at him asking where she had gone but he beat me to it.

"She's- She's gone kiddo".

I wanted him to be wrong, but I knew he would never lie to me, not about something like this and I could tell in the way he held himself that he never wanted to be the one to tell me. With my chest heaving with pain, I felt Simon walked towards me, reaching out to comfort me like he used to when I was young, his broad hand rubbing the back of my neck in comfort and with tears running down my face. I'd been dreading this moment every morning for five years.

"For god's sake Alex you got'ta sit down" His thick irish accent hadn't wavered since I saw him last and the comfort of that voice almsot broke me. "Do you remember anythin' about the accident Alex? Anythin' a' all?"

An accident he called it - something preventable. I remembered her wild eyes as she looked at me one last time and couldn't bring myself to correct him. I saw the flash of red eyes again and my I shrunk down to the bed again.

"It was a-an animal... I can't really..." I let the sentence trail off and I couldn't look at Simon as i lied to him. I couldn't. I just kept remembering the last time we had seen one another and the anger I had for him for so many years.

My throat constricts and heaves as I choke on the lump in my throat. Simon holds me and slowly brings me down to sit on the couch just as my legs give way. I curl into a ball surrounded by his comfort and cry like I had never cried before, releasing months of pent up emotion. I had hoped that if I was around, that together we could be happy. She always seemed happier when I was around. She always said that we were a family. That all we needed was each other.

I was so lost in my thoughts, I couldn't even remember how I got home. When I looked up, Simon was already at my door.

"I kno' yer probably no' feelin' all tha' good Alex, bu' i' was a miracle yer survived."

***

When they had come to the place I had grown up, she was the most beautiful person that I had ever seen. Mary's hair was as pure as sunlight and she had the kindest face you could ever imagine. Tony, her husband, was tall and had short cropped hair which should have made him look like he was in the military but every so often the smallest dimple would appear, and I knew that he was a kind man. I couldn't believe my ears when Simon had told me that I was going home with such a beautiful mother and to be a part of such a beautiful family. The day they adopted me Simon let me know that it would be the last day they would see me or hear from me. A clean cut.

There was two things that happened simultaneously for me to be adopted by Mary and Tony. First, Tony had finally allowed Mary to begin looking for a child to adopt, which I had learned from Mary was something she had pursued for a long time. Secondly, Simon had finally placed me up for adoption. At ten years of age, I was one of the oldest children at the orphanage and well beyond the normal adoption age. Simon had worked his whole life at the orphanage alongside Sandra, the mother hen of the orphanage. I loved and adored both of them and I knew they felt the same, but I knew that Sandra and Simon would always fight about me. Sandra believed that I was happy with the family that their home provided. Simon had put his foot down, wanting nothing more than to see me with one big happy family and away from the dysfunctional family they would provide.