Brooklyn Works

prologue

I fell in love with her because she was different in a way I had never known. She was perfect in every way that most felt that they weren’t. She was the love of my life. And she told me that I was every bit special to her as she was to me. I believed her and for a long time we lived together as happy as anyone could be with the love of their life by their side. It was something I lived for everyday. Seeing her smile and laugh and holding her as she cried. It was perfect in everyway.

    When we got news that she was pregnant we were happy. No, it was more than that there’s no word to describe the feeling I had that afternoon. She was my wife and soon she would bear our child. But it didn’t keep that way for long.

    She claimed she was happy but I noticed we had stopped talking as much as we used to. At first I brushed it off. It’s a new step she’s nervous I told myself. She’s just trying to take it all in. The worry was for nothing. I tried to get her to open up to me. It just didn’t work.

    “Give her space. Women do this no matter how nice or close you are a baby isn’t like buying a house Walt. She’s fine trust me.” My friends told me to chill. Maybe it was just me I was getting more nervous than her about it. I concluded that was that and gave her some space.

    It seemed as though things had gotten better. We were talking again and she seemed happier. She seemed like herself again. And I noticed she was getting rounder and bigger and I couldn’t help myself. I grinned like an idiot for a week straight staring at her. She was mine and so was the small baby growing inside of her.

    It was only when we were in the last stretch that she bailed on me again. She broke into cold sweats and wouldn’t let me touch her. She was always closed up and seemed to cry more often than not. But no matter what she always said she loved me. And it seemed as if she were apologizing for something. If I were to ever find out it wouldn’t be from her. She wouldn’t be telling me anything anytime soon.

    Time was torturing me as it passed and finally, the time came.

    There was a whole fiasco as it happened. Her refusal to go anywhere and when I finally got her to get to the hospital her passing out several times. My mind immediately went blank as I didn’t quite get the process and the doctors and nurses rushing around the room were making this a bit difficult to stay with her. It was only when I heard the calming sound of a child’s cry. I found myself smiling. The worst of it was over and I could go see them. Yet, when a doctor a rushed and immediately called my name and the urgency in his voice sped up my heart rate and I found myself running alongside the same doctor who had called me. Eventually at some point, though I had no clue at the time, I had out run him and ended up at the room alone.

    “Ellie...dear? Are you okay?” There was a moment in which I hesitated in fear of what I would see.

    “Please come in Walter. Please and close the door behind you.” Her voice came from the crack I had neatly opened in my fearful and curious mind. I stepped in and closed the door softly behind me. Turning around to face her I saw our child in her arms and she held it like a precious possession she had no means to give up. A small girl with only a wisp of hair to call her own. Skin as dark as my own and the light beautiful green eyes of her mother. She was there and staring along with her mother at me.

    “Ellie...look at her she looks just like you. And now this is all over and we can live as a happ-”

    “Walter.. I’m dying. Even now as we speak. My life fades from this world. As it never belonged here anyway. I knew this would happen. And still I let it be so. Giving you a child was the best and last thing I could ever do for you.” She cut me off and as she spoke my eyes watered and widened.

    How could the love of my life, the star in my sky, my very own lover… leave me so abruptly? “Eliza. My dear Eliza. There must be some way. You were so healthy how could this be? How could you know?”

    Stopping my questions, as she stopped the world just before, her voice was shushed and the beeping of the machines around her were shushed as well as if they too were feeling my dread. “I am not human Walter. As much as I pray to be one. To stay with you is what I want. But it is not so. I knew this and still I chose to be with you. As a demoness… I can not bear a human child. It’s just not possible. I wish I could have told you before. But my mind saw the worst and I could not. I could not ruin your life as such. And I see now no matter what I would’ve done. I have caused you much pain and myself as well.”

    “Please my dear Ellie.. Tell me there is a way to help you. I don’t want to live without you. You are the only thing I need. You and our daughter and our home. That’s all I’ll ever want or need. It’s all I have. So tell me there is a way to save you. I won’t take this silence without you.” I moved closer holding myself from crying. I could care less what she was. To me she was the woman of my life and the lover of my dreams. I would die without her.

    “Walt. Please there is only one thing I ask of you. Raise this child and give love to her. Cherish the existence I have ever so carefully made just for you. And perhaps one day we will meet again in the realm of immortals.” Her eyes closed as she spoke and she held her hand out to me. “Our child has a future and I want you to make sure she sees it. No matter the cost.”

    I took her hand and pushed the back of it against my lips. They were warm but no later did she finish talking that they ran cold. It was an unnatural coldness and I jerked my hand back. Then the sound of a cry. The child I had all but forgotten about was there in the arms of her dead mother and as if sensing this change had happened she bawled out in hopes of waking her. And be it so, I reached with both hands and gently lifted her up in my arms. It was beautiful to see her in my own arms. And just a dream in her mother’s.