Five months had gone by, and my stomach still couldn't keep any of the contents I swallowed down. This shouldn't have been happening. I expected the sickness to go away already. It felt like I was suspecting my pregnancy for the first time all over again.
Back at the beginning of last year, John and I had been trying consistently with no luck. We had a long discussion with my doctor as a last resort. We hoped that if we had sex around the time I was most fertile, it would help. But it didn't. I didn't think I'd get pregnant because the wait for me to conceive was so long. So, we decided to take a break.
It wasn't until I woke up one morning, puking my guts out as John held my hair back, that I realized I missed my menstrual. I was over a week late. When I bought a pregnancy test, John stood by my side for the whole thing. Two pink lines stared back at me when the results were in. I called John into the bathroom immediately. He almost cried from excitement. Meanwhile, I was stuck in shock.
We eventually told Cory and our parents. They were just as happy for us as we were. Cory was excited to finally become an uncle. He had probably been more excited than we were. Well, he was excited. . .
"I'm sorry about that," I stood from my knees, apologizing to Lucinda. As soon as I ran off, she followed me up the stairs. I felt bad. This was her daughter's memorial, and I ruined things with my inability to control my body.
"Hey, you're fine. Don't worry." She shook her head. "When I was pregnant with Eleanor and Mary, I was worse." She chuckled, trying to bring life to the situation.
I could only chuckle back bitterly. Awkward silence settled between us. I kept reminding myself I was only a stranger who found her daughter's remains. It helped me separate myself from the rest of the people in this house. She treated me the same when I wasn't.
"Hey, come with me really quick." She gestured towards the hallway.
I nodded silently and followed her out of the bathroom. She guided me to a pale-white door. Taped to the front of the door was a drawing of a little girl holding hands with a taller girl. Could it have been Mary and her older sister? I wasn't sure.
"This was Mary's room. We added a few things, you know, toys and stuff, just in case she ever came home." She opened the door. I stepped into the room, gazing around. The goosebumps began crawling along my skin. Was this the kind of information someone shared with a stranger?
"It's really pretty. . ." I played along anyway.
A cold draft hung around the room. The hairs on my arms stood. The pale white from the door continued into the room all over the walls. A small twin-sized bed sat to the right of the room, made up neatly with a blue bed set. There was a stuffed brown bear in the corner of the bed, lying underneath the blankets.
"Thank you. Now that she's gone, we're going to leave this room in her memory. Do you know what you're having yet?"
"Yeah, a girl." I smiled slightly.
Lucinda's smile widened. "What's her name going to be?"
"John and I decided on Rosemary," I answered.
"Wow, that's a beautiful name."
"John picked it out. He's better at decision-making than I am."
"You and your husband seem like wonderful people. I'm sure you two will make great parents." She walked towards the window of Mary's bedroom.
I allowed my eyes to take in the room some more. There was surely a lot of blue in this room. There were a few pictures of Mary displayed on the nightstand beside a white lamp. In one of the pictures, she was running across a field chasing . . . teal blue butterflies.
"Well, would you look at that." Lucinda laughed under her breath.
My head snapped towards her. I tried to figure out what she was looking at, but I couldn't see from here. So, I walked to the open spot next to her. That's when I saw the blue that had been haunting me all week. It sat outside the window on the windowsill.
"Mary loved butterflies. Her favorite ones were the blue ones because blue was her favorite color," she proceeded.
I tried to respond but I couldn't. I froze and laid my hands over my stomach. The spit in my throat stopped moving. As I pieced the clues together, there was an increase in my pulse. The only thing I could think of was to say something comforting. That was exactly what I did.
"I can assure you John and his team will find out who did this to your daughter." I grabbed both her hands in mine. She bowed her head slightly, a bitter smile stretching across her lips.
"Thank you, Angie." She removed one of her hands and placed it on top of mine.
* * *
I'd heard that seances were real—that they actually worked. I wasn't crazy enough to find out for myself. And though I wasn't holding a seance, I still felt crazy for sitting here all alone in the dark. Only the light above me in my car lit over me.
"I'm so fucking crazy for even thinking this will work but here goes." I sighed under my breath.
"Mary, if you're there . . . I know you're trying to contact me. Well, I don't know. But I guess . . . I guess I can feel your presence. I think you're trying to speak to me. The blue butterfly, the static—is there something you're trying to tell me?" I moved closer to the radio. There was only static. But I knew it wasn't her because I turned the static on. It had been playing from the radio for over twenty minutes now.
"Mary, did you show me where your bones were?"
The only times the strange occurrences happened was when I was near any sort of electronic. It seemed that was the only way she could speak to me. I wondered if she showed herself through the butterfly. Gosh, Angie. This was crazy talk. The static continued to blare as it was supposed to, nothing out of the ordinary that said it was being controlled.
I opened my mouth to speak again until there was a knock on the window. When I turned, a dark silhouette stood outside the car, peeking inside. If not for the car's light, I would have been oblivious to who it was.
"Shit, John! You scared me." I gripped my chest and rolled down the window.
"Um, Angie. . ." John studied me closely. He looked at my face, then at the radio, eyebrows arched. "Would you please explain to me what it is you're doing?"
"I-I'm . . . uh . . . just trying to see if I can fix the radio. It was working fine before I got here," I lied.
"Okay, but didn't we agree you wouldn't mess with it?" he asked, confused. This time, I couldn't think of a fast-enough lie. Instead, I bit down on the inside of my cheek.
"I'll take your silence as a sign of guilt. . ." He raised an eyebrow.
"Okay, okay, fine! Just give me a few minutes." I huffed.
He shook his head, laughing. "Okay, I'll wait right here then."
* * *
John had enough of my stalling and pried me from the radio. I fought him on it, but he won this time.
"Isn't this so much better than hiding in the car all night?" John's laughter sent tingles down my skin. I curled into him until I was inhaling his leftover cologne of the day from his bare chest and said nothing. His teeth nibbled at the skin on my neck while his hands roamed under the large t-shirt of his I was wearing. I found his touch relaxing.
"Next week marks twenty-three weeks. I'll officially be six months pregnant. Will you still be able to come with me to my appointment?" Compared to most women in their second trimester, my stomach was small. No one would have believed I was halfway through my pregnancy.
His teeth sunk deeper into my skin. "Yes. Friday, isn't it? I'll be there for sure."
I smiled and nodded. "Okay, good."
"Wow, six months. I can't believe you've been carrying her for six months already. Time is moving so fast; we'll be holding her in our arms before we know it."
"Yep. Then, I'll have to take maternity leave at the community center," I sighed.
"I'm sure the ladies are going to miss you, especially—what is her name? Evelyn?" he said.
"Yes, Evelyn." I giggled.
Evelyn was one of the youngest women in my group, nearing twenty-four in just a couple of months. And she was nearly seven months into her pregnancy now. Much further along than me. We talked here and there. But I couldn't say we were close friends.
"Yeah, her. She's nice," John said. I hummed in agreement.
"So, I went to the service today as you suggested."
"Oh, really? How was it?" His voice heightened a few notches.
"It was sad. I almost cried. But her parents were really nice, and it got me thinking . . . were there any suspects Cory had any leads on?"
"Is that really what you want to talk about?" John shook his head.
I tugged at the waistband of his briefs and nodded.
"Alright then. . ." He sat up, removing his hand from under my shirt. I turned on my back and watched him as he played with the ends of my curls. His eyes met mine again. "There was a rumor going around about a pedophile in the neighborhood. Do you remember that?"
I nodded. "Mom wouldn't stop talking our ears off about it."
He laughed quietly. "Yeah. It got hectic when it was found that the missing children all lived within the same range as the suspect. He became a prime suspect in the case after a while. I don't know all the details, but Cory wrote down every single one. He should have it stored in his notes somewhere. I'm not sure where they are now, but yeah.
"Anyways, I don't remember the man's name. Now that you bring it up, I'm sure we'll be looking into that man's profile again real soon since we couldn't find any of the other children's remains near Mary's. We'll probably pay him a visit in West Greenbush, too, if he's still there. There are all sorts of sickening people out there."
If John didn't know much, then I had no choice but to sift through Cory's notes in his journal word by word. That was the only place I could think of where he'd store all of his notes on this case in one place. What John said made more sense considering all the children were from the same town. Which meant whoever was responsible for all thirteen children's deaths most likely would have resided in West Greenbush too during that year.
That would explain why I found Mary's bones not too far from her home, and there was possibly another child buried deep in West Greenbush Park. Before John and I moved further up New Jersey into the town of Shifton, we'd lived in West Greenbush for nearly all our lives with our parents. Shifton was only half an hour away from West Greenbush. If they were all buried there, that made the connection easier, besides their similar facial features.
"Oh, no. I know that face when I see it. You do that every time you're thinking too hard about something. I should know; that was the first face you gave me when we met. Angie, please don't intervene. That's all I ask of you. It'll make me feel better if you don't get any closer to this case than you've already done."
I had no idea what he was talking about until I thought back to when I was twelve. My mother introduced John to the family as her co-worker's son. Apparently, she and her co-worker were so close, she helped her get an apartment right above ours.
That meant we saw more of John every day. He was only two years older than us. So, it didn't make any difference. Cory found a best friend, and I found someone to crush on. Someone whom I later found out liked me just as much as I liked him. Of course, he was a grown man now—twenty-seven, to be exact. And he was now mine.
"I won't get into any trouble, I swear."
"That's not what I'm worried about. . ." He frowned.
"What are you worried about?" I asked quietly.
"I'm worried that you'll get hurt. . ." John placed my hands in his, kissing the top of my knuckles. "We've already lost him. I can't lose you and Rosemary too."
"I promise I'm playing it safe," I whispered. I then lifted my head, pressing my lips to his.
"Good. Now come here. I love you, you crazy woman." He slipped his hand back under my shirt, pulling me closer and pressing kisses all over my skin. I laughed and curled back into him as we lost ourselves in each for the rest of the night.