Lost & Found

The tale of a broken girl

Emma wasn't sure about it. Actually, she was completely unsure about it. Patrick had only been gone for six months. And she personally didn't think that six months was an adequate amount of time to mourn the loss of her husband. Seriously. Was there a time limit to that sort of thing? Did society really expect her to just all of a sudden one day be okay that she no longer had her husband, her best friend by her side? There wasn't anyone there to get her through the sleepless, lonely nights and it was crippling.

But of course, her mother and sister were only trying to help when they suggested she go to therapy. Therapy didn't sound all that bad to her, it was the type of therapy they proposed she go to. It was more or less a self-help group for widows and widowers. Emma was automatically opposed to the idea, but when they explained it focused on coping with being a single parent, she came around. Once they used her daughter in their plea, she knew she was a goner.

Lucy.

She would do absolutely anything for her five-month-old daughter. She had Patrick's big blue eyes and his blonde hair. She looked just like his baby pictures, yet she never even got to meet her father. Patrick never got to hold her or love her. He never had the chance to be the father he always dreamed of being. And that was a tragedy in itself.

When Emma got the call that Patrick was in a car accident, she felt it in her bones – the grief. When she arrived at the hospital and they told her they did everything they could, but they weren't able to revive him, she felt it settle within her. Since that day, it never left her.

She was eight months pregnant and she was alone.

Her mother and sister flew out to Boston on the earliest flight they could, but nothing or no one could have prepared Emma for the loneliness. She couldn't even get out of bed. The only plea from her family that she listened to was to eat, for the baby's sake. She slept for days. She didn't want to be conscious.

There wasn't much she remembered from the funeral. It was a closed casket and the rain never stopped.

After the funeral, her mother stayed with her in Boston to help her pack up the house she and Patrick shared together; the home they planned to raise their children in. Emma knew she'd never be able to stay there. Not without Patrick.

Emma stayed in Boston to give birth, only because she was much too pregnant to fly back home to Long Island. Lucy was born and Patrick wasn't there. Lucy was born and she didn't have a father.

When Lucy was a month old, Emma finally moved back to Long Island to live with her mother. She couldn't stay in Boston. In Boston, she was absolutely alone. In Boston, she only had memories of the man she loved, not even his body was there anymore. Patrick was buried in Pennsylvania, where he was from, where his parents still lived. Living in New York, at least Emma would be a little closer to him.

Over the past six months without Patrick, she was a mess. But she always pulled herself together for Lucy's sake. She needed her mother. And Emma had to give her everything she had because she was the only parent her daughter had left.

...

"I'll come in with you, Em," her sister Piper offered as they sat idle in the car outside of the church where the therapy sessions were to be held.

Piper promised the meetings were not held by the church itself, but by a group of counselors. The church was just the meeting place. Emma lost her faith after Patrick was taken away from her and she wasn't looking to find her way back to it. She didn't need God to help her through her grief. She didn't need his forgiveness, he needed hers. After all, he was the one that decided Patrick's fate.

"I'll be fine," Emma breathed, looking up at the cross that stood majestically on the top of the building. It was raining and all she could hear was the rush of the windshield wipers as they swished back and forth.

"Are you sure, Emma? I'd be happy to..." Piper insisted.

"I'll be fine," Emma told her again, still looking out into the rainy night, dreading stepping foot inside that building.

"Okay," Piper said quietly.

"Call me if—" Emma said, finally turning to face her sister.

"Lucy will be okay, Em. Mom raised both of us. I think she knows how to take care of her granddaughter," Piper pointed out. Emma nodded, but sat there silently.

"Patrick would want you to move on, Em. He'd want to see you happy again," Piper said, her voice low.

Emma closed her eyes tightly at the mention of her late husband. She took a deep breath, willing the tears away before they even started.

"Go," Piper coaxed. Emma nodded again and pushed the passenger door open.

"I love you, sissy," Piper told her.

"You too," Emma said before she got out of the car.

Emma stood in place for a moment, letting the rain fall down on her before she darted toward the awning over the large church doors. As Piper's car pulled away, Emma reached for the handle, pulling open the heavy door. The meeting was held in one of the Sunday school rooms in the basement of the church. It was almost fitting to see the children's art work and toys sprawled about the room, since they were all there for their children – to help their children through it as much as to help themselves. There were about fifteen other people in the room already and the counselors greeted Emma with welcoming smiles. She was the last to arrive, so they began the session right away after.

Not many people were in the mood to open up, including Emma. There were a lot of people that just sat wide-eyed as the counselors talked, but there were a few that sat almost lost to the world. There was one man she noticed in particular. He sat slouched in his chair, his arms drawn tightly to his chest almost ensuring that no one spoke to him just by how unpleasant he looked. He had large dark circles under his eyes – a red flag to all the sleep he had been losing. And he held a scowl on his face nearly the entire time.

But there was something so entirely familiar about the man. Maybe it was the reason she couldn't even focus on what the counselors were saying – because of her watchful eye on him.

His eyes, no matter how angry or threatening they were, held something in them. Emma couldn't put her finger on it, though it was like she gazed into them before, perhaps long ago. It was eating at her, trying to figure the man out. And by the end of the meeting, she was grateful to the man for keeping her attention off her dead husband.

Emma stood up, grabbing her jacket from the back of the chair, wrapping it around herself once again. When she looked up, the man was also wrapping his jacket around himself. And then his green eyes met with hers. And he didn't look away. And she couldn't look away.

His name was no longer on the tip of her tongue – it was spiraling through her head and she was falling back years.

Aiden Hawthorne.

He was her childhood sweetheart. The boy she loved long ago. He was the one that got away.

Emma's heart beat wildly in her chest and it almost scared her with its activity. It was so long since she felt any life inside of the worthless organ. She thought it died with her husband.

She never thought for as long as she lived that she would see his face again. But there he was, standing before her, as plain as day. And then a heavy dose of misery shot straight through her. Because if he was truly standing in front of her, it meant one thing and one thing alone – that he lost his spouse too.