Til' Death Do Us Part

Chapter Five

   I looked at Elizabeth with worry as I walked back through the door. I advised her to sit on the couch I'd been sitting on and handed her the water bottle I'd gotten her. I dropped a blood tablet in mine and shook it up before drinking it, sitting on the couch a little aways from her. I thought more about her condition, not knowing of what I should do. Of course the woman needed to go home but she had her own free will and I wasn't going to say no if she wanted to stay here. I barely knew her and she had the opportunity to do as she pleased, it wasn't like when I was growing up and for that I was grateful, but there was still good reason to ask.

    "Would you like to go home, miss?" I glanced at her worriedly, careful to keep my sentences short. I needed my fix desperately and with how it had been going for the past few months, blood tablets weren't going to satisfy me for much longer.

    "No. We just got here like twenty minutes ago." The mademoiselle shook her head curtly, "How about you go and karaoke?"

    I didn't want to. I hadn't sang since Victoria's death. I stood up pondering the thought, knowing that if I didn't sing, Elizabeth probably would.

    I walked to the front of the cramped back room before adjusting the microphone to my stance and turned to the tablet a little aways, picking a song from the selection before me. I turned around to face the tablet as the lyrics of the song played in front of them. I couldn't catch the tune of the song and attempted to tap into the affinity I'd once had for singing but to no avail. Now it was but something that brought grievance.

TW: Child loss

    I ran up the stairs towards my wife, a smile on my face. The world was at at war and the Spanish Influenza had taken out half of the population. My mother, sister and wife all had it but I'd gone to my wife first for a medicinal herb meant to aid it. Out of all of them, she was the most ill. When I'd gotten to her, she was several shades whiter than she'd been when I'd left just an hour ago. I looked at her from the bedroom frame. She was lying in our bed struggling to breathe and stay awake.

    I visualized the room and how she lay there compared to her lively face just a week before. How happy and flourished she'd been months ago when we'd discovered she was with child-and then how devastated we'd been when she'd lost him followed by her falling ill with the Spanish Influenza only a days later. Somehow I'd managed not to fall ill with it which had proved to be far worse of a curse than a blessing.

    Victoria looked at me with a weak smile, she was far to weak now to even sit up and I knew death wasn't too far. She wouldn't accept the herb.

    Somehow, she knew I was near. She always did, "Sing to me, dear. I do not have much time left." Her voice was ragged and barely loud enough to hear but the night was quiet with death.

    I took a step to walk towards my wife, looking at the beautiful features of hers. She hadn't spoken a word for the past week and there had been times when I'd feared her for dead. Victoria inhaled with a struggled sob, and closed her eyes but her breathing continued for another minute and a half as a smile spread across her face.

    I continued the tune and she'd recognized it for the tune she'd sung to our unborn child. I'd heard her singing it by the fireplace for many nights and it was so similar to a common song, I'd found myself singing it away at work and then at home with her. My beloved wife.

    "Beautiful." She whispered before she took her last breath. Shock went through my body before I moved a stray strand hair out of her face. Her smile had faded and she looked as if she was only sleeping. In a haste I'd attempted to do CPR on her but it didn't work. I'd only seen it done once and I hadn't been paying attention when I had. After an hour, she was colder than stone. I'd sent the herb to my mother and sister while I buried my wife myself. No one in the morgue would be willing to bury someone with the Spanish Influenza. It was too contagious and there were too many bodies piling up by the day due to the Spanish Influenza and World War I.

    That was a time I'd wished to die in and in some part of my soul, I had.

Word Count: 821