Before the sleep

Chapter nine

Mommy

Wet. Something wet has just landed on my bare arm. I don't have to ask what it is. With my eyes closed, I can tell tears are falling on me. It doesn't take much thinking for me to know whose tears they are.

My dear darling husband, how did we get here?

I feel like the dead laying here with my mouth shut. I can hear and feel everything but I can answer none. The doctors are right. For days now, I can feel myself slowly slipping away. My memories are becoming jam with each passing day. I feel like I'm fighting a lost battle with each breath I take.

Yesterday, they had come with the papers about my delivery for Joseph to sign. The hospital didn't want to be a liability when my life inevitably ends on the operating table. I heard it all – their rehearsed pity, Joseph's sorrow and anger, Esther and Henry's comforting words, and my silence. They made him sign the horrid papers that proclaimed that the moment my brain stopped working, all of their efforts will be dedicated to the baby. I will no longer be a patient but an obstacle keeping my baby from being part of this world. From now on they will closely monitor my brain activities so they could get the baby out on time.

It's not like I want to be saved while my baby dies. No, I don't want him to die. If what my baby needs to survive is for me to transfer to the other world, I would go without a fight. But that's not what they're doing. Instead they're just abandoning me so they could bring my baby here without ever being at the end of a mother's touch.

I want to cry, to scream. Anything. I want to stop being merely a machine-operated body waiting for the day its passenger is fine to be on its own. I don't want to leave my boys alone in this world. I can't imagine my baby going through life without a mother. That's not the life I want for you my sweet child. I'm not going to take it regardless of what the doctors said. It's not over until my last breath. You still have a mother until my heart stops beating.

How dare they treat you like an orphan when I'm still here? I'm not gone yet and I don't plan on being anytime soon.

Meanwhile, all I can do is continue to fill our time with divine memories. The memories of all the events that brought us together. I'll never regret any of them – no stupid mistakes, no hasty decisions. All of them matter and I if I have to do it all over again, I'd do everything the exact same way.

I think we have now arrived to the part of the story where we had our first date. The one following his sudden request. It had taken me aback but you didn't hear me complaining. It was what I was praying for – for us to belong to each other.

That night couldn't come fast enough. We were going to assist the first football game of the season. It wasn't a girl's ideal first date but with the right man any date was the best one. Joseph was the right man for me, I knew that from the start. That was the only reason why I would go against Carmen and refuse to hear her warnings about the dangers dating Joseph brought unto me.

Dating him was taking a leap of faith and I had jump in with my eyes closed. Now, I was swimming with the unexpected and enjoying afternoon picnics with unapproved freedom.

My closet was spattered on my bed and my lip was throbbing from incessant biting when the much anticipated knock came.

I grabbed my phone and purse before opening it. Outside, I found the most fanatic looking man in my entire life. He was wearing a green shirt with the school's logo and blue shorts with golden waistband – the school's colors. Large splash of green, blue, and gold covered his face. His ears were the only part that retained his natural brown color. Even his shoes had the school's logo.