Suicide[ON HOLD]

Is clarity enough?

            After everyone had departed Mr. and Mrs. Fox went to their rooms while Cody and I stayed in the living room. I had been quiet since they had taken Elijah back with them. He was in my hands one minute and now I would have to wait to see him. I ignored the look Cody gave me as I walked past him and plopped down on the couch. “Zoe, are you mad at me?” he asked as he wrapped his arms around me. I nudged out of his grasp and scooted farther away from him. “Please don’t be that way,” he said as he came closer. I looked him in his eyes and asked, “Don’t be like what Cody? Like you didn’t keep this huge secret from me the entire time?”

“To be completely honest, I don’t care if she is my sister, she doesn’t have to know everything about me. She doesn’t get to intrude on my life like that Cody.”

            “I’m sorry Zoe, when she came to me with what she had discovered, we talked about a few things. She wanted to help you, that’s all she wanted to do from the start,” he said apologetically.

“Helping you with what? My son, my own flesh and blood. She wanted to help you with that? Bullshit! I call it. She has nothing to do with any of that, do you want us to be all jolly and become friends now?” I teased.

            He became serious, hurt even, and said, “No, I’m not expecting that to happen, I just thought I could help.” I didn’t know what to say that because in my heart I knew that’s what Cody ever wanted to do, was to help. I felt horribly wrong for being angry at him, but hell that was a shitty thing he did.

All emotions came at once. I realized what Britt would have to face if she met that man that deems himself a “father”. I couldn’t control what was boiling inside of me. 

            “Cody, she’s so excited about getting to know this man and bond with him when she doesn’t even know the real him. She said she went to see him alone; think about what could’ve happened, think about what he could’ve done to her,” I cried. At that Cody enveloped me in his arms, rocking me, and said, “I’m sorry. She never told me she went to see him. If I would’ve known I would’ve went with her. You know I would’ve.”

I looked down to my belly, cradled it in my hands, and said, “She has to know what he does, she has to know who Elijah’s father is and how this one came to be. You have to be there to help me when I tell her. If you don’t come she’ll never believe me, she’ll never see the truth through my eyes.” Cody nodded his head in agreement as he rubbed my shoulders to calm me down.

            That night, yes, yet another night I couldn’t sleep I decided to go for a walk. I settled along the edges of a pond, near the outback of woods behind Cody’s house. I had taken my camera with me, missing the need to photograph everything beautiful and harsh in life. As I sat on the warm ground I thought of all the things that had happened recently. Elijah, my son, was back in my life and there was another child on the way. Britt, of all people had become my half-sister within the course of a couple hours, to my knowledge. Also, Cody and I had been on a rocky road on our relationship but hopefully that would change. Of all the good and bad things occurring I knew at least something positive had to come from it all. 

When the sun began to rise I made my way back to the house. When I got there Cody was still asleep in bed. I snapped some pictures of him, for my scrapbook of course, that would be memories for this baby and me to revel in. With that, I realized I hadn’t had much time to think about this baby recently unless it involved my bladder or my appetite. I wondered if the adoptive parents, when we found out who they were, would be loving and if the baby would be better off with them. With the baby due in four months you would think these would be the things I was most worrying about. My thoughts raced with these unanswered questions and the worrying fear that decisions would have to be made soon. I would be facing the loss of another potential child to strangers, at least this time, it would be of my own free will.