What We Found | Fillie

To be a Family I

On the morning of January 11, 2024, Millie wakes with her heart pounding rapidly in her cramped chest. A layer of cold sweat coats every inch of her skin. She had been having a nightmare that she hasn't had in a very long time and she despises that it's reared it's grim and joyless head once more.

The nightmare that makes her relive what is absolutely the worst night of her life, the night she lost her son, is a nightmare she's had countless times with various small alterations that usually just made it more bleak, but this time was almost the worst because it was an exact reenactment of the awful night. A cut-by-cut reproduction that felt just as real as when it happened.  

The only consolation for Millie, and the reason her heart is pounding so fast, is that after the nightmare ended, she saw her son.

This happened once before but she was sure it would never happen again. At times of self doubt she even questioned whether it really happened at all, but after this time she'll never question it again. She can't. She can't because this time, Finn was there too.

She sits up as best she can with her obtrusive mid-section and looks down to her boyfriend who is just starting to stir. Like last time, she knows she won't forget any of the dream, if that's even what it was, but she needs to write it down. Just in case.

She attempts to calm her breathing then thinks back to the beginning, when she came out of her nightmare and felt herself about to wake up but she didn't want to yet. Waking up meant having to deal with the foreboding birth of her daughter and her now enormous stomach that makes even laying down torturous. No, she preferred to linger in the purgatory of her unconscious mind just a little while longer.

And that's when she heard him. . .

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The swirling tones of a toddler's british-accented voice whisps into Mille's ears before she can even see where she is. She can't decipher any specific words, just a sound that calms her heart and draws her closer to it. Her eyes pop open and she's  greeted with the vision of a large green field speckled with little red poppies like sprinkles on a cupcake. The poppy sprinkled field seems to bleed on forever into the distance with a fluffy, white cloud filled, bright blue sky lying upon it like a blanket of happiness. About ten paces away is a little boy, slightly older than three, looking at the poppies around him, talking to them as if they are his friends.

The boy is dressed in jean overalls with a short sleeved patterned shirt underneath and bare feet. His head is topped with chestnut colored ringlets that fall to his brow line and shade his warm and familiar mahogany eyes.

There is no doubt in Millie's mind that the boy is her son because he looks exactly like she remembers, just older. His inherited features are more pronounced and she can see both her and Finn even more clearly in his little ever-smiling face. A smile that she sees everyday on Finn. A smile that rebukes any sadness that dares to dismantle it. A smile she hopes her daughter will inherit as well.

"Mummy!" the little boy yells when he notices her watching him, waving a small hand above his head, taking off on his little toddler legs, reaching her in seconds.

The young mother drops down to her knees to catch her son and as he jumps into her arms that wrap him in all her love, she realizes her stomach is unmistakably flat. A small panic sets in before Oliver, being the astute little boy he is, recognizes the look of confusion on his mom's face and informs her, "She's okay, she's with you there. Here it's just you."

Millie releases a relieved breath then inhales until her lungs are fully replete. A euphoric feeling she hasn't had in months due to her lungs being squashed up in her chest along with other organs in order to make room for her growing daughter below.