Page 68 of Devil's Work: Dark

She lifts her head to look my way just as a nurse wearing blue scrub pants and a Rugrats snap front smock enters, and my heart practically stops. “Mom?” I whisper. It can’t be my mom. She’s been dead for years. But it is. She’s young and beautiful and alive—and I remember this moment. Looking around the room, I spy the little girl sitting on the ugly vinyl sofa. Me. A toddler holding a baby doll.

“Rae,”my mom—my mom with the same dark hair and hazel eyes as Del and me says and I start to walk toward her when the little girl smiles up at her. “Come sit with me and your baby sister.”

My heart swells. I’ve missed my mom so badly over the years and now here she is right in front of me. She’d never looked more beautiful to me than she did on this day. For the rest of my life whenever I thought about my mom, I’d pictured her just like this, her eyes twinkling, beaming with pride as she held both her girls in her arms.

“Sissy,” the little girl says, hopping down off the sofa, running over to the bed, where the nurse helps her up onto the bed. Little Rae bends down to kiss the baby’s head.

“It’s your job now,” my mom tells little Rae, “to take care of Dela. You and me. She’s your baby sister. It’s a big responsibility, sweetheart, but I know you will make me proud.”

My job.

The room becomes smoky and when it clears from in front of my eyes, I’m hiding in the closet with Dela tucked under my arm. Well, tucked under a six-year-old Rae’s arm. Screaming, the loud, painful kind sounded outside the closet. I remember this day, too. It was the day that mom… The next thing I know, Dela and I are sitting on chairs, wearing black. Mom’s casket sits at the front and off to the side of the big room in the funeral home. Dela has her head tucked against my neck. I’m not crying. I’m comforting Dela, shushing her, telling her everything is going to be okay because I’m there and I’m her big sister. It’s my job to take care of her.

In the next blink of an eye, we’re standing on the porch of Great-Aunt Blanche’s house. The first place we went after Mom’s death. She opens the door, glances down at Dela and me, then back to the woman from CPS.

“Well, don’t just stand there,” Blanche says. “Come in.” Blanche looked about a hundred years old to my young eyes. A hard woman who showed her heart through cooking. She was the one who first taught me how to cook. Her curly, black wig contrasted greatly to her wrinkled skin and silver-gray eyebrows. And the hairy mole on her cheek. She held her plump arm up with the skin hanging to motion us in.

From there, it’s a montage of events in my life. From when Blanche died, to each of the houses Dela and I ended up living in for however long. My high school graduation, where only Dela cheered me on. Her high school graduation, where she had me with a big sign, shouting my fool head off.

Then there’s Jim. My breath hitches. It feels so real. The day I walked over to his table and asked to take his order. His bright eyes hit me first. His smile gleamed under the diner lights. His dark hair shined and I felt the urge to sift it between my fingers.

“What can I get you?” I ask.

“I’ll have the cheeseburger and fries, a coke, and your number.”

A hundred dates drift in and out of view. The day he brings me home to meet his dad, his mom had already passed away from cancer by this point. The day he walks me to his tiny matchbox of a college apartment, where we make love for the first time. My very first time. I felt so loved that night. Next, the night of his college graduation, where he gets down on one knee and asks me to be his wife. The pretty, flowery dress I bought for his graduation gets tossed to the floor after I sayyes, and we spend the rest of the night celebrating.

The day his father walks me down the aisle with Dela in the lead as my maid of honor. The day we bury his father after his heart attack. The day I tell him I’m expecting. We’re going to be parents.

He gathers me into his arms and spins me around in a circle, smiling, tears filling his eyes. “I love you, Rae Conrad—best day of my life is when I met you.”

Then there we’re in the hospital, he’s on the bed next to me. I’m holding Ty and Jim’s arm is around me, his other hand cupping Ty’s head gently. We named Ty after Jim’s father. Tears run down my cheeks.

The day we move into the brand new house, it’s raining. A warm, summer rain. The three of us sing, “Ring Around the Rosie” in the front yard, getting soaked. Not long after, I tell him I’m pregnant with Lacy.

I don’t like re-watching the day the police came to tell me Jim had died, or the subsequent lawsuits. Or being forced to move to Bentley. But the day Lacy is born is a beautiful day. Ty sits on my bed. He bends down to kiss her head gently. “You’re a big brother now, Ty.”

He nods.

“It’s a big responsibility. It’s your job to help keep Baby Girl safe when Mumma can’t be there.”

“I will, Mumma,” he promises. More tears.

There’s the day Dela moves.

There’s Nashville.

And then there’s Dark. My heart speeds. It’s hard to catch a breath or form a coherent thought from the moment our eyes meet.

The way he steps up. He’s gruff. He’s moody. He’s beautiful.

God, there we are sitting in the back of the cafeteria for the parents’ meet up. His hand making me feel better than I have in years. There are so many nerves on the drive home. But the first time he fucks me, it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. And then, when he tells me I’m his…

I knew that night I’d be his for the rest of my life.

Chuck E. Cheese’s.

The pool at Nic and Vlad’s place.

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