Malachi and I

Beep.

Beep.

“She’s crashing!” One of the nurses yelled.

“Again?” Dr. Neecey rushed into the room, the same thing she’d done more than five times over the course of the last two, almost three, weeks. I watched paralyzed in horror as Esther shook on top of the bed, her machines telling me, telling us all that she was dying once again. And just like the five other times, she went limp for a few seconds before her heart restarted on its own.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Dr. Neecey gasped. She, like all the others in the room, was emotionally drained and I said nothing to any of them. Taking the washcloth and the warm bowl of water I brought it closer to her and gently wiped her forehead. Quietly, th

ey all left again one by one.

“Beloved…” Placing my hand over her cheek, I bent over, my face hovering over hers. I had so much to say and yet the only words that crossed my lips were, “Come back, please.”

I was at a loss. Less so than the doctors who had done scans and checked every inch of her, yet she still wasn’t waking up. I was sure now, more than ever, there was nothing they could do and I couldn’t tell them that she was lost in the memories of our past lives. I knew it, I wasn’t sure how I knew it, but something told me she was caught in her own memories. Living and dying over and over again and again. I didn’t know how to bring her back. How to wake up her up. I knew she couldn’t stay here. There was only so much before the doctors would start treating her like a guinea pig.

Maybe she needed to relive all nine hundred and ninety-nine lives before this one? But why? This had never happened before and why just her? What kind of torture was this?

“How long have you been torturing my baby?”

I turned around at the voice, one I wasn’t expecting nor needed to ever hear again. And yet she spoke again, “Esther, sweetheart? It’s mommy.”

Her heels clicked on the ground as she came over to stand at Esther’s bedside. She reached down to touch her but I grabbed her wrist.

“Do not touch her,” I said through my teeth.

“How dare you! Let go!” She screamed at me as she tried to pull her arm away causing all the bangles on her wrist to jingle. Doing as she asked I released her. Putting the washcloth and bin back down on the side table I got up.

“I’m going to say it once: Get out, Diana!”

“You must be mistaken, Mr. Lord,” a bald white man with a gray-white mustache dressed in a three-piece suit said as he walked up beside Diana who smirked and crossed her hands under her fur jacket, as he went continued talking. “I’m not sure what kind of hick hospital this is, but only family should be allowed inside. Are you family, Mr. Lord? Because Diana here is Esther’s mother.”

“Really? When did she decide to be that? It couldn’t have been when she abandoned her daughter as an infant in the dead of winter? Or when she tried to kill her as a toddler or rob her as an adult!”

“YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT ME!”

“LIKE YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT HER!” I couldn’t help but holler at her.

“Neither of that is important!” The cretin beside her squeezed her arm. “Right now, Esther needs to be near family—”

“I AM HER FAMILY.”

“Legally you are not. Unless you both are married and we don’t know it—”

“Excuse me!” Dr. Neecey angrily marched back into the room. “Whatever is going on here should not be happening in front of my patient. Everyone out, now!”

She even looked to me. Biting the inside of my cheek I walked out the room after them and followed them into the hall. Dr. Neecey closed the door behind her as she came out and looked directly at Diana. “And who are you?”

“Diana Noëlle. Esther’s mother, you called me…”

“Seventeen days ago.” Dr. Neecey cut in.

“And yesterday,” the snake of a man beside her added. “You requested her family history. Ms. Noëlle wasn’t aware that her daughter’s case was so serious.”

“Yes,” I added eyeing him carefully. “So serious she brought her lawyer?”

Who knew snakes could smile, but he did as he nodded. “I’m an old friend and yes, a lawyer, here in my friend’s time of need—”

“Bullshit.” I shook my head, looking down at the woman who was now calling herself Esther’s mother. “This has to do with money, right? You came to see if she was dying, not because you cared, not because you have ever cared, but because of her money!”