Wrong Kind of Love

A huge house peeks out from behind the palm trees and island foliage. White with bright-blue plantation shutters and a terracotta tiled roof.

"Damn, boy," Marney mumbles on his way up the wooden steps that lead to the front door.

The inside is breathtaking. Tall ceilings with tall windows. Everything is new and perfect, and pain squeezes my chest because Jude did this for us. And he’ll never see it.

I place my bag on the floor, and with every room I pass through, my heart hurts a little more until I step into one room that completely shatters it. The room at the end of the hall is a nursery. Intricate fairy tales painted on the wall, the ceiling covered with stars, and in the corner of the room, a crib with gossamer netting.

He should be here, doing this with me. I hate that any trace of happiness I feel is countered with the sad thought that Jude isn’t here to experience it with me. He’ll never put his little girl down in that crib or spend hours cradling her in the chair.

“I can’t believe he did this,” I whisper.

The floorboards creak as Marney steps into the room. “He wanted to surprise you.”

I swallow the lump in my throat, remembering the words he wrote in that letter. I have to accept it and move on, both for my sake and our child, and yet, I don't think I ever truly can. Part of me thinks it would be easier if Jude were dead. It would be the worst pain imaginable, but I would grieve and be forced to carry on. Knowing he's there but never being able to touch him again, it's the worst kind of torture.

Marney’s hand squeezes my shoulder. “Come on, little darlin’, why don’t we go sit on the porch? Take in the view?”

I sit on the porch until the sun dips below the turquoise waters, thinking about what it would have been like had Jude and I made it here months ago. The baby kicks, and I rub a hand over my stomach, attempting to soothe her. As the sunlight fades, stars appear in the darkening sky. This place is beautiful, and yet, it feels infinitely empty because he’s not here. It seems impossible that one man could become my entire world in the matter of a few months, and even more impossible to imagine a life without him. A contraction tightens my stomach. I sit up, trying to breathe through it as a shred of panic works its way through me. The pain ebbs and flows, then stop, only to start again.

Shit. I push up from the patio chair and head inside, trying to calm my nerves. No, I don’t have a doctor here, and that was something I thought through before I left. It’s not that I’m afraid to deliver the baby on my own. I’m not. It’s the fear of the baby possibly needing a doctor that worries me, but there are hospitals on the island. Through the sliding glass door, I can see Marney perched on the edge of the sofa, his attention focused on the TV. It’s not until I step into the living room that I can see the screen. A news crew zooms in on a swarm of police officers and canine units combing the tall grass behind a charred, overturned vehicle. The camera cuts to a young female news reporter.

"We’ve been told at three-thirty this afternoon, this detention service vehicle veered off the road in a fatal crash. The vehicle was transporting three high-security criminals, Marcus Banes, Romero Gonzales, and Jude Pearson, who were being transferred to a maximum-security prison. Banes, Pearson, and two prison officers were killed on impact. It's believed that the third prisoner, Gonzales escaped. A police search is now taking place.”

An ugly sob tears up my throat, and Marney’s attention snaps away from the TV. “Oh, shit.” He shoots up from the couch, quickly rounding it and taking me in his arms. It’s not enough to stop me from shattering into a thousand pieces, though. I cling to Marney, holding onto him like he can ground me in the midst of this utter destruction.

"You'll be okay,” he whispers, and from the strained tone of his voice, I can tell he’s crying. “We’ll be okay.”

But I won’t. There are only so many times that a person can keep being okay. And that’s when my waters break.

37

Jude

The soft pinks of sunrise are beginning to creep over the ocean, and I’ll be damned if the first sunrise I witness as a dead man isn’t the most breathtaking I’ve seen. Not because of the color or how the rising sun catches on the waves, but because a free man knows how to appreciate things they thought they’d lost.

I hurry along the cobblestone path toward the back deck, stopping on the last patio paver to lift the corner of it up. I breathe a sigh of relief when my gaze lands on the spare key. I’d been worried Marney may have seen the news and taken the damn thing up…