Be All Mine

It was like a symphony drum beating only loud enough for me to sense it, not fully hear it. I hoped it was real, but the whole world was white around me as I lay on my back staring up. Or maybe I was on my stomach staring down...There was no indication of where up or down truly was. “Is this supposed to be death?” I asked, but I didn't vocalize it through my lips. It was as if it came from my head and was just amplified across the white vicinity.

I couldn't move, and I didn't think I was supposed to. Maybe this was my own personal hell. The biggest fear I'd ever had growing up was being alone, and here I was, sprawled out in a bright nothingness of vast proportions. Matt wasn't laying next to me, but I felt like I was supposed to reach in some direction for him. There was a dull pull, much like a magnet, in my left arm, and I began to try and force my arm towards the pull. It wasn't moving, and as hard as I was trying, I wasn't doing anything at all.

“Is this hell?” I sobbed to myself, though tears never flowed, only a thicker substance much like how a soul would be portrayed if it was a liquid. Somehow, without trying, I touched my face and could see that my fingers were fading away. “What is this?”

My wrist began to fade as well and I tried to claw at the ground, or what I believed to be the ground. I screamed, hoping that someone or something would hear me. “Mikey!” I shouted, as the beating of drums hammered harder this time, my right arm now fading from my sight as well. “Mikey! Mathew! SOMEONE! Help me! Please!”

With the sudden flicker of my eyelids opening, and closing, I was staring at the ceiling of a hospital room, fluorescent lights blinding me as I threw up an arm to block its beams. My head was throbbing, but that wasn't where the drum-like sounds were coming from. Somehow, i knew they had nothing to do with me or my body. They weren't within me; they were outside of my room somewhere, I could feel it.

Once I was accustomed to the light, I turned my head to the right, realizing I was laying in a hospital bed with monitors and needles hooked up to me. I had breathing tubes down my nostrils, and I began to cough uncontrollably.

“Audrey? Audrey!” shouted Mathew, as he ran around the bed and bent over me to make sure he wasn't losing his mind. He ran tot he door of the room and yelled for a doctor down the hall.

What's that drumming? Where is it coming from? I kept coughing, my throat growing painful from my muscles trying to push it out of my body and through my mouth. I grabbed at my throat in fear. Was I about to wake up from a coma only to die from the in ability to breathe?

An older man, roughly fifty, ran into the room and quickly unplugged the breathing tube from the machine, which gave me a little more reassurance, though I was still coughing. He lowered my head and told me to quiet down and just relax. “I'm going to take it out, just be patient, Miss Woodrow,” he said, voice calm and melodic as I followed his instructions to the best of my ability.

I felt the rube running out of my throat slowly as he eased it, and I finally gasped when I could catch my breath once more. Matt grabbed my hand hurriedly and informed the doctor that he could go get Mark and Mikey from the waiting room.

He smoothed back the hair on my face and I witnessed the drop of tears from his cheeks onto my chest as he cried above me. Matt kissed my forehead, my cheeks, and then my lips as I rested his face in my palms. I wanted nothing more than to just feel him close to me again, to smell the scent of his cologne and after-shave.

“I thought you weren't going to make it,” he said softly, hands on either side of my face as I dropped my hands to his arms. “I was...Audrey, I was scared you were dead already.”

“I believed I was,” I added, voice rough and coarse from having not used my voice in what must have been a long time, and also because I'd just had a fight with a breathing tube. “It was so white, Matt. Everything was white. And I couldn't move. I was so alone...So Alone...I screamed for Mikey, and for you, but all I can hear is this soft pounding, and I hear it even now. Matt? What about the twins? They okay?”

Matt was about to speak when Mark and Mikey ran in the room, Mark holding Mikey and leaning him towards me so I could reach out for him and cuddle him close to me. I kissed his head all over and didn't let go; I wouldn't let go until he told me to.

“I missed you, mommy,” Mikey cried, arms around my neck, making it throb again. I didn't tell him though; I just wanted to keep holding him.

“Oh honey,” I sobbed. “I missed you, too. I was so scared. I love you, Mikey. I love you.” I kept retracing my hand along the line of his face because I was afraid that this may still be apart of that nightmare, and that this would be the last time I ever remember him at all.

Mark leaned down and kissed my forehead as he said, “You gave me a scare, there, Audrey. I thought you were gone forever. I'm so sorry for what I said, Audrey. I never realized how badly I cared for you until this happened. I'm so sorry. I stressed you out too much and this is what happened. I'm so sorry, babe.”

“Don't do that Mark,” I whispered.

“Do what?” he asked quizzically, eyebrows furrowed.

I closed my eyes as I replied, “Don't blame yourself for anything. It was my own fault. I got angry and everything seemed to just bubble over when I did. It's just this whole thing with Brent, I can't take it anymore. I didn't know what I should do, or what I was going to do.”

“Why were you mad?” Mark asked, as I looked over at Matt to quiet him, but I was too late.

Matt sighed and confessed, “I pissed her off, Mark. I didn't listen to her and started making judgments right away. She got angry with me and stressed herself out.”

Mark stood straight up and rounded the bed to stand in front of Matt. He shoved Matt as I snapped at him to stop. He just started to yell: “What the fuck is wrong with you, Matt?! She's pregnant and you're shouting at her like some lunatic? I said to take care of her, not send her into premature labor!”

The room grew still as I gasped. They both turned to look at me as my eyes brimmed with tears. Shaking my head, I said, “I went into premature labor? Why...What happened? Where are my children? SOMEONE ANSWER ME GOD DAMN IT!”

Mark shook his head and said calmly, “We don't know, Audrey. The doctors are still taking care of them.”

I started to cry hysterically as Mark took Mikey and told him to go fetch my mother from the waiting room. Mikey followed his orders and hesitantly left the room.

Mark rested his hand on my shoulder gently and I pulled away angrily. He tried to calm me, but I was no longer in the room; I was drifting within my own soul, wishing I was somewhere else. I was hoping this was just some horrid dream that was a result from eating too much sugary foods before bed. In two minutes I would wake up, Matt's body curled up against my own as I smiled and put my head back down on the pillow. It head to happen. Life could never be this horrible, could it? Would God really take away two innocent children because I'd lost my temper at some measly mistake? Was this punishment for telling Matt to go fuck himself, for telling myself I didn't need him? Was this all karma?

I wiped my tears on the backs of my hands and mumbled, “Why?” to myself over and over again as my mother walked in the room, my father not far behind. I demanded to only have them in the room, because, honestly, they were the only ones I could stand to look at right then. Matt and Mark could fight in the lobby if they wanted to, but not while I was like this.

My mom smoothed the back of her hand over my forehead as I sat up and let her and my dad hold me in a tightly-knit hug, all three of us holding so tightly that I felt like were starting to become entwined.

“Mom,” I wailed, as she pulled me closer to her, my dad stepping back. He knew that this was an issue that would deal more closely to women, especially a mother and her daughter, so he stood behind and just lowered his head.

“You're okay, Audrey,” my mom said, trying to smile through her own tears and hold my head against her chest. I wrapped my arms around her as she added, “Everything will turn out okay. I promise you that. I promised you that when we adopted you, remember? Nothing will ever hurt you, so long as I am your mother. I love you, Audrey Woodrow. You'll always be my Audrey.”

Gripping her shirt in my hands tightly, I tried to calm myself down as much as possible. The only images that kept popping up in my head were of babies sitting still in a hospital basin somewhere, they're hair blond and thin, eyes closed. I will not believe they're dead; they aren't dead, I kept saying to myself, as my mom parted from my reach, laying me down on my side so I could try and rest.

I didn't want to rest. In one of these hospital rooms my sons, my daughters, whatever the combination may be, they were struggling to live. Somewhere close, they're faint heart beats were rapid and painful. Their heartbeats...

That's what I was hearing within my head; it was my children. They were telling me they were going to live by the way the heartbeats were always so steady and melodic. My children were breathing; they were alive. I could feel it, and I smiled, the sound of the door closing behind me as I lay on my left side.

“I know I'm the last person you want to talk to right now, Audrey,” came Matt's voice, as I rolled over to look at him. “But I can't stand being away from you anymore.”

Reaching out for Matt, I smiled and pulled him close. He got into the hospital bed beside me and wrapped his arms around my weak body as he kissed my neck and shoulder. “I thought I lost you,” he cried, body shaking as he wailed.

“I'm here, Matt,” I said softly. “I'm still here. Don't worry. I'll always be here. And...I know the twins are okay. I can feel it. The drumming in my head, it's them. I know it is. They're still fighting. And so am I.”

Matt stared at me oddly and paused for a minute. Then: “Should we go see them?”

Heart busting at the seems, I cried, “Please...Can we, Matt? I need to see them. I want to know what they look like. We have to.”

Matt left my side just long enough to go get a doctor, and I sat up weakly, a nurse entering the room with a wheelchair as Matt assisted me into it, my hair scraggly and all over the place, probably plastered to my face from tears and sweat. I could hear their heartbeats grow louder and louder as we rolled down the hallway, my parents talking to Mark and Mikey as I smiled reassuringly and let Matt wheel me to the wing that dealt with the sick infants.

The sight of the room was scary just to see from outside of the glass, with wires and glass boxes and rubber gloves all around. Monitors and other machinery were hooked up to various incubators, and I prayed that no other woman would have to go through this like I was. To not ever see your children is horrible, but to see your baby lying helpless and hooked into all sorts of devices so they can breathe and eat, that's heart breaking.

“You had a girl and a boy,” my doctor informed me, leading us to the back of the room where two incubators were stashed next to one another.

Without really caring what they wanted me to do, I grabbed a hold of Matt's shoulder and forced myself to stand up, legs wobbling and struggling to use what little strength I had left. After crying whole-heartedly forever, you lose a lot of ambition and strength in your body.

They were both so small, maybe only six pounds, skin pale and sickly, every vein in their body evident. The boy bore thick, dark brown hair like my natural color, and he opened his eyes juts long enough to let me witness the gorgeous blue of them. The only name I knew that I wanted to name him spilled out of my mouth quietly. “Mathew.”

I looked over at the girl and caught my breath. She was blond, with what looked like blue-green eyes exactly the same as Mark's. She didn't hold them all of the way open, but when i stepped close I could see it just enough. I slipped my arms into the little incubator and gently smoothed her hair. My hands shook from the fear that I might lose something so precious and so small. They were both so innocent. I was always taught that God sometimes took away things to teach us meaning within his works, but what did taking away two children ever really teach?

I turned around towards the doctor and asked, “Are they stable? Can I hold them?”

The doctor shook his head and said, “I'm sorry, but they shouldn't really be touched by anyone right now. But yes, they're heartbeats are stable as well as their breathing. They're only half done, when you look at it. They have a long way to go, Ms. Woodrow.”

I looked back at my children and touched their glass beds gently. “It's okay,” I whispered to them. “Mommy's here. I'm right here.”

The only reassurance I got from either one of them was a small motion in their face that looked like a smile, and I copied their new feeling, a tear rolling down each cheek as I took a seat back in the wheelchair.