Adam - A Novella

Epilogue

The smell of smoke was growing intense.

As I pulled my car into my trailer park, I realized that my cigarette was not the only thing clogging up the air. Flames were dying down on the other side of the park, and I couldn't help but wonder what neighbor of mine started the fire, and how. I hope it wasn't Bertha and Joanne. Mavia loves hanging out with the small girl, and Bertha shares delightful recipes.

I looked in my rearview mirror at my daughter tapping her Barbies happily along her lap. She babbled, like she was talking for them, and I couldn't help but smile at the innocence she managed to have, after all the crap we've been through. At least, life is finally starting to go right again.

The fire was closer now, and fire trucks were blocking me from entering the road by my house. I sighed, pulling over dangerously close to the ditch. My eyes were failing to process what I was seeing as I peered past the large red vehicles, to my home, mine, completely engulfed in flames.

I barely remembered to turn off the car as I jumped out of the car, squeezing in between the trucks and uselessly trudging over to my home, which was no longer a home, but a horrifying Firestarter of black wood, ashy dead plants, and burnt belongings set ablaze. I couldn't get any closer without feeling my eyebrows burn off.

"Mother? What's going on?" My daughter, who'd caught up to me, tugged on my arm gently, but I instinctively ripped it out of her short grip. I began to run to my home, but I tripped over boxes, and my elbows scraped against the gravel.

"Adam! Honey‽" My voice began to give out as I screamed, and Mavia whined in panicked confusion behind me.

"Woah, ma'am. Please stand clear." A tall, thick man with overly hairy arms that poked through his suit helped me to my feet and guided me back near my car. "Is this your home?"

"Yes. My son and husband could be inside." My voice kept pitching, but it was the least of my worries.

"Oh. Yes, we found two bodies inside. They've expired; they're near the ambulance over there if you're looking for more information. That's all I know about them. I'm so sorry for your tragedy." He pointed as if directing me to a restaurant and not the dead bodies of my love and oldest child.

I ran toward the ambulance, my heels slipping off my feet as I ran. I could feel crimson liquid rush down my feet, legs, and arms, but all I could focus on was the two black masses by an array of men in bright gold uniforms. Before I even asked, I knew it was them. My son's arm was dangling off the stretcher, and through all the burns, I could see a faint grafting scar when he sawed his own arm open.

My husband is dead.

My son is dead.

My home is gone.

I turned around and saw my daughter lugging the boxes I tripped on over toward the car silently. It didn't take much examination to recognize it was our stuff. Saved from the fire. I know the fire department didn't have time to save it, or even know what to save. I felt my heart beat out of control as I began to realize.

This fire was not accidental. It was set intentionally.

It didn't take much deciphering to figure out what happened. I know it was my fault that whatever went down went down. I couldn't keep Adam's secret safe. I knew I should have been more careful with the knowledge that he was dating someone that my husband believed was the reincarnation of the devil. I angered Augustus. I betrayed Adam. Now neither of them are around to be angry anymore.

I knew what I had to do, and it's a long and painful process, yet known. But all I could do was fall to my knees, clutching my son's hand, still warm. I couldn't tell if it was his body heat or the fire. The more I turned the grotesque phalange around in my palm, the less chalky skin I felt, and the more stripped bone, decrepit muscles, and tendons coated in sticky blood that reminded me of chicken bones became clearer.

The paramedics stood around, on the phone or preparing the ambulance, in no rush. There was no need for a rush. There was no saving my family. One turned toward me and briefly asked his coworker what they should do about me, but whatever the response was, I didn't hear. Sirens overwhelmed my ears and the smell of roasted flesh and metal from the trailer, still aflame, to my right clogged my nostrils.

No one came to pull me away from my son, or maybe they didn't see me. I was still on my knees, barely in view, hidden by my husband, who I don't think I could look at right now. I tugged Adam's arm closer and heard a slight pop which scared the crap out of me. His forearm dangled by a thread, probably a few remaining nerve ends or more tendons. It got close to me but reminded me of zombie movies. To be pulled toward me, it had to twist at a weird angle, and made me think of when Augustus had broken Adam's arm as a little boy, and how he had came to me screaming, presenting his lower forearm bending the complete wrong way. Unlike then, there was no cast that could fix this.

In fear his arm would come off completely and I'd be holding my son's arm independent from his cadaver, I gently laid it back over the top sheet, holding what was left of his fingers to his heart. The paramedics only now stepped in, gently gesturing me to the side so I could stay with them and grieve, without messing with their work. But really, wasn't this my work? This was my child. I should be able to hold him like a mannequin to my chest and let his blood seep into my shirt to be crusted and eventually washed out. He was mine, I made him. Half of the cells that are dying, spilling out over everything in this little side street, have my genetic coding. He was my baby boy.

Was.

The paramedics slipped his arm under the sheet properly and nodded at each other before directing my husband's gurney to the second ambulance, which was even farther away, and preparing themselves on opposite sides of my son's. An "Alright, raise." and a mechanical whirr were barely heard over all the other sounds surrounding me, even though I was closest to them, as the metal crossed legs extended to the height of the ambulance and the Stryker gliding system swiftly rolled him back. One little jiggle of the stretcher to double check the lock, and suddenly, I could no longer see him, as the doors were quickly shut. The ambulance was powered on, slowly following the other ambulance which had already begun down the road. I was not offered to come with. Instead, I was left standing alone on the side of the path, bloody and abandoned.

The feeling of my son's skin peeling off of him like an orange felt glued to my hand. The realization that my son was no longer my son anymore, but the paramedic's dead patient, racked my brain, failing to process. The second I turn around, aware of this completely, I no longer have a son. I had a son.

I had a husband as well. I'm widowed now. I've been dreaming of being a single woman for years, but not once in any of my lowest dreams did I imagine this. This tragedy, this nightmare.

I'm a failure of a parent. I'm a failure of a wife.

I glanced back at my daughter, still alive, breathing, with her skin still intact and her innards still hidden. She's clutching her Barbies by her side and staring at me for answers I don't have.

I stand up miserably, the cold nipping at my stained, fancy short-sleeved shirt and thin velvet skirt. I tried to brush my hair out of my face, but the wind kept throwing the dark mess right back into it. Still, I pulled one of my hair ties around my scalp, collecting my thin locks into a ponytail, something I haven't worn for years. I approached my daughter and wrapped my arms around her for a hug that I couldn't feel. She dropped the plastic dolls and tightened herself against me, silently sobbing into my shoulder. I didn't feel that, either, only an uncomfortable feeling of void eating away at me. Like I'd lost something and can't find it anywhere; like something is stuck on the tip of my tongue, needing to come out, but I can't remember what it is.

Eventually, Mavia pulled away from me, searching my expression for guidance. I hope she found something, and I hope she'll share it with me sometime. I glanced into her eyes for a moment, as if trying to find my son or husband in her, but it was only her, closing the window to her soul and locking the shutters. Still, she's here. She's not going anywhere.

I still had one more shot to be a successful parent. She's my child too. She's my work too. And she deserves what I could never give her brother. This gut-wrenching void of pain won't go away for a while. I know that. The urge to find something that's missing may be chronic. But I know if Adam wanted anything from me right now, it'd be to give her everything I have, and even what I don't.

I'll do it right. For Mavia.

And for Adam.

THE END