Frozen in Time

Carla’s last tear tracked down her cheek and froze in the bitter Wisconsin wind. She was tired. Tired of crying. Tired of living. Just tired.

She wasn’t even in pain anymore. With every finalized detail, her pain had grown less until she felt empty and at peace. Today, she had given away her last comic. Tommy would enjoy that one. He loved The Penguin. Her sister Sarah had always been jealous of Carla’s ruby necklace, so Carla left that with the note.

That note was the finest piece of poetry Carla had ever written. She poured the pain out of her wounds onto the paper through her best calligraphy. The parchment had been left immaculate, unlike the mess of Carla’s life. Sarah was the only one who had stuck by Carla in the depths of her grief through all this time.

Her hollow heart tried to start aching again, but Carla wiped the image of her tiny, cold baby in its mother’s pink palm from her mind with extreme prejudice. No more looking back. Instead, she looked forward toward the stone bridge over the bottleneck of the beautiful lake, unceremoniously dubbed “Jerry’s Pond” after a drunk named Jerry had accidentally drowned in it about a century before.

During the spring, summer, and fall, Jerry’s Pond was a wonderland filled with water lilies, teeming with animals, surrounded by lush trees, delectable honeysuckle vines, and riotous flowers of every sort and color. From the timid green buds of April through the glorious heat of summer to the fiery colors of fall leaves, the whole area exploded with vibrant life.

Her boots clunked up the wooden floor of the bridge. She stood at the top of the arch looking down the pond as she had done with Davy the first night they had met, the night he proposed, the night he had gotten her pregnant, and the night he told her that his cancer was back.

Right now, the scene was hushed grey and stark white, like an old TV screen. Nothing moved. The only sounds were whispering wind and the crunch of Carla’s old boots through the iced-over snow. The world looked dead. As dead as Davy, who had fought bravely until the breath and life were utterly drained from his body. As dead as her baby, whom she had lovingly named Melody before she buried the tiny body in a beautiful jewelry box on top of Davy’s grave.

As dead as Carla would be in a few more moments.

Thinking of Davy’s limpid eyes glowing in the moonlight ripped the scab off of her wounds again and filled her with such agony that she screamed like she hadn’t done since she realized that their baby was gone. Fresh tears tracked down her freezing face and she crouched on the floor of the bridge for several moments, her body convulsing with her sobs.

Splintery wood poked up through her pants legs and brought her back to the present and her mission. She blindly groped for the stone wall and slowly pulled herself to her feet. The frozen pond spread out before her, sleeping peacefully. Carla gazed straight down. The water here was never frozen; the flow of the water from the stream was piped through this bottleneck with such speed that it hadn’t frozen over in many years. You could skate at the lower edge of the pond, but a fall into this frigid water would kill you in seconds. It was deep and black like a twilight sky.

The peace of it looked so welcoming. Carla climbed onto the wall.

“Carla!” Sarah’s voice came from a great distance over the snow, startling her. Her foot slipped and she fell into the water below much less gracefully than she had intended her last moments to be.

“Please, Carla, no!” was the last thing she heard as the water closed over her head.

The dark water that had seemed so welcoming from above turned vicious as soon as she was in its grasp. Carla felt as if she was being stabbed all over her body by tiny little knives. All of her muscles seized and bubbles flew upward as the air escaped and fled the violence. Liquid poured down her throat and turned her cold body to ice. Her eyes closed, protecting her from the horrific blackness. She sank into unconsciousness.

An eternity passed.

Warm light pressed against her eyelids, beckoning her to wake. Carla didn’t open her eyes. All of her muscles felt loose and relaxed. She didn’t want to move at all. The sweet scent of honeysuckle filled her nose and sun and dew were kissing her skin. The peaceful sounds of water lapping, birds chirping, and bees busying themselves in the grass sounded like a lullaby soothing her into a peaceful sleep unlike what she’d experienced for the past several years.

Something thumped on the ground a couple of times and rolled to rest on her arm. As relaxed as Carla was, she didn’t want to move, but she felt for the thing and held it up for inspection. It was a soft, yellow pear. She realized that dozens of others were hanging from the branches above her and she was nestled between the roots of the tree. She held it up to her nose and inhaled the sweet smell before biting into the soft flesh. Juice poured into her mouth and dribbled down her cheeks and chin. She licked at what she could, but the languor in her muscles resisted the urge to wipe her warm face and the fruit seemed impossibly heavy in her hands.

Carla let the pear come to rest on her stomach as her eyes drifted closed against the afternoon sun.

She heard a child giggle and a girl’s voice say, “She doesn’t want to get up, does she?”

“No, but let her sleep,” Davy’s voice answered.

Carla’s eyes flew open and she sat up so suddenly that she was dizzy. “Davy!”

Davy and a little girl with a matching limpid gaze sat looking at her in startled amusement. Carla stared at them with wild eyes. She could not comprehend what could be happening right now. After a while, the humor in their eyes seeped away and the little girl darted her gaze from Carla to Davy and back again a few times.

Davy cleared his throat. “Carla? Are you OK?”

“How -?” Carla barely eked the word out and was incapable of saying any more.

Davy scratched the back of his head in that familiar, endearing way he had. “I really don’t know,” he said, shrugging his thin shoulders. He used to be painfully thin and pale from his long illness; he was still slim but glowed radiant with health now.

Carla looked at the girl, who looked to be about four. “Who are you?”

The little girl frowned disapprovingly, as if she was insulted that Carla didn’t know. “Melody,” she answered sulkily.

Carla’s breath was snatched from her body so suddenly that she had to lie back down in the tall grass. Davy and Melody peered down at her after a moment, looking concerned.

“This is impossible,” Carla whispered.

“Yup!” Davy agreed cheerfully in that way he had.

“You- you’re dead. Both of you.”

The little girl nodded so enthusiastically it looked as if she would topple over.

“I wish I had known you were here the whole time,” Carla shouted. “I’d have come so much sooner!”

“No, Carla,” Davy said, sadly. “You’re not meant to be here yet.”

“It’s too soon!” Melody agreed.

“What do you mean?” Carla said. “You left me ages ago!”

“I know,” he told her, brushing her hair off her cheeks. “But you have so much more living to do.”

“I don’t want to live without you,” she cried, launching herself into his warm embrace. He felt warm and familiar. His shirt smelled just as she remembered it – crisp cotton, herbs, and chemicals from all of his medicines and the cleansers his mother used. She could finally feel his lean boniness and run her fingers through his shaggy hair that always managed to tumble into his eyes, no matter how often he brushed it back. Now that she was cradled in his arms, the pain was gone, not numbed but truly healed.

“But what about my brother!” Melody demanded.

Carla startled and looked at Melody. “Brother?”

Davy laid a hand on her cheek. “I know life has been rough. I know you want it to just stop hurting.” Carla squeezed her eyes shut against what he was saying but he waited until she looked at him again. “You have so much more living to do.”

“But I don’t want to live without you!”

“Mommy, you have to!” Melody wailed. “I want a baby brother!” She put her head on Carla’s shoulder and wept like her heart was going to break.

Carla snuggled her warm little body close, reveling in the feeling of finally being able to hold her baby. Davy held out a hand to her and they walked in silence for a while. Carla carried Melody for a time until the little girl struggled to get down. With the enthusiastic energy that small children had, she played around their feet as they walked along, talking and kissing. Carla and Davy laughed at her antics until their sides ached.

When the sunset turned the golden meadow orange with deep purple shadows, Davy said, “It’s time for you to go home.”

She looked over at Davy. “I don’t want to give you two up.”

“If you don’t, you’ll never know what else life has to offer. There’s death and pain, sure – I had that too – but don’t you remember what I told you before I left for the hospital?”

Carla thought hard, but all she could remember was the desolation of his leaving her. She shook her head guiltily.

Davy looked disappointed for a moment, then he grinned, “Well, you were crying pretty hard….”

Carla pushed his shoulder playfully.

“I told you I was jealous of you.”

“I’ve been so jealous of you since you’ve been gone,” Carla admitted. “How could you be jealous of me?”

“Because you get to live,” he said, his face going dark. “Really live. I was only 16 when I died. I had barely begun living. I didn’t get to do anything.”

“I never got to live at all!” Melody piped up. She jumped up looking enraged.

Davy began spitting words out in a way she had never heard him speak before. “You can travel, spend money, change your life, see your parents, smell the ocean,” he continued with a litany of experiences as Carla became more and more frightened of the change in him.

The idyllic, sunshiny meadow darkened and a cold wind whipped through the grass. Gradually he grew bigger and taller and darker until he towered over her like a mountain shouting in a voice so loud and deep that she could no longer understand what he said to her. The thundering sound shook the ground so that Carla fell to her knees.

“Why are you doing this?!” Carla screamed up at him.

Melody walked toward her out of the terrible darkness. She had grown tall and impossibly thin; her shoulders and hips jutted out at strange angles and her fingers were long and sharp as knives. Carla dropped to her knees and cowered, wishing to disappear entirely. Melody reached out and grabbed her forcing Carla to look into her dark, horrible visage.

“How dare you take life for granted?!” Melody screamed, her black teeth inches from Carla’s face. “You can do anything but you’re living in a tiny hole!”

Carla’s terror finally got the better of her and she wrenched away from Melody’s grasp. She ran desperately away from the two of them, stumbling through the dark. She could barely her feet hitting the ground over the pounding of her own heart and the roaring of the wind. Melody’s shrieks and the thunder of Davy’s tirade followed her as well.

Then, Carla’s foot didn’t hit the hard ground. She tumbled into water so hot it felt as if she would boil alive. Carla opened her mouth to scream and the scalding water eagerly flowed down her throat, silencing any noise she might have made. As if that wasn’t bad enough, several pale hands came out of the blackness and seized her by the hair, arms, and legs and dragged her deeper into the water until she passed out.

She sputtered to life, her mouth held open at an odd angle and gagged on something in her throat.

“Carla! Thank God,” Sarah said, springing up from beside the bed. “Don’t struggle, now. I’ll go get the nurse.” She went to the door and yelled, “My sister’s awake!”

People poured in from the hall and began poking and prodding Carla. Someone finally pulled that tube from her throat so she could ask and answer questions. She held a hand out to Sarah.

“I’m so sorry,” Carla said, her voice raspy from the tube. “I’ve been living in a hole.” Carla’s eyes drifted shut as exhaustion overtook her.

Tears spilled down Sarah’s cheeks as she rubbed Carla’s hand.

“Are you all right?” one of the nurses asked.

Sarah nodded. “She’s going to be OK,” she whispered.