I looked down at my wrist. The amulet, snugly wrapped around it, radiated with magical energy. It was time.
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Tears dripped from my eyes. The child in front of me was perfect and peaceful, but eerily still.
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Grandma and grandpa should’ve watched him better. They were always such miserable people, constantly bickering about inconsequential drivel. She was always tittering on about the latest from church, over-explaining basic recipes, or making sure I had all my husband’s passwords so I’d be ok financially in case he died. For his part, Grandpa was always grumbling. A subterfuge of aggression and control whispered through his every action—even when he played with the grandchildren. On the off chance he was in a good mood, it was because he was reading another World War II memoir.
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Uncle and auntie should’ve been less fake. To the untrained eye, their relationship looked perfect. In reality, he was a frat boy turned oversexed military drone, and she was a stepford wife. Every night, he would invent flashy games full of shouting and trickery. They were funny and exciting and they swept everyone off their feet. As he played with the cousins, auntie hobknobbed and bustled with the best of them, rustled up meals in a jiffy, and checked that everything was organic and sulfate free. She gritted her teeth as she smiled through an incessant masquerade of selfies, always documenting how deeply happy and strong they all were as a family, and how marrying uncle definitely hadn’t been a huge mistake.
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The cousins should’ve been less bratty. Even at the young age of three, nephew was already an attention-deprived pain in the butt whose only coping mechanism was roaring like a t-rex. No matter the situation—whether mealtime, playtime, tv time, or bath time—all nephew knew how to do was stick out his hands out with pointer and middle fingers bared, teeth fiercely gnashing, yelling in his underwear. It was overdone, irritating, and focus-shattering. Meanwhile, niece, barely 6 months old, was perhaps the only person present with a genuine heart still beating in her chest. Her smile brought life and joy to every room. It was unfortunate that she was genuinely the ugliest baby I had ever seen in my life. Her chubby little face looked like a plump elderly woman with dementia, and her sparse hair always made her appear like a half-eaten muppet.
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And I—Maybe I should’ve been more honest with myself. My family and I had had frosty relations ever since I left my government contractor job in order to follow my heart. They pretended to be ok with me superficially so we could “have a good time” together, but deep down I could feel their chagrin at my audacity. We’d been trying for years, but they never listened, and never changed. Maybe I should’ve spurned my family’s invitation, told them that the decades’ worth of words unspoken were too great a challenge to overcome, and quietly disowned them.
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I should’ve spoken sooner. If only I’d spoken sooner—maybe we wouldn’t have been there at all.
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But I hadn’t. I hadn’t said anything. I had smiled and gritted my teeth and dug in my heels and agreed to a month away from my loving husband and my little girl, taking the abuse on the chin. While I was sitting there, dissociating, imagining a time in the future when everything would be different and my new family and I would be happy and together again, my beautiful baby boy wandered off, found the edge of the freshly-poured new swimming pool, and shattered his spine.
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He was just a little baby boy—he hardly even knew how to walk. With him, every experience was new and exciting. Every corner presented a new adventure, and whether that adventure was grandma’s pots and pans or cousin’s monster trucks, he approached it with waving arms and shrieks of glee.
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The edge of that pool must’ve seemed the grandest adventure of all—worth a twirl of the heel and a spring in the step.
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He didn’t know the edge was also dangerous. He didn’t know he couldn’t survive that fall.
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Yelling, forgetting phones and keys, unable to remember names, numbers, or addresses, we followed the paramedics to the hospital. In the mad rush for the miraculous, I sank into a black hole of grief. Eventually, their words stopped making sense to me.
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“Shattered spine”—“life support”—“the call is yours.” How could any of these phrases be words that applied to my perfect angel?
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“Forms to fill out”—“Did I want to spend some time with the child?”—“Take your time.” …as though paperwork could ever define the light that was his life…as though any amount of time could ever be enough to fill the hole inside of me…as though that was something I had an abundance of.
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No, they said “take your time,” but what they meant was, “Please fill out the forms and make your decision in a timely manner—we haven’t got all day.” I could hear it in their voice.
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Still, I took them up on their offer, because it got me away from the incessant clacking of irreverent tongues, all snapping about whose fault it was and irrelevant woulda-coulda-shoulda that could never turn back the hands of time.
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I couldn’t go back to that nonsense—not now—not ever. There was only one person I wanted to be with. I walked forward slowly, to the door where he lay peacefully, kept alive by their machines.
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Life whirled slowly around me as I entered the room. I clicked the doorknob as silently as I might. Making my way across the cold checkered hospital linoleum, sat down, and put my head in my hands.
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Emotion filled me as I considered that I was about to lose the best, happiest person I’d ever met—destroyed by those monsters I called family—and my own stupidity at having ever picked up that phone call inviting me to visit. At ever having so much as given them the time of day.
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That’s when I opened my eyes—just for a moment—
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My eyes hit the amulet around my wrist.
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I had been with my husband when I got it. The woman who sold it to me had been an odd old crone wearing purple glasses in an antique store. We’d stopped in on a whim on my way into town one day. She had handed me the amulet, with its black cherry depths, its ancient facets, and its golden clasp.
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“This amulet carries powerful magic that can pause time,” she had told me. “Whenever you choose to activate it, you will enter an alternate dimension, and spend the rest of your days in that moment.”
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Then pregnant with my first, I had been so surprised by the assertion that I’d burst out laughing. “How could I possibly know which moment to choose?” I had asked her. “Life is full of so many good moments! I could never choose just one!” The afternoon sun had danced off her bookshelves, alive with the sparkle of depression glass and silver tea sets.
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But she had replied cooly, a faraway look in her eye. “I give you this amulet because such a moment will find you,” she said. “When it comes, you will know.” With a shrug, I had purchased the amulet because it seemed unique. My husband had helped me latch it around my wrist, and I had worn it ever since. Perhaps I found its unique beauty irresisible. Perhaps, deep down, part of me believed her.
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I had been stupid—we all had. We couldn’t save baby boy. But as I ran my hand through his golden locks, the truth was, I didn’t think I could live my life without him either. His smile was worth a thousand sunrises, and to make him laugh was to glimpse pure joy. Listening to the heart monitor beep, I recognized I would rather spend the rest of my life staring at his beautiful face than a million other lifetimes wondering what I could’ve done differently.
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I whispered a silent prayer as I considered what I was about to do—hoping to God my husband and our daughter would understand—and that somewhere, somehow, they’d be alive and happy together forever, too.
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And then I gripped the amulet, and made my wish.
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The atmosphere changed. The air thickened. A deep and penetrating peace settled over the room—it seemed the world itself slipped away.
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I opened my eyes to look at my baby boy.
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His eyes were open, and his toothy grin beamed up at me.
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God, I could never get over how perfect he was. He giggled, wiggling his toes, the best moment of his life being anytime he saw me sitting right next to him.
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“Hey, baby boy,” I said. “Are you feeling any better?”
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He sat up and reached forward, motioning for me to pick him up. I took him in my arms, and we both took a moment to look around.
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We weren’t in a hospital room any more. Now we were in a wide field. I pulled him close to me, and together we peered down to the bottom of the hill, where we could see a babbling brook. I heard him gasp and start to babble along in excitement as he took in the view.
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What was a brook? He didn’t know—he had never seen one before. But he couldn’t wait to find out.
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I stroked baby boy’s back as I began to walk with him down the hill, marveling in the lush green grass and radiant sunshine. I breathed his scent in deep and squeezed him hard. “I love you baby boy,” I said. “Do you want to go have some fun together?”
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Breathing deeply, he hugged back, his blond strands bouncing in the breeze, eyes on the horizon and warm cheek next to mind, already taking in the lush beauty all around us.
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With the warm sun snuggling us, we walked down the hill towards the brook together, and bittersweet tears soaked my cheeks as I felt his tiny hand in mine.
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He would never be more than just one year old. He’d never learn his times tables, never graduate college, and never get married. No one would ever break his heart, and none of my horrible family members would ever chatter incessantly around us. No, ours would be a simple life, full of simple joys. We would spend every day doing whatever we wanted—chasing each other through the field, splashing each other in the cool water of the brook, and making memories we’d never recount to anyone but each other. We’d miss his sister and father terribly, but then again, we’d also always carry them in our hearts. Moreover—he would always be alive—always be smiling—and I would always be his mama.
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With the sun high over us, not a cloud in the sky, and a hint of jasmine playfully teasing our noises, we reached the brook at the bottom of the hill. I sat baby boy down in the water. He turned around and looked at me, ecstatic—certain the brook was something I had made specifically and personally for him. Water was his favorite thing.
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“I love you too, baby boy,” I said to him, kissing the top of his head gently as his hands started to splash in the stream. The sides of my cheeks hurting from smiling so hard. “I can’t wait to spend forever with you in this moment. Now let’s play.”
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