My mind clears enough to realize that I need to call 911. When a police officer arrives, I’m curled up in a naked heap in the corner of the room closest to her. I’m still praying to God when he helps me up and moves me and a blanket to the living room. EMT’s arrive soon after but there is nothing they can do.
The autopsy concluded that she died of a massive brain aneurism. The only comforting words from the doctor were that it was quick and painless. That even if she could have wakened me, there was nothing to be done. It was of little consolation to me. If I could, I’d have given my life for another millisecond with her.
I was a complete mess after that. I drifted through the days, weeks, months and even years. Our computer software business, that we had started together after we graduated from college, was beginning to fail from lack of attention. Anna had been the brilliance behind our success. I realized that I had to sell the business before it spiraled into the ground. In spite of the decline, it sold to a major software company for many times more than I could ever spend in my lifetime. I was free of all obligations and I wallowed in my despair.
Years later I was still a mess. Our friends had tried desperately to comfort me but they soon realized that I was beyond their help and they drifted away. I decided to escape the world and bought this lake house.
I think of the baby that Anna was carrying now and then. She would be around twelve now. I visualize a ‘she’ so I can imagine her as Anna. She was beautiful in every way. She had been a track star in college with a long, lithe body. In spite of her large breasts, she ran like the wind. When she got her boobs in sync with her stride, it was something to see. I was on the track team too and that is where we met and fell in love. While she was a sprinter, I was a distance runner. I wasn’t a star but I won a race now and then. We continued to run together after we were married to keep ourselves in shape.
On this morning, my usual melancholy had set in so I pushed myself out of bed and stood there gazing out on the lake. A low blanket of patchy fog was slowly drifting from west to east. Two loons were close to my dock with a tiny baby chick drafting along behind. It was a tiny blob of brown fuzz bobbing around in the water like a rubber bath toy. Upon closer inspection I realized that a second chick was riding on one of the adult loon’s back. The adult loons worked feverishly to collect small fish and the chicks gobbled them down. Through the open windows, I could hear the babies emitting a constant high pitched wheezing noise. It’s hard to imagine how those almost inaudible wheezes would grow into the deep throated warbling cries of their parents.
I thought of my own baby, never to be born, and headed for the kitchen for a cup of coffee. While it was brewing I went back to the bedroom and pulled on a pair of cotton athletic shorts, emblazoned with our college logo and a tee-shirt. As usual, I wore no underwear or shoes. I looked in the mirror as I passed through the master bath and ran my hand along my three day stubble as I decided that I should shave. I brushed my teeth and put on deodorant. It was going to be hot today.