Dragged to Hell

Excerpt

Dragged to Hell
J.P. Jackson © 2022
All Rights Reserved

Five years old

“Mommy.” Small and quiet, the word barely slipped out from Nathan’s lips as he stood stock still next to his parents’ bed.

Sharon’s head lolled to one side. She was instantly aware her youngest child was close by her.

Call it a mother’s instinct.

“Nathan, honey, go back to bed.” Sharon’s hand fell out from under the duvet in an awkward sleep-induced attempt to pat her child on the head. She missed, and instead managed to run her fingers down the front of Nathan’s onesie.

“But, Mommy, Aunty Hildi is here,” he whispered.

Sharon’s eyes popped open at the mention of her sister. A stab of pain hit her in the gut, akin to a white-hot poker jab, as she flipped back the covers. She nudged the sleeping body beside her while still focused on her toddler. Edward, her husband, who had been unceremoniously prodded, groaned and rolled over, pulling the bedspread over his head. He continued his slumber. Sharon glanced over her shoulder and threw him a dagger-filled look that was all but useless in the heavy darkness of night.

Sharon repositioned herself so that she sat on the edge of the bed, reached out, and enveloped her little Nathan, holding him close, stroking his thin hair. “No, baby, Hildi is gone. Remember? We said goodbye to her yesterday.”

Memories of the last two months flooded Sharon’s head, as the numerous trips to the hospital raced through her mind. The uncomfortable chairs at the lawyer’s office dealing with wills and such, and finally, the oppressive air in the funeral home. It all ran together in a blur of depressive and overwhelming sadness.

The life celebration, though, had been perfect. Just the way her sister would have wanted to be remembered. Light and fun and with alcohol served. Thirty-seven years old. Sharon shook her head slightly in defiance and squeezed Nathan a little tighter.

Breast cancer be damned.

“No, Mommy, Aunty Hildi is in my bedroom,” Nathan insisted.

“I think you just had a dream, sweetie.”

“No, she’s really there. She said you should go to the doctor. She said the boo-boo is going to get bigger.” Nathan poked his mother’s breast, just where her cleavage started, the spot where she had felt a lump not a month earlier but hadn’t had a chance to make a doctor’s appointment and get it checked out. She knew she had to, but after watching Hildi go through her battle, Sharon’s sadness and loss morphed into a wave of panic. Quite suddenly, she felt very hot all over.

Her lip quivered.

Sharon pulled little Nathan’s finger away from her chest and clasped his tiny hand in hers.

A gnawing sense of dread overtook her in the deep shadows of her room. Everything faded away. She felt alone in the stillness of the night, despite the fact her child was nestled tightly against her.

Hildi had been everything. Her world, her mentor, her big sister.

Tears welled up in Sharon’s eyes. All at once, everything good in her life collapsed as she recounted how Hildi had faded away. Sharon had watched her sister’s spark slowly die. The chemo sapped all the life and goodness out of Hildi, turning her into a skeletal version of what had been a vibrant, optimistic, and selfless person.

Sharon was headed for the same destination. She knew it. Deep in her, she knew it.

She swallowed hard, shook off the icy fingers of death running down her back.

“No, baby. It’s okay. There’s no boo-boo. Come on, let’s go back to bed.”

“But, Mommy,” Nathan protested.

“Sweetie, it’s late, and Mommy is very tired. Please, it’s sleepy time.”

“But Aunty Hildi’s here, and she’s worried about you. Also, ’member the silver spoon? It’s downstairs in Grammy’s house, on the windowsill.”

Sharon, who had scooped up her youngster and was walking toward his bedroom, stopped cold.

She raised an eyebrow, frowned and canted her head. “How…”

Sharon had noticed there was one silver teaspoon from Grandma’s dinner set missing. A set she had laid out for Hildi’s funeral reception.

Nathan leaned in close and whispered his secret. “Aunty Hildi said Grammy used it to scoop out the p’nut butter for the mouses.”