#Arthur Jr. DoGoode

[rom-e-o]

Going back to Connie's lost babies, is it okay if I hc that, during the moment right after Starry's birth where Connie is unresponsive for a bit, that Mama literally had one of those moments where she was in limbo between death and life and got to meet the children she never knew before she woke up?

Oh my goooosh, first of all, yes, hc accepted. And could you imagine?

I won’t lie, I’ve thought about Orin and Connie’s kids and what they’d be like. Let’s say there are three, and all three only made it to the first trimester.

It’s as if her body remember the last time sometime like this happened. She’s in shock, and despondent, and obviously in a dangerous limbo period. While she’s out, she awakens in this odd, sunlight space. Its a dream. It looks like upstate New York, with wheat fields everywhere and a red barn in the distance. The sky is pink and dappled with clouds.

Then, she sees she’s sitting on a blanket … and sees children before her. A sweet, black-haired girl with fog-colored eyes and freckles. She wears her hair in pigtails, just like Connie always did. She’s so pretty. And then, she sees another girl with a gap-tooth grin, and a final little boy. The little boy is a redhead infant.

Two children and old baby. The timeline adds up.

I’ve kind of rolled around names for them, and I’m feeling Apollonia (oldest) and Stella (second), and the boy … Arthur. Orin would have named him after himself, if they’d gotten that far, but after seeing the hair? No.

Connie doesn’t even need to ask who they are. They’re three perfect children. Three children anyone sane would love to have, to hold, to protect, and call their own. They’re the manifestations of all her ‘what-if’ daydreams. Children she would think herself unworthy of raising, after all her mistakes. They should be alive, she thinks. They never even had a chance to grow, but she knew. She didn’t realize it, but she had dreams.

They’re the ghosts of her past.

The girls rush to hug her (with the baby). It coos, and she melts.

“Don’t cry. It wasn’t your fault.”

But it was, she argues. She should have known! She should have done more. She should have done something.

“Even if you had, that man wouldn’t have let it happen.” Not ‘Papa’. That man.

They tell her, “You’ll be a good Mama. But you … have to wake up to do that.”

They give her permission to let go of the guilt.

When air rushes back to her lungs, she lets out a sob slash cry of relief as she wakes up. It was a dream, but it felt so real. She can’t even speak, and it in agony, but it’s almost a relief to feel anything after the creeping numbness of death. She realizes that, no matter what, she must live. She MUST live for Starla to see her thrive.

I feel they may come to her more than once. She’s not as tuned into these things as Bess, but … they’re special. I feel like she does something to honor them, and shares the information with Bess and Adonis. “Please don’t think I’m crazy. I’m begging you. Please. But…”

And she tells them what happened.