IMMINENT STORM©

She can whiff the smell of an impending storm. The air felt cooler, but not crisp like spring, like when you first open your fridge door and smell everything in it – grass, flowers, dewdrops, even the dog – like everything was about to get wet soon. It looked like it too from her bay window seat in the bedroom, she was wrapped up in covers with a book in one hand and a coffee mug on the other. It felt gloomy and sullen, like someone just covered the sky with grey sheets or ashen paint. She felt heavy too.

It is going to be a category four, Ellie heard on the news last night. I don’t think we’ve had category three in the last few years, let alone category four. Her husband, Liam, is late again, and she tried to ignore it, like every other time, but something told her he wasn’t just watching another football game with his colleagues this time.

Suddenly, she heard him come home. He opened the bedroom door, saying he needed to talk to her about something. He sounded serious. “Can we talk in the kitchen please?”

Ellie, who had known about the affair all along, didn’t want to ruffle his feathers, so she said “Okay, I’ll be out in a minute.” She had to make sure baby Sabine was warm enough in her cot, then looked at their three-year-old Stella still asleep with Barley the puppy in the reading corner, not knowing how she was going to explain it to them. She had tried so hard to make their marriage work, even amidst so many trials and challenges. And to even get here, with these two little angels, was a miracle in itself. God knows how long they’ve tried to conceive. She whispered “I love you, my children.”

Then, she carefully washed her face in the ensuite bath, her movements lingering and unhurried. She dried her face with the towel, looked at herself in the mirror, and thought, ‘Relax and please smile, you’ve got this’. She knew it would come to this eventually. She already knew what to say to Liam, she has rehearsed her lines so many times, but the thought of finally confronting him was beginning to loom in on her.

She came out. Liam was there waiting for her, arms outstretched, which she did not expect. And he was crying. “I love you, Ellie…always” she heard him utter and he hugged her so tight she felt she couldn’t breathe. Then he let go. The last image she saw was when Stella was picked up away from her Mummy Ellie, by Liam, her Daddy, who then turned around.

Thunder. Ellie screamed. Screamed for Liam. Screamed for their two little girls, Stella and Sabine. “Let go of me!” she screamed again. “Don’t take them away, please.” But the thunder was so deafening they were muffled like tiny grunts. Bolts of lightning shot through the sky, and it only worsened to illuminate the agony, the tormented pain on her face. She felt really betrayed now.

Liam was still in tears as he watched the white van drive away. He had to do it. “I am so sorry,” he whispered, but he knew it won’t bring Ellie back, at least not for a long time. He also knew his love alone wasn’t enough for her. That she had to get help with her monsters and demons.

Liam then called both his and Ellie’s parents, letting them know what happened. He wondered what it was like to have your child taken away.

The sky opened up in one fell swoop out of the blue. The storm has definitely come.

I guess we will never know, he thought. He would never know how horrible it is to have his child taken away. Liam was drenched, his tears mixed with the rain. Memories flooded back to him, as he locked up the house that both he and Ellie shared, alone without children, for the last three years.

Winter is here.

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