~Charles looked down at the quiet infant in the cradle below him. The sounds of crying came from the master bedroom.
“What happened?” he asked tiredly. He and his wife had been out at a dinner hosted by one of his close friends, a few minutes’ ride down the road. It had been a long night, and he felt the night had only just started for him and his wife.
“I don’t know,” the nurse said, still crying herself. “I had just put her down, and went to take a nap in the bed like I usually do. I woke up to a weird sound, and that is when I saw that she was choking. I tried everything I could to save him, but it didn’t…” She trailed off, crying harder. The nurse, just out of school, and nearly a child herself, had been alone in the room until the couple returned much later.
“It’s ok child,” he said, soothingly. He could imagine what she had been through, and the years had given him perspective. “She was a miracle to begin with. She just was not our miracle to keep.” Charles, shoulders drooping, headed into the hall, to console a wife that will never be consolable…
June, tears in her eyes, looked around. She was still alone, though the room felt much more empty than it had a few moments ago. She quickly wiped the tears. This was intense. Much more than the “leftover energy” of prior owners. Maybe she will stick to yard sales if this was how they felt. She chuckled over the little joke, the memory of the dead infant already fading. She was getting tired. It felt like she had been here for hours, but her watch said it had only been about 20 minutes. Time flies where you are having fun, maybe it slows down for the opposite?
Her curiosity getting the better of her, she crept down the hall to the closed door to the master bedroom. She listened for a few seconds; the sounds of talking were coming from the front porch. There was no one else in the house. Quietly, she opened the door and slipped inside. The room felt like it was nearly half the size of the second floor. It was dark, the blinds drawn. It was stuffy and had the odor she could only describe as “old” hung in the room. Through the dim lighting, she could make out the furniture. There was a massive wooden canopy bed. The curtains were drawn across the bed, hiding it from view. There were a few chairs with small tables at their side. A dresser, almost as massive as the bed, went the length of one wall, from the corner to the entrance to what June thought was the master bath.
The rug was a little more worn in here than elsewhere in the house. The cushions seeming threadbare in spots. There was a feeling of sadness she felt when she first stepped into the room. Wondering whether it was a good idea to do it, she walked across the room to the bed. Taking a deep breath, June reached out and touched the…
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