The sliding glass doors are open in the living room. Sun leaks across the floor, filtered through the olive trees, warming the wide-planked hardwood. Sloane and Quinn’s toys are scattered around like breadcrumbs leading us back to real life.
It should feel peaceful, but the air is heavy.
Avonna hasn’t gotten off the couch. She’s curled beneath a blanket, one hand tucked under her cheek, the other resting on her belly. Our pregnancy was only nine weeks along, but we’d heard the heartbeat the day before. Talked about names. Laughed about whether Sloane and Quinn would be better as big sisters or stagehands.
Then, five days ago, she started bleeding.
A nurse stood stiff in the corner of the ER room while the doctor delivered the clinical term, Unviable spontaneous abortion, with the ease of someone who’d said it too many times.
Avonna went silent. Linus gripped her hand. I couldn’t find my breath. She didn’t react until we were released the next morning.
Today, she’s in our living room, barely moving, except to accept the tea Linus keeps refilling, or to glance toward the girls when they come running in, unaware they’re not going to be big sisters. We haven’t told them anything. They’re still too young.
Linus sits on the floor beside the couch, one arm propped on the cushion near her waist, gently tracing shapes on her hip through the knit of her leggings. His other hand holds a printout of the preliminary findings from the private investigator. He glances up at me when I join them, his eyes shadowed with the same grief I feel.
All of us wanted this baby. Unfortunately, Avonna’s miscarriage isn’t the only tragedy we’re dealing with.
A few months ago we returned home from tour to find an unsigned letter taped to our security gate. Handwritten. Quoting Bible verses equating our family to sin. Warning Avonna to repent before she damned her children. Threatening her sisters.
Since then it’s been relentless. They knew our schedule inside and out. Dozens of the same letters, scripted in a distinctive scroll, found their way to Avonna. Mailed to venues. Delivered via clueless production assistants. Left at hotels under fake names. One was slipped under her dressing room door. Another left in a bouquet at a meet and greet. A few days ago, a letter was mailed to the girls’ preschool.
Each one increasingly menacing and scary.
Sliding behind her on the couch, I wrap my arms around her chest, knees bracketing her hips. I tug her back against me and pull the blanket up around us both. I kiss her head. “How are youfeelin’, my love?”
“Destroyed.” She shakes her head. “I’m sad about the baby and keep thinking about the letters.”
Yeah. Me too.
My stomach lurches when I remember what some of them said:
Every filthy act stains your soul. He sees them all.
Your body is a grave, not a cradle.
No child should be born into your sickness.
You will know loss until you return to the fold.
Hell does not forget. It prepares a room for you.
Avonna doesn’t know about the barrage we received the day we lost the baby. Voice messages. A package sent to Linus’s office. A delivery driver intercepted by our beefed-up security.
We know where you are. No matter how far you run, the righteous will find you.
Your sins have a scent. We are trained to trackit.
You cannot hide from His justice. Or ours.
The reckoning begins soon. Prepare your daughters.
The last one chilled me to the bone.
I wanted to burn them all. Linus refused. He’s doing everything possible to protect our family. We’re locked down with even more security measures. Two more bodyguards have been hired to discreetly shadow each of our girls. There are new mail and technological protocols. He also hired the best investigator in the state, who worked fast.
Yesterday he traced all of it back to her old sect. Same phrases. Same scripture. Same bile dressed up as righteousness. Lawyers are circling. Authorities are involved. Hopefully arrests are imminent.
“You need anythin’?” I murmur into her hair.
