Third Annual Wild Violet Writing Contest Winners (2005)

Fiction — Second Place

The Last Message
By Heidi Bolton

(continued)

Craig turned on the woman behind him. Her blue eyes were filled with a pain that only a parent could know: the pain of losing a child. She couldn't possibly be faking it.
Collapsing onto the beach, Craig clutched his precious daughter to him. Alyssa sat softly beside him.

"You were away for work. Lara had desperately tried to get pregnant before you left but had found out from the doctors a couple of weeks after you had gone that her ovaries did not work and she would never conceive. She was devastated and knew you would be, too. Taking your posting overseas as a sign, she searched for someone who was pregnant and didn't want the baby. She found me."

Alyssa shakily inhaled. The tears were rolling down her face again. "It wasn't that I didn't want my baby; I just couldn't possibly have her. I was so poor, and her father was gone. I would have had to live on the streets with her. I made the hardest decision of my life, that I would give her to a family that deserved her and that had the money to give her what she needs. I met Lara and felt a bond with her instantly. She stayed with me throughout the whole pregnancy and always promised that she would one day contact me to tell me about the baby."

Craig lowered his head. He didn't want to hear this. His wife had gone through all that and never told him? Just so he would be happy that he had his own baby? The last year of her life had been a lie. His head was spinning. "I don't want to hear any more," he said softly. But Alyssa must not have heard him; she continued on.

"She was going to tell you right away, but I am guessing by your reaction that she never did. I didn't know what she had named her, just that it was a girl. Lara promised one day she would invite me to meet her. About six months after the birth, I received the mobile phone in the mail. I had won a competition, the letter said, but I had not entered any competitions. It was so strange. There was a number already attached to the phone, and it was one of those pay-as-you go types, so I didn't have to sign anything."

Craig smiled. His wife had always taken the pay-as-you go option. It drove him mad; she was forever running out of credit right when she needed it.

"I didn't understand why or how I suddenly got this phone, but I kept it. It is the first mobile phone I have ever owned." Alyssa pulled the phone from her pocket, and Craig swallowed a painful lump in his throat. He recognized his wife's phone.

"Then I started getting the messages. They were all about a little girl that was around the same age as the baby I had given away. Although I didn't know where the messages were coming from, I pretended the girl you were talking about, Jasmine, was my own baby. The messages helped me through the lonely days. It wasn't until you said Lara's name that I realized it really might be my… the baby I gave away one and a half years ago."

Alyssa laid a soft hand on Craig's shoulder. It felt warm and comforting, and that familiar feeling about her came back again. He was comfortable in this stranger's presence.

"Lara must not have wanted to tell me when she was dying. She probably didn't want to risk a fight in the last few months we had together. I guess by sending you the phone, and telling me to text it, she was leaving it up to fate."

Craig turned to this young lady by his side. She looked up at him with her pretty blue eyes. This woman was the mother of his daughter. After all those nights of worrying that his baby would never have a woman figure in her life, this. His wife had organized it from beyond the grave, that he and his daughter would be cared for.

Craig wiped a strand of blonde hair from Alyssa's eyes. "My wife wanted us to meet. She wanted us to know each other," he said softly.

Alyssa blushed and looked down at Jasmine, who she was now wrapping in her arms again. "She told me all about you in our time together. She was always telling me that we would have been a perfect match in another life."

Craig laughed. He understood his wife's message. Not only had she sent him his daughter's real mother; she had set him up with someone she knew he would get along with.

Grabbing Alyssa's hand, he jumped up.

"Let's go home so I can tell you all about our daughter."

Alyssa laughed and pulled Jasmine close to her, smelling her baby's hair.

Strolling off together, Craig raised his eyes to the sky above, and thanked his wife for her last message.

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