Forgotten (Rose of Petrichoria Book 1) - Chapter 1

I am an aspiring author for the sci-fi/fantasy genre and am looking to probably self-publish someday soon. I heard Steemit was a good place to put myself out there and thought I would give it a go. Forgotten is the first book in my first trilogy about a woman who remembers a life she never had and has forgotten everything about her real life. Without further ado, here is Chapter 1 of Forgotten.

Chapter 1

 “Mommy? Mommy? Mommy? Mommy…”

I opened one eye to see my daughter’s big blue eyes and blonde spiral curls hovering inches over my face. Harmony had a giant smile on her face. 

She is much too chipper in the morning.

This is how all my mornings now started; how they had started since Harmony started sleeping in her “big girl” bed. I had long abandoned the concept of sleeping in. Faking that I was still asleep didn’t work. Putting Harmony to bed early didn’t work. Putting her to bed late didn’t work. Full tummy, warm milk, begging, pleading, crying – nothing worked. At 6:00 AM every single morning, Harmony bounded into my room wide awake and ready to face the day.

I turned my head and looked out the window to see a bright sunny day. Glad for the luck of sun on an April morning in Snohomish, Washington, I smiled widely at my little girl.

“Yes, darling. I’m awake.”

Harmony threw her tiny arms into the air, then landed on my tummy.

“OMPH! Good morning, little sunshine. How was your sleep?”

Her face got a little sad as she replied, “Daddy was in my dreams again. When is he coming home?”

It had been nearly a year since the accident and the poor child was still having a hard time grasping the fact Daddy wasn’t going to be coming home again. I knew the next question would be about Tom.

I pulled my small daughter into a tight embrace as the tears began to fall down her chubby little cheeks. It was amazing how she could go from happy as a clam to down in the dumps. As hard as it was for me, I knew Harmony had it worse. How do you explain Heaven to someone who has no concept of death? How do you explain death to someone who knows nothing of mortality? I decided to nip it in the bud and just answer both of her questions before the second was even presented.

“Oh, honey. Daddy and Tom won’t be coming home to us. Remember? They’re in Heaven now and when you go to Heaven, you don’t go back home to your family in this world. We’ll see them again someday when it is our turn to go to Heaven.”

“When? I miss them.”

“Not for a long, long time. There are still a lot of things planned for us. We have new places to go and new friends to make. Okay?”

“Okay,” Harmony replied. There was silence for a moment as the small child considered everything just said to her. “Can we have chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast?”

“Of course!”

The two of us jumped out of bed and raced to the kitchen. I let Harmony win because that’s just what mommies do. Harmony grabbed the ingredients she could at her height and gave them to me. I grabbed the Kitchen Aid, griddle, and everything else. Just as we had mixed everything together and poured a few pancakes on the griddle, my phone rang. Quizzically, I looked at the caller ID with a crooked eyebrow; it read “Unknown Number.”

The well-wishers are starting early today.

I answered. “Good morning, this is Miriam.”

Silence.

“Hello?”

More silence.

“Hellooo?”

Even more silence.

Frustrated, I ended the call. I glanced at the clock and saw it was only 6:15. 

Who calls this early in the morning for a prank call? Probably some college kid who’s been up all night studying and needed a quick laugh.

Ever since David passed away, I had a variety of people contacting me: banks, hospitals, random business we had bills with, insurance, etc. It was a year ago and people were still calling. I couldn’t remember how many times over the last year I had to say, “I’m sorry, my husband has passed away” and then have to go through each company’s insane policy for how to handle it. Not to mention the ridiculous taxes I had to pay for it.

Over the last couple weeks, though, I started getting these hang up calls. Once a day at random parts of the day. This was, by far, the earliest one I had received so far. The phone company was no help. They said there was nothing they could do about it, so I just lived with it. I understood; it was an unknown number. 

I shrugged and we continued making the pancakes. A year ago, I wouldn’t have let Harmony help. However, I had come to realize I was too much of a perfectionist and control freak. There were so many missed opportunities with Tom because of it and I decided I was not going to be that way with Harmony. Every moment was cherished and I was glad I abandoned that past self.

We ate our breakfast in relative silence. There was always the occasional giggle or silly face. Of course the words “eat your food” were said many times. Harmony could be so pushy.

After breakfast, I looked at my sticky daughter and smiled. Harmony was my whole world. I was blessed that David’s life insurance was so large and that he had spent our six short married years together investing wisely. Because of that, I could spend all of my time with Harmony. I had learned about investing enough that I could keep the money working for me.

I took a deep breath. Today was going to be a long day. One year. Exactly one year today. Hopefully, Harmony would be able to understand the things that we would be doing; I was hoping we wouldn’t spend too much time crying.

“Okay. Let’s get you cleaned up and ready to go.”

Harmony jumped up and started stripping on the way to the bathroom for her bath. I got up, put the dishes in the sink, and started my way down the hall. Just as I was stepping into the bathroom, my phone rang again.

“Hello?”

Silence. Again.

This time, I didn’t give whoever it was the time of day. Irritated, I hung up. 7:15. 

An hour later? Doesn’t this person have a life? How about getting dressed or taking a shower, you weirdo? 

Moving on, I gave Harmony her bath and put her in the little black dress with the bright red rose at the waist I had bought for that day. I set out some puzzles and told her to stay put while I showered. Harmony was very good at entertaining herself and never wandered off, so I knew I had nothing to worry about.

Leaving the door open in case Harmony needed me, I walked into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. I still looked young, but my long, black hair had a few stray silver hairs and there were faint laugh lines appearing on my face. 

Making sure I got the water nice and hot, I got into the shower. As the water hit my face and body, I couldn’t help getting lost in my thoughts. For that time, I unleashed the great sorrow in my soul. Life just wasn’t fair. I had become a widow at thirty, lost a child at the same time that I lost my husband, and I had miscarried twice. My parents were dead long ago and I had never felt more alone than at that moment. Harmony was all I had left. Emma, my mother-in-law, was still involved in our lives, but aside from that, no one else was.

I couldn’t blame them. If I was in their shoes, I wouldn’t know what to say either. So I kept to myself, mostly. The only time I was really with other adults was when I went to church. Other than that, I did things Harmony liked to do, which were often the same things I enjoyed, anyway.

I cleaned myself as I wept and got it under control before getting out of the shower. Harmony didn’t need to see me that way. After I dried off, I put on my black dress and applied minimal makeup, including the waterproof mascara I had just purchased the day before. More crying was sure to happen today.

When I went in to grab Harmony, I found her dressing up her stuffed animals in clothes for a tea party. As darling as the scene was, I had to interrupt. “Ready to go?”

“Yeah! Where are we going?”

“The flower shop first. After that, we’re going to visit Daddy and Tom’s places.”

“Okay.”

Harmony looked a little confused, but whatever her questions were, she was keeping them to herself. I actually felt relieved, but knew that the day would be difficult for my little girl.

Harmony swooped up her stuffed animals, ran to her room, and threw them in. I didn’t even care that she didn’t put them away in their appropriate places. It was going to be a difficult day and I wanted it to begin as easily as possible. 

We hopped in the car, buckled up, and put on David’s favorite music: funk. Harmony knew the words to many of the songs because she had heard them a million times before her dad died, so we both did car karaoke all the way to the flower shop.

Way more time was spent at the flower shop than I had anticipated. This was mainly because Harmony was having a difficult time deciding between all the different colors and types of flowers. We finally settled with a bouquet of blue tulips and white daisies for David; they reminded Harmony of their trips to the local Tulip Festival. For Tom, we bought a dozen green roses. Harmony had said, “Tom would think these are cool! They’re like Ninja Turtles or The Hulk!”

As we were going out the door, the phone rang again. It read “Unknown Number”. I looked at the time. The time was on the fifteen again. I didn’t answer and proceeded to put my phone on silent for the rest of the day.

The road trip to the mausoleum was long, but quiet. Having exhausted herself at the flower shop, Harmony fell asleep right away, so I turned the music off. I was then left with my thoughts for the two hour trip. I thought of everything we had been through as a family; as David and I were as a couple. The losses of our two unborn babies, the laughs we had at the beach with Tom and Harmony, living check-to-check in the beginning, being in a good place later on, all those Sundays and Wednesdays we went to church. How I missed singing with my tenor husband. He had the most gorgeous voice.

We finally made it and I woke up Harmony. She wanted me to carry her. Most of the time, I would have told her that she was a big girl and needed to walk on her own, but today I gladly scooped up my precious, but getting-heavy, girl and held her tight. Harmony had the flowers snuggled between the two of us so it was a bit awkward, but also comforting for both of us. 

As we got closer to the spot, Harmony started sniffling. Pretty soon the sniffling turned into sobbing. I set her down when we got to David and Tom’s plots and Harmony set the flowers into their respected vases. Then, Harmony and I updated David and Tom on everything that had happened in the last year and wept as we declared how much we still loved and missed them. It was difficult to pull away, but we finally did and got back to the car.

The next stop was the beach. I laid the picnic blanket out on the miraculously dry ground and set out the food while Harmony played with the hermit crabs running around. We ate our lunch with a changed mood of happiness and humor and were soon on our way home. 

By the time we got home, it was already nearly bedtime for Harmony. It had been a long day and neither of us really felt like eating. Going against normalcy once again, I let Harmony skip dinner and tucked her in. I did the normal routine of reading a book, singing a song, then praying. On my way out, though, Harmony stopped me.

“Mommy? Can I sleep with you tonight?”

My heart broke for my little one. “Yes. When I’m ready to go to bed, I will come in and get you. I love you. Good night.”

“Okay. I love you, too.”

I left the door cracked open and headed into the kitchen. I made myself some hot chocolate and put whipped cream on top, then settled onto the loveseat in the living room. David and I used to snuggle there after we put the kids to bed and watch a favorite show or a movie. Tonight, I decided to watch Doctor Who; a favorite for both of us. This one featured the Daleks as the main antagonist. Sometimes I wished I could take a trip in the Doctor’s time machine and stop us from getting in the car that fateful day. However, I always came to the conclusion that it would tear up time and space and it probably wouldn’t be a great idea. Life the way it was for me was the way it was going to be forever. I sighed at the thought and turned off the television on my way to bed. 

Walking back to the room, I remembered my phone was on silent. I felt bad; I was sure people had been trying to call all day. I turned the volume back on and started going through my missed calls. I didn’t keep many friends, so there weren’t many people on the missed call list. Betty, Pastor Marsh, Callie, Unknown Number. When I saw how many missed calls were from my mysterious caller, I gasped. Precisely one an hour, every hour, on the fifteen. 

What in the world is going… 

My thought was interrupted by the phone ringing. The time read 12:15. Scared and angry, I answered the phone.

“Who is this? Why are you calling me so much? I’ve had this phone tapped. I know where you are and will be sending the police to you!” Of course, my phone wasn’t really tapped and I wasn’t even sure if that was the right terminology for what I was saying, but I hoped it would be a deterrent from the seemingly mute person calling again.

However, the caller wasn’t mute. That time, he spoke.

“We’re going to take you out soon.” Click.

Eyes wide and hands shaking, I tossed the phone on the bed and began pacing. 

Who is this person and why does he want to take me out? What did he mean by “we?” 

I called down to the Police Department and reported the threat. At first, they told me it was probably a prank call, but when I told them about the stalkerish hourly phone calls, they took me seriously and said they would send someone to sit in the front of my house for the rest of the night.

I walked back to my bedroom closet and checked my gun in my safe. Satisfied with its condition, I went out to the living room to watch for the police car. After what seemed like an eternity, it arrived. I waved to the police officer, then headed back to get Harmony.

When I went to Harmony’s room, I found her totally sprawled out and asleep. I picked her up and put her in my bed. Exhausted, I plopped onto my bed without removing my day clothes. Before going to sleep, I glanced at the clock. 1:30. Maybe the calls would stop now. That could be a good thing or a bad thing. Only time would tell.

Chapter 2