Chapter Text
It’s been one month since the death of her baby.
She tries. She really, really tries for her. To live life in joy; to spend the time she knows she needs with the children she’s been gifted with and the serenity of a beautiful sanctuary a previous mother had built for them.
The light cascades down onto the trees and the flowers, suspended eternally in peace and serenity. The birds chirp in her ears, the wind doesn’t bite at her, it really is a safe haven for her and the little ones who call this place home.
This orphanage, her new life… it fills her with a new purpose, a dream fulfilled. She’s doing what she’s always wanted to do.
And yet, despite it all, she can’t help but feel empty. Because she isn’t here with her. She won’t ever be.
Her daughter is dead.
When she closes her eyes, she sees the shimmering vision of a brilliant, shining girl struggling to hold on, speaking quieter and quieter until she’s nothing but a whisper. And then she’s nothing at all.
She tries to reach out to hold her, to bring her into her arms and tell her everything is going to be okay, that she’ll be okay, but her hands pass through her like she’s not even there. And her form shimmers, she closes her eyes and watches phantom tears flow in the air and dissipate. She’s fading away, and she can’t even hold her.
She closes her eyes and feels the cold of her daughter’s hands when she comes back from physical therapy. She checks her pulse and finds no rhythm. Nothing.
Her daughter is dead.
It shocks her with startling clarity some nights. She jolts awake, and reaches for her nightstand, for tissues she’s needed on harder nights. She looks over and sees Mosely standing in the doorway, small. Mosely crawls into her bed to comfort her, with the tactfulness of a child. She feels guilty for accepting the comfort from someone she was there to protect. Such a young girl to understand grief so well. To lose someone not once, but three times. So brave. So heartbreaking.
They lost her together. The vague memories of another world still echo in her head. And while her memories of that world were torment, to Mosely, it was time spent with Amber she could never get back.
They couldn’t rewind time together. She hugs her those nights, tells her it’ll be okay. They have each other now, and Tesla will never let her be alone again. But then she closes her eyes and imagines that that little girl hugging her is Amber.
Her little girl. All she has left of her is the fuzziness of her in her dreams, and a few of her songs.
She tries listening to her debut album one night, the one with the poster she signed and gave to her. She gets one verse in before she turns it off, shivering violently. This is all she has now. The only way she can hear her voice is through this and yet that thought makes her even more afraid.
No more anything. No more Amber. She’s lost her before she could even begin to comprehend what she had again.
She falls into routine. Cooking, cleaning, playing with the children, tending to Bridgette’s garden. But then she thinks.
‘Amber would be upstairs in her room about now,’ She cleans the house. ‘She’d be blasting a song that would shake the living room. But I’d smile and hum along with her. She’s safe here. She’s with me.’
Bridgette’s home is silent.
Mosely helps her cook that night. She’s clumsy and Tesla shows her how to properly dice up vegetables. She likes getting to play with a knife. That kind of scares her.
The other children try to help out too. It’s nice, but it’s not…
It’s not…
‘Amber would be telling me about the recipe she looked up the other night as we attempt to make it. It comes out somewhat messy. Maybe we shouldn’t have added so much salt. Amber doesn’t end up eating much of any of it after we finish with it . But I eat the leftovers anyway, because it’s something we made together.’
The food comes out perfectly. All of the children comment on how good of a cook she is and she has to bite down on saying half the reason she learned so much was to make sure Amber was well fed and happy.
It’s okay. It’s fine. She has a new purpose. A new family to protect and nurture. She can take care of them.
Twelve little ones to fill the hole in her heart. Each of them has their own little spark, vibrant and beautiful. She’s achieving her dreams. She’s doing what she’s always wanted to do.
And yet, every time she closes her eyes, every time she falls asleep, she dreams of the one who started this all and the hole in her heart grows deeper and deeper.
…She makes good on her promise to visit her daughter’s grave every day. Mosely planted some lovely flowers there, and Tesla got to help her. She shows the children the grotto, tells them about the statue, the last little embers of her daughter’s sacrifice immortalized forever. They look up at her with mixtures of childlike wonder and awe. But to them, Amber is a myth, not someone they will ever get to know. Not like her and Mosely.
Tesla will never get to introduce the beautiful souls in her life to the first one, the pyre in her heart, and the thought makes her dizzy.
Amber is gone.
Mosely watches Tesla rest her head by the footstone of her daughter’s statue, closing her eyes. There’s a rise and fall to her chest that’s shaky, a storm of emotion built up inside that she’s trying not to let show to her siblings. Mosely’s a smart girl, she knows.
Miss Tesla is strong, the strongest lady she’s met next to Maman. But she lost Amber. She remembers when she lost Maman and she cried and cried every night. The other kids in her life were all so nice to her, giving her hugs and staying together. But sometimes Mosely would just want to be left alone so she could cry by herself. It made her feel better.
She bites her lip and leads them all away to go and play by the flower fields stretching across the endless grotto, leaving Tesla alone to be with her daughter.
Tesla runs her hands along the cool tile of Amber’s gravestone. Stares up at the statue of her. Her pose is so showy, so flashy, it draws a sad, wavering smile to her lips for a brief moment. She bows, one hand upon a microphone and her eyes closed to the crowd, a curtain call forever engraved, the last motion she’ll ever make.
She’ll never move from that position again.
God. What she wouldn’t give to just hold her for one more hour. To know she’s okay, to know that she’s not alone. She needs to do this without her, to show even an ounce of the insurmountable strength Amber showed her in her final hours.
But she wants her here with her. She just wants her baby back.
Tesla’s jaw tightens and her tears spill openly on the footstone before her daughter’s grave. She pulls herself closer to it and thinks that maybe, miraculously, the cold stone she’s clinging onto will reach out and hold her back, warm and safe in her arms, all hers again. But it doesn’t. It never will.
She doesn’t know how she’ll ever begin to do this without her.