Past Carrie

May 8, 1998.

Carrie was carrying Carter's baby. It sounded like a phonetic paradise, an alliteration adminstered. But it was true,too.

She recalled that day, the rain and the London sleet. But it was ten years later, and her memory was playing all sorts of tricks on her.One night, she woke up recollecting a grim,cloudy English afternoon.Today, as she sat next to her husband, she recalled flashes of a brilliant red sky,passionate thunder and overpowering rain.Her mind always led her through myriad paths, and she no longer knew how to tell between the conjured and the concrete.

But, Carrie thought, all these paths with unfailing certainity, always led her to one place. The one vivid memory that stayed on, defying her attempts to erase it,or atleast fudge it. It was almost as if that memory was a defiant Viking warrior,standing astute amidst the chaos, the harder she tried, the more firmly the Viking stood his ground.

It was the thought of her, lying alone on her hospital bed. On the threshold of a marvel, a miracle. Her doctor standing over her, eyebrows raised in deep concern.The images from the ultrasound were hazy and all the swirls made Carrie dizzy. They could not detect the foetal heartbeat. Carrie went into labor three minutes later, to deliver Aaron, her still born son.

For a long time she sat there, all alone.Trying to comprehend the incredible gift of knowing Aaron for nine whole months.She knew him intimately, his sleep cycles, they way he moved in her womb, his kicking.How he slowly grew from a small peanut to engulf her entire being with his mere presence.