Vi sprinted down the back porch and into the field. She clasped her hands over her ears even though that wasn’t where the pain stung. Her body began drowning in the thick blood that was quickly drenching her white nightgown. The dawn of an October morning sent chills down her neck.
Her legs tripped over one another and she tumbled into the thick soil. The silky material of her dress lost its comfortable touch where the dirt clumped to the blood dripping down her thighs. With every cry that came from her mouth, a sprinkle of dirt would find its way towards the back of her throat.
The grape vines hugged Vi as she stared at the plump green fruits ready to burst at the pinch of a finger. She picked one off it’s cluster and popped it into her mouth. The thin outer skin cracked and a burst of sweet liquid trickled down her tongue. Vi took a deep breath through her nostrils and swallowed slowly. Quickly, her pain and tears seemed as if they were from a far away land that had never been discovered. A virgin island with a grueling past that only it itself knew of.
“Vi, come out, please.” Jon’s gentle voice reached Vi’s ears from a few feet away. He bent down and wrapped his arms around her.
Vi lay limp in his arms and hid her face in his shoulder. Suddenly, the pain was back and the tears returned in waves, washing her face of the leftover dirt. Vi so wanted to leap out of his arms and run further away from him. She didn’t want to see his puffy red eyes from waking up to an empty bloody mattress. She didn’t want to feel his soft hands comfort her mourning body. She didn’t want to hear him whisper reassuring scriptures, or the occasional quiver in his voice. She didn’t want to smell his skin, burnt and calloused from hard days labouring in the fields- waiting for something that she couldn’t give him.
Most of all, she didn’t want to understand his grief that another child was lost to death before it had a chance to live.