The Celeste

Prologue What if the home you’ve known for so many years was only the beginning? What if the marriage you’ve worked so hard on was a joke? Chloe ducked her head as a crash of thunder sounded from her front yard. She looked to the living room, making sure her daughter was still asleep. Rain splattered the windows as the lightning picked up, doing the foxtrot on the electric lines. She tried to shake her nerves and continue cooking. Could the fog standing in the road on your way to work be from the past nights precipitation or be a truthful error from a local weatherman? What exactly is a storm? A cold front colliding with a warm front? Do fairytales exist, or a world where make-believe is indeed fact? What would you do if you discovered a place right outside of your town that no one has ever seen? But yet, you knew it was there. Chloe pondered her erratic thoughts; daydreaming and fantasizing as she stirred her soup beans, letting the smell of bacon fill the air. Sizzling and popping echoed from the skillet with her fried taters while she pulled on a raggedy oven mitt and lit a cigarette. When she opened the oven, smoke rolled out in angry waves, quickly upsetting the fire alarm. She abruptly grabbed a forlorn magazine off the bar and swarped at the blackness like it was a nest of bees, dropping her cancer stick on the linoleum. Chloe only mothered one child at the time; a two year old daughter, Camryn. She sat up on the couch and watched the disturbing episode with amusement while clapping her chubby hands, finding Chloe’s misfortune to be fairly comical; her mother, on the other hand, did not. Jared, Chloe’s husband, would be home soon, and if he knew she’d burnt the cornbread…Chloe shook her head to the thought and swung a barstool below the distressed siren. She climbed the chair like a ladder then hastily dislodged the batteries, and opened a few windows. The delicious smell of her home-cooking was momentarily covered with the intense odor of burnt bread. Chloe plopped in the floor and threw her oven mitt beside her, crushing the cherry of her fallen companion. Being a single-mom kept her nerves haywire. She had a husband but he was never home and suffered from alcoholism. She gazed around the kitchen, and covered her face, disappointment flooding her facade. What a mess! Jared is going to be so mad! She picked herself up, using the bar as a crutch and tried to gather her thoughts. Maybe I have enough time to whip up another pone. Filled with hope, she opened her refrigerator and snatched an egg. Lightning lit up the dreary kitchen as she closed the door, highlighting the angry lines creasing Jared’s face, which was now standing before her. He grabbed her arm and the thud of two bodies slamming against the floor ricocheted off the living room walls, causing Camryn to cover her ears and bury her head in the couch. What if there was an unspoiled world, with an ideal man, a faultless life…nope. That could never exist…or could it? Chapter One Isaac J. Celeste Indignant screams sounded from the Olla V. Grant Maternity Ward on a summer, Sunday evening. “I need a nurse!” The burly OBGYN shouted brusquely from room 206 on the second floor of the Navy Cross Hospital in Whitley County. In a fraction of a minute, three petite women in baby blue scrubs flooded into the room, panic stricken and flittering their hands to the birthing equipment. They immediately followed through with the routine procedure of birth, affixing a monitor to Phoebe’s stomach, followed by a blood pressure cuff and all the items used for checking vitals during labor. Phoebe writhed on the white hospital bed, thrashing at times due to the severity of the crowning pain. Sweat poured down her swollen face as she gritted her teeth. Mason rested by her side and tried to keep the wet hair out of her face, kissing her on the forehead and rubbing her tummy. The anesthesiologist arrived with devastating news; there was no time to impel the epidural needle into her spine. In other words, the birth would be extremely painful. When she arrived, a nurse confirmed she was dilated to seven and her water had already broken. The baby was coming soon and pain relief wasn‘t an option. The short, round doctor with rosy red cheeks and nose harboring snow white elvis side-burns, pulled his backless rolling chair to the foot of the bed and pulled out the stirrups. He helped ease her shaking feet into the awaiting rests for practice pushes. When the doctor raised her hospital gown to assess the progress of her dilation, his eyes bulged. “We’re crowning! Here comes the head!” The OBGYN shouted to the nurses who were readily flanked at Phoebe’s side. The shortest nurse, with carrot red hair and a fist full of freckles splashed across her nose, leaned over the bedrail and whispered, “take a deep breath, keep your head up, and push like you’re going to have a bowel movement, you’re going to do great sweetie.” “Get Chloe and mother on the phone! I want them here! Tell them to come.” Phoebe growled to her husband. This was all she could ask for, her only sister and her mom. Phoebe was fresh out of a broken home and not having a dad caused a lot of arguing between the three women when she was growing up. Her mother booted him out when she was only five years old due to his chronic alcohol abuse. Chloe was a spitting image of her beautiful mother, and had a stubborn attitude like her father. Phoebe, on the other hand, was always the odd-ball. She really never fit in to the family of four, and the question of whether she was adopted or not always lingered in her thoughts; she didn’t favor either parent. Mason had been keeping his distance from the scene. His long time friends whose wives had already experienced childbirth warned him about the coming bloodbath. He winced at the idea of the gory episode, and snatched his cell phone out of his pants pocket as he made his way out the heavy, wooden door. Phoebe watched after him hoping he would return in time. The doctor gave a thumbs up for her to begin pushing and the nurses gripped her hands. She closed her eyes after she realized Mason would miss the birth and counted in her head one, two, three. She pushed. And, at that moment, a six and a half pound baby slid out to see the world for the first time. A tiny, weak cry sounded from her feet. Tears welled up in her eyes as the cry got louder and stronger, the baby was healthy. “Would your husband like to cut the umbilical cord?” The OBGYN inquired kindly as he held up the screaming red baby, “it’s a boy,” and he smiled. “You go ahead, I doubt mason will be joining us.” Phoebe said sadly. The doctor looked to the nurse and requested a pair of medical scissors. The same nurse that whispered the advice gladly handed them over. One quiet snip later, Phoebe was cut free and the baby immediately held an audience of nurses who wiped, cleaned and adored every inch of his frail, little body. One of the nurses looked up to Phoebe and asked, “what’s his name?” “I think I’m going to call him Isaac Jonathan. I’ve always loved that name.” Her heart swelled with happiness. “Oh yes, Mrs. Celeste, it’s beautiful.” The nurse replied and began cooing at the little bundle, “hello there little Isaac, I just love your name baby, Isaac J. Celeste.” She began rocking him from side to side, cradling him close to her chest while she stared into his bright, yellow-green eyes. She gracefully walked to the edge of the bed and asked Phoebe if she would like to hold her son while she made his name bracelet. Phoebe gladly took the light blue bundle in one arm and rubbed his diminutive glowing cheeks with the other. “There it is! Celeste, Isaac J.!” The nurse was smiling ear to ear as she held up the bracelet and waddled over to the baby boy and fastened it loosely around his tiny ankle. “Pardon me for being so nosy but I’ve never heard the name Celeste before? Is it foreign or…?”