the bridge

Trigger Warning: Mental Illness.

Thunder sounded above Susie, slightly rattling the glass windows. She had just got done wiping down the table from their last occupants that left minutes prior. They were used to storms like this in the midwest, thunderous, pounding rain that only locals could drown out. As she wiped the last crumbs onto her palm from the table, a flash of white moved through her peripheral vision.

Susie whipped her head up to the empty streets expecting to see someone running in the rain, or nothing at all, or perhaps a car drove by. She did not expect to see a door. A white door, that stood as if it was built into the black asphalt covered street. The rain pelted it, the thunder did not shake it, Susie looked back and forth through the streets wondering if she had somehow missed someone carrying it. Did one of the folk set out for some renovations, without realizing how stormy it would be, and abandoned the door in the rain? Not likely, the folk here knew better than to not listen to the weather warnings.

"Honey..." she calls over her shoulder to her husband, turning her head, but not her eyes from the white door. He was in the back kitchen of their small cafe, doing the dishes as they get ready for closing. He would not hear her over the thunder nor the jazz that sounded from their speakers, so she calls again, louder, "Honey, come here please."

A moment of no response, before she sees him walk through the sweeping door with a questioning look on his face. She smiles, turning and pointing at the door, "Someone just left a door in the middle of the road, should we call Andy?"

Andy was the local repairman, he did most of the heavy lifting around town, including building the patio and the wood topped tables in their cafe. Perhaps, he had lost the door, and if he didn't, at least he could take it for scraps.

"That's odd. When did that get there?" Susie's husband, Vincent says, stepping around her to peer out the windows at the door.

"I don't know, I hadn't seen it earlier, I'm sure I wouldn't have missed such an out of place thing, but I wasn't paying much attention."

He nods, turning back to his wife with a smile, "I think it should be fine, Andy's probably hunkering down with Amy and the kids, we shouldn't call him. Hopefully whoever's it is collects it before the storm is up and people start driving about again."

Susie nods, smiling back at her husband, he was a good voice of reason, and smoothed out any jitters the oddity gave Susie.

"Right then, I'm almost done out here, how are the dishes coming along?"

"Near done, though I could use some help with wiping down the appliances."

"Alright, right on that then, hopefully the door is gone by the time we make it back."

Half of an hour passes before the two of them are done with their daily sanitation duties. Susie clicks off the lights to all their appliances.

When she leaves the kitchen with her husband in tow, flipping out the lights, her eyes automatically go to seek out the white door. Still it stands in the middle of the street.

Susie pauses, feeling a jitter run down the length of her spine, her husband takes her hand, "it's okay. It's just a door, I'm sure they will collect it soon."

Susie lets out a breath, looking to her husband with a laugh, "right, sorry, its just so odd."

"I do agree, but I'm sure whoever's it is will collect it soon. If not, we can call Andy."

Susie lets out another laugh, nodding her head, "Yes, that's a good idea."

Vincent gives her hand a squeeze and pulls her along to the door, and with a declaration to each other to run, they run the few yards to the staircase at the side of their building, where they lived above their cafe.

Inside they shake out their coats and take off their boots. Vincent smiles at his wife, "How about some hot tea? Cran apple with lots of sugar?"

Susie smiles back at her husband, pulling him in for a kiss, "yes please, and thank you," she replies after they break. When her husband leaves to the kitchen, Susie can't help but look out the windows overlooking the street. And still there, the door stands, rain beating on it. It's like a beacon under the gloomy sky, and against the dark road. Susie shakes her head, just a door. A door, someone left a door, a door within a frame that stood perfectly straight up.

When Vincent returns, they sip on their hot teas and flip through the channels trying to find one that still remains after the others have lost connection. They decide on the Brady Bunch. Susie cannot seem to concentrate on the show though, and after an hour of trying, she declares to her husband that she's due for a shower. She cannot help but look out the window as she stands up to go to the bathroom, still it remains. She shakes her head to herself. Just a door. Vincent grabs hold of her hand, "are you okay, my love?"

Susie turns back to her husband with a subtle nod and small smile, "all good, thank you, honey."

The water runs hot, beating down on Susie's head. That door. The door was ingrained in her mind. The slight glow of it, called to her, abused her nerves. It was no normal door. Alas, somehow her husband could not see that, and Susie had a history of seeing things that no one else could. She brushes it off once more, and after the shower grows cold, she declares to herself that she will not look out that window again, not until the storm has cleared up.

It's Susie's turn to cook dinner tonight. She chooses her mother's recipe of French onion soup. A well loved one. Vincent helps her by cutting up a baguette into bite size slices, and toasts them in the oven. They listen to jazz, and Vincent grabs on to Susie's waist as she finishes coating the top of their soups in cheese. Vincent pulls her into a spin and Susie laughs gripping his bicep to steady herself.

At the table Vincent and Susie share a bottle of wine and eat their meal. Susie does not talk about the door, Susie tries not to think about the door, but Vincent does not share the same sentiment.

"I wonder if that door is still out. Probably, it doesn't sound like the storm has let up at all."

Susie nods her head in agreement. Reminding herself once again that it's just a door.

Once dinner is through, Vincent is in charge of the dishes. Susie helps him with it. Soon after, Vincent declares that he's going to take a shower, and leaves Susie watching re-runs of the Brady Bunch. 

When Vincent returns, Susie gets ready for bed and slips into bed. Moments later, Vincent joins her, and they both click out their bedside lamps.

Susie does not sleep for long. With dreams that have plagued her every so often for the last ten years, she's pulled from the dream, sweat coating her forehead, and a silent plea on her lips. Quiet as to not wake her husband, Susie slips out of bed to get a glass of water. The alarm clock on her nightstand reads twelve pm.

The storm has gone finally, she no longer hears the thunder or the beating of rain on the rooftops. And when she looks out towards the window from all the way across the room, she can see the faint glow of the door. No one laid claim to it. No one to lay claim to it because it is no ordinary door. She knew from the moment she saw the door what it was. She tried to deny it, even Vincent did. Vincent who knew all of Susie's scars. Vincent who knew what was deemed as Susie's mental illnesses. He stuck with her all these years, despite it. Susie loved her husband very much, but she could not help herself now. Susie was filled with an anger.

Ten years ago, hundreds of miles away, Susie saw that same door. Months before she had met Vincent, Susie belonged to another and together they had baby Grace. It was storming just like it was when the door appeared in front of the cafe. The door from long ago appeared in front of their two bed room one bathroom home along their quiet street. Susie was still getting used to being a mother to her baby girl that she often felt groggy and disoriented from the lack of sleep. When she heard her baby girl crying, she thought nothing of it. She patted the bed where her fiancé laid, Declan. She met him in her first year of college, and they had been attached to the hip for the last two years since. Declan was not there. It was no cause for concern until Susie could hear the muffled sound of the front door opening, and the disappearing sound of her baby's cry. Susie sat up, looking around and rubbing the sleep away from her eyes. For a moment, she sat, before the world caught up to her and she slipped out of bed. Where was her husband? Why could she no longer hear her baby crying?

Susie tried not to panic as she walked on quick feet down the hall to her baby's room and peered in. She did not see the form of her baby.

"Declan?" she called, walking down to the living room. The door sat ajar, the sound of rain booming in the quiet living room. Susie was panicked now, running to the door and throwing it the rest of the way open. Shining and vibrant, that door stood as if it was built into the sidewalk. In front of it, Declan, her fiancé holding their baby wrapped in her small pink blanket as she cried.

"Declan..?" Susie calls, in question, outstretching a hand towards him and taking a step, "What are you doing with the Grace?" Susie was no longer as worried as she was, but perhaps she should have been more worried. She was just relived that they were okay, though the rain beat down hard on them, and her baby was screaming in protest.

"Taking her home," he says, turning to the door, and grabbing the handle.

Susie lets out a nervous laugh, "what do you mean, home? And what is that door doing here? Can you please come inside? It's raining!"

Humans tend to try to quickly shape anything they don't understand into a smaller box so that they may understand it. The glowing door, standing tall, should have been Susie's first indication that something was off. That her fiancé was not who he said he was. But she was young, tired, and a bit weary, and what dangers could a random door possibly hold? It wasn't until Declan twisted the knob to the door, revealing a whole other world on the other side of dark green pastors under the twilight sky, and stepped inside, that Susie lurched forward into the rain. She didn't know what she was seeing, and some part of her mind wondered if perhaps she was still dreaming. She didn't know what she would do, she just knew she needed to stop it.

"Good bye, Susan," Declan calls from over his shoulder, before shutting the door, their baby girl still clutched to his chest. Susie manages five steps, five steps away from the door to her house, and five steps away from the door that took away her life. She manages five steps before the door disappears into nothingness. Like it was never there. A cry leaped from her lips, and she run to where the door once was, spinning in circles, calling out both of their names.

From then on, Susie had been lost, almost like she was still spinning on the sidewalk. She had tried to describe what she had seen to her parents, to the police. Later, their small family car was found submerged in the local lake. How could that have happened? How could their car be in the lake when she had seen them go through that door? They thought she had gone mad with grief of losing them. Psychologists later determined whatever she saw as grief, and early onset schizophrenia. But how could she have grief from a car accident that she never knew existed? She never knew of the car accident until she had talked to the police. They never stayed around long enough to care about that.

It was much easier for Susie to listen to them though. To feel like she was teetering on the edge of some insane break than to actually question the world around her. After she was released from the psych ward, she met Vincent at a Christmas party that a good friend of hers threw. She was burdened with grief, and as much as she hated to admit it, she came to rely a lot on Vincent. She talked about her baby Grace all the time, and he sat there and listened. It was like all he did was listen. She needed that so bad, for someone to just listen. To not judge her, to not side eye her and question her sanity. To reassure her. He couldn't reassure her now. Because all those years, trying to forget about it, forget about her Grace, forget about the man she thought to be the love of her life who stole her baby from her, they were in vain. All those years of trying to convince herself that she had gone insane, and that the medicine she had been taking for the last nine years worked, and she would never see something like that again. Because there was no door, and her baby girl and fiancé died in a car accident. A car accident that yielded no bodies. It was all in vain.

That pain slammed into her, as she stared out the window at that glowing white door. She had taken her meds that morning. But the door was still there. She could almost hear it call to her, telling her to open it. She felt a crack in her heart, as the memories flittered through her mind like they did every other night she dreamed them. The last time she saw baby Grace's face, and Declan. Why had he done that to her? Where was her baby now? She would have been ten last month. Ten birthdays she had missed because her baby was stolen. She had let go of that anger three years ago, because where could she have put it if it was a car accident? It was no mere car accident though, the door was in front of her eyes and she felt that anger again.

Declan had never lied to her, but perhaps his whole life with her was a lie. Vincent kept a large axe in their broom closet in case of intruders and for the occasional wood chopping.

She's quiet as she pads through their apartment, and to the broom closet, she listens for any stirring from Vincent. Sometimes he can tell when she's not in bed for long, he has a knack for knowing when something is wrong with her. The axe she reaches for in the closet is long with a wooden handle and a red blade tipped in silver. Susie steps into her rain boots, and pulls on her rain coat in case the rain returns.

She heads to the door, and opens it quietly. She steps down from the stairs onto the quiet wet street, and hears that door-- the sound of static.

The closer Susie walks to the door, the louder it becomes. She wondered what it was she saw all those years ago, on the other side. She wondered why it came back. To let her see her baby again? As she stopped in front of it, the urge to turn the knob and see the other side was blinding and binding. This was the answer to all her pain those years ago. Was Grace on the other side? Would she remember Susie? Could she face the man she once believed to be the love of her life? Could she even understand what it is she would see on the other side?

Time would tell. Time had told her, had shown her that she was not in fact, crazy, that this door was real. Time had a funny way of showing her the truth. Her hand goes to the knob of the door and a heat pumps into her veins, and she is lit with a fire. Her strength feels almost unnatural as she grips the axe. She turns the knob to reveal the same scene she saw all those years ago. Endless green pastures under a twilight sky with twinkling stars, nothing had changed, it was like her life hadn't even been ripped away from her. She does not cast one look back when she steps down onto the soft dark grass, she only grips the axe tighter like it's a promise. A promise to herself, to find the daughter she barely ever got a chance to know, and to bring her back to her rightful home.