Flora returned home with more than enough time on her hands. Kiran’s late nights at the shop were only good on days like this. There was simply too much to think about and she couldn’t do it with her husband around. With the twist of her wrist, the lights in the ceiling of the garage flickered to life illuminating the room. While there was room for the car inside, Flora was simply too used to parking in the driveway. It was only in the last few months that their late daughter’s belongings were finally purged from the overstuffed garage.

Utility shelves lined the right side wall, just after an extra freezer for their survivalist rations. There was a smaller set of utility shelves to the left with boxes of Christmas decorations. One box—very bottom shelf to the right—wasn’t marked at all, but they knew it to be the few possessions Kiran’s father decided to pass to his only son; he never opened it.

The shelf at waist-height nearly bowed under the weight of five large boxes simply marked “Journals.” In high school, Flora decided she wanted to keep a regular record of her life. Maybe she’d pass them on to her children? Maybe she wouldn’t? Regardless, she wanted a way to look back on her life with Kiran.

The first box contained all the journals she wrote during high school. The second box held the journals through college. One was almost completely full of journals from her first pregnancy. Twenty-five painful weeks contained in one very unimpressive box. One box held everything after that pregnancy to the past year. She finished the last journal in that box the week before Kiran married her. The last box only had one journal because that was the box she started the day after their wedding.

With some effort the boxes were all moved to the family room where she liked to read. She might not acknowledge them, but the ideas Damian shared hardly an hour earlier were festering in her mind. There were small spots of uncertainty in Flora’s own memory, but she never once considered it meant something more; memories degrade over time, everyone knows that.

Flora started at the beginning. High school. She smiled as she read the hurried scribbles of her younger self back from her first date with Kiran. They went to lunch, walked along the beach at Oceanside. She sprained her ankle walking through the tunnel there and he carried her on his back to the car. They were a year-and-a-half apart in age so he graduated the year before she did. Kiran decided in his junior year to move to Portland for school; two weeks after graduation he moved.

The entries were rather dark—at least when compared to the ones preceding them—all over one man. Kiran was the only man she dated. The only one she wanted. In those days, it felt like her world was ending.

Of course it wasn’t the end of the world.

Two weeks after her own graduation, Flora moved into the cramped apartment in the middle of Beaverton to attend school, too. Away from the eyes and ears of her parents, Flora found a courage she never had before. They talked about their future together. She always recounted their conversations because she couldn’t believe how much they had in common. There were so many hopes and dreams back then!

Flora wanted to open her own floral shop. Flora wanted to be a mother; a wife! At least she had two out of three so far. Maybe three if their luck was good enough…

August 25, 2014.

Tears stung at Flora’s eyes, but she didn’t stifle them. In the privacy of her own home, when Kiran wasn’t around to see the cracks in her facade, she could mourn. This journal was started the day Flora first met with her doctor and learned she was going to be a mother. Kiran sat beside her that day. And they were so happy! They heard their baby’s heartbeat by the ninth week. They had names picked out by the twelfth week, a registry made by the thirteenth week, and a baby shower two days after learning they were having a girl.

Flora wiped the tears from her cheeks to keep them staining the pages as she read on.

January 12, 2015.

Flora was working at the shop like she always did. Kiran was in the office that day. It was still early enough in the day the absence of movement in her belly didn’t raise red flags. Flora could—and would—swear that something was strange that day, but she couldn’t be sure what. There was no pain. No blood. Only an unsettling stillness. That was before they met Josey and Michael. Those were the days of closing the shop for emergencies; Kiran insisted.

The doctor waved her magic wand with cold gel over Flora’s stomach. She waved it over again. And again. Their daughter wasn’t moving and there was no longer a heartbeat.

Barely past twenty-five weeks, Rebecca Emily Thompson died.

Flora wrapped her arms around herself, squeezing her eyes shut tight. Remembering those days would never get easy. On days like this, when Kiran wasn’t around, Flora sobbed as the wounds tore open again.

Why? Why did it stop?

The doctor had no explanation. Rebecca died, but no one knew exactly why. She went to therapy after her body healed from the miscarriage. She stopped journaling often. The next baby was lost in August 2015. Flora didn’t even know she was pregnant again before she miscarried on Christmas that same year.

Flora’s hands rubbed her stomach instinctively as she set the journal back inside the box. Her eyebrows scrunched together as she stared at a white journal with pink and green flowers decorating the front and back covers. Surprisingly, for someone with a love for flowers, Flora preferred plain journals. She didn’t need decorated ones because she was the only one who would see them anyway.

Returning to the couch book in hand, Flora opened the cover and started to read. “’Today, my Trial officially began. There is so much I want to explain because time is so limited here. Yet, it still feels like a lifetime away until the Trial ends. For my own sake, I will start with the Trial itself. After all, I know I will need to try to remember this again.’” Flora chuckled in disbelief. “What is this?” She continued.

“’In order to become a Guardian, I must live on Earth again, but without any protection from sin. In fact, my ‘goal’ is to sin as much as possible in a controlled fashion so I can guide others more effectively. How else will I know what another is experiencing?’” Whatever smile had been on her lips completely vanished. She couldn’t stop reading what she couldn’t remember writing. “’To ensure my success, I will have a Demon to guide me to that end. Assuming we succeed, not only will I achieve my goal, but the Demon will be Redeemed…When I was called to the Boundary—when Heaven meets Hell itself—I saw him in the darkness unable to protect himself or do anything except whatever Satan forced upon him…He—Kiran—told me he couldn’t see anything further than his hand. His entire soul was wracked with the most unimaginable pain that never stopped, even for a second…Kiran said he was told things about his wife he knew were wrong, but still believed them…I never want to feel that way. But I will. I know I will. For now, I just need to press on with faith, humility, and patience to learn what I must to become a Guardian.’”

Flora stared at the page, shaking like a leaf on the wind. Every part of her conscious mind wanted to reject the writing as some trick or prank. But she couldn’t remember writing it, not even in her younger years. It was written after her first miscarriage, but before she was pregnant again, two years ago.

Why would she write about Kiran having another wife?

“What the fuck is this?”

It had to be some kind of prank, albeit a compelling one. So she kept reading the entries. There wasn’t an entry for each day, but there were many nevertheless. Flora read about their progress during the Trial: her first smoke, her first drink, the first time she slept with Kiran…

Flora’s breath caught in her throat. “’Kiran and I talked about our previous relationships today…We have this entire collective memory of a life together over the past fifteen years, but we’ve only known each other for about a month now…It honestly made my heart ache. It made me miss my parents. It made me miss my friends. I’ve been trying to avoid this subject in my journals, but I miss Damian, too. I miss him most of all.’ When was this written?”

April 1, 2015.

“That…that’s impossible…I met him this past year…it’s a coincidence…” Flora set the journal aside once more, pacing around the family room. The unmistakable voice of truth whispered what she knew in her soul. And it just begged the question…

“Has Kiran written about this, too?”

Without thinking, Flora searched their closet for Kiran’s journals. He didn’t have many, so he kept them with the rest of his books and smaller personal belongings; things just for him. Kiran was not as prolific as herself, but that had more to do with the loss of their children and the depression that ensued than anything else. What was the point in writing for the children they lost?

It didn’t matter now, she supposed.

One by one, Flora picked each journal up to skim the entries. She only lingered on the dates long enough to keep herself oriented as she sailed through his perspective on their life together. She stopped at the first entry of 2015 she came to.

“Flora and I discussed children today…We both know procreation is a God-given right. But demons lose that as soon as we ‘fall.’ Now that I’m human again, I could earn that right back… If I got a woman pregnant, what would happen to the baby? Would it survive?

“’I pray we never get that far.’”

The tears raced down Flora’s face dropping to the floor; the journal followed landing pages-first, but Flora couldn’t care. There was too much pain! Too much hurt! Too much confusion! Everything!

“This isn’t true,” Flora sobbed. “It can’t be!”

Flora cried out in the emptiness of their home until it felt like there was nothing else left. A quarter to four, Flora gathered enough motivation to put all the journals away as they were before crawling into bed.