Chapter 2
I don't know how long I sit on the floor in front of the phone, staring at the word pregnant glaring up at me. I barely move when my mother kneels down beside me, wrapping her arms around me and holding me tight. She murmurs nonsense into my hair as she rocks us back and forth, before noticing what I'm clutching in my hands.
"Oh honey!" she exclaims. "When did you find out?" Her excitement is palpable, even through both of our tears.
I don’t understand how she can be happy right now, about anything. I was overjoyed about the baby when I first found out, but that happiness has been eclipsed by gut-wrenching grief. Instead of spending the next eight months sharing sonogram pictures, picking out baby names, and decorating a nursery with my husband, I will instead spend the next eight months knowing he won't ever see our baby.
He'll never hold him.
He’ll never get to love him.
The only way my baby will know his daddy is from me telling him about him. That pains me so much that I can’t think about it. We’d tried so hard for so long, that we thought a baby wasn’t in the cards for us. Other couples pop out kids like Pop Tarts. Ding! Here’s another! That wasn’t the way it went for us. Years passed with no luck.
I slam my head back into the wall and let the tears streak down my face, not bothering to wipe them away. "Monday night. I never got to tell him, Mom. Now, he'll never know." Dissolving into sobs once more, whatever she says doesn't register. I melt into a puddle on the floor and curl into a ball. I can’t stop crying. I want to stop, but the sobs won’t let up. The next thing I know my dad’s by my side, helping me stand, before they both walk me into the bedroom.
My mom pulls back the comforter and guides me onto the mattress. Kissing my forehead, she says, "Why don't you rest for a while. We'll start making phone calls and letting everyone know, okay?" Her voice breaks, and I can see Daddy wrapping his arms around her, much like she did for me earlier, and pain rips my chest in two.
Cade should be here. He should be hugging me while we whisper in bed, dreaming about things to come, our little family, and losing each other in kisses and hugs. Instead of preparing for that future, I will be planning his funeral. Instead of embracing this new life, I'm saying goodbye to his. Sorrow chokes me and I scream at the top of my lungs, “It’s not true! He can’t be gone! He promised me! Mom, he promised me!”
Her hand rests gently on my forehead as she strokes my hair away from my face. My body heaves as I sob into my pillows, screaming that this isn’t fair, that it can’t be true. This isn’t my life. “They made a mistake. They must have. He was going to call, he was. He was…”
Mom sits there until I still and the tears slow. She says nothing. Sometimes there is nothing to say. Her aged hand strokes my brow over and over again, using the soothing touch that I remember so well from when I was a little girl. She stays until I’m finally calm, then kisses my cheek and slips out the door.
I've known Cade my entire life. We grew up next door to each other and were in the same classes all the way through elementary school. When I first started crushing on boys, he was the only one I noticed. Cade was my first kiss, my first and only love, my everything. I don't know how to live without him; he’s been with me through everything, everyday, for years.
Turning over, I face the wall and shut my eyes, letting the tears continue to fall as I clutch his pillow to me, holding it the way I wish I were holding him. I keep one hand on my stomach, cradling the only part of him I have left. All I can think about is the fact that he's gone. I'll never see his smile or hear his voice, never feel the touch of his hand. Cade will never get to put his hand on my belly to feel the baby kick, he won't be here when this child is born, and we won't take our baby home together. I worry that my grief will hurt the baby, so I try to hold it together. I can’t fall apart no matter how much I want to lay down and never get up again. This child needs me to be strong, and I wish I was.
As I lay on the bed we shared, I barely register the low tones of people talking on and off throughout the afternoon. Their voices carry in to the bedroom through the cracked door. Periodically, Daddy walks by and glances into the room, but he keeps his distance. The only way he knows to cure tears is with chocolate or dollies. The broken woman on the bed isn’t a little girl anymore and no amount of toys will fix this. He paces away, back to the living room. They stay here in our little old house, making calls and preparing everything that needs to be done.
My tears fall freely, mourning the loss of my best friend, my husband, my soul mate. Finally, all the crying takes it’s toll and I fall into a fitful sleep where I dream of the way things should have been.