AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“How do you know the baby was a girl?” Lyric asks as I finish, wiping the tears from my cheeks with the back of my sleeves.
“Fetal DNA testing,” Gabe responds. He sounds so detached and clinical, as if discussing any patient, proving what I knew all along. He never cared for her. “Per the oncologist’s recommendation, we had gone to a fertility clinic before the surgery. They harvested the eggs before the TMZ treatments so they wouldn’t be affected by it. Later, I told them what had transpired so they could try to prevent it from happening to our frozen embryos.
He draws a long breath, steeling himself. “The results confirmed our baby was a girl. They also thought the malformations causing the miscarriage were likely from the TMZ she was on. Ame probably got pregnant after the surgery and harvesting, but before the treatments started.”
Lyric stands up from the floor and hugs me. “Sorry you went through all that alone.”
Feeling a bit uncomfortable, I stiffen up and gently try to wiggle out of her hold.
“So, what does my idiot brother have to do for you to forgive him?” she asks, probably trying to break through the tension.
I let out a sharp, scornful laugh. “This isn’t just about forgiveness. He just never felt the same way I did. At some point, I realized that no matter what I did, I’d never be as important to him as he was to me.”
I hug myself, feeling an intense sense of isolation even though they’re right here with me.
“That’s a fucking lie,” Gabe disputes heatedly. “No matter how many times I said I love you, you refuse to believe me.”
“I’m not Leslie, and I’ll never be her,” I state plainly at last. It’s something I always wanted to say, but I was afraid. For a long time, I compared myself to a dead girl. Always wondering why I wasn’t enough. The problem was never me, but Gabe.
Pria was right. It just took me a long time to understand it.
His brow furrows in confusion. “What’s that supposed to mean? Who told you about her?”
“Your mom,” I reply, pointing at the pictures. “I mean, you still display her photo everywhere. Yet I see none of me, your wife.”
“Mom?” He looks bewildered. “What could she possibly have said that made you think . . . Is that why you kept saying near the end that I’ll never love you enough?”
I recount the afternoon his mom and Jude were over. How later Jude insisted that Gabe marrying me out of pity was idiotic. Shock sweeps Gabe’s face. But that wasn’t the only time . . .
* * *
(Then)
I sit clutching a mug of cold tea, curtains drawn, the dim lighting and heavy sadness smothering the too-quiet living room. It’s like so many other days recently. Empty. Lifeless. Bleak.
Gabe has been gone for days.
He left when Archer vanished, saying his cousin Seth needed him. I get the occasional text or quick call, but that’s all. I wish he had been with me like the way he is with Seth and Piper. I get it. He also lost his best friend, but I could be there for him.
But, instead, he retreated. He was too busy with other things to even check on me. It’s as if what happened that day was a bad cramp that needed medical attention, nothing else.
The only person grieving the loss of our baby is me. I wish he hadn’t told me her gender. Knowing she was a little girl who could’ve looked like him made her so much more real. When I fall asleep, I dream of her. I’m holding her and cradling her little body to sleep. But she’ll never be with me. She was taken away from me too soon.
I wish I wouldn’t feel so suffocated by grief. That I could muster the strength to lift myself from this couch and leave the house. But between the draining effects of the TMZ and the deep sorrow of her loss, even the simplest movement feels overwhelmingly difficult.
I attempt to remember life as it was before.
Before Mom came back, disrupted my entire life, and then died.
Before my own battle with cancer began.
Before this empty, aching void replaced the joy and warmth inside me.
Those memories feel like they belong to someone else now, faded and distant. Now, all I’m left with is this deep, unrelenting sorrow where there once was light and happiness.
A tear escapes, trailing down my cheek, and I let it. I’m too tired to hold them for Gabe, for his family, and, at times, for myself. Too tired to pretend I’m holding it together. The grief is like a wave, and I’m adrift in it, struggling to keep my head above water.
As I sit in this dim room, with my cold tea and my memories, and I allow myself to feel it all, the door opens. It’s Pria Decker.
