I grimace. “I don’t know about talking in front of a bunch of people.”
“Or therapy.”
“Yeah,” I concur. “That’s a good one.”
“It is,” he agrees in a gentle, even tone.
“How do you know about these things?”
“I looked some stuff up,” he confesses with an airy shrug. “The internet is very resourceful.”
“You looked it up?” I ask in disbelief. “What made you do that?”
“I couldn’t just sit at home and do nothing. It helped me feel…useful.”
“So support groups?” I ask, curiosity plighted in my lighthearted tone.
“Or even writing and journaling,” he continues. Spaghetti thrown on the walls, hoping something sticks.
“Writing? Kind of like the letters in that movie?”
He nods. “We could try writing letters. We could write them…for the baby.”
I pull away from him, gauging his seriousness. “You want to write letters to the baby?”
“I mean, it helped the woman in the movie. You know, grieve her husband and eventually move on,” he explains, “maybe it can help us.”
“What would we say? And where would we send these letters?”
He stands, the absence of him so sudden. He disappears into my room and returns with my laptop in his hand. “We’ll set up an email. We can email the letters to…the baby. Both of us can have access to the email account, in case either one of us wants to read them, and we can both send letters to the email whenever we feel like…”
“Like when we miss the baby?”
He nods. The baby. Maybe it isn’t as phantom as it all feels. Like it was simply just a figment of our imagination. It was real at some point.
“Okay,” I say, my finger running along the hard chassis of my laptop.
“Okay.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Kendall
THEN
From: [email protected]
Hi Bean,
We didn’t know what to call you, so we landed on Baby Bean. Baby Girl Bean. It’s a bit of a mouthful. But not to be confused with Mr. Bean, though the chances of you ending up with a round head and a bulbous nose were higher than most considering my grandpa could be twins with Rowan Atkinson, but more like a mix between a kidney bean and a fava bean. Both equally adorable but not resembling Mr. Bean in the slightest. I think for now, we can call you B.G.B for short. It’s a cute little nickname. We tossed around a few names since I found out you were a girl. I like Crystal. James likes Maya. We both vetoed Imogen. And that’s how we landed on something more neutral like Baby Girl Bean. It’s a little more productive for our grieving process, I think.
Sorry. I don’t really know what I’m supposed to say. James—or I guess, your dad—said this might help. We saw it in a movie, and the tried and true coping mechanisms we’ve been using didn’t seem very effective so here we are. I think we just aren’t ready to say goodbye to you yet. I don’tknow if it’s the guilt of us not being able to bring you home and love you the way you should’ve been loved or if it’s the fact that there was nothing that could’ve been done to save you. Not that any of it’s your responsibility. You should’ve been only worrying about growing your fingers and toes.
Speaking of fingers and toes, I think by now, you would’ve had all your fingernails and toenails. No more of that webbing stuff between them that would’ve made you look like a little puffin. You probably would’ve been on your way to a full head of hair. When I held you, your hair hadn’t fully grown in yet. You had some patches here and there, but I could tell your hair would’ve been beautiful had it had the chance to tumble down your back. I think you would’ve been about the size of a squash or a coconut now. At least according to the pregnancy books I’ve been reading. I don’t know why I still read those books. It’s not like I’m preparing for your arrival. But for some reason, they help. I feel connected to you. I can pretend I’m still waiting on you. Eventually, I’ll probably stop. Reality will hit, and I won’t be able to ignore the fact that you aren’t coming. For now, I’m going to hang onto you for as long as I can.
I’m glad I got to hold you, even if it was for a little while. I didn’t tell James this, but I didn’t want to at first. The doctors asked, and I said no. I couldn’t look at you. I didn’t want to hold you knowing I had to say goodbye. But then I saw you stir in the small bundle of blankets. You looked so small and fragile, and I wanted to protect you, even if it was just a short time. And I’m glad we had that time together.
