“You don’t get it! You don’t understand what it’s like to already feel this way. And then to know someone else knows this side of me when I try so hard to hide it. Do you think I go around telling people about my fucking dead baby?”
“She just wants to make sure you’re okay,” I say, trying to convince her that what I did wasn’t done with malintent. “You know she cares about you.”
“I know that, but it doesn’t mean I want her to know this about me.” Her voice takes on a pleading tone, and desperation causes the crease between her brow to deepen.
“You know she doesn’t care.”
“I care!” she shrieks. “Icare! Why doesn’t that fucking matter to you?”
“It does matter to me.”
“No, it doesn’t,” she continues to argue. “You wouldn’t be so damn careless if it mattered to you.”
“It does matter to me,” I tell her. “But sometimes, I just…I don’t know how to deal with all this, and when I find someone who listens to me, I want to know how these things sound out loud?—”
“This isn’t what I want them to remember me as,” she finally confesses. “I don’t want them to know me as this brokenthing. It’s enough that this is what I am and I just want to disappear?—”
I groan, banging the side of my fist into the doorframe. “You can’t say things like that.”
“What? That I want todisappear?”
“Yes,” I answer desperately. “You can’t talk about—about you… I can’t just stand here and hear you say things like that. Do you realize how that makes me feel?”
“How it makesyoufeel?” Disbelief flushes her cheeks and I can tell we’re meeting our breaking point.
“Kendall, I can’t…” I don’t know how to tell her I can’t live without her. I don’t know how to say the things I want to saywithout the assurance she can handle it. Because the things I want to say are heavy. They’re dense and difficult to carry, but we should be carrying them together. As husband and wife. But we’ve lost that balance. I don’t know what she can handle, and I don’t know what more I can take on.
“Look,” Kendall demands. “Just forget I said anything. It’s already done. You talked to Teeny about me, and you can’t undo that, so just forget about it.”
She pushes past me, and I hear the door close to our bedroom.
For a moment there, I felt like we were finally resurfacing. Coming up from under a pile of rubble, hoping we can somehow dust it all off and be us again. I was so stupid to actually believe that. To even hope Kendall and I could go back to how things were, when our relationship thrived on trust and regard. When our biggest hurdle was what we’d cook for dinner or whose turn it was to turn off the light before hopping into bed.
I don’t even know who that couple is anymore.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Kendall
THEN
From: [email protected]
Hey Beanie Weenie,
It’s been a while. I know Mommy’s been writing to you more, but I like to save my letters for special occasions. Mommy’s better with her words anyway.
Speaking of special occasions, today would’ve been your due date. I think it tops all special occasions. And a year from today, we would’ve been celebrating your first birthday. A whole year old. That’s a huge milestone. I keep picturing what you would look like in a little birthday hat with a ball of tinsel at the end. I learned about smash cakes recently. Apparently, they’re these special cakes for babies for their first birthday, and they’re supposed to smash into it. It makes a big mess, but from what I hear, the babies seem to enjoy them. I’m kind of jealous I didn’t get one when I turned one. I wonder if there’s a rule against having a smash cake in your thirties.
Anyway, I feel like I’m getting a little off track. The reason we started these letters was for a way for us to say goodbye on our own terms. We had so little control overthings when we found out about you, even more when we lost you, and I think this was a way to regain some of what we lost. And now, there are so many emails in your inbox. I haven’t read any of them even though Mommy and I agreed we can read them whenever. I don’t know if I ever will, but it’s a nice way to remember you existed at some point in our lives. Maybe when Mommy and I are gray and old, we’ll go through these letters, and we’ll remember how much we loved you. How excited we were to welcome you into our lives and start a family.
Not long after we found out about you, I got Mommy a stuffed animal. An owl. I think I got it to get on Mommy’s good side. Especially for when you’ve gotten so big inside her, and she wouldn’t be able to stand the sight of me. Apparently, my mom—your grandma—nearly smothered Grandpa in his sleep a few weeks before she had your aunt. His snoring is pretty bad in her defense, but I think the pregnancy had gotten the best of her. I thought a cute little owl would give me an edge and get me in Mommy’s good graces. But it never made it to you. Instead, I shoved it away in some box, and it’s sitting in the closet in my apartment now. Maybe I jumped the gun on that a little.
I don’t know if I believe in heaven or hell or any of that stuff, but maybe one day we’ll meet. Me, you, and Mommy can finally be together the way we were supposed to. And maybe I can hold on to that little owl until then. Take care, Baby girl.
We love you,
