AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He rubs my back in soothing circles. “I’m sorry.”
“What else then? Tell me all the rest of the truth that I don’t know.”
Knox withdraws his hand from me and puts it between his knees. “We had a baby.”
Any hope I had before those words came out of his mouth, whooshes out of me as soon as I hear them. I won’t ever understand what they went through. “What?”
“Kind of, I guess. Layla had just turned nineteen. She was almost six months along when the movement stopped, and the heartbeat stopped, and the baby was born, but he wasn't…” His breath comes out broken, and I turn to look at the sadness on his face. "It took a lot out of her. They told us she had PCOS and it would make everything harder. She wanted to try again right away but I held her off until we got into the house."
"Knox-"
"Don't tell me you're sorry. I've heard a million apologies for it and I don't want to hear another one. It's just a thing that happened. It was sad and it was unfortunate, but it was seven years ago."
"I didn't know. I had no idea. It was a boy?"
"Yeah. She left me a few months later. There's nothing else to tell. Not that I know of. I think you know everything else. I buried her near him. Her grave is next to his.”
She dealt with it all by herself. Her and Knox. Just like they did everything else, apparently- secretly, quietly. “Did you heal?” I doubt he did. He probably put all his energy into healing her, making her whole again, keeping her sane. Knox doesn’t answer right away, and I watch him crumble into himself for a few minutes before I decide the urge to comfort him is worth listening to.
Chapter Twenty-two
Tree
Nell forces her way onto my lap and puts her knees against my hips, wrapping her arms around my neck. The comfort I draw from her is immense. I haven't dealt with any of these things or healed from them, no. I never had time. They kept coming, one right after another.
We lost our son and she left me in the same year. We were on and off until the house was complete, but having a ring on her finger didn’t make her mine any more than building her a house. She was always one foot out the door with me, but I believe she loved me. She just wasn’t always sure love was enough. Losing my wife because she didn't want to be with me anymore was one thing. I still had hope. But losing her to death? Well, that was pretty fucking hopeless.
My chest shudders against Nell's, and I squeeze her against me. She stays quiet, fingers rubbing over the back of my head as my tears drip down onto her shoulder. I don't want to break down and cry, but I can't hold it in any more. Nell is right. Maya was too. The longer I put all these feelings off, the worse it gets.
“Sometimes, Nell, I think about how grateful I am that we never had kids. I know that’s fucked up, but I was relieved. Heartbroken, but we weren’t ready. It wasn’t the right time for us to try to raise kids. She wanted it so fucking bad, but I would’ve been left with them, and look at me. I wouldn’t be good for kids.”
"You would have been an amazing father, just like you were amazing at being a husband. You're a good guy, Knox."
"I wasn’t a good enough husband.”
Her fingers massage my scalp, pulling me closer so she can wrap herself around me. “No, youwere. You were a perfect husband. Sometimes things just don’t work out. Fuck, I’m so sorry, Knox. I had no idea all this happened.”
“Can we take a drive? I’ll let you handcuff me if we have to, but I have to get away from here.”
She nods against my cheek and kisses me there. “No handcuffs. I trust you.”
The drive is smooth and easy until we get to the gravel road leading into the cemetery. I want her to see their graves, to show her what she was too hurt to notice at Layla's funeral. Nell squeezes my hand as we pull up, and I hope I'm not pushing her too hard like she did to me by taking me to Layla's house.
I park the truck and we walk in silence. I haven't been here since last March. I don't know if Nell has been. This place hurts. Being around the people we've lost is painful, because we can't see them. But showing it to Nell feels right. Letting her in, all the way in, is what I need, what she's been asking for.
Layla Marie Reed-Berry is buried right beside Milo Alexander Berry. She wanted him to have my last name not a hyphen. His headstone only has one date, the day he was born. There are little angels engraved in the stone.
Nell follows me to my knees, getting into hers beside me over his grave, where he was buried in a tiny little box. "I never grieved him," I mumble, sniffling and looking away into the darkness. "I didn't know how. It felt wrong. I would have loved him- Ididlove him, but it felt like a betrayal because I was relieved. I was heartbroken and happy at the same time, and that made me feel guilty. I didn't spend much time thinking about it.
"Layla was falling apart and I was trying to figure out how to glue her back together. She was always slipping through my fingers like sand. When we lost him, she lost her mind, just like I did when I lost her. She couldn't stand me. I think it's normal for shit to fall apart when something like that happens. She didn't like the way I didn't deal with it, and that's fair. She missed your dad. I never thought that would happen because of how much they fought, but she did. I don't know if she ever contacted him.
"We were apart for most of the time the house was being built, but we didn't stay apart. We kept going back to each other like magnets. When the house was finished and she said she wanted me back for real it was like my dreams came true. I was so in love with her, even all the little things she did that I didn't like, I loved those too because they were part of her.
"So we moved in together and everything was good for a while. She was happy, truly happy, but then I couldn't push off the baby thing anymore. She wanted a baby, and I wanted that for her. I was willing to do that for her if it made her happy. Only it didn't make her happy. It made her sad. It ripped out her insides faster than I could shove them back in. I couldn't put her back together anymore, and I was so angry.
"I was so angry at her for wantingmore. I had everything I wanted and she wanted more and I hated that we couldn't make it happen. I hated watching her slip further and further beneath the waters of depression. So, I dragged her back to shore and revived her as many times as I could, but we were falling apart. She tried too. She fought for us, but it wasn't enough. I started sleeping at the clubhouse every once in a while to escape the madness. Eventually she told me not to come home, and I didn't.
"That house was never my home, Nell. It was Layla's. I hate that house, but we should go there next."
