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All my love,
Carol
My gaze slipped from the page to the picture I’d taken that hung on the wall: the storm in the sky. I’d taken that after my weekend with Carol when I’d gone back overseas. It was such an incredible picture that I had blown it up so I could hang it. I would forever remember my weekend with Carol from just that picture and her love of storms.
I smiled at the picture slightly before I returned my attention to the letter and turned the page to the next sheet and skimmed the information that she had written. It talked about her and what she knew of her family, important medical information that would be good to know for his future. It even listed her favorite color, yellow, and flower, iris.
I sighed as I folded the pages again and set them on the cushion beside me, and my gaze fell on the bassinet. A sound came from inside, and I got up and went to it, lifting Devon into my arms. I stared down at his little face, Carol’s words flitting around in my mind.
“Well, little dude, it looks like it’s just you and me.”
Davina spoke up. “Then you’re going to keep him?”
I turned to her. “I’m going to try, but I’m going to need your help, Davina.”
She looked surprised. “My help?”
“Yes, and if you look at that letter, you’ll see that Carol expected you to help me, too. In fact, she hopes that we have a great friendship. That maybe we will even fall in love.”
“She did not!” She grabbed the note from the couch and unfolded it. I came back to sit with Devon in my arms. He was still sleeping, although shifting a bit as he was on the edge of consciousness. I waited patiently as she finished.
“Oh, my god! How could she think that I could fall in love with you? Or that I would want to help you?”
I skipped the love part; I wasn’t interested in that myself. “Why wouldn’t you want to help me?”
Davina stood, dropping the letter to the cushion. “Because you’re the reason she’s dead. I don’t want to have anything to do with you.” Her words were like a knife to my gut, but I controlled my expression the best I could.
“Excuse me?”
“If it weren’t for you knocking her up, she'd still be alive.”
“You blame me for this? Youreallyblame me for her death?”
“Yes! Of course, I do!”
I got up from the couch and put Devon back into the bassinet as anger began to seep into my blood. The moment I knew he was safe, I spun on her. “I had nothing to do with her death, Davina. Do you honestly think that I wouldn’t have tried to talk her out of this if I had known? I liked Carol; she was great. I would never wish death on her!”
“That doesn’t matter!” she hissed. “Because of you, she’s dead. My best friend is dead!” Her eyes began to fill with tears. “We were best friends for sixteen years! We did everything together! What am I supposed to do now?”
As the last of her words spilled from her mouth, the tears began to flow too, and I realized that in the time that she had been taking care of Devon and trying to find me, she had yet to grieve for her friend. I stepped closer to her, taking her shoulders, and she tried to pull away.
I didn’t let her go; instead, I pulled her to my chest as sobs began to explode from her small body. “What am I supposed to do now?” She cried into my shirt, her hands no longer pushing me away, but fisted in my shirt.
“You’re supposed to let it out, Davina. Cry and let out the pain. It’s okay; I have you. Let it out, sweetheart.”
As if someone had finally given her permission to grieve, she fell apart in my arms, and I held her. She wasn’t the first person that I had held as they grieved over the death of a loved one, but this felt different. Part of me began to grieve too, for a woman that I had barely known who had given the ultimate sacrifice to bring a life into this world. I stared at the photo over Davina’s head. Carol was a hero to me; she would always be a hero, and as I glanced toward the bassinet, I knew I would make sure that our son knew it.
Chapter Eight
Davina
How could she say that? How could she even suggest that I stick around and help him, be his friend, maybe fall in love with him! Never! I would never do that.
Yet, as I fell apart in his arms, I felt something I’d never experienced before. I felt utterly safe. Trevor let me cry for a few minutes, murmuring soft words of comfort, rubbing my back, and just letting me get it all out. Since Carol had died, I had cried. I shed tears after she passed, and I cried at her funeral, but those were delicate tears as I’d held back the vast grief that engulfed me.
Now I no longer held back. I let it all out. If anyone should know the pain I was going through, it should be Trevor. He should see just how much Carol’s friendship had meant to me, how much her death devastated me. I hated that he was the one comforting me, but at the same time, I could not stop myself. I clung to him; I needed him at that moment.
As the tears began to subside, I began to feel embarrassed. Ashamed that I had let myself fall apart in front of a stranger, in front of him—the reason she was dead.
