Little Life

The silence was heavy as it filled the house. It crept from room to room and settled in every meticulously cleaned corner and demanded its presence be known. Bethany walked from room to room making sure nothing had gone to disarray since she had last checked only a half hour ago. Everything had a place, and everything was in its place. Not even a singular brown hair on the top of Bethany’s head was amiss.

Though the house didn’t dare to creek, Bethany’s mind was as loud. Thoughts zoomed through every crevice stealing any bit of solace she might have had. She made her way over to the gray couches in her living room and sat down in an attempt to ground herself. She didn’t dare to lean against the pillows eh had fluffed three times before, but she allowed herself to slouch ever so slightly. As she inhaled her chest rose with anticipation, pulling close all of her fears and anxiety. On her exhale she pushed them as far away as she could. Then, without pause, the cycle began over again.

Bethany turned to Tom who had not moved from his spot on the couch since he had sat down. “What if—” she started but was quickly cut off by the touch of his hand on hers. “Everything is going to be fine” he said. Where Bethany was the meticulous type, Tom was an adventurer. Bethany needed to know every detail before she could proceed with anything. But Tom only needed her.

Bethany had planned her, and Tom’s lives together before they had said “I do”. According to Bethany, they would honeymoon in Paris, and when they got back, they’d rescue a dog. They would then spend the following five years enjoying life as a newlywed couple. They’d buy a house together, they’d buy their first car as a couple, and they’d simply get used to doing everything as a team. After five years’ time, and only then, they could start to think about kids. Bethany could see the order of events as clear as a summer’s day. Though Tom couldn’t dream quite as far as her, he didn’t care. He only wanted Bethany to be happy. And her plan for their lives did just that.  

Just as Bethany had hoped, everything went according to her plan. They did honeymoon in Paris, and as soon as they returned, they rescued a dog. That same dog, Samson, sat beside Bethany at the couch that evening. Even the Retriever’s fur was meticulously groomed; not a lose hair in sight.

Soon after they found the perfect house in a small suburb just outside of the city. It had a big yard for Samson and four bedrooms for their future children. When it came time to buy a car, they purchased the nicest van money could buy with hopes they would soon fill it with tiny baby hands and feet. But five years came and left without giving the couple the baby they had planned on.

Another year passed and still no child. Years seven, eight, and nine all came, and left Bethany frozen in time waiting for the next part of her plan to come to fruition. Year Eight was particularly difficult on the couple as it came with empty promises. Two little lines taunted them three times over. They both prayed to a god they didn’t believe in hoping it would help, but the year left them with nothing.

Bethany stood from the couch and began to pace once again. As she passed from one side of the millennial gray room to the other, Samson followed her movements with his head at each pass by. “You’re going to make him sick,” Tom said nodding to the dog.

Bethany stopped and crouched down towards Samson and patted his head. “Sorry buddy,” she cooed. She petted him slowly tracing the length of his head down to his shoulder blades. Each pass down his back was a thought she tried to push down. Once, twice and again a third time she swallowed her thoughts. Eventually she couldn’t keep them to herself anymore and burst through the silence. “When is she supposed to get here again?”

Tom looked at his watch then back at Bethany. “Any minute now,” he said.

“Yes, I know any minute, but what time did she say exactly?” she snapped.

Tom slowly inhaled as he recounted the email they had received just hours earlier. “Seven,” he said.

“And what time is it now?”

“Five past.”

Bethany groaned. “Right, so, any minute now.” She offered a halfhearted smile to him as a white flag. She hadn’t meant to snap at him. They were in this together. They always had been. Her heart started to beat faster than before which gave her another pause. She wondered if she might die before she could see the promise the night brought. She stood from where Samson now laid and continued to pace and chewed on her lower lip as she thought of all the little noteworthy things that had led them to this singular, colossal moment in time.

She recalled the time she first saw Tom. His blonde wavy hair caught her eye in a check-out lane, and he caught her staring. When she realized he had noticed, her face turned about as red as it normally did after a run. Though she was embarrassed, Tom found it charming and asked her to join him for coffee the next morning. She agreed and they exchanged numbers.

She recalled that first date with the handsome stranger and learned he was a surgeon. She flooded him with all kinds of medical questions she had always wanted to know, such as if the surgical dramas that air on Thursday nights had any accuracy to them. She groaned when he told her they didn’t. And though medical questions from strangers normally put Tom off, he was drawn to her naive curiosity. A week from the first date had passed and he couldn’t get her out of his mind. He asked her to join him on a walk the next morning. She agreed and the two planned another outing together. Then another. And another. Before long they became inseparable.

She recalled the day her mother had passed from a long battle with cancer. As she sat by her mother’s side in what would be her final days, Tom sat there with her. He left only to freshen up the flowers in the hospital room or to grab a bite for them to eat. Bethany couldn’t bring herself to even think about her basic needs, but she trusted Tom would care for her, even when she couldn’t.

She recalled the day he proposed to her. He had gotten her co-workers and students to help by being apart of an elaborate scavenger hunt across the entire private school Bethany taught at. It was something only seen in movies and yet, it was something he did so effortlessly for her. He later admitted he had felt a little foolish on that day, but assured Bethany she was worth it.

She recalled the day she said “I do” with a lace dress as white as fresh snow and flowers that painted her long brown curls. During the reception Bethany spilled some red wine on her dress, but knowing how perfect she had wanted that day to be, Tom took that same glass and splashed it on his tux. Bethany almost didn’t care that they’d have two dry cleaning bills to pay. The gesture was so brilliant, it almost made her forget about the stain all together. Tom couldn’t care less about his wedding day and all the little details it entailed. But because it meant so much to Bethany, he paid attention.

She lastly recalled the two little lines that made her heart flutter with hope. She immediately called Tom and asked him to hurry home. He rushed through the door not sure what he was going to find on the other side and was immediately handed the test. Overcome with joy, he picked Bethany up and swung her around and his lips touched hers as her feet gently kissed the ground. That night they went out to their local supermarket and picked out a gender-neutral baby onesie and hung it up in what would soon become the nursery. That same onesie now hung front and center in the finally finished nursery among other things they had collected over the years.

No matter what life threw at them, Bethany knew she could count on Tom to be by her side no matter what. When those two little lines disappeared almost as quickly as they arrived, she clung to him drawing her life’s breath from his. Bethany thought back to all of the times she had held a little test in her hand and wondered if Tom had known from the beginning that she couldn’t give him a baby, if he would have still married her. Knowing what she now knew, she wondered if given the opportunity to do it all again if she would. After all, not being able to give the one person she couldn’t live without the purest expression of their devotion to one another when that’s all either of them wanted the most seemed especially cruel.

A knock at the door shattered her daydream.  The once zooming thoughts all came to a sudden halt crashing into each other leaving nothing but a ringing in her ears that harmonized with the rhythm of her beating heart. She stood in the middle of the room unable to move, barely able to breathe. Tom rose from the couch and grabbed her hand. “Together,” he whispered, and he led them both to the door.

Tom pulled the door inward and there before them stood a social worker. In her arms was the tiniest, most beautiful baby girl both Tom and Bethany had ever seen. Tom ushered the two inside as he swallowed the lump in his throat that threatened a fountain of tears.

Bethany’s heart pounded in her ears; she couldn’t hear a single word other than “she’s yours”. With each beat of her heart, it became easier for Bethany to breath. This was the moment she had waited for. She was finally about to be who she had always wanted to be and was finally able to share the moment with Tom that she had always dreamed would come.  

The social worker passed the baby to Bethany, and she drew her in close. There in her arms was the culmination of sleepless nights, doctor appointments, and tears; those she had cried and those she had tucked away. She stared at the tiny fingers and toes that were so perfectly at rest. When the baby clasped her hand around Tom’s finger the world seemed to stop spinning just for a moment. Suddenly, the noise that had once filled Bethany’s mind was finally silenced. No more thoughts, no more ringing, no more panic. They just were. She just was.

“Hi Maddie,” Bethany whispered. The baby grunted as she repositioned. “I’m your mama.” She kissed the perfectly round and bald head and knew deep down in her soul that was the first time this little girl had ever been kissed.

Bethany’s heart ached with grief. Grief of all this little girl had lost and all that she too had lost. But she wondered if somehow the grief drew them all together. It was as if two broken hearts had found each other and with that first kiss the healing could finally begin. “I promise,” Bethany whispered, “to never let you go.”.

Tom held Bethany around the waist and wiped away the silent tears that rolled down her cheeks. She turned to him and smiled, and as their eyes met, so did years of heartache. With each second, they could feel the pain start to leave, one tick of the clock at a time.

There in her arms was something Bethany had stopped believing in. She resided herself to believe that her and Tom were made to be alone; just the two of them. Never truly alone, they would always have each other only missing a piece of them they never thought they’d have. To her, motherhood was no more than a fairytale, calling out to her in the darkest of nights. But as she stared at the perfectly beautiful baby, she felt the dream reach out to her once again, clawing its way from the secret depths of her soul. This time, she didn’t fight it.

As Bethany contemplated all of this in her heart, Maddie smiled for the first time and the reality she had been living in shattered. Now Bethany started to believe that her and Tom were made for something greater than loneliness, that she was made for something greater. She believed Maddie was made for them and that she was made to be her mother. She was made to cherish everything about this little girl, to find everything she said and did to be charming, and to melt at every laugh and every cry. Together, her and Tom would make sure Maddie never doubted her worth. They vowed right then and there that they would spend every day making sure this little girl knew just how wanted she was.

“Congratulations mama,” the social worker called as she walked out the door. The door slammed and the house shifted with a loud crack of its bones. The echoes woke Maddie, and her cries filled the rooms breathing new life into them. Samson shook and his collar jingled with him. Bethany swayed with Maddie in her arms and gently soothed her with gentle humming as Tom raced to the nursery to fetch one of the many pacifiers they had set out. Bethany moved to sit on the couch and grabbed one of the previously forbidden pillows to prop up her arm. Tom sat down next to her and with one hand placed his arm around her shoulder. The other held a pacifier that they no longer needed.

One by one things no longer stayed in their places and the house was no longer quiet. The night turned into day and back to night again and for the first time dishes began to pile in the sink. A couple laundry baskets were quickly filled with clothes, blankets and burp rags and not a single load had yet to be started. The house slowly unraveled as time finally seemed to give back to Tom and Bethany what it had taken.

As the house came apart, Bethany’s heart slowly began to knit itself back together. Every cry that called out deep in the night, every laugh that echoed through the halls, and every ‘first’, first tooth, first foods, first word, healed an old wound in both Tom and Bethany. Millennial gray turned into color and hope filled the house once again.

Bethany recalled once more all of the pain and the grief her and Tom had been through. With each passing memory she looked deeply into Maddie’s eyes and declared once and for all that it was worth it. Every kiss, every laugh and every tear were all worth it. As Maddie cooed in her ear, Bethany decided if given the chance she would choose to do it a hundred times over if it led her to this moment; after all, what is happiness without grief. Bethany watched Tom as he held Maddie in his arms, and she found her answer. Nothing. Happiness meant nothing without grief. And Bethany wanted nothing more in this little life than the people right beside her.