Fragile Grief

             I could make out the familiar dark blue rain jacket from all the way across the parking lot. It was a reminder of years ago, when I picked her up for our first date in front of this same spot. Back before we were married, we often met up here. And I had forgotten about those moments of her walking through the rain in that old blue rain jacket.

             She quickly opened the door and slid into the passenger seat, flipping the dark blue hood back and scattering rain droplets on the seat and door of my car. I expected her to shiver, but she didn’t, simply held up the spare key set I had asked her to bring.

             “This what you wanted?” She asked, a bit breathless from walking across the parking lot from her own car. I could have parked next to her, but I was still bitter from the text message exchange from the night before.

             “Yeap.” I muttered, pulling the keys from her hand.  I tested them in the palm of my hand, as if judging whether they were the actual spare set of keys or if she had somehow, in spite, produced an exact replica just to annoy me. “This will make sleeping at my parents’ a little easier, having my own key to get in and out. Since apparently that’s what I’m doing these days.”

             She had been refusing to cook. I had been refusing to take out the garbage and mow the lawn. She had drowned herself in work. So did I. She locked her emotions away. I was always yelling. She couldn’t enter in the bedroom that used to house our infant daughter. I spent hours staring at the walls, willing her to be back.

             “Well, good. Glad I could help out.” She pattered her fingers against the wet jeans she wore for a moment, deliberating her next move. The fabric of her rain jacket squeaked in awkward tune with her movements. After what felt like an entire minute passed, she took a breath. Hesitated. “I was looking up divorces. It would seem we have to be separated for a year.” I turned sharply to her, trying to gauge her face. It was expressionless, she had learned to mask her emotions so well since that past November.

             “Is that what you want?” I asked, point blank. Hell, it wasn’t what I wanted. We had both been struggling for so long, and rightfully so. We had both lost ourselves in the midst of unbearable grief. But this?

             She said nothing, but pattered her fingers a bit more before shifting her gaze out of the car window. “Isn’t it what you want?” She countered instead, her shoulders stiffening a bit.

             “I mean,” I began, trying to keep the heat out of my voice, “we lost a child, Lena. Things aren’t ever going to be the same.” I stared at her, willing for her to meet my gaze instead of the falling rain. I used to read her so well. But ever since our daughter’s passing, she had lost all expression when it came to the conversations that mattered. But, then again, it probably wasn’t easy countering my fury with the world. “That doesn’t mean we give up. On this.”

             She shook her head slowly, finally turning to measure my expression. She was waiting for the anger that so often accompanied my words these days. I never hit her, good God I’d never do that. But while her grief had manifested into depression, mine had manifested into wrath.

             “You don’t…?” She started. Tears pricked her eyes and she had to take a steadying breath. She refocused, trying to hold together what she had been holding in for months. “Do you blame me…?” She finally got out, unable to meet my eyes with hers.

             “Blame you…? For what?”

             “For…what…happened…?” She choked out. She pressed a fist to her mouth, willing the fake calm to remain in place.

             “To Reagan?” I asked, disbelief stitched into the question as it was posed. She didn’t verbally answer, only nodded, gaze unfocused but straight ahead.

             I remembered back before Reagan was born. All the years we shared inside jokes and laughter. I refused to do any kind of dance other than a ridiculous silly circular dance, and she always rolled her eyes but loved me anyway. I was far from a romantic, and she was the textbook definition. Opposites in almost every capacity, and yet life together worked splendidly.

Until…our first child. And her diagnosis. The surgeries. The hospital stays. Not being able to see each other as she lived in the hospital with our child and I continued to work. We both had to protect our daughter in our own ways. And we both had to learn how to survive our situation. Our worlds changed drastically, revolving around the sick little person we had created. We forgot who we were. We forgot about anything and everything that didn’t have to do with keeping our daughter healthy. Rightfully so, what else could have possibly been expected of us at the time? But when she was ripped from us…so was our reason for living. We’d forgotten everything but her.

             “Lena, no.” I said, shifting in the seat to better face her. “Why in the hell would I blame you?”

             “Because I didn’t-“ A sob ripped through her and the welled up tears finally made their descent down her face. “I couldn’t…save her.” The tears were now punctuated with little wails of grief. She had both hands on her face now, finally displaying the emotion she had refused to let surface for months on end.

             “No one could have saved her.” I said, trying to mind the anger in my tone. “You did everything you could. The paramedics couldn’t bring her back. The doctors. No one could bring her back.”

             A flashback of that night took over my vision. Lena, screaming, pumping her hands over the lifeless body of our daughter. Screaming. Screaming. Me, dialing 9-11, desperately asking for help. Help. Please. Quickly. Screaming. Was it her screaming or was it me? Definitely her. Sobbing and screaming. She’s not breathing. She’s not breathing.

             “Are you upset with me?” I asked, shifting my own gaze to the steering wheel. “I didn’t-“ Big breath. “You took over CPR and I…I didn’t do…anything.” I finished, swallowing the growing sorrow stirring in my own throat. “I should have taken her to the doctor that day. I should have known…”

             “No.” She spit, almost annoyed. “You called 9-11. You went with her to the hospital. You did everything right. It was me who failed, Carter.”

             “Jesus, it wasn’t your fault, Lena, okay? It was MY fault.”

             “I don’t know how you can think that.” She bit back, quiet tears still rolling as she crossed her arms.

             Silence ensued as we both played back the night. The dark hospital hallway, lit up only by our daughter’s room, buzzing with doctors and nurses as they tried to pump life back into our daughter. More staff lingering in the hallway, tears streaming down their faces. The EMTs, police officers, fire fighters…all of them came to her funeral. So many people came that they were lined up out of the door. They all knew her story, and they all broke when they learned of her passing. Until the next week came and life had resumed for everyone else in the world. But not for us. Never again.

             “We…are allowed to be broken.” I choked out. “We have gone through something no one…NO one…should have to endure. But…” I hesitated, but finally picked up her hand and squeezed it. She looked at me, unsure. “Do we really give up on us?” I murmured.

             I thought of the stares I had received at work. The whispers behind closed doors. Their sympathy radiated and their discomfort levels soared. No one knew what to say to me, no one knew what to ask me. And I didn’t know whether to tell people the truth or lie or what. It seemed like people just wanted me to forget that I had a daughter, because it was more convenient that way. People could laugh and smile and go back to their business and not feel uncomfortable when I brought up the daughter that was no longer with us. In the entire universe, Lena was the only other person whose emotions could compare to mine. She had lost the same child that I had. We both had experienced her loss together.

             “You’ve been so different. So angry.” She whispered.

             “I know. But you have too, Lena. This is the most emotion I’ve seen in months. You can’t keep holding it all in.”

             “And you can’t keep lashing out, Carter. It’s not healthy.”

             “So we can agree…both of us have not been coping in a healthy way.”

             “We’ve been surviving. How else are we supposed to survive this?”

             We both considered her question. And I knew neither of us would come up with an answer. How did people survive the death of their child? It seemed an impossible feat. All of the years to come, parents to a child who no longer existed. What were we now? Were we still even parents? Were we nothing? It all seemed so impossible when considering the years that stretched ahead.

             “Let’s take a vacation.” I said. “Take some time. Breathe. We will get through it. Together. One day at a time.”

             “What if we can’t?”

             “Then at least we can say we tried.” Finally, she squeezed a tiny, tired smile out, and matched the pressure of my hand with hers.

             “Let’s order takeout?” She asked, turning and putting her seatbelt back on. Another coping mechanism for her, avoiding the discussion. Avoiding the hurt whenever possible. Redirect. “I’m kind of hungry.”

             “Alright. On the way I’ll pick up my bag from my parents’. I need to wash my clothes anyway.”

             “You need to wash your clothes?”

             “Believe it or not I’ve learned how to work a washer over the past few days. But apparently I don’t do it very well. At least my mother doesn’t think so.”

             “Wow. That’s got to be a sight. You know there is soap that goes in the washer, right?”

             “Hardy-har-har.” I muttered, shifting the car in gear.

             And there was a glimpse. It was tiny. But there. A glimpse of what we could return back to. We’d never be the same, no. We’d forever carry the life and loss of our daughter with us in every capacity possible. But we could learn. And we could grow. It wasn’t going to happen overnight. It would be a lot of heartache and fights at two a.m. where we both funneled our grief into things we didn’t mean.

And maybe…maybe, together…we could survive this. 

Events in this story are based on real life. Character names were changed and the situation was condensed. Some moments/actions/dialogue fictionalized for creative purposes.