Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
W hen we reached the landmark six-year anniversary, Layla and I were swept up in a wave of love I could never have expected.
The dreary January morning had started out just as I had planned. The house was still and deserted save for Layla and me. Instead of a family pilgrimage, I’d arranged that Dorian have everyone over for breakfast leaving Layla and I alone to talk.
Packing a small picnic basket, I strapped her into the booster seat of the small Jeep to drive her down to the long meadow and toward our manmade lake. I thought I’d done a great job of preparing her for the graveside until a comment she made almost choked me.
“Are we going to see Mommy now?” My heart squeezed painfully tight by the innocence of my daughter’s tender years.
Fighting desperately against a swelling emotion constricting my throat, I struggled under the weighty strain of my fury at God for putting me in this position. It was clear from my daughter’s uncontained excitement she had expected to see Grace. Eyeing her warily, I bit back the words I knew would slaughter her as soon as I uttered them. For a second my heart faltered right there in my chest. The crushing sensation leaving me even more breathless .
Gasping, I suppressed the suffocating feeling and barely managed a stolen shallow breath. I had painstakingly poured my all into making Layla ready, but it appeared I had overestimated her level of understanding.
“We’re going to visit Mommy’s grave, Sweetheart. Remember Mommy’s in Heaven now… so you can’t see her.” Inadequacy weighed like a heavy stone on my soul as a feeling of utter helplessness took over.
“So, she’s invisible? Like she has a superpower? That’s what Gregor in my class says. He told me if I can’t see Mommy, but I know she’s definitely there, she must have a superpower.”
Narrowing my eyes, I cussed the meddling know-it-all kid I’d never even met. “Baby, we talked about this, remember?” I prompted, “You can’t see Mommy because her soul’s gone to Heaven and that means she’s a beautiful angel now, but we’re going to a place where we can remember her.”
Pursing her lips, Layla eyed me with suspicion. “Then why does Harper always tell me no matter where I am my mommy’s watching over me?” My breath hitched, remaining inside my lungs when it was stolen by the things we say to others to help them come to terms with the loss of a loved one.
Pulling over to the side of the road, I killed the engine and leaned over to unbuckle her seat. “Come here, Baby,” I told her in a gentle tone. Layla slid out of her seat and stood on the floor, then climbed nimbly between the seats before squeezing herself between the steering wheel and my chest to sit on my lap.
Staring up at me with bright inquisitive eyes, my daughter waited patiently for me to come up with an analogy that would somehow sooth her in the fucked-up situation that Grace had left behind for us.
“Okay. How do you know when Matty has made your favorite cinnamon cakes?”
“Because she leaves them on the counter in the kitchen to cool?” I sighed and tried again.
“Well, say you had gone out and came back to the house and Matty had already stored the cakes in the tin box in the pantry. How would you know she’d made them? ”
Tapping her finger on her little lips, Layla’s eyes furrowed in thought. “I’d know because I’d smell them. You can’t hide the smell of cinnamon,” she replied, giving me a big smile that said, ‘I’m smart.’
“Right,” I enthused. “So what smell reminds you of Mommy?”
“Betty.” Betty was Layla’s teddy bear, Grace bought it the week before her birth. She sprayed perfume on it and told me Layla would be comforted by the soft toy because it smelled of her. “From the pink bottle of perfume you showed me, the one you keep in the drawer in the dresser?”
“Oh, you’re so clever,” I praised because I still sprayed it on her teddy bear.
Looking at me like I had sprouted an ivory horn, she lifted her hand and placed it on my cheek.
“Daddy, Mommy’s not in a cookie jar in the pantry,” she informed me, like she was breaking news that was sure to disappoint me.
Despite the sadness in my heart, I couldn’t help but smile warmly, seeing the humor in her comment. “No, that’s true, she’s not, Layla. But, Mommy is all around us, like the smell of cinnamon. We only have to spray her perfume and our head reminds us about her.”
Layla frowned and placed her other hand on my cheek, squeezing them both together slightly and relaxing her hands.
“I see what you mean. Even though we can’t see Mommy, we know she’s there.” I nodded, choking up again.
“Now when we go to the cemetery, we won’t be able to smell that Mommy’s there because,” I paused trying to think.
“It’s outside so the smell of Mommy’s perfume will be blown away.”
At a loss for anything better to offer, I agreed. “Kind of… I mean Mommy’s soul got carried in the wind when she went to Heaven, but things here on earth keep our memories of her alive, but inside our heads.”
“But I don’t really have her in my head. I don’t remember. Daddy, I don’t want her inside my head. I want her here, like you are. I want her to read me stories and chase me in the garden, and swim…”
Cradling her head to my chest, I stroked her hair as we sat right there at the side of the small private road. “I hear you, Baby, but no matter how hard we want something, sometimes it just isn’t possible. ”
Falling silent, Layla huffed out a huge sigh in defeat and sagged sloppily in disappointment, all tension in her tiny body instantly giving out. Wrapping my arms around her, the only thing I could do was wait it out until her discontentment at my reply passed. I’d have given anything to give her what she wanted—what we both wanted—but it was beyond my control.
I concluded my daughter was far braver than I was, when minutes later, she pushed herself away and stared up at me with compassion in her eyes.
“It’s okay, Daddy. I know you can’t make her be here, and you can do everything , so I guess bringing Mommy back is the hardest thing in the world.”
Her words were like a sharp stab in the neck and winning an Emmy simultaneously, because she had expressed in one sentence my limitations, and at the same time, she had no expectations of me taking away her excruciating hurt.
We continued in silence, Layla huddled over against the wind with her hands stuffed deep in her pockets. A few minutes later we had finally made it to the boat, and the exposed position out there made the air feel even colder.
Placing my brave little daughter into the pontoon boat with its small outboard motor, a blustery wind played into the earlier conversation and Layla seemed to cling to this, observing it as the reason why she could still tell her mommy was close by.
Without disagreeing, I pulled the cord and started the engine. Steering the rudder, I took us to the island in less than two minutes flat.
Although my heart lay heavy inside my chest, its beat was slow and deliberate as I lifted Layla out of the boat and placed her feet on the soft earth. I didn’t visit the island often, but the few times I had ventured there before had brought about a calm feeling.
After I had spent a short time explaining about her mother’s grave, Layla and I stood and said a short prayer, our heads bowed. I then asked her to think about the things she wanted to say.
Watching her little eyes lift in thought, I waited patiently for her to come up with something .
“Um, hello, Mom. It’s pretty here,” she said, glancing around at her lush green surroundings. “I want to tell you something. You going away made my daddy very sad. Harper, that’s my nanny, she said that’s what made Daddy grumpy.”
Her honesty stunned me, and I stood wondering if that’s how she saw me. When I asked if she had anything else to say, she thought for a moment then shrugged when nothing was forthcoming.
“Nope, I’m good. I just thought she should know about you being sad.”
Pain shot through my body as her words tugged at my heartstrings, and I guided her away from her mom’s final place and lead her back to the boat in silence. Starting the engine, we slowly made distance from the island, and with every foot closer toward the meadow, my heart hurt a little less.
Deciding to take Layla to visit Grace’s grave so young had been a bit of a gamble, but my precious little daughter had taken the painful short journey in her stride. My intention had been to give our daughter partial closure by taking her over to Grace’s resting place, and to my surprise, she weathered the experience well. It wasn’t as traumatic for either of us as I had expected it would be.