Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
Month one and a half
Where do I even start? I asked myself, sitting down at the dining room table that seated six. However, I was the only person that had the pleasure of sitting. Because it made me come to terms with just how lonely I was, I refused to sit for long. Meals, for the most part, were eaten on the couch as I indulged in a bit of television.
Adapting to life during Makai’s absence was such a daunting task that I hated waking up in the morning to face a new day without him. Without his love. Without his arms around me. Without his presence surrounding me. Without his hands cleansing my body. Without his jokes humoring me. Without his heartbeat soothing me. Without his smile healing new parts of me.
His refusal to see me was fresh on my mind. It still stung, but I refused to dwell. There was no need. The visit was the last resort, my attempt to bring him home. Since I couldn’t in person, I’d try my hardest through my letters. And, they wouldn’t stop, not until he was back in my arms.
Makai,
I miss you deeply. It’s been over a month since you’ve been gone and the yearning for you has progressed. Baby, I can feel it in my bones. It’s in my words. It’s in my eyes. It’s in my walk. I feel like I’m perishing. I feel like my life is coming to a complete halt.
It’s been the longest weeks of my existence. To know that more time is required to ever see your handsome face again is repulsive. I want you now. I need you now, more than ever. Today should’ve been the happiest day of our lives thus far, but it has brought me nothing but heartache, nothing but sadness, and grief.
I’ve lost so much. I lost a love that can never be replaced. I lost a man that can never be substituted. I lost a life that I’d built, proudly. I lost my job at my dream workplace. I lost the ability to see the new family I’ve gained whenever and wherever. I lost my peace.
So, when I got the news that I was seven weeks pregnant, I nearly lost my mind. The thought of doing this alone is frightening. I don’t want to and I don’t have to, if you’d just come home. Come home to me. Come home to us.
Hearing two little heartbeats on the monitor left me in shambles. I’ve been inconsolable for nine days. Everything hurts, Makai, especially my heart. I have two beautiful beings growing inside me who deserve their mother at her happiest, healthiest, and ultimate best. I will give that to them, without flaw. I just want you here beside me when I do. They deserve their father as well.
Don’t force me to do this alone. Don’t force me to adapt to life of a single mother when I don’t have to. Don’t force me to bring these two children into the world without you by my side. Don’t force me to learn to live without you. Don’t force me to find happiness and joy and peace without you, because I’m afraid that I’ll begin to harbor emotions that aren’t in my deck –not for you or anyone else right now. Don’t force me to stand up. I don’t want to.
Come home.
Love always,
Glacier
***
Month Six
When does it stop hurting?
So much, at least?
I spilled my feelings onto the page, gripping the same pen that I’d sat down with over the last six months. I’d written so many words and explained so many ways the pain had crippled me that the ink was running dry.
In under two months, two beautiful baby girls will be wailing with tears of discomfort kissing the air and I have every right to believe that I’ll join them. My comfort continues to alter with each passing month while realizing you’re really not here with me and I’m doing this all alone.
The family that you shared with me has been nothing short of amazing. Their bi-weekly trips to Clarke that are rotated are necessary and exactly what’s helping me hold onto my sanity. However, their presence only equates to a fraction of yours. Full pieces of me are still missing. You’re still missing.
What are you doing, Makai? Though I admire your selflessness, it has me weeping almost every night. Some days, I don’t want to get out of bed. Most days, I don’t. This is the deepest, darkest hole I’ve ever encountered. I’m being buried alive in grief.
Come home. Free me from this hell I’m living in. Come home, Makai.
Before closing the letter, I balled it in a wad and tossed it in the trash where the other four I’d started lived. Frustrated, I halted all movement, lowering my head into my hands. Tears slid down my wrists. My chest lifted and fell as my body quivered from the release of emotions.
“My God, Makai.”
After minutes of drowning in my tears, I placed the pen’s tip on the first line of the following, determined to write a better consolation of my feelings –the positive ones. There were some. There were many. However, the pain outweighed them all.
Makai,
It’s been too long without you.
Closing my eyes, I tried to contain my emotions. The attempts were pointless. It didn’t matter how strong I wanted to be for Makai and the girls growing in my belly, I was hurting. Trying to conceal how I truly felt was impossible, especially when communicating with a man who only wanted what was real from me.
Penning a letter full of positivity wasn’t in my deck of cards. The tears wet the paper below me, eliminating it from the lineup, automatically. I swiped as many of them from my cheeks as possible and made my way to the trash where the last letter sat on top.
I opened it, straightening the creases as much as I possibly could. I laid it flat on the new sheet of paper I’d turned to in my notebook and pressed the tip of the pen on the line that was right after the one I’d stopped on.
The very intimate, very private shower that Aeir hosted in my honor this weekend was breathtaking. The monthly trip to visit my grandmother looked and felt a lot different this time. In a small space decorated in the prettiest colors and decor, we celebrated the girls.
Everyone was in attendance, even Pops and Shelly. She’s healed and back working. That brings me so much joy. Seeing so many faces of people I love, gathered for the girls, was heartening. Dry eyes were impossible. I cried all day, Makai. I felt as ugly as you claim I am during those moments. (chuckle)
I have so much more to say but for the sake of saving this letter from my monstrous tears, I’ll leave things here. I love you. I miss you, immensely. Come home to us. At your rate, when you’re ready, come home to us. But, don’t make me wait too long. Don’t make us wait too long.
Mommas
***
Month Fourteen had come, leaving me wondering where time had gone and how so much had passed without a single word from Makai. I missed him every day.
His smile.
His hugs.
His laughs.
His sharp tongue.
His love.
His light.
His jokes.
The way he held me.
The way he loved me.
The way he made everything better.
I never would’ve imagined the man on the other end of the line of the phone on the day of my graduation would be in my life. I never imagined he would be my whole life. I never imagined he’d help me create life. It was fate then and it was fate that kept telling me it was okay to keep holding on.
He’s coming back to me. To us.
I’d said it so many times that I believed it. I was as sure he’d return as I was that the sun would rise the next day.
Makai,
It’s me, my love. Sitting to pen these letters isn’t as easy as it once was, but I promise I’ll never stop. The girls are crawling and keeping up with them is a task I never knew I’d dread and love so much.
We’ve reached 6 months. Can you believe it? Everyone is flying in this evening to celebrate the milestone in the girl’s life. It hasn’t been an easy six months, but Malachi blessed me with a nanny who is here almost twenty-four hours a day.
As the girls get older, I’ll lessen the hours but right now, the second hand is needed. I wish they were your hands, but I won’t get into that today. I’m trying my hardest to get through the day with little tears and more smiles.
That’s a lot harder than it sounds, but I know it’s possible. It’s the first day of March which means that your day is coming. Having not spent a birthday with you yet makes me salty, but we’ll celebrate you today as well. I love you, Makai. Come home to me, baby.
Love,
Glacier.
P.S. I tried with the drawing. Don’t laugh too much. I love you, so much.
***
Month Twenty
One year, baby. A whole year. The girls are a year old! I don’t know if I want to shout, cry, tell you how much I still need you or run out of ink chastising you for all that you’re missing.
Although I’d rather not tap into that energy or add to the stress you’re already under, I am tired, Makai. I’m tired of not having you here. I’m tired of seeing the girls growing without their father. I’m tired of pointing to your pictures and telling them who you are.
I’m tired of seeing your family like clockwork, but never you. Baby, I am exhausted. And, the pain, it has hardly let up any. The girls have been my saving grace through the last twenty months. They’re the reasons I’m up every day, continuing life without you although it’s not what I want to do. I’m not well, Makai. And, I can’t pretend that I am in this letter.
Come home!
I folded the letter with precision and determination. Frustrated, I shoved it in the envelope and sealed it. Spending twenty months yearning for Makai was not what I envisioned for myself.
I dropped the letter off in the mailbox on my way out of the door. It was my first day at Clarke Medical as an ER nurse, but I wanted nothing more than to stay home with the girls. The twelve-hour shift felt like torture and it hadn’t begun.
Though I loved my career, I loved my girls more. The full year I’d spent at home with them had spoiled me, making me reconsider the workforce altogether. Nevertheless, I slid into my truck and pulled out of my driveway with the hospital marked as my destination on the GPS.