32. Laila
Laila
The heavenly aroma coming from the kitchen causes my stomach to grumble. I haven’t had much of an appetite, the concept of food wholly unappealing. When my stomach grumbles a second time, I toss the covers off and get out of bed to walk to the kitchen.
My steps still when I reach the end of the hallway and don’t find Bryce in the kitchen but instead his mother stands at the stove, her back turned to me. I am about to turn and walk back to the bedroom but her voice stops me.
“He had a call he needed to take,” she says, nodding her head toward the balcony.
I look over and I see Bryce with his headphones in, walking back and forth as he talks animatedly with someone on the other end of the call.
She hasn’t turned around so I’m not sure how she knows I’m standing there but her words answer the question I hadn’t said aloud.
“Come sit.”
Her words are an invitation in the form of a command but the soft loving tone she uses has my feet moving before my mind has a moment to catch up. I close the distance to the bar stools and pull one out and sit down.
A host of ingredients are laid out on the counter. Fresh vegetables and herbs and potatoes amongst other things.
“What are you making?” I ask. “It smells amazing.”
She turns and gives me a small smile. “This is what my children call “sick soup”. It’s a pot full of deliciousness that I always made when they weren’t feeling well, physically or otherwise. A lot of bumps and bruises and broken hearts have been soothed by it.”
I wrap my arms around my middle, hugging myself as I watch her make the soup.
She adds ingredient after ingredient to her pot, not a measuring utensil in sight.
She moves around the kitchen with the ease of someone who has no doubt in their skills, someone who knows that whatever they’ve tasked themselves with making will turn out exactly as they intended.
“I assume Bryce told you,” I say, realizing that that’s probably why she’s here.
“He tells me a lot of things,” she says. “But no, he didn’t tell me anything. He just asked me if I would make him some soup because he wanted some comfort food for the both of you. So here I am.”
“That’s really sweet,” I whisper.
“Oh it’s nothing, darling. He’s my son so I’ll always do what I can.”
Those words are what break me.
The ones that cause the tears that I haven’t been able to shed, for myself, for my loss, for the part of me that I’ve had to harden to survive, to finally fall. First in slow streaks down my face and then a body wracking sob into my hands pressed to my face.
It only takes a moment for me to feel Bryce’s mom’s arms wrap around me. Her presence is comforting, while I cry so hard snot bubbles form and I'm hyperventilating.
She stands next to me and holds me, one hand rubbing my back in rhythmic circles. She doesn’t try to ask me what’s wrong or placate my feelings with empty positive words. She just lets me cry and cry until all the tears have left my body, leaving the beginnings of a headache in their wake.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
My gut reaction is to tell her ‘no’, to tell her that I’m fine, to ball up all my emotions and stuff them down inside of me like I have for my entire life.
But something about this moment won’t allow me to do that.
Words spill out of me as I tell her everything, all the feelings that I’ve been holding in since I saw those two pink lines and everything else that’s happened since.
“I didn’t mean to get pregnant,” I say, wiping my eyes with the cuffs of my sleeves. “I hadn’t even made up my mind on what I wanted to do but I still feel so -”
I shake my head, unable to produce a word that could accurately describe all the emotions running through me right now.
“My husband and I lost two babies between Lauryn and Bryce,” she says. “The first pregnancy was a surprise. We thought we were done having children after the girls. The second was planned. The circumstances didn’t matter, they both hurt.”
“Don’t force your recovery. And I’m not just talking about the physical.
Let yourself feel all that you need to and give yourself grace.
It’s okay to feel your pain. Sometimes we put all this pressure on ourselves to be okay and to snap back to normal but we shouldn't because pretending to be okay doesn't make actually being okay happen any faster than it was already going to.”
The pot of soup starts to bubble higher, threatening to boil over and Bryce’s mom swiftly goes over to tend to it. She adds the last few ingredients out on the counter and is slowly stirring the pot when Bryce comes back in.
He walks over to me and places a hand on the back of my stool. He looks between me and his mother, a question poised on his tongue when his mom speaks first.
“Your soup is just about done,” Bryce’s mom says, putting the last seasoning jar back into the cabinet. “I have to go pickup RJ from daycare.”
She stirs the pot before placing a lid on it and adjusting the temperature. “Just let it simmer for a while longer and then it’ll be all done.” I’m unsure of the definition of ‘a while’ in this instance but I hope that Bryce knows so that we don’t ruin her hard work.
She places a hand on my shoulder and gives it a squeeze. “Remember what I said and if you want to talk some more, I’m available any time.”
I nod and give her a tight smile. Bryce walks her to the door, giving her a hug and a kiss on the cheek before she leaves and he closes the door behind her.
Bryce walks back to the kitchen and stands on the other side of the island. “Can I run you a bath?”
“Yes, I’d like that,” I say, happy that I’m finally cleared to take them again after the surgery.
He holds out his hand to me and I take it as we walk to the bathroom together.
I lean against the vanity as I watch him begin to start the bath. He plugs the bottom and turns on the faucet to the massive freestanding tub in the center of the bathroom and then walks to the linen closet, opening the door.
A small smile comes to my face when I see him pull out a bag with Lovely Day packaging.
It’s one of our bath salt soaks, a newer item to our product line that was a part of our summer restock.
I hadn’t even known that he had bought it before seeing it right now.
He sprinkles some of it into the water before returning the rest of the bag to where he retrieved it from.
As the water rises, he tests the temperature, running his fingers through the water and then adjusting the handles accordingly.
“Ready?” he asks, when he’s satisfied with the water.
“Yes.”
I allow him to help me undress, raising my arms and lifting my legs to shed my clothing. I take the few steps to the tub and stick one leg in and then the other, easing down until I’m sitting with the warm water covering me nearly to my shoulders.
The water is the perfect temperature, straddling that delicate edge of hot but not too hot, wonderfully.
“Join me?”
Bryce grabs the hem of his shirt, raising it above his head and discarding it on the floor before moving to his waistband. My eyes follow his movements intently, taking in the beautiful planes of his body as he strips off the rest of his clothes and then steps into the tub with me.
I settle myself between his legs, resting my back on his chest, my body melting into his as I relax.
Bryce traces shapes on my thigh with his finger, the cadence of his breaths steady as my body rises and falls with the movement of his chest.
“I love you,” Bryce says, his voice low but earnest.
“I know,” I murmur.
And I do.
I know without a shadow of a doubt that this man loves me wholly, even the pieces of me that I’ve tried so hard for him not to see. Every look, every touch, every action has been telling me the feelings of his heart long before he voiced the actual words right now.
I turn, shifting so that I’m straddling him and can look him in the eyes.
“I love you too.”
His lips crash to mine, a hand coming up to cradle the back of my neck as we kiss feverishly. We break apart breathless, our foreheads pressed together as we both try to get oxygen to reach our lungs.
“I love you,” Bryce repeats. “I need you to know that you never have to feel like you have to face anything alone ever again. I will be here for you always. You have my word.”
We stay in the bath talking and enjoying each other's company until the water turns cool and my fingers and toes have long become wrinkly. I am about to suggest we get out when my stomach grumbles, reminding me that I never actually ate anything when I went on my quest for food.
Bryce chuckles a deep hearty laugh that I can feel vibrating through me. “Let’s get you something to eat.”