25. Kendall
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Kendall
THEN
From: kmoreale@
To: babybeanC@
Bean,
I haven’t written a letter in a while. I’m sorry. I think life has just been happening around me lately, and I sort of forgot. Or maybe I’ve been avoiding it too. I’m sorry.
I don’t really know what I’m sorry for. Probably for having gone so long without writing.
I know when I do, I love it. And I feel so much better once I hit that send button.
I feel so much more connected to you. Or maybe I’m sorry for…
living life. I promise I didn’t forget about you.
You’re always on our minds. I don’t think we’ll ever forget about you.
I couldn’t do that. I’m constantly wondering how different my life would be if you were here.
Our friends, Tommy and Sylvia, just had a baby.
You would’ve been almost two years older than her, and you would’ve had a little playmate.
We could’ve watched the two of you grow up.
I think it would’ve been nice to see that if only you would’ve made it.
Not that I blame you for anything. Of course not.
If anyone’s to blame, it would be me. I was the one who was supposed to make sure you were a healthy baby growing inside me.
I always wonder if there was something I could’ve done differently.
And then I think about all the things that make me happy.
James, Sylvia, Tommy, my mom, James’s family, his adorable niece.
I don’t know if I’m comfortable being happy.
Maybe I shouldn’t be. I feel too guilty to be happy, so I just don’t feel okay with it.
Or maybe this grief is my only connection to you, and when I’m happy, I don’t feel like I’m really grieving.
Without it, you just aren’t there anymore.
When I’m happy, I feel like I’ve left you behind, and that kills me. I will never leave you behind. Ever.
I wasn’t supposed to ramble. I’m working on it.
We love you so much.
“So what’s the game plan?”
James gestures his hand at my carry-on. A silent understanding: It’s his job to do the heavy lifting and my job to follow at his heels.
From our apartment to the cab to the overhead bin in the plane.
And now, as we rush through Sea-Tac to baggage claim.
“We’re checking into our room at the hotel, and then we’re heading over to Sylvia and Tommy’s for dinner. ”
“What time?”
I check my watch. “In about an hour,” I say, realizing we’re literally going to be dropping off our bags in the room and hopping right back into our rental car. We’re cutting it a little close.
“And your mom?”
“We’re driving down to Tacoma tomorrow morning,” I tell him. “It should take us about an hour to get there. Hour and a half, tops.”
We wheel our bags to our next destination, wishing a silent prayer that it isn’t a long wait for our rental car.
I huff a sigh when I see a near-endless line in front of the Hertz counter.
With my hand gripped on the retractable handle to my luggage, James leans down to place a soft kiss on my temple.
A sweet little distraction. “You hungry?”
I shrug a shoulder, my attention still focused on the time. It looks like we’re going to have to go straight to dinner. I make a mental note to call the hotel for a late check-in. “The pretzels from the plane are holding me over. I can wait.”
“You need some water? Or candy?”
I smile at him. “I could use some water.”
His gaze aligns with mine, studying the line we’re at the back of that’s currently at a standstill with only one attendant at the front. “I’ll be right back.”
I watch him scurry off to the nearest newsstand, quickly bypassing the racks of refrigerator magnets and postcards that read SEATTLE in big block letters, and beeline to the refreshments.
This trip is a little spontaneous after months and months of Sylvia requesting a visit.
Phone calls, text messages, all filled with a string of guilt trips and “I’m so lonely here” and “Don’t you want to see your godchild?
” It’s like we switched places. I moved to Sylvia’s hometown—after a similar request made by her from opposite sides of the country a near lifetime ago—only for her to move to the beautiful Pacific Northwest.
After Tommy was offered a transfer and a significant raise, it made sense for them to make the move.
But then things started to happen at lightning speed.
Tommy secured a two-story townhome south of Seattle.
They started bringing in cardboard box after cardboard box—filling each to the brim and securing them with an aggressive rip of packing tape—and I swear I barely blinked before the teachers at Joss Elementary were throwing a baby shower slash farewell party.
And now, just four months after having baby Katy, James suggested we use his airline miles for a weekend getaway.
And since it’s driving distance to my mom, we decided to kill two birds with one stone.
While everything around us seems to breeze past, James and I are anything but.
Like a spinning globe and we’re the solid base nailed to the ground.
At times, it feels safe, secure. Other times, I feel…
lost. Left behind. Wanting to chase after whatever high everyone seems to be living life off of.
I know it’s the grief holding me back, but…
I don’t want to move on. People keep telling me I need to.
Move on, that is. But I know that also means I have to move on.
That means I have to live life as if I never lost my baby.
As if James and I weren’t about to become parents.
How can I do that? What kind of person does that make me?
James returns with a water bottle and a packet of Starburst in one hand. I’ve moved about five steps forward. “It looks like we won’t have time to check in.”
I nod. “Figured. I can call the hotel for a late check-in.”
He smiles at me, taking my hand in his. I take the water, not bothering to take a sip quite yet, but placing it in my oversized tote bag instead.
“You good?”
I lean into his chest. “Mm-hmm.”
“Babies can’t, like, walk at four months, right?” His question comes with a cheeky smirk and a playful squeeze of my hip.
“No,” I answer through a laugh.
“Okay,” he says. “Just curious.”
“You have a niece,” I remind him. “She wasn’t walking around the house in her onesies at four months old, right?”
“I honestly never really paid attention.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” I tease. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” he answers with a shrug. “I just thought I should know a little more about babies and certain…milestones.”
“I guess.” Baby milestones. I didn’t think we’d be talking about the topic like this, with careful pauses and cautious body language, but here we are.
We don’t talk much about what happened. Just on occasion when the it comes up.
Like when Tommy called us to update us about Sylvia’s delivery.
Or when it’s time to visit my doctor to refill my monthly birth control prescription and we start to consider how long I’ll be on the daily meds.
We don’t really talk about it mainly because it should be past us by now.
We should be over it. We should be looking to the future.
But I don’t know if we are. I don’t know if I am.
Maybe one of the nails at the base of that globe is lodged.
No crowbar is strong enough to pop it out, and it’s holding me back so I can never move on.
We manage to get our rental car and head to Sylvia and Tommy’s with our luggage shoved into the trunk.
I call the hotel while James finds a parking spot on the busy street about a block over.
Though we don’t admit to each other, there’s a tackiness to our steps.
They’re stuck to the ground a little longer with each tread, making us drag and hesitate for some reason.
I brush it off—the nerves and the anxiety—with a quiet exhale.
When we reach their stoop, our fingers linked together, we take a quiet pause we inadvertently decided upon.
Right before James presses the doorbell.
“Kenny!” The door swings open and ecstatic hands pull me into a tight embrace, and I can’t even remember why we needed a moment. Those jitters melt away immediately. “I missed you so much!”
“I missed you too,” I cry, gripping Sylvia’s face in my hands.
I pull away from her only to take her in.
Motherhood looks amazing on her. Her hair’s shorter like she warned me over the phone.
Apparently one of the downsides to the post-partum phase was hair loss like some weird rite of passage, and a new style was needed to accommodate this change.
She’s wearing a heather gray crewneck sweater paired with some leggings, and she looks so at home here.
Like she’s slipped into this role with such ease.
Tommy rounds the corner, a small bundle of blankets balled into a protective cocoon in his arms, and his face lights up at the sight of us.
“Hey!” Tommy calls. “Come inside!”
“Yes,” Sylvia adds. “Sorry, I’m making you guys stand out there like some door-to-door solicitors.”
James’s hand presses against my back, a gentle nudge and a little push of encouragement.
We step inside, and it smells like warm food and scented candles.
Though the mess from the living room has trailed into the other parts of their home, it doesn’t appear overly cluttered or messy.
It looks lived in. Like they used their lives, the ins and outs of their day-to-day, to decorate it.
The shoes stacked in the shoe rack acting like a decorative statue and the pile of toys and soft plush animals a focal piece in their living room.
Tommy moves carefully to a small cream-colored bassinet and gingerly sets the baby down. She doesn’t even stir, and a part of me wishes she would. Just so I can get a better look at her. But with the way Tommy tiptoes away, I’m sure he’d prefer the complete opposite.