Chapter 17
I’M AMAZED BY how much easier life has become with Grandma Kay and Gwen here to help.
I’ve been so used to doing everything on my own that I never gave the work a second thought.
Mike came to get the kids on Sunday. They went out for dinner and a movie.
The kids were thrilled. They seemed mostly unaffected by Mike’s departure.
They weren’t used to seeing him anyway, and Gwen and Grandma Kay provided a needed distraction.
I’ve had a lot of time to weigh my options.
Neither Gwen nor my grandmother have brought up Mike, and I’m thankful for it.
I needed to think things through and make my own decisions.
I needed those decisions to be smart. I needed to know they were the right ones in both my head and my heart.
I’ve thought back through everything Mike and I have been through.
Ten years is nothing to shake your fist at.
It was a significant portion of my life, even if it was based on a lie.
I needed to decide if he was part of my story or if he was my whole story.
Something inside clicked after I lost her.
Nothing would ever be the same again. I’ve wondered if Mike has another deal in the works with his parents.
Then I’ve wondered if maybe he really does love me like he says he does.
Maybe it was a lie in a lie just to hurt me.
Maybe he didn’t mean it after all. Am I being the selfish one by asking him to leave?
His mom calls me three days later to tell me how sad Mike is and how badly she feels for him.
She asks me how I could be so cruel as to kick him out of his house after he suffered the devastating loss of our baby.
I cringe and bite my tongue. In her eyes, Mike can do no wrong.
She does what she thinks is best for her child.
Even though I know he’s lying to her, I don’t feel too badly for her after she slips up and admits that Mike would have married me with or without their ultimatum. She says he just loves me that much.
It’s all I need to hear. For days I’ve considered if maybe he was telling me the truth.
If maybe he just made it up to upset me, like he said.
I’ve agonized over it because I no longer trusted myself or my instincts.
Years of questioning my gut has left me constantly doubting my true feelings and needs.
Her words confirm what I’ve known inside all along.
That night I got the truth out of him, probably for the first time in his life.
I think back to all the times he made me doubt myself.
All the times he said I’d heard him wrong or I misunderstood.
Where has Everly London gone? Before I met him, I was mostly confident and self-assured.
Now all I’m sure of is that I’m not sufficient to make him happy or make him want me.
It’s a regular thought pattern for me. Somewhere in my life, I went from knowing everything to knowing nothing—from knowing who I was to not recognizing myself anymore.
I’m so used to doing what I think everyone else wants or needs that I forget to think about me.
Now I’m not sure I want anything at all.
My emotions are in complete disarray. I try to compartmentalize them. I try to put on a show for the kids, acting like everything is fine. But after they leave for school, I find myself crawling back into bed and crying my eyes out on my pillow.
Five days after I lose her, I stop bleeding.
I don’t want it to stop. It means my body is healing, and I’m not ready.
My soul will never heal, and I feel like my body is betraying my heart.
I hate myself for healing. I hate myself for getting past the miscarriage.
I want to mourn her forever. I want to curl up into a ball and live in my guilt and self-hatred for not being enough to keep her safe.
Even though my intellectual brain knows I didn’t cause her death, I still curse myself for losing control that night.
For letting her slip away. Somehow it makes it easier to have someone to blame.
My guilt keeps me in pain, and I want to suffer. I deserve it.
Grandma Kay must be able to sense that I’ve taken a turn for the worse. She forces me to get up and take a shower. She forces me to eat breakfast, and then she forces me to look at myself in the mirror.
“What do you see?” she asks me.
I can’t bring myself to look at my reflection. Inside that mirror is the woman who is singlehandedly responsible for my self-hate and lack of self-respect. She’s ruined my life. She’s taken my smile. She hates me and I hate her.
“Look at yourself, child. Look! What do you see?”
“I can’t! I can’t look at her. I hate her.”
“She’s you, songbird. You can’t hate yourself!”
“Yes I can. She’s a monster. She destroyed me. I trusted her judgement and she failed me.”
“Oh, child.” Grandma Kay hugs me close. “Let me tell you what I see when I look at you. I see a girl who was forced to grow up before it was time. I see a child who lost her parents just when she needed them the most. I see a girl who kept me sane. Who gave me a reason to get up every day. That girl made me smile. She made me laugh and look at life for the beautiful gift that it is. She taught me to be grateful every day. She was, is, and always will be my most precious gift.”
“You see what you want to see,” I tell her. “You look at the world through rose-colored glasses, Gram, and I’ve never owned a pair. I’m not you. I can’t paint a door and move on. I lost a child. How can I move on from that?”
Grandma Kay squares my shoulders and stares me straight in the eyes.
“I lost my baby too. He was my everything. I get it. I really do. But God, he also gave me you, just like he gave you Kale and Marlow. You can’t give up.
Yes, you lost a child. If I could save you from that pain in life, songbird, I would.
But there’s a reason for everything under the sun.
You have two children who live, and they need their momma.
Mike has never been much of a father. I’ve seen it from day one, but I’ve kept my mouth shut because it’s none of my business.
But you need to hear this, so I’m gonna say it.
Those kids would not be the amazing forces of light they are without you.
Do you hear me? You need to stop looking at everything that went wrong and start focusing on what is right. ”
“I don’t want to,” I say honestly. “I just want to be sad. I want to hate me. I want to be miserable. It’s what I know. I want the pain to stay, that way I know I won’t forget.”
“It’s only been a few days, Ev. No one expects you to ever forget her. But you would be doing her a dishonor by not living. She’s watching you. She knows you mourn her.”
“She does?” I question, desperately wanting confirmation that somewhere, somehow she still exists.
“Yes, she does. I’m not going to lie to you. The pain will never go away. But you can choose to let that pain engulf your life or you can build your life from the pain.”
I sigh heavily. She always makes sense and it’s aggravating. “Why do you have to be so smart?”
She laughs as she lifts my chin. “I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know deep down inside. You’ve just forgotten. Now, are you going to build or are you going to bury?”
“I want to bury, but I know you won’t let me.”
“That’s not true. You have your own hand. I can’t hold your cards. I’m too busy holding mine. You need to fold ‘em or play ‘em. Your choice. It’s always your choice.”
I feel myself teeter-tottering between her words and my heart. “I want to build. I want to play my cards, but they’re shitty cards and I want a new hand.”
“I think you’ve been holding your cards upside down, child. From where I stand, they’re pretty damn good. You just need to play them better.”
I turn to face the mirror and I stare at Gram’s reflection next to mine. “Tell me what to do. I just want someone to tell me what to do!”
“No one is going to tell you. You need to tell you! What do you want?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes you do. Reach down deep into your heart. What do you want?”
“I want to be happy,” I tell Grandma Kay’s reflection.
“Don’t tell me,” she says, pushing me forward toward the mirror. “Tell her! Tell yourself!”
I stare at my reflection. I look older than I remember. This last week has aged me.
“Tell her what you want,” she shouts.
“Jeez. You’re so pushy!” I snap.
“There’s the spunk I love!”
I sigh and laugh at the same time. I stare at myself in the mirror. This feels really stupid, but I know she’s not going to let me go back to bed until I talk to myself, so I do it.
“I want to be happy,” I whisper.
“What else?” she asks.
“I want my baby back, but I know that’s not going to happen.
I want this pain in my chest to stay, but I also wish it would go away.
” I take a lingering breath. “I want to stop hating myself. I want to be a better mom, and I want someone to love me. Not pretend to love me, but really love me. Is that too much to ask?”
“Keep going,” she encourages as she releases my arms and backs out of my mirror view.
I stare at my reflection blankly as the emotional toll of my life threatens to burst through. “I want to like me again. I want to feel beautiful. I wanna be a nurse. God, I really wanna be a nurse.” I grab hold of the edges of the sink as my chest constricts and I dig deeper.
“I want to help people. I want to save people. I want to be smart. I want to feel alive inside. I’ve been dead for years, and I want to live.
I want to be able to support myself and the kids.
I want to be someone they can be proud of.
I want to take them away from this hell and teach them to live a life of love.
I want to start over. I want to be free of the hold Mike has on me.
I want to feel better about myself. I want to be enough.
Not for the kids. Not for Mike or any man. I just want to be enough… for me.”
I feel her arms encase me from behind. “Yes!” she shouts with her fist in the air. “You got it! You need to be enough for you! If you love yourself, the rest will follow.”
I nod my head and swallow hard. Deep down in my gut, I know she’s right. I know what I want. I just need to figure out how to dig myself out of my hole.
I turn to face her, resting my butt on the sink. I lift my eyes to hers. “I’m scared.”
“I’d be more worried if you weren’t.”
I smile wryly at her and give myself permission to not crawl back into bed. To try to live. It’s not much, but it’s a start.