Chapter 11
SABINE
Grief didn't come all at once. It came in pieces. In routines. In the little things.
The empty crib she refused to move. The unopened diaper packs stacked beside it. The soft pink blanket still draped over the glider Adair had built two months before she was due. Everything in the nursery smelled faintly like lavender and dust now. Forgotten time.
Sabine stood in the doorway sometimes, just watching it. Not entering. Not moving anything. Just…watching.
It had been a few weeks since the hospital.
Since they said goodbye. Since Adair carried her down the front steps of the hospital because her legs buckled on the way out.
Since the condolence flowers arrived by the dozen, filling the apartment with more color than it had ever held and none of it meant a thing.
People meant well. They always did.
They texted, “Thinking of you,” with prayer hands and hearts. They said her name with pity in their throats and offered to take Ade for a few hours “just in case she needed to rest,” but rest didn’t come. Not really. Not the kind that let her forget. Not the kind that made mornings easier.
Most mornings, Sabine stared at the ceiling until Ade called out for her.
“Mama?”
She answered every time. That was the one part of her identity she clung to. Even on the days she didn’t feel like anything at all. She could still be his mother.
And she was.
She got him dressed. She fed him. She tied his little shoes and listened to his baby babble with a soft smile she had to forcefully stretch across her face.
He didn’t know. Not fully but he knew enough.
He knew the baby didn’t come home. Knew Mama cried more than usual.
Knew Daddy was around more now, hovering like Casper.
Adair didn’t go back to school or work right away.
He was there. Present. Trying but the thing about presence was that it couldn’t reverse absence and no matter how many breakfasts he cooked or diapers he changed, Sabine couldn’t unfeel what she felt in that room alone.
Couldn’t un-cry those hours of by herself.
She didn’t know how to talk to him anymore.
Didn’t know how to sit across from him and not picture that night. That voicemail. The echo of her own voice, breaking, begging, calling his name.
So she stayed quiet.
Until the quiet became its own language.
Some days, she walked. Miles without a destination. Just pushing the stroller until the baby fell asleep and the weight of grief caught up to her somewhere between two avenues.
She’d sit there. Phone on do not disturb. Face bare. Stomach still soft from birth that hadn’t ended in life. Watching strangers rush by with lattes and briefcases, marveling at how the world kept spinning like nothing shattered.
Maybe that was the part that stung most.
The world kept moving. Fast and blind.
But Sabine didn’t know how to move with it.
One afternoon, Reeka called. Left a voicemail Sabine never answered.
“Bine, I know you ain’t talkin’ to nobody and I’m not mad about that.
You do what you need. Just wanted you to know I drove all the way there just to leave something at the door for you because I know you don’t want to see anyone right now. I love you. Always.”
Sabine opened the door and found a box wrapped in brown paper. Inside was a baby book. Handwritten letters from friends and family. A framed ultrasound photo she didn’t know they’d kept. Ariyah’s name spelled out in wooden letters painted gold and lavender.
She sat on the floor and cried for twenty-six minutes straight. She didn’t know what healing looked like. Didn’t trust it but she knew it wasn’t loud. It didn’t come with milestones or announcements. It came in sips. In choosing not to disappear.
In getting up. Again.
One night, long after Ade fell asleep, she stood in front of the bathroom mirror in nothing but her underwear, staring at the stretch marks on her belly. She ran a hand across the faint line down her center, the softened pouch beneath her navel.
The body that had birthed death.
Sabine didn’t hate it.
She just didn’t recognize it.
A knock came at the door.
“Bine?” Adair’s voice. When she didn’t answer, he opened it slowly. Shirtless. Eyes full of something she didn’t have the strength to name. “I just wanted to say goodnight.” She nodded once. “Do you need anything?”
“No.”
“Okay.” He didn’t move. She knew he wanted to say more. Maybe even reach for her but she couldn’t give him that. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
As he turned to leave, she whispered, “she looked like you.”
He froze.
“She had your nose. Your ears. She had a dimple in her chin just like yours.”
Adair’s shoulders stiffened. He didn’t turn around. “I still see her sometimes,” he said, voice hoarse. “When I close my eyes. I wonder what color her eyes would’ve been. I wonder if she would’ve made you laugh the way Ade does…the way I used to.”
Sabine didn’t say anything in response and he said nothing more.
That night, they slept in separate rooms but they both cried facing the same wall.
THE NEXT MORNING…
Sabine made coffee. Black, no sugar—she made enough for two. A subtle peace offering to her husband. Adair blinked in surprise when she handed it to him. He didn’t ask what it meant. Didn’t ruin it by hoping. He just took the cup.
They didn’t talk about Ariyah that day. Or the nights Sabine still cried when no one was looking. Or the way they no longer shared a bed.
Instead, they made waffles.
Ade helped pour the batter. Got it everywhere.
They cleaned up together.
Sabine let herself laugh once when he got whipped cream on his nose. It wasn’t peace. It was just a start.
LATER THAT WEEK
Sabine lit a candle in the nursery for the first time. Lavender and sage. She opened the window, let the city come in.
She didn’t cry. Not this time. She just sat in the rocking chair, hands on her knees, watching dust swirl in the late afternoon light. Adair leaned in the doorway, silent, one of the few days he had off.
“She’d be a month today.”
He nodded, throat tight. “Do you want to talk about her?”
Sabine looked at him. “You mean now? Or in general?”
“Both.”
She swallowed. “Not yet…but someday.”
“Okay,” he whispered.
That night, he kissed her shoulder before bed and she didn’t pull away.
TWO WEEKS LATER—THE LIE
They tried.
Counseling once a week. Date nights that didn’t quite feel like dates but…
trying. Sabine even laughed at a movie once and Adair looked at her like he wanted to bottle the sound but she could still feel it.
That knot. That question. That last sliver of something unspoken between them.
The one thing she never pushed—because she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer, yet it sat in her chest like a rock.
However, that night, she asked.
“The night I went into labor. You told me you went out with the guys.” Adair tensed.
Sabine’s voice was calm, but her hands gripped the throw pillow on her lap like it was holding her together.
“That was all you said. Your phone died. You went out… with the guys.” He didn’t speak.
“I needed you that night. Needed you like I’ve never needed anyone and for all this time, I’ve accepted not knowing.
I’ve chosen not to know but I can’t keep pretending like I don’t feel it.
I need the truth, Adair. I need to know.
To know that you wouldn’t jeopardize our marriage, our family with being dishonest when all I’ve ever asked for was honesty. ”
“I was with the guys,” he said gently, eyes soft. “We grabbed drinks after work, and…I just needed a minute, Bine. That’s all it was. I lost track of time. My phone died and when I finally saw the messages, I swear, I got there as fast as I could.”
“Okay,” she whispered and that was the end of it. For that night.