Chapter 75- Fear #3
Her fingers grabbed handfuls of my shirt with desperate strength as though she had finally grown too tired to hold herself together. The first sob remained trapped against my chest. The second shook her entire body. By the third... She stopped trying to hide them. I wrapped both arms around her.
Firmly.
Carefully.
One hand rested against the back of her head while the other moved slowly along her back.
I said nothing.
Not because I had nothing to say.
Because I knew my wife.
She did not need answers.
Not yet.
She did not need reassurance.
She did not need someone explaining statistics or reminding her that everything might be fine.
She simply needed someone to hold the fear with her.
Her fingers tightened in my shirt.
"I am trying..." she whispered. The words dissolved into another sob. "I am trying so hard to be happy."
My hand paused briefly against her back.
Then continued its slow rhythm.
Up.
Down.
Again.
"You do not have to."
She cried harder.
The sound broke something inside me.
"I want to be," she whispered desperately. "I know I should be."
"You do not have to."
"I want to to."
She shook her head violently against my chest.
"But..." Another sob. "All I can think about is the pain."
She clung to me harder.
"I don't want to do it again."
Her voice became so small I almost missed it.
"I don't want to hurt like that again." I closed my eyes. Held her tighter. And for the first time since she handed me the medical papers...
I stopped seeing another child.
I saw only the woman in my arms.
Terrified.
Ashamed of being terrified. And convinced she had somehow failed me simply because fear had arrived before joy.
She cried harder.
"I keep thinking about the pain," she whispered.
Her breath caught.
"I do not want to feel it again."
I closed my eyes.
The birth of the twins returned with cruel clarity.
Her screams.
Blood.
Physicians shouting.
The helplessness of standing beside a bed while the woman I loved suffered through something my desire for children had helped create.
I had promised her then.
No more.
If she never wanted another pregnancy, there would never be one.
I meant it.
We had been careful.
Not careful enough.
"I do not want to go through that again," she said. "I do not want to lie there and wonder if I am dying."
I held her tighter.
"I cannot do it again, Achille."
Her voice became smaller.
"I cannot."
I did not tell her she could. That would have been the worst thing to say. People often used strength as a cruelty against frightened women.
You survived before.
You are strong.
You can endure it again.
As though surviving pain once created an obligation to volunteer for it twice. I pressed my mouth against her hair.
She continued.
"I could not tell you."
Her fingers tightened in my shirt.
Her shoulders trembled.
"I could not watch you be happy while I felt nothing but terror.even as the physicians were happy," she whispered. "As they congratulated me." Bitterness entered the word. "Everyone smiled. One of them said it was a blessing."
Her voice cracked.
"And all I could think about was blood...I prayed they were wrong." The confession came against my chest. "I waited for another physician to tell me the first one made a mistake." Her breath hitched. "I kept hoping something had been read incorrectly."
She pulled away slightly, though she did not leave my arms.
Her eyes found mine.
Shame lived openly inside them.
"I feel like a terrible person."
"No."
"So many women beg for this."
"That has nothing to do with you."
"They would be grateful."
"Ophelia."
"And I cannot even be happy."
Her face crumpled.
"I looked at the paper and wished it was not true."
I took her face between my hands.
"You are not a terrible person."
She shook her head.
"You do not have to say that because I am your wife."
"I am not but my love...You should have told me," I said quietly. Her face tightened. "you should have never had to spent three weeks terrified while sleeping beside me."
Her mouth trembled.
"I did not know how."
"I know ."
I kissed her forehead.
"And now you are not alone with it."
She leaned into me again.
For a long time, neither of us spoke.
I held her.
That was all.
I did not ask what she wanted to do.
Not yet.
I did not explain physicians, options, risks, or plans. I did not promise everything would be fine because neither of us possessed the authority to make that promise.
I let her cry.
Let every frightened thought leave her in whatever order it chose.
Some sentences repeated. Others came apart before they were finished.
She spoke about the twins' birth. About the feeling that her body no longer belonged to her.
About waking at night remembering contractions so vividly that her muscles tightened.
About the shame of not feeling joy when the physician placed the record in her hands.
I listened.
No interruption.
No correction.
No attempt to drag gratitude out of fear. Eventually, her sobs weakened. Her body became heavier against mine. Exhaustion replaced panic little by little, though her fingers remained twisted in my shirt.