20. Kendall
CHAPTER TWENTY
Kendall
THEN
“Kyle says my coping mechanisms are a little self-destructive.”
“How so?” We have the TV on. James is sitting next to me while keeping a respectable amount of distance from me.
Just a few inches, much closer than an arm’s reach but further than an embrace.
We’ve been sitting on the couch, nursing a plate of warmed-up pizza rolls that have grown cold.
He has yet to push any boundaries I’ve silently set.
But even with this parabolic length that’s noticeably considerable, we somehow managed to reshape our weekend into a quiet orange sunset, calm and mellow.
A gradual return to our norm we missed so much.
“I watched a lot of sad romance movies,” I confess. “Ate a lot of cereal.”
“Sad movies, huh?”
“I don’t know. They felt nice to watch at the time,” I explain with a rueful shrug. “You know, misery loves company.”
“Did any of these movies have…dying spouses?” His wry tone is playful. An attempt to lighten the mood.
I chuckle. “Maybe.” After a short pause, I add, “It made me feel like this grief was normal. Like I didn’t feel stupid for missing this baby I hardly knew.”
“It’s not stupid.”
“I felt so lost. I still do. I don’t know how to react to something like this,” I continue. “I don’t know if I’m supposed to cry or be angry or laugh or—”
“I don’t think you’re supposed to know how to react,” he interrupts. “There isn’t some rudimentary script for dealing with tragedy.”
“So it’s okay that it still hurts?” I ask with a quiver in my question.
“It’s not okay,” he answers. “But it’s not not okay. However you want to feel—need to feel—it’s all valid.”
I nod, my silent agreement stamped with a light pat on his thigh. I don’t mean for it to be, but it’s a peace offering. The smallest of olive branches to let him know we can take another small baby step.
He scoots closer and his warm hand slides over my flank.
He’s tentative in the way he moves, and he’s finally breaking the little barrier we cautiously put up.
Slow soothing movements that give me the hope to tell him anything.
Like a lure minus the deception, just understanding and unadulterated belief we can both overcome this.
“I know this didn’t work out, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t meant for it.
It just isn’t our time, but when it is, you’re going to be an amazing mom. ”
Our time.
I nod again, words caught in my chest. I’ve been focusing so hard on all the things that slipped through my fingers, I lost sight of what was still within reach.
“And…in the meantime, we can figure out how to get through this together,” he adds. “I can be here for you.”
“Yeah,” I whisper, small twitches of a smile working through my lips. Maybe we are salvageable. “And I can be here for you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Of course.” We’re both grieving. The sooner we acknowledge that, the sooner we can work through our heartache. “She really was beautiful.”
He swallows thickly. “I really wish I had been there to meet her.”
“I do too.” I don’t resent him for not being there. I mean it when I say I wish he was there. He should’ve met our daughter, and it breaks my heart that he’ll never get the chance to do so. “But I’m happy I got to say goodbye to her.”
“I know it wasn’t easy, but you saying goodbye…I think that was good.” He runs a thumb across his cheek, discreetly wiping his dampened skin.
“It didn’t feel like it at the time, but in hindsight, I think it was good for me too.”
He smooths a cupped hand over the back of my head, and I lean into his touch. The tilt of my cheek causes a tear to spill.
“You know, that whole writing letters thing from the beyond doesn’t sound so silly anymore,” he comments with a morose undercurrent to his words. “Maybe those movies know what they’re talking about.”
I huff a chuckle. “You think it might help?”
He shrugs. “I just think doing something proactive to help process the grief is better than just sitting around and waiting for it to eventually wash over us. There are plenty of resources at our disposal.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
“Maybe a grief support group?”
I grimace. “I don’t know about talking in front of a bunch of people.”
“Or therapy.”
“Yeah,” I concur. “That’s a good one.”
“It is,” he agrees in a gentle, even tone.
“How do you know about these things?”
“I looked some stuff up,” he confesses with an airy shrug. “The internet is very resourceful.”
“You looked it up?” I ask in disbelief. “What made you do that?”
“I couldn’t just sit at home and do nothing. It helped me feel…useful.”
“So support groups?” I ask, curiosity plighted in my lighthearted tone.
“Or even writing and journaling,” he continues. Spaghetti thrown on the walls, hoping something sticks.
“Writing? Kind of like the letters in that movie?”
He nods. “We could try writing letters. We could write them…for the baby.”
I pull away from him, gauging his seriousness. “You want to write letters to the baby?”
“I mean, it helped the woman in the movie. You know, grieve her husband and eventually move on,” he explains, “maybe it can help us.”
“What would we say? And where would we send these letters?”
He stands, the absence of him so sudden.
He disappears into my room and returns with my laptop in his hand.
“We’ll set up an email. We can email the letters to…
the baby. Both of us can have access to the email account, in case either one of us wants to read them, and we can both send letters to the email whenever we feel like… ”
“Like when we miss the baby?”
He nods. The baby. Maybe it isn’t as phantom as it all feels. Like it was simply just a figment of our imagination. It was real at some point.
“Okay,” I say, my finger running along the hard chassis of my laptop.
“Okay.”