27. Kendall #2
I look at her with glassy eyes. While I consider not telling her, the weight of holding onto something I would’ve told her over and over crushes my chest. “I really thought I’d just get over it. I thought I would get better and just…move on, but I haven’t. And I don’t know why.”
Her confusion doesn’t interrupt me, and neither does her impatience. She holds back, giving me time to finish.
“We had a miscarriage almost two years ago,” I finally tell her.
“It happened not long after James and I started dating. It wasn’t planned or anything, the pregnancy.
But we were happy. I was going to tell you, and we were going to tell his parents, but then…
we lost it. It just went away, and it felt like someone punched a hole in my chest, and that hole is still there.
It’s gotten smaller over time, but it’s still there, and I just don’t know how to fill it.
Sometimes, I feel like I’m going to be okay and maybe I’ll move on, but then I don’t know if I want to.
I feel guilty for even trying to move on and pretending like none of it even happened.
I just don’t know, and I feel like it’s going to eat me alive—”
I’m sobbing at this point, and my mom pulls me into a tight hold. She shushes me, running her hand down my back, all while I cry onto her shoulder. I can feel her chest heave, matching the desperate breaths I’m trying to catch.
“You’re allowed to grieve on your own terms,” she finally tells me, wiping a lone tear off my cheek. She holds my face in her hands, forcing my eyes on her, and I almost believe her. “You don’t need to feel ashamed or unsure because you haven’t moved on.”
I nod, finally feeling like I don’t need to keep my emotions bottled up, all tangled in this netting barely holding me together. It can all unravel, spill out so my mom can be there to pick it apart and help me regain some of my life.
“Kat!”
We’re jolted from our moment, my mom bracing my shoulders and turning her face to my stepdad. “Yeah,” she calls over her shoulder.
“The neighbor’s dogs are in the trash again.” I see him buzz past the doorway to the kitchen and head straight to the front door.
My mom huffs and gives me one last look of encouragement. “They might get into the chicken coop.”
“I’m fine,” I tell her. I smile, this time without the strain that was there before. “Really, I’m okay. I should check on James anyway.”
“We’ll talk again when I’m back,” she promises.
I hear commotion outside, trash cans clanging together and angry curses from my stepdad yelling at their neighbors to come and get their dogs. A tradition at this point as generations of their chocolate labs have been trespassing into our backyard for over a decade.
I quickly replace the sponge in its spot next to the counter and do a once-over. I flip the switch for the light and make my way to the living room.
“How you doing?” I ask James, running a hand down his neck. His focus is deep on the screen, but when I trace soft circles behind his ear, his attention shifts.
“Good,” he answers, kissing my cheek. “You good?”
“Yeah.” For the first time in a really long time, I feel like I’m being completely honest.
It isn’t much, but a weight feels lifted. Or at the very least, lessened. I hadn’t realized how talking to my mom could be this helpful.
James takes my hand at the same time I settle in next to him on my mom’s beige-colored couch, fully equipped with lace throw pillows stitched with cozy quotes like “Home Sweet Home” and “Bless This Mess.”
We continue to watch my mom chase away the dogs, laughing at the way she gives a few of them a playful pat on their heads.
When they come back inside—a little winded and bushed—my mom brews a whole pot of tea for everyone, and we enjoy what’s left of the baseball game that was on the TV before we were interrupted.
Dusk settles, and we get a glimpse of the sun peeking through the hills before my mom expresses her worries about James driving unfamiliar roads in the dark.
We make it back to our room with a foil wrapped up around some banana bread. Something she just “whipped up” because she had some overripe bananas lying around when in reality, I know she baked it for the sole purpose of sending me off with half the loaf.
“Are you still hungry?” James asks just as I sit cross-legged on our king-size bed and start peeling back the foil to my mom’s banana bread.
He has his sweatpants rolled up in one hand, his feet pointed in the direction of the bathroom to shower, and it looks like he changes his mind with the way he drops them next to him and settles himself onto the unoccupied side of the bed.
“Just craving something sweet,” I tell him with a shrug. He pinches off a piece, and we nibble away at our dessert in silence.
“Did you have fun today?”
“Yeah,” I answer, throwing another crumb of bread into my mouth. “It was really nice seeing my mom.”
“She really misses you.”
“I know.” I break off a larger piece and cradle it in my fingers. “I told her about the uh…the miscarriage.”
The word feels wrong, almost dirty. Like we’re in Bible study and I’ve just uttered a curse word only to wish I could take it back. Swallow it and pretend it never existed.
“What did she say?” he asks gently. He starts to quietly run his thumb over my shin, and I don’t think he’s doing it on purpose. It’s instinct, his need to ease and comfort. And though I’m wearing jeans, I can feel his soothing touch through the thick denim material.
“That…I should move on on my own terms,” I tell him, through a shaky breath. “And that I shouldn’t be ashamed of how long I grieve.”
“You know it’ll happen for us when it’s meant to.”
I smile. “I know.”
But the part I can’t seem to move on from isn’t the “when” of it all, but the “if.” I’m sure I always just assumed it would happen.
I’d find someone to spend the rest of my life with, buy a house, and have babies.
The whole white picket fence life. But maybe it was a little arrogant for me to think that way.
A little reckless and stupid. Because what if it doesn’t happen.
What if those few months we had with what was almost a daydream is all that’s meant for me? For us?