After Forever Ends (34 page)

I didn't see him at first. It was dark, but I saw Alfie was in the window watching him sleep on the sofa. The owl turned his head and blinked at me. He nodded and shifted his weight as if to engage me in a conversation.

“Hi, Alfie,” I whispered, “Thank you again for helping me.”

The bird closed his eyes and turned his head away as if to say it was nothing.

I stood for a few minutes and watched Oliver sleep. Bathed in the light from the moon, he looked almost like a child. He was so peaceful that I couldn’t bother him, even though I wanted to have him hold me more than anything in the world. I didn’t wake him to ask or crawl on top on him without permission like I normally would have. Instead, I went back to our bed and I cried alone.

A week passed before we slept again in the same bed. It had been a long, dreary day, raining off and on. He’d left for work at four that morning and stayed until six that evening. He was hot and tired, still had his studies to finish and didn’t seem to be in a particularly good mood. Nor was I. I’d sat in the front room and cried from the moment I woken up, but I had forced myself to stop and go to the grocery a few hours before he got home so that he wouldn’t know I had been doing it. I’d rushed to make him a decent dinner and tried to pretend that I’d busied myself studying all day by laying my books out open on the floor.

“Dinner looks good, Love,” He told me as he pulled off his work shirt and washed his hands in the sink. He didn’t mean it, although red fish was one of his favourites. He hadn’t even glanced at the table to see what was there. His deliberate politeness put me off just a bit.

“Thank you, Sweetheart.” It was the last thing either of us said for about twenty minutes. We sat on opposite ends of the table and picked at our meals. Neither of us looked at the other.

I hated it. I wanted to jump up and scream. I wanted to flick butter at him or kick the table so it bounced and his peas hit him in the nose. Anything to get him to smile or even shout. Anything to get him to speak. My God, this was us! Us! Oliver and me and we were sitting at supper like we were strangers or, worse, as if we were angry with each other. I hated that something was wrong and that something had come between us. I felt so frustrated and alone, but I sat and pushed my vegetables around on my plate instead of saying a word.

Oliver must have had enough silence, because he decided he’d break it. He didn’t look up at me when he spoke. In fact, he posed the question directly to his plate, “Do you want to try for another baby?”

I was not surprised that he had asked the question so boldly, but I was a little at the tone of his voice. It was so plain that he may as well have asked me to pass the vinegar. I took a minute to answer, waiting for him to look at me. When he didn’t, I responded with a joke. “I’d like to practice.”

He took the bait and laughed, “Me, too!” He raised his eyes to mine. It was such a relief to see him smiling, even if it wasn’t his usual mad grin, “But I’m serious. Do you want to give it a go for another? I mean, once you’re healed and the doctor says we can?”

I sighed, “What I want is to go on with our lives. I want to go to school and go to my job and come home and make you dinner. I want you and I to make love at our leisure as we always have, when we want and where we want. I hate that we can’t right now. I hate not being close to you. I hate it, Ollie,” I found myself sighing again, “I want to get back to being us. And if a baby comes out of that, then so be it. That’s magic. And if we never are lucky enough to have a baby, then so be that. We’re lucky enough to have each other. I think that’s magic enough.”

I had carefully crafted the answer so he couldn’t argue it. He nodded and returned quietly to his meal. After a moment he asked, “Do you still want the dog?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’ve had a time of it getting my hands on a Scottish terrier, but Alex found a breeder in Colwyn Bay. I was thinking that we could give them a call and make a trip if they have any pups.”

“Oh, I don’t care if it’s a pup. An older dog would be OK, too. Not too old, mind, I want to keep him awhile, but a dog one or two years old who maybe doesn’t mess on the floor.”

Oliver nodded, “Right. I’ll give them a ring tomorrow.” He looked down at his plate again and took a half-hearted bite of rice.

“Are you all right, Sweetie? You seem a little gloomy.”

“What’s out there is gloomy,” He jerked his fork toward the open door. “The weather’s affecting me. I’m just thinking, that’s all.”

“About what?”

“Well, I want to talk about what happened to us. I’m just not sure you’re willing to.” He took that moment to look me dead in the eye.

I looked away from him. The pain of the miscarriage was still fresh in my mind and heart. I’d spent days thinking about it, pulling myself back and forth between anger and sorrow, fear and confusion. I had taken the week off of work and school on my physician’s advice and done my best to make things seem normal at home, even though they weren’t. I couldn’t stand the tension between Oliver and me. We’d had our arguments, but this kind of strain between us had never existed before. He was my best friend. We’d always been able to be honest with each other. I had always been able to fling myself into his arms and cry if I was sad or stand in front of him and rant if I was annoyed. We giggled together more than anything. But now, it was like we were afraid to touch or speak, like we were suddenly estranged. It was the oddest, most uncomfortable thing I’d ever experienced.

Still, the truth was that I really didn’t want to talk about it. But if he felt he needed to I knew I must. I couldn’t let us get any further apart from each other than we already were. We were together, but both of us were lonely. That wouldn’t do for Ollie and me. Plus, I knew that I really had not given him a chance to express anything about how he felt. Honestly, I had never even considered how he felt. I was suddenly ashamed of myself.

“We can talk about it,” I said finally.

“It won’t upset you?”

“It might, but I’m already upset. I’ve just been hiding it from you.”

“No you haven’t. That’s the thing, Sil. You can’t hide anything from me. You shouldn’t try to, either. It doesn’t make me feel better that you don’t want to trouble me. It troubles me more that you push me away.”

“I’m sorry, Oliver.”

“I know. I know you are.” He leaned back in his chair and gave me a careful look, “I thought we’d have had one by now,” He said it slowly as if he were measuring my reaction, “The rate we go and nothing, then,” He paused, “Before we even have the chance to be excited about it, it’s over. I found out I was a father when I found out our baby was dead.”

I looked at my husband with tears stinging my eyes, “It was the same for me. I didn’t know she was inside me until she was torn away. I should have known! Something should have told me I was pregnant! But I didn’t! I had my cycle! Every single month! I was spotting, but I thought it was stress. It was light, it had happened to me before, and I really didn‘t gain much weight…I thought it was just me gaining a bit and losing it like I always do…”

“Silvia, there wasn’t anything you could have done. The doctors explained it over and over. It just happens for no reason sometimes.”

I wanted to believe that they were right. I knew Oliver believed them, even if it was difficult for him to accept, but I felt so guilty about letting that child die. I had been responsible for her. She had lived inside of me. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. “I wish we’d talked about children, Oliver. We never did. Not seriously.”

“Yeah, we should have. It’s not like I don’t think about it. I’ve known since the first night we were together that there was the constant possibility we might be pregnant.” He paused, letting his breath escape through his nose, “At first, mind, when Alexander called me I was only worried about you, but now it’s like whiplash. I’m so relieved that you’re here and you’re all right. That’s really the most important thing to me. Really, it is, but I can’t help feeling that I’ve lost someone.”

“You did,” I picked up where he trailed off, “I need to keep that in mind. I keep thinking that it only happened to me.”

“It’s didn’t, Sil. It happened to both of us.”

“I know.”

“It’s just so…and none of it is your fault, mind, but it’s bloody disappointing. I think about things sometimes. I imagine the future. I always pictured us with at least two, but more like three or maybe four children. All of them piled up like a litter of pups on the floor.” He almost smiled, but it flickered away, “And then this happened and I’m sitting here now and truth is I’m shaken to my core.”

“Me, too. I’m so sad. I‘m frightened.”

“I am as well, Sil. Seeing you lying in that hospital…that was frightening. Seeing blood all over Alexander’s clothing, up and down his arms…that was frightening. Losing the baby…that’s just…I don’t know,” He put his arm over the back of his chair and looked away, “It’s wrong.”

I hadn’t realised he was angry about it. I didn’t say anything, though. He didn’t need me to. He needed me to shut my noise and listen.

“There are people out there with children and they ignore and abuse them. You hear about some stupid bint who leaves her kid alone in the car for hours or some cold-blooded bloke who shakes his to its death because it’s crying. And there are teenage girls getting pissed at parties and winding up with a baby they don’t want. Girls are out having abortions because they didn’t have the sense to take the pill or use a condom. And then there’s me and you and we weren’t trying, but we would’ve given that baby everything we got. We would’ve loved her. We’d have cared for her. We never would have hurt her. So why? Why did we lose her? I want someone to tell me why this happened to us. To all three of us. I want someone to tell me.”

He didn’t sound angry to me any longer. He sounded as heartbroken as I felt.

“I wish I could answer that, Oliver. I’d like to know, too.”

“Dad says it just wasn’t the time and that there must have been something wrong. Well, we know that, don’t we? He says it’s better it happened because if she had lived through the abruption she would have lost so much blood and oxygen that we might have had a child who had no quality to her life. He’s all logical about it, which is really fucking aggravating to me right now. I just can’t see a plus sign. And Mum…she just clicks her tongue at me and says nothing. She gets very upset, you know how she is. She wants to help, but she makes it worse because she cries and I don‘t need that right now, then I feel guilty-like because I‘m annoyed with her and maybe I shouldn‘t be,” His face was stiff, his mouth pulled into a tight frown, “The doctor…you know… says…you know…tells me that it just happens, sometimes there’s a reason why and sometimes it just happens for no reason at all that they can find. I know in my mind he’s telling the truth and that’s the best he can explain it, but my heart can’t accept what I’m hearing,” He shook his head and looked straight into my eyes. Anger and sadness had taken over his face. His voice was suddenly hoarse, “I saw her! I held her! She was perfect! We did everything right putting her together! It's bullshit!” He tapped his fist against the table, but not with any strength. He did it as if he were in perfect control of how hard he was touching it, as if he had allowed the full force of what he meant to do come through his hand he'd have smashed the table to splinters, “God must have wanted her, Lance told me and I almost punched his face! If it had been anybody but Lance I would have beat the—“ He stopped. His breath caught in his chest before he began again, “Alexander, you know, he says there’s no reason for it at all. Two, young, healthy people losing a healthy child, and he agrees it doesn’t make sense. And he feels bad-like because I feel bad, but he doesn’t know what it’s like to be in my shoes. I hope he never does. He doesn’t know what to say. There’s nothing to say, so he tells me I’m perfectly correct to feel like I feel,” His eyes were full of such pain I wanted to reach out and touch him, but something told me not to. Something told me if I did he would stop talking and I knew that was what he needed to do. Talk it out until what we’d been through either made sense or he could accept it. “I don’t know, Silvia. That’s the thing. I don’t know how I feel about it. I’m so bloody thankful that you’re OK. I’m so bloody thankful, but our Cara dying…it’s just not right. She was just a wee little girl! What’d she ever do to anybody?” He trailed off and then took a deep breath. His voice was just above a whisper when he continued, “I’m so angry about it. I want to shout at somebody. Not you. Just somebody. I want somebody to have to tell me why. I want to grab God by the throat and make him say he’s sorry for what he did to that little girl! I want him to tell me why he chose our Cara,” He pivoted in his chair from me. I couldn’t see his face, but I knew instinctively that he was crying.

“Oliver,” I walked around the table and put my hand on the top of his hair, “I’m here, Sweetheart. Please don’t turn away from me. I need you.” He turned in the chair and buried his face into my belly. I cradled his head, “I am so sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t come to you so we could talk about her. And I’m sorry I lost her. I love her, too, but there was nothing I could do…”

“No, Sil, I don’t blame you,” His voice was muffled. He wrapped his arms around my waist and held me, “I don’t know who I blame. There’s nobody to blame. I’m just so angry!”

“It’s all right. It’s OK. It’s reasonable to be angry and sad about it. It wasn’t fair, was it?” I ran my fingers through his hair, “I’m sad. I’m sad all the time because she died. It just wasn’t fair. I say it over and over. Not to us, especially not to her…but there’s nothing we can do and that’s the hardest thing to sort out. It hurts. We had no say and there’s not a thing that can ever make it right. She’s just gone, almost like she was never even real…but she was,” My voice broke. “She really, really was…“ Oliver sobbed into my dress. He shook. I pulled him closer. We held each other and we cried for a long while. “Keep going,” I told him, “I’ve been doing it all week. It helps. But I’ll tell you one thing. I know in my heart that one day you and I will have children. Maybe loads even.”