If Forever Comes (20 page)

Today I woke to an empty house, but I was
unable to force myself back into the refuge of sleep. Lizzie had
spent last night with Christian. I usually slept away the mornings
she was gone, and I wouldn’t rise until it was time to pick her up
from school.

Today, when my eyes had flitted open, I was
struck with all the pain that continually devoured me, the wounds
within throbbing anew as each new morning seemed to cut them wide
open.

But even as I was washed in that pain, I
sensed something different. It was as if the emptiness inside me
had whispered that I was missing something as the days blurred into
nothingness. It was something that echoed the loneliness that ached
from my broken spirit. But where before I’d given into it, had
succumbed to the void that I’d accepted would always be the most
prominent piece of my life, today I had the impulse to fill it. It
was just a flicker, but it was there.

I will try
.

I guess I’d enjoyed myself on Sunday, if that
was even possible. The fresh air had almost made it easier to
breathe. Almost. Breathing was the hardest part. Every intake of
air was measured. Forced. As if life no longer came
naturally.

But being there with Logan, Kelsey, and Lizzie
had been simple. There was no pressure and there were no memories.
When Logan made me laugh, it shocked me. It was as if my ears were
hearing it tinkle from someone else’s mouth, a sound I no longer
recognized.

And he called me Liz.

Casual. Like nothing. As if he’d known me all
my life. As if it really didn’t matter all that much.

Christian never called me that. He always said
my name as if it were his breath, as if it were a prayer, so much
meaning held in the just the inflection of the word.

Maybe that was the problem between Christian
and me. Maybe the connection that bound us was too overwhelming,
too powerful, too much. Maybe a love that flamed so bright could
only burn us into the ground. Maybe it was inevitable, our ruin.
Maybe we’d already been set up for destruction, because something
so strong made it inherently weak.

Because I knew I couldn’t handle Christian
right now. Couldn’t handle the intensity of what he made me feel.
He was like a burst of color behind my eyes that I couldn’t
distinguish, a ball in the pit of my stomach that felt like both
dread and anticipation.

He was a reminder of everything that should be
and what I couldn’t have.

A symbol of what I had lost.

The hardest part was I didn’t know if that
feeling would ever change. If I could ever look at him and not be
knocked from my feet by a torrent of sorrow.

I opened my eyes and let my gaze wander across
the yard to the swing set he’d built about six months
ago.

I’d tried to talk him out of it. I’d told him
he was crazy and that we were trying to move and he could build one
at the new house. But he just smiled that smile and said it didn’t
matter, and if Lizzie played on it for even one day, then it would
be worth his effort.

And she had. She had played and played and
played on it until she had abandoned it the day Christian had gone
away. Since then it’d sat stagnant, like the wreckage of our
decay.

Gathering my courage, I stood. The grass was
damp, cool beneath my bare feet. I approached it tentatively, as if
it were something sacred. I ran my fingertips up the smooth plastic
of the slide then brushed my hand along the coated metal chains of
the swing where Christian had spent hours upon hours teaching
Lizzie how to pump her legs. I swallowed hard as I moved to stand
behind the other, the infant swing Christian had so proudly hung
just in case
we were still living here when Lillie was old
enough to use it.

My hand shook as I reached out and nudged it,
giving it the slightest push. It creaked as it barely swayed. I
pushed it again and closed my eyes and imagined her, what she would
have been like had she been here.

Her face flashed, both the one I’d known and
the one that I’d fantasized in my mind. The way she’d felt in my
arms. She’d been so light, too light, so wrong. And still, I’d
loved her. I’d loved her with all my heart and I’d poured it into
her, praying that somehow she could feel it.

Pain clenched my heart, and tears welled in my
eyes as what I’d known of her presence swept over me. I pressed my
hand over my mouth as it all broke through.

Oh my God. I hurt. I hurt so bad, I didn’t how
to stand up under it. It was crushing. But today I let it, lifted
my face to the sky as I let it rain down on me, as I let her
touch
me, a caress of her spirit as she passed
by.

I’d had so many hopes for her life. And I
could see her here, could imagine the way she’d have smiled, the
sound of her laughter, because I
knew
her.

Because I knew her, and without her, I
couldn’t remember how to breathe. I was hit with another staggering
wave. It bent me at my middle, and I clutched my stomach as I
gulped for the cool fall air.

I missed
her
.

A sob tore up my throat. It was
unstoppable.

I should have known better than this, letting
it go, welcoming the remnants of her existence into this miserable
life. Because I couldn’t deal with it, but I couldn’t keep myself
from receiving the smallest portion of her light.

I staggered back into my house. The drapes
remained pulled, the rooms darkened as I stumbled through the
kitchen and into the family room. On the stairs, I held myself up
on the railing, pulling myself forward, or maybe I was
drawn.

I’d never been able to look before, even
though I knew it was there. Before she went back to Virginia,
Claire had kissed my forehead and told me it was there for me
whenever I was ready. And I didn’t know if I was ready. I didn’t
know if I ever would be. Four months had passed, and I knew one day
I had to face this.

I will try
.

I came to a standstill outside my bedroom
door. Tears streamed, and I just stared. I still didn’t know if I
was brave enough to handle what was inside.

Brave
.

The hoarse laughter that shook me was almost
bitter. None of it was directed at Claire, even though she was the
one who had proclaimed it.

There was no bravery found in me.

After they’d ripped her from my arms, I didn’t
even have the courage to open my eyes. I just wanted to seep away,
bleed into the nothingness that my spirit called me
into.

I will try
.

With a trembling hand, I reached out and
pushed on the door. It swung open to the room that served as my
refuge yet haunted me at the same time. In it was Christian’s
presence, both the warmest light and the harshest freeze. It was
here I’d loved him and here where I’d let him go. These walls still
crawled with that anger, something that had boiled between us
before it’d finally blown.

Part of me still hated him for it.

Sucking in a pained breath, I took a step
inside. The loneliness I was met with every time I walked through
this door encroached, wrapped me in a cloak of isolation,
amplifying the void at the center of me that was getting harder and
harder to bear.

I swallowed deeply as I shuffled across the
floor. I came to stand at the entrance to my walk-in closet. A
frenzy of nerves sped through my veins. I pushed them down and
slowly opened the door. A dark, vacant hole stared back at
me.

I fumbled for the light switch. Harsh light
flooded the tiny space. I squinted, holding my hand up to shield
it. Once my sight adjusted, I edged forward then dropped to my
knees.

The box was on the top shelf, shoved back and
hidden behind a stack of blankets in the far corner.

Discarded.

Like waste.

Agony twisted my heart, so tight I didn’t know
how it was possible for it to keep beating.

She would never be that way to me. Forgotten.
Unwanted.

Rejected
.

A shot of anger rumbled beneath the surface of
my skin, resentment I was sure I would never shake.

I tugged on the box and pulled it down, got
onto my knees in the middle of the closet floor. It was a large
keepsake box, pink and floral and accented in ribbons. The kind
designed to keep someone’s most cherished memories.

I sat there for the longest time, staring at
it through bleary eyes, searching inside myself for the courage I
knew didn’t exist.

I fisted my hands on my thighs. I blinked, and
tears slipped down my cheeks and dripped from my chin. I sniffled
and wiped them away.

I owed her this. Owed her this respect, owed
her this act of adoration when my body hadn’t been strong enough to
protect hers. And maybe I owed it to myself, because it was her
memory I clung to so desperately, and her memory that caused me my
greatest pain.

Maybe I needed to see.

Something pushed me forward, and I lifted the
lid from the box. For a moment, I froze, stricken by the items
waiting inside. My chest quaked. I slowly set the lid
aside.

Little remained of her, just the few things
that had touched her life.

My jaw quivered, and I sank my teeth into my
lower lip to try to stop it.

She hadn’t even been given that.
Life
.

But to me, she had. She had lived because she
lived in my heart.

The tiny identification bracelet that had been
cut from her ankle lie on top. It was so small, so small it could
have been a ring. A shudder trembled through my being. Did I forget
how small she had really been? I picked it up and gently twisted
the plastic band that had marked her stilled leg around my
finger.

Tears resurfaced. I tried to bite them back,
but they bled free. And I knew they would fall endless, ceaseless,
even when my eyes were dry. Never would I stop grieving her. This
love was eternal. My name was there, just under hers, and numbers
were printed below that I knew somehow categorized her death. I let
it curl around two fingers, held onto it as I dipped my other hand
into the box. I pulled out the preemie Onesie my mother had bought
from the hospital gift store for me to dress her in. It was the one
she’d worn as Mom snapped three pictures of her in my arms. They
were there too, the pictures, tucked inside a card, a merciless
reminder of her face that was forever frozen in time.

Stifled air pressed down. I felt strangled, as
if the life were slowly being squeezed out of me.

Seeing her this way, so clear, removed from
the fog of that day, gutted me.

Stripped me bare.

How could I face this? When would it ever be
okay?

It wouldn’t.

Still, I held the pictures at my chest as I
lifted my face toward the ceiling. The single bare bulb glared
down, streaks of light glinting against my eyes that were squeezed
closed. Tears continued to fall, and my anguished cries bounced
around the confines of the tiny space.

I could barely suck in a ragged breath. It
hurt as it expanded in my lungs.

By the time I set the pictures down on the
floor and pulled the blanket Claire had given her from the box, I
could barely see. I frantically pressed it to my nose, desperate to
catch a suggestion of her. I held it close and inhaled the fabric,
because it felt like the most tangible thing I had of
her.

But that void…it just throbbed.

She’d taken a piece of me with her and left
this hollowed out place that I didn’t know how to fill.

And it ached and stabbed and cut.

She was real. Didn’t they understand
that?

But I knew no one really could. No one could
really understand the impact she’d made on my life. How she’d
changed me inside.

Because she’d been real and my child and now
she was gone.

Gone.

And it hurt. Oh my God, it hurt so badly,
stretched me thin and compressed me tight, and I didn’t know if I’d
ever see through it.

My fingers curled in the blanket as I wept, as
I cried out for the child I would do anything to hold in my arms
again.

One token remained at the bottom of the
box.

I still didn’t know if I could bear to look at
it.

No amount of time could heal it. No passage of
days or months or years could erase the fact that she had never
been given the chance to live.

Memories surfaced, ones that I had blocked
through the shocked haze that held me under. Ones I still didn’t
want to remember. Somehow, I knew Christian had picked it out.
Vague impressions slipped through my mind, the way he’d tried to
hold me as he’d asked questions at my ear I didn’t want to hear. I
remembered this was what he’d wanted and somehow I’d
agreed.

It was a small pewter cube.

It was different from anything I’d seen,
different from anything I’d expected when Claire had told me it was
there, but I knew it was her urn.