November Sky (21 page)

Nick brushed a kiss onto my forehead, and he said in a pained voice, “Today’s our anniversary. Laura, I’d give my life to undo what happened. Please talk to me.”

He squeezed my hands, but they lay limply in his. Wrong approach. He ought to at least promise to stop toying with his life. He hadn’t understood a thing. Somewhere in the back of my mind, a small voice told me I should congratulate him on his birthday, but I quickly pushed it away. All I wanted was to stay horizontal for all eternity, and not have to do anything or speak or think. I was convinced that if I began to brood and open myself up to the outer world again, the pain, guilt, and anger would kill me. I simply edited out his presence until he finally left me alone.

I ignored the oversized bouquet he’d put in a vase on the little table against the wall opposite me, choosing to look instead up at the ceiling. I felt relieved when the nurse carried the vase out of the room that evening.

“There, Frau Vanderstätt, I’ll take your flowers out. They’re beautiful, but the scent is too intense and will take away your oxygen.”

She was the only member of the staff who talked to me in a normal way and didn’t seem to expect me to answer. Maybe she liked talking to herself.

I also registered the snide remarks of another nurse without showing the slightest reaction. When she and another nurse came to make my bed in the morning, I kept my eyelids closed and pretended to be asleep. That was the only way I could completely shut out people and my environment, and escape inside myself.

“Frau Vanderstätt is still asleep. Or is pretending to be at least,” she said. “She shouldn’t act so stupid with that depression of hers.”

The word
depression
sounded snarky. Her partner probably motioned to her to be quiet, because I immediately heard the high, loud voice again.

“So what? Even if she can hear me, she should know there’s a woman three rooms away who lost her baby in the seventh month because her husband kicked her in the stomach. Now
that
is a tragedy to make you depressed.”

I twitched involuntarily when she took off my bedcover to shake it out. The cool draft on my legs gave me goose bumps.

She wasn’t done quite yet. “But the poor woman didn’t have any time to grieve because her other three kids needed her. This one here”—it was clear she meant me—“has a luxury problem. She has an incredibly caring husband who’s half insane with worry. You can’t even properly call a miscarriage at this stage a premature birth—there’s no reason for her to be making such a big deal of it.”

“Look, she’s sensitive,” the other nurse said in my defense as they were leaving. I didn’t hear the response, but I’d have guaranteed it wasn’t complimentary.

Incredibly caring husband
pounded through my brain in an endless loop. Was a “husband” caring if he forced his pregnant, acrophobic wife to go out in the middle of the night in a rainstorm to drag him off a hundred-foot-drop bridge with all her strength, putting her at risk and thereby killing their unborn child?

I knew he hadn’t done it deliberately, but he’d refused to do anything to deal with his blackouts. If he had done what I’d constantly pleaded with him to do, our child would still be alive.

Tears ran through my closed eyelids and down my cheeks, wetting my pillow. The nurse’s rude words had knocked big cracks in the wall I’d erected to protect my wounded psyche. Later that day, the wall collapsed completely, thanks to my mother’s visit. She entered the room with Nick. I’d heard them talking softly outside in the corridor and closed my eyes as the door opened. Nick’s big, warm hand gently reached for mine, which lay immobile on the bedcover. The unmistakable scent of his aftershave hit my nose when he bent down to give me a tender kiss on the cheek.

“Hello, Laura dearest. Won’t you ever wake up? We have to talk,” he whispered in my ear. I could only just manage to keep from violently shaking my head. The last thing I wanted was to talk to him. Everything had already been said. No words could describe what he’d done to me.

In that one horrible night, Nick had wiped out my last hope that we could live a happy, carefree life together, that I could bear our child, and that he and I could raise a family together.

For the moment, I didn’t give a damn whether he’d done it intentionally or not. Nick had to finally get it through his head that he was sick. He had to address it. I couldn’t save him from himself. My role of always assuming responsibility for his survival and keeping everything from the outside world was allowing him to shirk his own responsibility—and it was killing me. No person could keep another person alive if he was intent on ridding the world of his presence.

I felt his long, worried look at me but I kept my eyelids shut and lay completely still. He ought to go and leave me in peace.

“Nick? Would you please leave me alone with my daughter for a minute?” my mother asked in a firm but friendly way.
Thanks, Mama.

The door closed as Nick left the room and she sat on the edge of the bed, took the hand that Nick had just released with a sigh, and squeezed it gently.

“Laura, I know you’re not sleeping and can hear me perfectly well. Papa, Peter, and Anna and her family all wanted me to tell you that they are thinking of you.” After pausing to see if I would react, she went on: “I understand how very sad you are about losing the baby. But that’s not a reason by itself for you to withdraw the way you’re doing now. It’s not you. Let your grief out. Cry, but don’t beat yourself up. You’re so young, you—”

Something compelled me to lift my head, open my eyes, and angrily hiss at her, “Don’t you dare tell me that I can have another child any old time! I never want to go through something like that again in my entire life!”

A slight, fleeting smile spread over her concerned face.

“Welcome back, dear, I know that—”

“You don’t know the half of it,” I interrupted. My voice sounded frail, and I cleared my throat. Then the words poured out of me.

“It’s Nick’s fault I lost the baby, and I can never forgive him for that.” I looked at her in pain. “I’d prefer him not to come and visit me. I can’t go back to him.”

Mama wasn’t easily knocked off her feet, even by the announcement that I wanted nothing more to do with my husband. She didn’t defend him, something that another mother might have done for a son-in-law she loved. And she didn’t condemn me for my harsh words.

She cautiously asked, “Can you tell me the reason why? What has he done?”

“I can’t. I don’t even know if I still love him. I’ve no feeling in me; it’s all so cold and empty. I’m sorry, but I can’t live with him any longer. I’ll end up going crazy if I do. But I’m scared of telling him.”

She fondled my cheek to console me. “And you don’t have to. At least not right away. You should never make a decision like that too hastily. Certainly not when you’re as upset as you are. Come home to the farm when you’re discharged. Leave Nick to me. I’ll tell him you need some space and a bit of recovery time. And then you can think in peace and quiet what you’re going to do.”

Chapter 19

Two days later, I put my bag with the things Mama had fetched from our house onto my old bed in the room I’d once shared with Anna. It had been a long time since I’d slept there, even for a weekend visit. I opened the window and breathed deeply. My eyes roamed over the harvested fields and mowed meadows and the little fishpond that mirrored the dark-blue, cloudless sky. The storm and rain showers from the last few days had given way to calm, sunny weather. The air was fresh, the nights clear and cold, and the bare branches were only half covered with leaves—everything hinted at winter’s approach, even in the golden October sunshine.

My parents had picked me up from the hospital right after breakfast and brought me straight to the farm. Mama had gone to Grünwald the day before with a list of things I wanted from home and had talked to Nick and his newly arrived parents, and explained to them that my nerves were still very much shot, and I needed to recuperate. I was staying with them for the time being.

Nick wanted to talk to me and see for himself that I was getting better, but Mama prevented him from coming to the farm in no uncertain terms. My mother-in-law, Angela, had supported her, Mama told me afterward.

“Your mother-in-law is one capable lady. She freely confessed to Nick that she’d had two miscarriages before giving birth to him, and they had affected her deeply. She sends all her love and best wishes and fully understands that you need to regroup and work through everything before you resume a normal life. Hanna thinks the same way and sends her best. Our combined forces convinced Nick to wait until you called him.” She gave me an inquiring glance. “He’s really suffering and misses you awfully.”

I still wasn’t ready to tell her or anybody else what had happened, and only gave a tired shrug. Here I was in my old room. I felt like I’d come full circle. I felt beaten down, tired, listless, and didn’t have the faintest idea how my life was going to move forward.

For the next few days, I slept a lot and went for long walks. Sometimes one of the barnyard cats kept me company—she was a shy black-and-white-spotted kitty that followed me like a shadow at a proper distance no matter how far I walked. The cat apparently didn’t trust me one inch, because each time I stopped and tried to get her to come to me, she halted and sat down with her ears pricked up. She viewed me with distrust, restlessly wagging her tail back and forth. As I approached, she ran away. So I pretended to ignore her but was all the same glad a living creature I didn’t have to converse with kept me company.

My parents had a lot of work to do, as always, but we ate meals together and talked about everyday things—but not Nick. That subject was taboo.

At least it was until the day my mother asked me to help her in the vegetable garden. Side by side we gathered the last zucchini, squash, pepper, and cucumbers. When we finished, Mama stood up, took off her work gloves, and pointed to the little wooden bench in the middle of the beds.

“Come sit with me, my child.”

I followed her with some trepidation and sat down beside her. I still wasn’t sure if I should tell her about the problems Nick and I had. How to start?
My husband feels a repeated, unpredictable, disastrous urge to kill himself, and he counts on me to rescue him.
That sounded so insane that an outsider probably wouldn’t have believed it. But when she put a loving arm around me, the floodgates opened. I told her everything. While listening to me chronicle the ups and downs of our marriage, she didn’t say a word but held me closely again and again each time I stopped to collect myself. It affected me so much to talk about it.

“I can’t go on. I know for certain that if I go back to him now, the whole thing will start all over at some point. Besides, I can’t forgive him that I lost the baby that night.”

She looked at me intently. “You told me you didn’t feel well all that day. Most miscarriages in the first three months have nothing to do with anything the mother’s done.”

“But I was really frantic. I had an awful fear that Nick would jump or I could fall. I’d overexerted myself on the climb and was so exhausted that I had to throw up afterward. And the gynecologist told me that I was to avoid excitement, stress, and physical strain in the first weeks to reduce the danger of a miscarriage.”

Mama smiled slightly. “You know, if you look at it that way, mankind would probably have died out long ago. Just think of all those babies who were born in wartime or the children whose mothers were refugees. Food and water were often scarce, or they were bombed. Those women suffered enormous stress and physical strain, and many of them bore children nevertheless.”

She stopped for a moment while I processed her words. Then she continued. “You know Lisa?”

I nodded. Lisa and her husband had raised nine kids on the neighboring farm.

“The last time she was pregnant, she was forty-five and in total despair because she didn’t want another child. This is between you and me, but she tried everything to get rid of the baby by natural means. She ran through the woods, jumped down slopes, and took hot baths. It didn’t work. Now her youngest, Michael, is as old as you and a pillar of strength for his parents. They couldn’t manage the farm without him, as sick as they both are. I think that if a fetus is healthy, it can withstand almost anything in the womb.”

I’d never seen it from that perspective. “You mean I’d have lost the baby in any case?”

Her blue eyes looked at me from her weather-beaten face in all sincerity. “No one knows, dearest Laura. But I don’t think you should blame Nick. The burden he’s carrying is bad enough. After all you’ve told me, there must be a reason he wants to kill himself and at the same time wants you to save him. And as you say, it’s not intentional. He’s as confused by his irrational urge as you are. I wouldn’t like to be in his skin right now. He’s probably being extremely hard on himself and blaming himself.”

She didn’t agree with me when I said I couldn’t keep going on with the marriage.

Nick began bombarding me with texts and calls the very next day. I ignored or deleted them all. I lay in bed at night without sleeping and yearned for his tenderness and warmth. My conversation with Mama had rocked my stance that he was guilty of our baby’s death, and I knew that I still loved him in spite of everything. But I could only live a life free of anxiety without him. It felt like I had a drug addiction. I felt a huge desire for the drug, but I knew it would destroy me in the long run. And maybe I would save him with my decision. If he knew I was no longer nearby, he might not have the self-destructive attacks anymore. No matter which way I looked at it, a separation was unavoidable.

Nick, of course, saw it completely differently. The next day a small package arrived for me by express, and with no return address. All that was in it was a single CD. No letter, just the silver disc in a blank cover. I hesitated for a long time before inserting it in my laptop. I’d gone to my room and was glad I did when I heard the first strains of “You.” Tears ran freely down my face. Nick had put together a CD to show me his feelings for me. On the CD were the songs “Still Loving You,” “Far Away,” “Incomplete,” and “You,” repeated at the end. If he’d been standing in front of me at that moment, I’d have tossed all my doubts and fears overboard and thrown myself straight into his arms.

But he wasn’t there, and so I was able to calm down slowly after the last notes had died away and suppress my painful longing for him. Logic told me that the pain would be much greater if I went back to him and arrived too late the next time he tried to kill himself. I fished my cell out of my pants and stared at the display for several seconds before sending him a short text.

Thanks for the music. I got it, but if you really love me, then give me time and leave me in peace.

L.

I intentionally left out any salutation that would only look phony, given my confused emotional state. I didn’t want to raise any false hopes.

I immediately tried Chris’s number. She picked up after the first few rings.

“Laura, how are you? I’m so sorry that you lost your baby. I’ve been very worried about you.”

I’d asked Mama to call her and explain about my miscarriage and that I needed time to grieve and so wouldn’t be in to the office for the next several days.

“I don’t feel particularly well, psychologically, and I brood a lot. Chris, I urgently need some distraction, so I’m coming back to work starting tomorrow. But I’m going to look for a place to stay, because I want to divorce Nick.”

Chris gasped before I went on:

“Please don’t ask me why. I can’t bring myself to talk about it. It’s incredibly painful, but there’s nothing else I can do. I’ll probably look for a rental room in a house until I find something permanent.”

“Listen,” said Chris, “you can stay at my place as long as you need to. I promise to leave you to yourself. That is, I won’t ask any questions.”

Maybe her plan to keep that large apartment wasn’t so kooky after all. I dreaded sitting around ruminating by myself in some impersonal hotel or a room in a shared house after work each day. Since at the moment my business partner was practicing abstinence as far as men were concerned, it wouldn’t disrupt her if I actually did live at her place for a short time.

The next day Mama drove me to Grünwald and dropped me off at the house. I was relieved that neither Nick nor his parents were home. My car was the only one in the garage. I felt fortunate to be spared the stressful conversations and emotionally loaded scenes I’d steeled myself for. But I’d counted my chickens too soon. Hanna was sweeping the entryway and ran to me with joy.

“You just missed Nick and his parents. They’ve gone into town. Laura, so nice you’re finally back ag—”

She broke off when she saw my sorrowful expression and her smiling face turned serious. “You aren’t coming to stay. You’re getting the rest of your things, am I right?”

I embraced her, nodded in silence, and let her hold me tight. She looked at me directly. “Nick is profoundly saddened. He misses you terribly, but he’s putting a brave face on it. When he’s not in the studio, he tends to Angela and Jürgen. His father hasn’t been well for some time. He caught a viral flu in Spain and has lost a lot of weight and is always tired. They came back so he could be thoroughly checked out and treated.”

I immediately felt the rise of a guilty conscience. Nick didn’t only have to deal with my absence and the loss of our child, but he also had to worry about his father. How would he react when he came home to find my car and most of my personal belongings gone?

I swallowed the lump in my throat and looked at Hanna pleadingly. “I’ve got no choice. Hanna, if I came back there’d eventually be a catastrophe.”

That could also happen now if he went crazy because of my leaving, but I had to accept it.

“Please keep an eye on him, OK? He’s better off without me.”

With those words I turned and ran upstairs. My throat tightened when I saw the familiar objects in the room where we’d spent so many happy hours. I let my gaze wander through our living room. The ultrasound picture was still hanging in the middle of the other pictures on the wall. I took it down to keep for myself. It had been my child and this was the only picture I had of it. The fact that it was hanging with those of Nick and me in such happy times seemed a mockery. I threw everything together in haste like a thief, found my car keys, and raced downstairs with my bag.

Hanna stood on the same spot, broom in hand, silently crying and wiping away her tears with the back of her hand. I felt mean, rotten, and sleazy because I was alienating people I loved, Nick above all. The mere thought of how shocked he’d be when he got home—and what he’d feel upon seeing the partly emptied closets—took my breath away. I cringed. What sort of opinion would they have of me and my behavior? Everyone who didn’t know our real problems would assume I was throwing away Nick’s love just because I couldn’t emotionally deal with the loss of our child.