A Little Broken (2 page)

“Wait! You can’t just leave. You have to help him! Please!” Her anguish was overwhelming, and the reaction from someone who was supposed to save lives, was devastating. He couldn’t just leave, he couldn’t! He had to help her baby!

Feeling completely destroyed, Jessie sobbed loudly, and curled herself around her baby.
I just have to get him warm, I just have to get him warm,
she kept thinking, the words on a constant repeat in her head as her hands kept running their paths along his arms, his legs.
You know he’s gone. He’s GONE, Jessie,
the rational side of her mind told her. She just couldn’t accept it. This wasn’t real. He was going to wake up. He
had
to wake up.

Hands from unseen people pulled her from the ground, away from her baby. She cried, kicking and screaming at them to let her go, but it was no use – they were too strong.

“I have to warm him up! Don’t! Leave me be! I have to warm him up, so he’ll wake up. I have to –” her words broke on a sob, as the hands continued moving her away.

She was brought into her bedroom and placed into a sitting position on her bed. She sat there, tears running in a constant stream down her face.  She looked at the phone that had been placed in her hand. She had to call her mom. She needed her mom.

Dialing her mom’s work, she only got her voicemail – the one that always made her smile, saying that she was either on the phone with her daughter, or away from her desk. Today, it held no humor. She hung up, not leaving a message, and dialed her dad. Jessie knew that he would be able to get a hold of her mom.

“Hey Jessie, what’s up?” her dad answered, voice cheerful.

“The baby … the baby … he-he’s dead, Dad! HE’S DEAD!” Her words started out blank, empty, but turned into screaming, stuttering hysterics.

The silence that followed was deafening.

“Dad, I can’t get Mom. I tried calling her! I need her and I just … I just can’t … get her,” her words died, catching in her throat. She’d never felt more like a child than she did at that moment. She was completely lost, and needed her mom to come fix it. Needed her mom to make it all better. There was never a problem her mom couldn’t fix, couldn’t make better, so she would have the answers, right? Even as she thought it, Jessie knew that even her mom’s superpowers couldn’t fix this. Nothing would make this alright.

“We’ll … We’ll be there. Let me find your mom,” her dad answered, voice breaking with emotion as he hung up the phone without saying goodbye.

Chapter Two

Jessie had no idea how long she sat on the bed. She had become numb, though tears still managed to find their way down her face. When her parents arrived, she ran like a child into her mother’s arms and just sobbed. Her mom held her close and cried with her, for her, for her baby. When they pulled apart, her parents led her past the sea of strange, uniformed faces that crowded her small living room. Jessie couldn’t help but turn to look for her son, finding only a light blue sheet covering his small body, still lying where she’d placed him.

Isn’t it supposed to be a white sheet?
she thought numbly then cursed herself for thinking something so stupid. As her parents brought her outside, she was greeted with dark sky and rain. Jessie decided that the sky reflected her world right now, devoid of light and weeping.

She stood close to her mom, avoiding the stares from the neighbors that were flocking outside to watch her world crumble. After a while, a man approached, speaking to her mom, too low for Jessie to hear. Her mom glanced at her, started to shake her head, but stopped. She turned to her daughter and took a deep breath before speaking.

“They have to take him, baby. They said … They said that you could go see him one last time before they do, if you want, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. It’s not a good idea to have that image in your head, baby girl. You should remember him as he was before, not have your last memory be of him like this.” Tears glittered in her mom’s eyes as she spoke. She was blinking rapidly, trying to be strong, and the strain of not letting them fall was obvious to Jessie.

“I have to see him. I
have
to see him, Mom. I have to tell him … I have to tell him good – goodbye,” Jessie told her mom in between hiccupping breaths, following the man with ‘Coroner’ in bold lettering across the back of his jacket into the apartment.

As she knelt by the sheet, one of the uniformed men pulled it back gently, exposing her sweet baby boy. Jessie’s tears began falling in an unending stream, some dripping onto her son. She forced herself to take in every detail of him, from the blue, dog-printed onesie he was wearing to his small hands, and finally, to his closed eyes.

“I love you, beautiful boy,” she said, running her hand along his face, ignoring the discoloration there. “Please don’t be scared, and pl-please don’t forget your mommy from where you are now. I wish you didn’t leave me, and I already miss you. Be a good boy, and know that I’ll love you forever, Little Mister.”  She stood, breathing heavily and choking on her tears, and walked back out into the gloom of her new world.

***

Jessie sat, unmoving, staring at the carpet. The day had come and gone, the second longest, yet shortest, day of her life. There had been an outing with her folks to go shopping. She was sure they thought this would make her feel better, but call her crazy, looking for a dress to wear to her child’s funeral wasn’t her idea of a good way to keep busy or to pass the time. The only spot of non-horrible to her day was the twelve pack of Guinness her parents had dropped off with them. She’d placed the bundle at her feet, not wanting to put it in the fridge, not caring about the wet spot the sweat was making on the carpet.

Jessie wasn’t sure what Ryan’s plans were for the night, but she definitely made some of her own. She planned on getting completely smashed, stupidly intoxicated. Her hopes were that if she could just get drunk enough, maybe she could forget. Perhaps the past two days were just a ridiculously bad dream, and she would wake up in her bed, panicked and shaking Ryan again. She knew it wasn’t true, but one could hope.

“Jess,” Ryan called, causing her to look up from her spot on the floor. He was turned toward her at his computer desk.

“Don’t. I just … I just can’t.” She dropped her eyes quickly, not recognizing her voice. Her throat was raw from crying and screaming; it startled her when she realized that this was the most she had said to anyone all day. Nothing seemed important to talk about since she had said goodbye to her son the previous day; nothing that would help, anyway. Ryan didn’t press for more, just turned back to his computer and sank back into the idle noise from the TV. Jessie was sure it was on, though she didn’t have a clue what was playing and she didn’t particularly care. The world was empty without him. The house was empty without him.
She
was empty without him.

Jessie looked around her newly cleaned living room. She had admittedly gone a bit crazy, moving absolutely everything that reminded her of him into his nursery. Pictures, blankets, clothes, as well as the bouncy seat he had loved so much, all of it, was now shut away in the blue-walled room. The room that had held so much joy just a couple short days ago, now held nothing but heartbreak and fallen tears. She wished she could shut the whole apartment into that room. Or shut her whole life into that room. The lack of baby reminders was a reminder in itself that he was gone. But she just couldn’t bear to see his things and not see him.

A tear trailed coldly from her eye. Angry, she wiped it away. The beer was supposed to make it go away, all of it. She stood up impulsively and threw her glass at the wall across from her. She watched with vindictive satisfaction as it shattered loudly, the dark brown liquid flying everywhere.
There, now you are broken like me,
she thought to the glass. She watched as the liquid spread down the wall, coloring a dark path, fascinated.

“JESSIE!” Ryan yelled, snapping her out of her mesmerized stupor. “What the hell is wrong with you!? Get a hold of yourself! I LOST HIM TOO, YOU KNOW.”

His voice was loud in the apartment, echoing in the small space. She merely stared blankly at him, honestly not caring what he said, or how he felt. He was
functioning
and she didn’t understand how that was even possible. Hell, she wasn’t even sure where he’d been yesterday, because it hadn’t been him holding her hand while her world fell away. Now that she thought about it, it had been her mother’s comfort that had kept her from hyperventilating after talking to her son for the last time. Where the hell had he been? Did she care enough to ask? No.

“I’m tired,” she said, voice soft, after her internal debate. She continued to stare at him, not bothering to clean up the mess she’d made. After a few un-blinking moments, she grabbed her blanket and pillow and curled up on the floor by the laundry doors. She couldn’t face their room. Every time she tried to lie down on their bed, her nightmare flashed back to her, warning her of something that she couldn’t change. Lying on the couch reminded her of Ryan’s search for Goose, and in turn, finding him. She was assaulted by awful memories in every direction, but this part of the floor was okay. It was safe. It was untouched by the horror of her life.

She heard Ryan picking up the glass, running the water, probably to wet something so he could wipe up the beer mess. She heard him sigh as he turned out the lights, shut the TV off, and his footsteps as he left the room. She heard him crawl into bed, and, finally, she heard nothing but her own breathing.

She didn’t sleep. She hadn’t slept since she woke from one nightmare to another. Jessie very carefully thought of nothing. Not moving, barely breathing, her only company her falling tears. She started to pray for God to take her pain away, but stopped. God had abandoned her four days ago, when she had her baby Christened. God was finished with her that day; He got what He wanted, and showed her so by taking him away only forty-eight hours later. He made that clear when she begged to trade her life for her son’s; her pleas were left unheard, unanswered, uncomforted. Yes. He had abandoned her, and taken the one person whose loss would utterly destroy her.

She tried redirecting her thoughts to books she had once enjoyed, but that only brought back the book she was reading before … just before. Jessie had always read books to escape her world, to be somewhere else for a little while, places with magic and the impossible, but now that thought seemed naive. Books didn’t take you away from the hell you were in; they just compact the idea that you
are
in hell, and wish you weren’t. She had long since thrown the book she’d been reading into the garbage. She could remember the cover, but couldn’t tell you the name, author, or even what it had been about. She no longer cared. That seemed to be her new theme.

Before long, the sun was beginning to rise, so she got up from her post on the floor. She robotically folded the blanket and placed it, along with the pillow, inside the linen closet. She walked slowly into the bathroom and brushed her teeth, avoiding her gaze in the mirror. She knew she was broken; she didn’t need a mirror to show her that. Jessie stood, debated the merits of changing clothes, but just couldn’t find the motivation to change out of her sweat pants and tank top. Decision made, she went back to the couch and flipped on the TV for noise.
Another day without you, Little Mister,
she thought.

Chapter Three

A knock at the door startled Jessie. She didn’t think she was expecting anyone, but then again, if someone had told her they were coming over, she probably hadn’t been paying attention anyway. Opening it, she found her mom and dad, their faces somber. She opened the door wide, moving out of the way so they could come in.

“Jessie, we have to go to the funeral home today. We have to talk to them about the … about details.” Her dad’s voice waivered, but he managed to keep his expression neutral. Feeling numb, she took a moment to take in her parents. Her mom, who was usually so tall and proud, looked beaten, her dark hair haphazardly falling around her face, her honey eyes tight with emotions held in check. Her dad, the blue-eyed, usually smiling man who’d she had always been close to, looked haunted. His healthy glow was gone, his face covered in stubble, and his shoulders were hunched, betraying his true height. He even looked thinner, which was probably just an illusion in the stupor she was in.

“Okay,” she answered, empty of any emotion.

“You need to go gather things for him, baby girl. Clothes to wear, and anything you may want him to – to take with him.” A single tear fell from her mom’s eye as she spoke. She wiped it away quickly, but Jessie had seen it.

Jessie just nodded and started toward the nursery. She hesitated, her hand on the door knob, trying to convince herself to turn it and push the door open.

“Do you want me to do it?” Ryan asked, coming up behind her, his voice small.

“No. No,” she said quickly, “I’ll do it.”

She turned the knob and gently pushed the door open. Entering the room, she shut it, and the others out, behind her – she had to be alone for this.  The room was now cluttered, but still felt the same, as though a young infant should still be there. Tears filled her eyes as the loss of him hit her again. She could still smell his baby-clean scent and hear is happy gurgles. He
should
still be there.

Focus, Jessie, get what he needs and get out,
she told herself. With calculated movements, she gathered the last clothes he would ever wear: his white silk christening suit, socks, a diaper, and his small, white, soft-soled shoes. She collected his favorite blanket from the stack of clean laundry in the basket, and his favorite duck rattle. A photo of Ryan and her from their anniversary went on the pile. Lastly, she pulled Dr. Seuss’s
Fox in Sox
off the bookshelf and added it as well. She placed all the items in a canvas bag, took one last glance at the cold remains of the once happy room, and walked out, shutting the door tightly behind her.