UNFORGETTABLE (Able Series Book 3) (9 page)

“Son, I know how you feel. It doesn’t get any easier, but together with the woman you love, both of you can overcome the grief and pain that comes with it. You’re stronger than this, trust me.” My dad turns to face me as he grabs my face willing me to look up, but I don’t.

“Look at me.”

I stubbornly shake my head as tears of pain slowly trickle down my face. Fuck this pain. I hate it. I hate it so much, I want to rip my heart out of my chest to stop feeling it—to stop feeling anything at all.

“Brian, look at me. You can’t hide from the pain.”

Swiping the stupid tears off my face, I lash out at my dad, “I’m not hiding!”

Soft but firm, frail but strong arms embrace me from behind—my mother’s.

“Accept the pain, Son, so the hole the loss left in your heart will start healing. Don’t cradle or feed the pain, the only thing that’ll do is break you. Tami needs you as you need her. Be each other’s strength, but she can’t do that with you refusing to accept anything.”

“Why? Why take our baby, Ma? Why?”

As my dad backs away, my mom steps in front of me. Tenderly, she holds my face and pushes upward to meet my eyes. Shaking her head ever so slightly, she smooths my hair with her right hand, all the while her eyes only speak of love.

“No one knows the reason why. Perhaps, you should ask what? What is it that He wants you to learn? What He wants you to feel? What He wants you to ask of Him?”

“I don’t understand. The only things I understand are Tami’s aches and mine, the guilt I have for not protecting her, the longing in my heart and hers that nothing and no one can fill.”

“Brian, He wants you to learn to accept without anger. He wants you to feel the sadness and the pain without letting it fester, and He wants you to ask Him to bless you with another child. Ask for His strength, because you’ll need it to overcome the loss. You have to believe He’s faithful to give it.”

My dad’s hot breath fans my face as he whispers, “Clear your head and cry it out. Expel all the pain, and then, leave it at the cross. It’s where it belongs, bare yourself clean, and He’ll show you the way.”

I hear the sliding glass door open, and if I want to guess, I’d say it’s Jack. Of course, he’d want to talk to me . . . any father would.

“Lorenzo, can I have a word with your son?”

“Of course, Jack.”

My mom kisses my cheek as my dad gives my shoulder a love pat. I stand and wait for Jack to speak. Maybe he wants to rip me a new one because I’m being stubborn, or because he’s blaming me. Either way, he can’t make me feel sorrier than I already do.

“Sit down, Brian.”

I do as I’m told, as always. I wish someone could just say stop feeling that way, or you should feel this way and your heart just follows—follows orders without asking, just like a good Marine.

“This is a devastating loss. A loss that not only you and Tami feel, but the whole family as well. The moment that child was conceived, he or she was part of this family. My heart hurts for you and my daughter. I wish I could ease the pain, carry it perhaps and pass it to someone else when the pain hits me too, but it doesn’t work that way. Life goes on for the living. It’s unfortunate but true. It’s harsh, but it’s the truth. It’s something that happens that can’t be undone. Go through the pain head on, Brian, and take Tami with you. Don’t go in separate directions—fight through it together. I’m not here to pound on you to be strong, because if I were being honest, I’m ready to fall on my knees, myself. What I’m trying to say is, do it together.”

All I can give him is a nod. He can take that nod however he wants to because I don’t have an answer—none at all.

Clearing his throat he continues, “I told you the special bond she and I have is nothing compared to what you have. Use that connection, pull from it, squeeze every ounce of strength you can from it, because she’ll need it and she can only get it from you as she does the same thing for you.”

He leaves, and I stay.

Jake comes, talks, leaves, and I stay.

Cody comes, talks, leaves, and I stay.

I . . . stay.

Sometimes, I wonder if it’s possible to forget. If at some point in my misery, something just snaps and the memory of the pain is all but gone. God, help me forget! I want to forget, to not hurt. I want to not hurt, to move on. I want to move on, to live. I want to live, for what. . . . I don’t know. How can I possibly help her when I’m lost in my own grief for the second time?

Second time.

I thought half of myself died when I lost my first. Now, I’m just dead. The emptiness I feel is indescribable. To others, this may seem like an obsession or misplaced grieving. They may say, how can I possibly have such a strong sense of loss for someone I haven’t met? But that’s exactly it, I don’t need to see or hold, kiss or touch either my babies to love them, because I just do. I don’t have to breathe them in, to watch their chest rise and fall, or to hear their cries to experience the excruciating sense of loss. I wish I were given the opportunity to do all those things; however, the only opportunity given me is to feel the emptiness that comes with losing someone along with the pain their memory brings.

I let my tears and shoulders fall; I allow my knees and heart to give way, letting go of the ache for a little while. I convince myself a few seconds is all I need to grieve, but to be honest, it’s a lifetime of constant pain. I instinctively clutch my heart, wanting it not to feel as I’m willing my eyes not to cry.

Then, I feel my mother’s arms on me. I hear her words of encouragement loud and clear, “Will it to go if you find yourself hanging onto the pain. You can fall apart, Son. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’ll help you pick up the pieces, just as someday in God’s glorious time, you’ll help your child pick up the pieces, too. Such is the cycle of love.”

Then, I feel something snap inside of me.

I’m done hoping.

I’m done dreaming.

I’m done trying.

I’m just done.

Once again, I’m waving the white flag of surrender to fear.

Giving in to the lies of the past.

Granting power to the memories that haunt me.

Forget?

I will never forget.

TAMI

I refuse to count the days or remember what happened after my miscarriage. Brian comes and goes without uttering more than two one-syllable-words. He sleeps next to me, but I don’t feel his warmth, instead all I feel is pure coldness. I cook, he eats; I talk, he nods; he leaves for work, I stay home to think; and so goes our meek existence, post baby loss.

I can’t hold it any longer. He can’t quit on us without telling me what’s going on. I haven’t even been given one explanation since he decided to be in a silent holding pattern. He hasn’t asked me to leave as Jake and Cody did Trish and Roxy, but he may as well have. His silence alone is enough to send the message. I’m talking to him—no correction, I’m telling him.

He walks through the back door surprised to see me waiting for him.

“We need to talk, please.”

Brian just looks at me for a second, his eyes slightly narrowing as he takes me in. His eyes swing toward the left, then back at me, then slowly down. He knew this is bound to happen. If he’s
the
man I know he is, he’ll face me, and he’ll watch me put an end to this.

He stops right in front of me, crosses his arms, and widens his stance. Typical of someone who’s defensive. I see it all the time with our boys. Unfortunately, today he’s not defending me, he’s defending himself—his actions . . . or lack thereof.

I take his silence as my cue to start. “When I lost our baby, I didn’t know whether to cry in pain first or cry for our baby’s loss. My heart chose for me. I cried for our loss, for the chance to love our angel, to never find out how she’d look, to never know how his life was gonna be, to never hold her, to rock him, to sing to her, or to even put him in time out. I’ll miss all those events, you know. So not to lose my sanity, I focused on the physical pain. The moment it hit, the amount of blood that trickled down my legs, and the cramping as though someone were cutting me in half. I felt every single tug, every single pull while they cleaned me up and took my angel away from me.” I stop and wipe my eyes. “I want to forget, but I don’t. I want to hope, but I can’t, not without you hoping with me. I’m not blaming you, but every time I look at you, every time I see you like this . . .” I let my hand run up and down as if telling him to look at himself. “ . . . it reminds me of what you refuse to accept, and what I’ve accepted. We’re two worlds clashing against each other and that hurts. It hurts so much. I don’t want to hate you as you hated yourself the first time.”

“How can you accept it so easily? Tell me! Better yet, show me so I can stop feeling this pain.”

Shaking my head in disbelief, and maybe accepting the grim reality he’ll never learn to understand me spreads in my heart like a disease, contaminating everything good. “Accepting is the only way for me to cope. It’s our reality, Brian. Can we change it? No—no! Do I want to change it? Yes. I’d change it in a heartbeat, but we . . . I don’t have the power to do that. What’s left is to face the reality to heal. Don’t you get it?”

“Don’t you think I know that? My head knows it. Fuck, I smelled the blood, I saw what they did. So, yes, my eyes and my brain can comprehend, but let this . . .” He slaps his chest with his palm. “. . . . let my heart fucking grieve. Let it suffer a little while longer. Can’t I do that?”

“How long? How much longer will you live like this?” Frustration seeps through me like poison, and all reason flies out my head. “You never wanted to have one, right? You said so yourself. So, what’s all this about? For what? Maybe, we should just do this apart from each other.”

“Wow, that’s a low blow coming from you. My grief, now, has nothing to do with what I said in the past! I’ve asked forgiveness for that, and you’ve given it! So, quit bringing it up.” With his stubborn stance and all too stubborn face, he continues with a slightly calmer nerve, “We can . . . we need to do this together. I’ve lived it. I can . . . I can help you.”

“You can help me? Really? Being physically near, but emotionally detached from me isn’t helping; it’s only hurting me.”

“You just have to give me time, because up here . . .” he points at his head as he says, “this is all my fault. Maybe, I shouldn’t have touched you that night. Maybe, I should’ve been more careful. Maybe, it’s in my blood, my genes; I don’t know . . .”

“No! Don’t blame yourself. The doctor said it happens; the baby just didn’t attach that well. This isn’t something we could’ve avoided. Please, don’t blame yourself. At the very least, do that for me.”

“This is exactly what happened the first time. You can’t fault me for thinking that. Allow me to process this.”

He sounds so robotic. Not that it’s not sincere, but that it’s without feeling. It’s as if he’s detached himself from his heart—he feels so far away . . . so very far away from me. But, when you love a person, you build them up instead of tearing them down, so that’s exactly what I’m doing.

“If there’s one thing I want you to learn from this, it’s that we can’t control fate. It won’t bring our baby back, and while I’m heartbroken beyond words, I don’t want you carrying the same guilt again, Brian. It’s excruciating, it’s raw, the pain is so real and intense, forgetting is almost impossible. So, don’t add guilt into it. There’s no need for it. Our angel is in Heaven now, and I’m okay with that. . . . I need to be okay with that for my sanity.”

“And, you’re saying it’s not okay with me? Doing this alone isn’t the solution.”

I breathe deeply as I pray for more strength. “I need to heal and so do you; and doing it together, I don’t think is healthy for either one of us. I don’t want to forget or heal doing it your way. I don’t want fear surrounding me as you’ve done all of your life . . . what you’re doing now. I don’t want it to incapacitate me enough that the thought of trying again paralyzes everything in me.”

“Tami, this isn’t the way to go, not by a long shot. You promised!”

Shaking my head I say, “Hiding and avoiding me for days isn’t a sign of your willingness to heal. Is that a sign of being ready to forget? I say, you’re running away.”

“But, I’m not running from you. We need to do this together.”

Wiping a few errant tears, I give him the final blow. “Together? I needed you to be there for me, but instead, you chose to be in your own world, wallowing in your own self-pity. So please, you have to do the same for me. I just need time away from you.”

His voice cracks, and I quickly steel my heart. “Where does this leave us?”

“It leaves us where we are, except we’re doing it separately.”

“Do you still love me?”

I start laughing and crying at the same time. I’m pretty sure I’m pulling a Roxy right now, and giving Brian a coronary; either that, or he’s contemplating on calling the men in white for me.

“You’re asking me if I love you. I think you should ask yourself that, Brian. Seriously, ask yourself that question, and let me know what answer you come up with.”

Quickly, he reaches for me as I abruptly stand and turn to leave. “Stop; face me, please.”

I take a deep breath then slowly face him, but nothing could have prepared me for hearing every single thing that comes out of his mouth.

“Give me this, please.”

I remain motionless, my eyes still on him. Slowly, he leans, claiming my lips with his. Our tongues dance and love on the other while he cups my face. He deepens the kiss, and it seems he’s savoring my breath, inhaling all of me.

“Forever.”

He confesses after every swipe of his tongue against mine. I start tasting his tears along with my own, my moans become whimpers.

“I love you, Tami.”

His pained voice is full of longing, but the words that vibrate against my lips, those words fill my empty heart to its fullest. He releases my lips, allowing my eyes to see the devastation that plays on his face. His thumb dances across my cheek, moving to my lips while his eyes speak silently to mine. He wipes away my tears as I wipe his that are caused by misplaced fear and loss. Reluctantly, his hand drifts away from my face . . . he’s letting go while I painfully allow him to.