Last Summer(11)

We’d had several wonderful years together before this happened, Ella thinks, her hand gingerly rubbing the tender area around her scar. How does a couple bounce back from a late-term miscarriage, especially when the wife can’t remember being pregnant? She doesn’t have the answers, but she wants to talk with Damien, about them, the baby, the accident, and what else she can do to retrieve her memories.

She finishes her coffee and goes in search of her husband.

In their room, she listens for the shower but hears only the rain. Obese drops splatter the window, sliding down the glass like tears. She calls for Damien. He doesn’t answer.

Did he leave the condo while she was zoning out in the kitchen, lost in memories of when they met? Thank goodness she didn’t forget that night. She’d feel more lost than she already does if she forgot her husband, too. It would be like living with a stranger.

Ella returns to the hallway. She finds her home office empty, but the guest-room door is ajar. She eases the door wider and stops up short. Her fingers touch her parted lips. In place of the queen bed and dresser is a half-finished nursery. Paint cans and tools sit on a plastic tarp in one corner. A cherrywood crib in another, the mattress still encased in plastic. Two adjoining walls are painted in a buttery yellow, and on one wall, a name has been stenciled: Simon.

Ella weaves, slammed by a wall of dizziness. She grasps the doorjamb, steadying herself. The pregnancy, the accident, the loss of Simon. It hasn’t felt more real to her than in this moment. The nursery waiting to be filled with love and laughter, to smell of talcum powder and diaper rash cream, will remain empty.

Her throat burns around a knot lodged just below her voice box. Tears bead and she swipes them away with the backs of her hands, sniffling as she desperately wishes she could remember what it felt like to carry her son. Did she talk to him? She wonders if she read aloud or sang to him. Did she play him music?

A rustle of fabric draws her attention to the corner of the room. Damien sits on an antique rocker, gripping a stuffed blue bunny. He stares stonily at Ella, eyes glistening.

“Damien.” His name is a breathy whisper, heavy with sadness.

He kneads the bunny’s ear.

She comes into the room and kneels at Damien’s feet, her movements stiff and cautious. She rests her hands on his knees. “Talk to me.”

He pinches off tears collecting in the corners of his eyes and roughly clears his throat. “It’s just hitting me there won’t be a baby.”

Tears well in her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

“I never thought . . . I didn’t realize you’d forget every—” He swallows hard.

“Forget every what?” she prompts when he doesn’t finish. “Forget everything?” Is that what he meant to say? As if she had a choice in the matter. Like that’s even possible.

With a long, tired sigh, he stands, dropping the bunny on the chair.

“I’ll be in the shower.” He touches her shoulder and leaves the room.

Ella watches him go, her mouth agape. He’d walked out on her. Again. Earlier, he’d said the accident wasn’t her fault, but he sure isn’t acting like it. Obviously, he’s grieving, yet he’s doing so alone.

Why?

She lost Simon, too. Just because she can’t remember him doesn’t mean she isn’t capable of feeling for him. Ella lost her parents at six, her best friend Grace at fifteen, and her great-aunt Kathy at eighteen. If anyone knows how to grieve, she does. She loves Damien too much to let him do so alone. And she especially isn’t going to let him bottle up his pain. She did that more than once, and it’s its own worst sort of hell. Exorcising grief takes that much more of an effort the longer it’s contained.

Rising to her feet, Ella leaves the nursery and enters the master bedroom to find Damien toweling off from a shower. He pulls on sweatpants and a white T-shirt. With a glance in Ella’s direction, he folds back the bedcovers. She goes to him and holds his smooth jaw so that he must look at her. He smells of shaving cream and soap, his skin damp to the touch.

“I’m sorry.” The apology doesn’t seem enough. It won’t return their son. It won’t help her remember. And it won’t take away her husband’s pain. But saying the words makes her feel better. Maybe they’ll soften him, too.

Damien gently holds her hand and plants a kiss on the inside of her good wrist. “Don’t beat yourself up. It’s not your fault.”

“You think the memory loss is,” she challenges.

He looks down at the bed. “Take a nap with me. I didn’t get any sleep last night.”

“Why did you have to work all night?”

“Had some things to take care of. I was worried about you, too. Made it hard to sleep.”

“Okay. But please don’t shut me out. I want to be here for you.”

He wraps his arms around her, holds her to his chest, right where she wants to be. “You are.” He kisses her forehead. “Get into bed. You need to rest.”

Ella crawls under the covers. Damien slides in behind and spoons her. She yawns, murmuring, “I love you.”

Damien doesn’t reply. He kisses her shoulder. Too exhausted to read into it, Ella slips into the darkness of sleep.



The lobby buzzer wakes Ella. She glances at the bedside clock. Teal numbers glow 7:00 p.m. and she blinks in surprise. She slept for three hours. Muted light drapes the room in charcoal grays. The rain has let up, allowing the familiar sounds of the city to reach her. Taxicab drivers punch their horns in irritation and police sirens blare. There’s the occasional sound of people shouting and the shrill brakes of a cable car traveling down Hyde. Off in the distance, the foghorn. Light reflects off lowlying clouds, and below, the city sparkles. Clean and wet, the street filth washed away for at least the night.