Last Summer(7)

Lynn was only trying to help Ella feel better, to ease her confusion. But Ella knew the truth. She’d asked Damien to look it up on his phone since hers had been damaged in the accident. Ella had carried for twenty-one weeks. It’s considered a miscarriage up to twenty weeks. Simon was stillborn.

And that made the tragedy of losing him, then forgetting, that much worse.

“Simon,” she whispered.

Damien had suggested to say his name out loud. Maybe thinking of their son as often as possible will help her remember him.

But why bother? She’d only feel the emptiness and worthlessness she’d read women experience. Ella had found the pamphlet discarded on the bedside table at the hospital: What to Expect in the Emotional Aftermath of a Miscarriage.

Even the hospital staff couldn’t get it right.

Try again, Lynn had encouraged.

Ever since she and her best friend Grace played “house” as kids, Ella’s wanted a baby. A part of her thought she could eventually change Damien’s mind. At some point, she must have. Damien seems like he was ready to welcome Simon and is devastated they’ve lost him.

Maybe they can try again.

But first things first. She needs to warm up.

Ella goes to the kitchen and finds her favorite mug, a teacup-shaped ceramic with a hand-painted floral design she’d picked up at Anthropologie. She searches for the stainless steel coffee filter, yanking open cabinet doors. A sharp pain radiates up her forearm and she cries out.

Damien comes up beside her. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t find the filter,” she says, close to tears. She holds her injured wrist close to her chest.

He opens the dishwasher and pulls out the filter.

The one place she didn’t look. She gestures for it.

“I got it.” He sets the filter atop her mug.

“Thanks,” she murmurs, resting her forehead against his deltoid. He tenses under her weight. “Are you okay?” she asks.

“Fine.” He drops a scoop of ground coffee into the filter and fills the kettle with water, setting it on the stovetop to boil. He watches it.

“You know what they say about a watched pot,” she teases.

“Humph.” A short laugh, but he doesn’t take his attention off the pot.

“Did I do something to upset you?”

He glances at her. “No, why?”

“Oh . . . I don’t know, except we’ve hardly spoken since I woke up yesterday. You can barely look at me.”

“Sorry. I’m just tired.” He pats her shoulder in reassurance.

Ella does not feel reassured.

He can’t look at her and he’s hardly touched her. But she needs to touch him.

She runs a hand down his spine, smoothing the creases in his shirt, relishing the solid plane of his back. She lingers over his tapered waist. It feels like months since they’ve been intimate. Maybe it has been, for all she knows. All she wants is for him to look at her. To see her and how scared she is.

Once again, his muscles go rigid at her touch. Ella sighs, letting her arm fall. She moves to the other side of the kitchen and watches him wait for the water to boil. She should ask him about the accident. How did it happen? Where? Were other people involved?

Oh, god.

What if she was at fault and injured or, worse, killed someone?

No, the police would have been waiting for her, right?

But she had killed someone. Their son.

Her chest clenches and a heavy sadness falls over her.

“Damien,” she says in a thin whisper as hot tears flood her eyes. She waits for him to look her way, and when he does, her face crumples. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

He frowns. “For what?”

“I killed our baby.” Tears fall.

Damien’s expression softens. “No. No, no, no.” He crosses the kitchen and gathers her in his arms. “It was an accident.” He cups the back of her neck and presses his lips to her forehead. “A horrible accident.”

“I wish I remembered.” She coils her arms around his waist and tucks her head under his chin and whispers, “I’m scared.”

“Me too. But we’ll get through this. I promise.”

Damien leans his cheek on the top of her head and draws his arms around her, careful not to hold her too close because of her fresh scar. For a long moment they stand there like that, arms wrapped around each other, gently swaying. She listens to the rain pelt the window. His heart thumps under her ear, and slowly, her limbs grow heavy and the steady rocking lulls Ella toward sleep.

The kettle whistles and Ella startles.

Damien kisses her head, then turns to the stove. He slowly pours the water over the ground coffee in a swirl motion. The grounds bloom like a balloon and the water steadily drips into the mug.

Ella yawns and bundles her sweater tighter. “How’d the accident happen?”

He adds cream to her coffee and gives her the mug. “Some guy in a truck T-boned you at Jones and Filbert. Pushed your Range Rover head-on into a telephone post.”

She gasps. She knows that intersection. Drives it almost every day. “Was he heading toward the bay?”

He nods. “He claims his brakes failed. The police are investigating.”

That section of Jones Street has one of the steepest grades in the city. With the downhill momentum, he would have slammed into her hard. She mentions this to Damien.