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I cried. It was a long time ago. Before the Garden, before Helen. It was before the new reality that held me. But however tightly it held me, I gripped it tighter still. Because of that yesterday when I cried.
I was already tired when the car pulled up in front of the house. I hadn’t been sleeping well at night and had begun taking deep naps in the afternoons. It had been a few days, three or four, since I’d felt the baby move. But I told myself that the baby must be active during the day when I napped. Something more urgent happened. That car.
Josh had been gone for a week, gone to the field for some training exercise. He was supposed to have come back by then, but there was always something going wrong. It was usually one person that held things up or screwed things up. And it was almost always one of the senior NCO’s or junior officers who couldn’t organize their way out of a wet paper bag. So I wasn’t surprised that he wasn’t home. I just missed him, like I always did when he was gone. I didn’t want to be the paranoid wife and start making phone calls. He had been late from the field before. I didn’t think that time would be any different. But the baby hadn’t moved. Josh wasn’t back. And there was a strange car in the driveway.
It was a sergeant that I hadn’t met before. And a chaplain.
It was warm outside, even though it was still early. The Sergeant kept his hat on until he stepped through the door. I don’t remember his name. He told me. It was on his uniform. But I can’t remember it. He said he knew my husband, that Josh was a fine man. A respected service member.
My husband's name echoed in my head. In my heart. In the part of me that held a baby that no longer moved.
The Sergeant was polite and formal. The chaplain tried to offer sympathy, telling me that if there was anything he could do...But there wasn’t anything he could do, and he went back to being an emissary. I just went through the motions. I was numb all over, and I don’t remember much.
There was an envelope. It was a big brownish one. An “official” envelope with “official” documents inside. There was a condolence letter from the base commander, and one from the Sergeant at the door. And there was a bunch of sad and important papers: insurance forms; a document about the accident; dependent benefits papers. A bunch of stuff. I don’t remember it all, just that it all got done and handed in or mailed and everything was fine. Just fine. In thirty days the Army was sending me home. They were sorry for my loss, but they were sending me home. I would have to stay with my family, but eventually there would be a new home. Without Josh.
I poured coffee and the gentlemen sat at the kitchen table. They talked about Josh, told me stories, but in all those stories there wasn’t the one I wanted to hear. They couldn’t tell me that Josh was coming home. Got a little delayed but should be home soon. Don’t worry. Everything’s fine. They couldn’t tell me that. They didn’t.
They were there forever. I poured more coffee; I hadn’t touched mine and it got cold. More stories. I could imagine everything they said. I could see Josh doing those things, saying those things. I learned things about him that I’d never known. It made me love him more. It made me miss him more, but I was still too numb to cry. Everything was happening in a fog.
When the Sergeant was done, when he ran out of things to say and the chaplain led us in prayer, when it became awkward between us, I showed them to the door. It was so loud when it closed. The house was so empty now.
They were sending me home. I was going to leave that house and that life. And us. Josh was going with me, only not the way I’d always thought. His mother would like that, to have him buried at home. Until then, he was not my husband. He couldn’t be. My husband was healthy and smiling. Now they told me he was a government parcel number. He was freight.
I was crying. I’ve only ever been able to cry alone. Except with Josh, and he was gone. I didn’t know there could be so many tears. They made puddles on the floor and on my shirt. My whole face was wet, and my neck. I remember shaking my head. It was so heavy.
Ten years, I thought. We’ve only been together for ten years. That’s not enough for a marriage. That’s not enough for us. That’s not enough for ME. It’s not enough time. It’s not enough.
And then I screamed it.
My throat opened up and all that pain came rushing out. I was cheated. Josh was cheated. The family we were making together was cheated. My heart was breaking and I thought I could feel each piece of it tear away and fall to the ground. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t cry hard enough or scream loud enough to make it stop hurting. And the house was so empty that it seemed like all my cries just stuck to the walls. They were painted there.
All those broken dreams. All those long nights of whispering on our pillows. Our baby who would never know him. Our baby who hadn’t moved in days. It felt like a heavy blanket was falling on me, covering me. I couldn’t get out from under it. I couldn’t see anything past it. It was all around me.
It was all too much. I couldn’t hold it back any more and it all exploded. Everything inside of me seemed to break open and all this terrible pain came out. I couldn’t breathe and kept gasping every hitching sob. I was moving. I was trying to get to something, trying to reach for something, but I couldn’t see anything around me and nothing seemed to be solid enough to hold onto. I needed to hold onto something. I wanted something to make it all easier. But there wasn’t anything.
I was shaking my head, trying to clear it, trying to whip the entire nightmare away. My arms were flailing and I couldn’t stop them. My knees wouldn’t hold me any more. I fell to the floor and started hitting it with my fists. I crawled to the couch and held on there. I felt like I was praying. I was on my knees and my arms were spread over the cushions like they could hold the whole thing.
I was praying. I was. Please, God, I prayed. Don’t let this be. Please, God. Please. Over and over: Please. I felt like a little girl begging Daddy not to go away. It didn’t matter where he was going or that he’d be back. I didn’t want him to go.
I didn’t want Josh to go. Please no. Don’t go. Please.
How long does it go on? You’re sitting there listening to me and you’re wondering how long it goes on. It was forever. I couldn’t get out of it. Even when I finally crashed and fell asleep, I cried. The horrible pain just followed me in my sleep and I kept waking up, crying. I was all alone.
Our families and friends were there but I couldn’t let anyone in, couldn’t share that grief. Others came, of course. They came into my house and helped me get things together. They sat with me and told me they understood. Of course they didn’t. They couldn’t. I didn’t even know who most of them were. I don’t remember any more the ones that I did know. They were just faces and voices. None of them were the one I wanted most.
Josh was so good to me. He was my best friend. We were so good together. I loved the way he made me feel. I loved his arms around me, the way he touched me. His hands were so wonderful. Even when he thought I didn’t want him, wasn’t interested, I wanted his hands on me. That’s all I wanted and I thought it was selfish. So I pretended not to be interested sometimes because all I wanted was to feel him, to just let him move me, and I knew it wouldn’t be enough for him. It seemed so selfish. Now I think it was worse to push him away, to make him think I didn’t want him and not tell him why.
Yeah, it’s much worse. Because now he’ll never know. I couldn’t tell him then, and Helen wouldn’t let me tell him, and now I’ll never be able to tell him. That I loved his hands on me. That I always wanted him. Even when I didn’t want it to be hot, I wanted it to be all night. Even when I didn’t want to come with him, he always made me want it. When his hands started moving, he could bring me almost every time. I missed those hands. I wanted him always. More than he ever wanted me, and it was wonderful how he wanted me.
The movers came to get our things. I watched them pack everything, and I made sure all of Josh’s things were kept separate so that I wouldn’t have to do it later. I should have been the one to pack those things but I couldn’t have. There was no letting him go. He was so much a part of me, you see. He was the best part of me.
There was still a week and a half before my flight home. I was surprised that the Army had done anything so quickly. I had expected paperwork in triplicate and a hundred signatures and then a vote in a committee of inflated egos. That may have happened. But if it did, I don’t remember it. That blanket was incredibly heavy.
I explained and they understood that I couldn’t stay in that empty house. I couldn’t sleep there. So I stayed in a hotel on base. It was hard getting to sleep, but at least sleep finally came and things got a little easier. There was that constant ache in my chest and in my throat, and my eyes still felt warm and tired. But it was much better than it was. I was beginning to think that I could go on. I was already trying to imagine a life without Josh, and all the things I would tell our son about his father.
I thought things were getting better. I didn’t think they could get any worse.
I was beyond screaming. Contractions tore through me and wave after wave of unbearable pain ripped me apart. I remember the lights in the ceiling. So many lights, and so bright. They dared me to blink, but I didn’t want to blink. I didn’t want to close my eyes or I would get lost in all that pain. My eyes were open and I stared at those lights, even when the tears blurred them and made my eyelids flutter.
Everybody was subdued. The doctors. The nurses. All of them. They grew quieter with each passing hour. Ten of them, now. Ten hours that should have been filled with bustling expectation. But the room wouldn’t let any joy in. There was only sacrifice. There was only grief. And I was beyond them both.
I knew all along. I knew something was wrong. When he stopped moving, I knew. Before my water broke, before my body began to rid itself of the eight-month-old baby inside of me, I knew. But I couldn’t tell myself. I couldn’t let myself believe it.
I felt my flesh tear and there was a feeling of relief, like a pressure being lifted or released. There was a warm gush of fluid between my legs, and the doctors and nurses were all murmuring. Gleaming metal instruments were moved and slapped loudly on gloved hands or trays or the floor. But I still didn’t hear a baby crying its first breath of air.
Hands and fingers pushed and pulled at me, delivering the afterbirth, examining, probing. The doctor moved away from me. I didn’t watch him, didn’t need to see where he went. I knew where he went. The pediatrician was somewhere in the room. With a baby that didn’t cry. The doctor had gone over there. They were talking.
Now he’ll tell me, I thought. Now he’ll bring me more than I can bear.
He came over to me. He had put on new gloves. I wondered what the other ones had looked like, why he needed to change them. It was good that he’d done that, though. They were so bright and everything in that room seemed so dark. “Mrs. Falcon,” he said, “you have a baby boy.”
There was more. I didn’t have to ask. I just waited. If I asked, he would tell me and I didn’t want him to tell me anything horrible. I didn’t want to hear any more horrible things. But I didn’t hear my boy crying. I didn’t hear him, and I had to know why.
“He’s quiet,” I said.
“Mrs. Falcon, we have your son on a respirator. His development seems to have stopped. His lungs aren’t entirely formed, his body is severely underdeveloped, and we are doing an ultrasound to see how his organs and bones are. Mrs. Falcon,” the doctor said, “there’s very little brain activity. His reflexes are unresponsive. He’s trying to breathe on his own but it’s irregular and he’s stopped breathing twice. There isn’t much we can do.”
Someone was still working on me. I couldn’t see what they were doing. “If you feed him and keep him on the respirator,” I asked, “will he develop? Will he live? Will he ever be healthy?”
The doctor started to answer but there were suddenly beeps and alarms and a commotion in a corner of the room. He left me again and went over there. It was a long time before he came back, but by then everything was quiet again. The nurse, or whomever, had finished with me and others were moving around. Cleaning up.
He came back. His hands were on the bed. No gloves. But he wasn’t touching me. I was glad for that, because even if he had held my hand or put his hand on my shoulder I wouldn’t have been able to stand it. I would have hated him, and I didn’t have the energy for that. It would have eaten me up. It would have made me insane.
You think I am now. But I’m telling you there’s a place where it lives, where it tries to draw you down. It’s a horrible place. It scares the hell out of me. But I almost went there. If he had touched me, I would have gone. Screaming.
But he didn’t touch me. He stood there, with his hands on the bed and looking like the sergeant who had come to the house.
“Mrs. Falcon,” he said. “I’m sorry. His heart stopped. We tried to bring him around, but his there wasn’t any brain activity at all, Mrs. Falcon. He’s been sleeping for a long time. He never felt anything, Mrs. Falcon. I’m sorry.”
“My baby,” I said. “He’s dead?”
“Yes. I’m terribly sorry,” he said.
“Can I hold him?” I asked.
Josh had wanted a boy. We tried for years and nothing happened. He had wanted a boy. It was all too much. But I still had something to do before I let it all come crashing down, before I let that horrible blanket smother me. I had to say good-bye.
A nurse brought him to me, all wrapped up in soft blankets. They left me alone with him for awhile. They found other things to do. I looked down at the son I held in my arms. Josh’s son. Our son. He didn’t weigh much and most of that was from the layers of cloth around him. They had put a warm knit cap on his tiny head, though he didn’t need it. I took it off and brushed my fingers over his soft skin. He was still a little warm.
His hair was silky and fine. It was the same blond as his father’s. His eyes were closed. I wondered what they would have looked like. I thought they would have been brown like mine. Or maybe blue like Josh's. He looked so much like Josh. His little mouth had the same pout, with a bit of a smirk in one corner. His nose was mine, but the shape of his face and eyes were so remarkably like Josh. Everything was too small. He hadn’t had enough time to grow the pudgy cheeks he should have had.
This is real, I thought. He’s in my arms and he is real.
I kissed his tiny forehead and cuddled him next to my cheek for a while. I didn’t want to cry in front of those people. I wanted Josh. I wanted to cry with Josh, and he wasn’t there. And now our son was gone, too. Only a few tears fell, and they pooled in the hollows of my baby’s face. I left them there, and drew the blanket over him.
A nurse came over and took him gently from my arms. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Falcon. It’s time now,” she said.
Then they took my womb.
There had been a problem with circulation to the organ. I hadn’t gone to my appointments after Josh’s accident. They might have seen it then. They might have been able to do something. But there were patches that had started dying, and even if they repaired the blood vessels and corrected the problem, it would still have to come out. If they had caught it sooner...
I began to think, then, that our baby was dead because of me. I hadn’t been a good mother. I had let this happen and it had probably been the thing that had killed my baby. The doctors couldn’t say. They were still doing tests: on me, on the baby. By the time they had their answers it would be too late. I felt all the doors closing inside. Josh gone. Our baby gone. And any hope for other children...gone.
There was nothing left of the two of us, of Josh and me. All I had was the pain and everything that I carried inside: love and the memories of happiness, of his face, of his laughter. All I had were pictures that I drew in my head. And it wasn’t enough.
I went home.
"Helen's Garden" Copyright Terri Long 2001
All Rights Reserved
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