Back to Square One

Chapter One: Silas

March 2017

"Your wife is very fortunate. She has a lot of bruising but no broken bones. She also had to have stitches on the left side of her head and face. But overall, she is great considering what happened to her. However, the force of the impact on your wife's head caused a lot of swelling to her brain. We had to put her in a chemically induced coma. We need to let that come down. It will be a few weeks." Her doctor tells me as relieved as I am by this that doesn't answer all of my questions.

"And the baby?"

"I'm very sorry, Mr. Rossi, but she lost the baby." I can't believe I'm going to have to be the one to tell her this. I'm grieving the loss. But she is the mother. She carried our baby. It weighs heavier on her in a way I will never understand. She will feel like she failed again, and she didn't do anything wrong. She is going to be such a good mom.

We have been trying to get pregnant for the last two years. We are twenty-six, so we have time, but there is only so much loss one can take. About a year ago, she had a miscarriage when she was fourteen weeks along. This time she was at the sixteen weeks mark. We were going to find out the gender next week. If it weren't for this stupid accident, we would be having a baby in five months. She was just starting to show with the sweetest little baby bump. I loved touching and rubbing it—our little creation inside her.

The nursery is all done.

After the last miscarriage, she would go into that room and cry on the floor. Then it wasn't painted or decorated. It had simply been assigned to be the nursery. After she got through the first trimester this time around, we decided to go ahead and do it.

This is going to crush her.

I can picture her in that room again. We went with a gender-neutral ocean theme. The walls are off white wainscoting. From the wainscoting up and on the ceiling, it is sky-blue with realistic puffy white clouds, that she and her sister painted throughout the blue. Both sisters are such amazing artists.

A coral colored crib and changing table are accompanied by turquoise dresser and rocking chair. It's decorated with seahorses and French angelfish; it is in bright colors you would see in a reef. I can picture her in the rocking chair, mourning the loss. Crying when she wants to be alone when she thinks I'm not listening.

I have to focus. One thing at a time. "What does this mean? With the swelling in her brain."

"Mr. Rossi, we have no way of knowing. The brain is not an exact science. We just need to hope for the best. We will know once she wakes up what, if anything, we are dealing with." Her doctor pats me on the back. "Go home. Rest. We will call you with any updates. Don't go living in your office for the next few weeks."

"Thank you, Dr. Lawrence. Call me, Silas." I shake her hand.

"She will be okay, Silas. It could have been much worse. She is very fortunate to be alive. She will walk out of here, I promise you."

Once I get home, I crawl into bed, and I call my dad, utterly breaking down on the phone. I curl around her pillow. It still smells just like her perfume. I know it will be okay in my heart, but a hollowness radiates through my chest—a sunken, deep pain.

I call her parents as well to tell them the news. I try not to be too emotional with them but telling them about the baby... I lost my composure. I wept into the phone. I have never known emotions to affect me in this way physically. They said that they would tell her brother and sister so I wouldn't have to. They offer to come and stay the night with me, but I can't get out of the bed, and if I can't be with her then I want to be alone. After I hang up, I pull the Nyquil out of the nightstand on my side of the bed. It's early, but I don't want to be awake right now. I don't even want to wake up till she does.