Back to Square One

Chapter Thirty-Five: Silas

I park in the drive and run up the stairs into the house. "Annika!" I expected to see her on the couch, waiting for me. I expect her finger thumping my chest. Thing better no threw around. Noice and anger in the air, but she is nowhere to be seen. I search the whole downstairs, and she's not down here, just Ponce chancing a fly.

Going up, I'm eating the stairs two steps at a time. "Annika!" The hall has two suitcases on the floor. I look in our room. The white box that held her wedding dress is empty. Our sex toys on the floor, open. The contents scattered across the floor. No, Annika, though.

The bathroom is empty, as is her closet. Did she run... in her wedding dress?

"Nik! Where are you?!" I yell. I go back to the hall and notice the nursery door broken and cracked open, slightly ajar. Just the littlest bit of light coming through.

"Annika!" I walk slowly to the nursery. This is it. This is the moment of truth.

She is in her wedding dress on her knees. One hand clenching her stomach, and the other covering her mouth silencing her weeping as she quietly cries.

~~~~~

"No, no, no, no..."

I wake up alone in bed, still in a haze of sleep; it's so cold in here. I put on sweats and a shirt before I turn on the lights. Blood droplets coat her side of the bed. "Nik!" I bolt to the bathroom.

Blood runs down her bare legs. "Silas?"

"Nik, I'm going to take you to the hospital, okay?" Her blood covered hands trembling as I cover her in her robe.

_______________

The miscarriage was Thursday night. "Nik, we will be parents," I assure her. She sits in the passenger seat with the box of ashes in her lap. Most people don't do this, we realized this, but we wanted the remains. She lost a lot of blood and was held at the hospital.

It's now Saturday morning. When she was released, this little box was handed to us. We haven't opened it. We won't. I don't want to see it. But Carson will be buried soon.

Her being in the hospital gave me enough time to clean the blood off the sheets and in the bathroom. And to buy a peony's plant.

She doesn't say anything. She just stares straight ahead. "Annika, please say something."

"I don't know how many of these I can bare."

"Nik-"

"I know you are grieving too, Silas. I know Carson was as much yours, as was mine. I know that. But please don't compare your experience to mine. You have no idea the demons in my head right now."

I park the car in the driveway. The doctor said we could start trying again in two weeks. Is she going to be ready by then? "Then tell me."

"I can't articulate what I'm feeling." I go to her and carry her inside. Neither of us has slept since it happened. I bring her to bed with me so we can take a nap.

The ashes are placed on the chair. I lay in the middle of the bed, propped up on the pillows. She is on me straddling me; her face pressed to my neck. I hold her tight to me, not letting go.

"I'm sorry..." she mutters as she falls asleep on me.

I wish I could wave a wand and make this better.

_______________

When I wake up, she isn't with me. I go over to the room we were going to use as a nursery. Nik is curled in a ball in the middle of the room, crying.

"Annika-" She snaps up, realizing I'm here. "Shall we?"

"Yeah..."

She sits on a log staring straight ahead as I dig the hole, the box on her lap. The width is small, but I make it deep.

"I lost the baby..." I turn, and she is on the phone. "I lost it Thursday night." She carefully places the phone on the log next to her. That was probably her parents; my dad is on his way.

She still hasn't moved her sight from that spot she has been staring at.

~~~~~

This is like after the first miscarriage... only a thousand times worse. I didn't think it was possible, but it was. I kneel next to her on the floor. When my hand touches her back, she lets out the saddest, most painful sounds.

I have no idea what is happening or what to do. She has never had a panic attack before. All I did was lay a hand on her back, and she broke.

She falling into my lap. Wrapping her arms around me and sobbing into my legs. She shutters and struggles to breathe in between cries.

Her breathing sounds painful. Like she is drowning on the air. She struggles to gain control of it. "Breath, Nik. In and out." I run my hand up and down her back. I let her cry this out. She will come to when she is ready.