The Forgetting Place - Chapter 6
Novel in Progress
The first holiday after it happened was Halloween. I’d been home from the hospital for a few weeks that felt like a blink and a century. I was still on leave and Theo was working remotely so I didn’t have to be alone all day. We barely left the house. Groceries were delivered to our doorstep along with the copious amounts of takeout we were eating. Theo did HIIT workouts using an app on his phone in the middle of our living room, and we both abandoned things that had once been routine like haircuts and pedicures.
So, we didn’t notice the pumpkins with crooked smiles lining our neighbors' walkways. The cotton spiderwebs strewn across bushes and banisters. Gravestones littering well-manicured lawns with a smattering of plastic bones sprinkled between them. We were completely taken off guard when the doorbell rang, three times rapid fire.
Theo answered of course, and from the living room I heard the chorus of “Trick or Treat!” He told them to give him a minute and charged back into the house, rummaging through our pantry for something to give them. He’d left the door wide open and through it a little girl waved at me. She couldn’t have been more than five years old, dressed up as a bumble bee.
She was carrying a plastic pumpkin in her hand. When she noticed me, sitting there in the couch, she waved. A woman who was probably her mother was standing behind her. She followed the little girls’ line of sight until her eyes landed on mine. She gave a small smile, but stepped closer to the girl. Placing a hand on her shoulder. Cautious. Protective. I wondered what I looked like to her.
Theo went back to the door with plastic-wrapped microwave movie theater popcorn. Once he was done dispersing the makeshift treats he shut the door and flicked the switch to turn off the porch light and dissuade any other children from gracing our doorstep that evening. Through that whole interaction I didn’t move. I was sitting there thinking how utterly ridiculous it was that we were continuing to cycle through seasons and holidays were still happening.
I am thinking that now when Resa calls me to talk about plans for my 33rd birthday. I didn’t want to celebrate my last one and neither she nor Theo pressed the issue. She still came over though. She and Theo sandwiched me between them on the bed and we spent the day watching cooking shows and horror movies.
Resa wants us to go for a hike. She thinks the fresh air will be good for me, says she thinks I need to spend some time by the river. She says we can get smoothies afterward at my favorite place on Corcoran and I don’t have the heart to tell her I don’t have a favorite anything anymore. She’s talking fast and I know it’s because she’s trying to fill all the air between us so there’s no room for me to say no.
My birthday is on a Wednesday this year. That means the park should be mostly empty. Aside from staying home, there probably isn’t anywhere else I could encounter less people. Resa has been so good to me. I say yes to hiking, maybe to the smoothie.
She lets out a breath I didn’t know she was holding, and asks me if I want her to pick me up. I know she’s willing me to say yes. She’s worried that if she doesn’t pick me up I won’t show, that I’ll find a reason to bail at the last minute and she’s not entirely wrong.
The truth is I don’t know how I’ll feel on my birthday. This will be my second one since. On the first one I sobbed until I threw up, beside myself that I could see another birthday when my baby didn’t even get one. Theo held me with my arms pressed up against my sides because I’d started clawing at my skin. I still remember the fear in his eyes. Afraid for me, yes, but also afraid of me.
I had my first appointment with Dr. Michelle after that episode. I sat on her couch with my knees hugged to my chest. That first meeting was mostly quiet. Dr. Michelle told me that our time together was really my time, and so we could spend it however I wanted. I don’t know that I wanted to spend my time staring at the walls, but I couldn’t find anything to say.
It was just before lunchtime and I hadn’t eaten that day. My stomach rumbled and I had a thought, so I shared it with her.
“Have you ever been pregnant? I’m sorry, is that rude to ask, or like too personal?”
“It’s alright. I have.”
“Do you remember the first time you felt your baby move?”
She didn’t answer. She waited for the story we both knew was coming.
“I do. I was standing at the sink, getting ready to wash the dishes after dinner. I leaned down to grab a new sponge out of the cabinet, and I felt it. That flutter you feel, there’s nothing else like it. People try to compare it to indigestion or gas, but it’s not like that at all. It’s not like anything but what it is.”
Dr. Michelle nodded at me but still didn’t speak.
“I miss it. I miss knowing she’s there.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but I stopped her, certain she would enter with one of the platitudes I could stand to hear no more of.
“Please don’t tell me she’s in a better place. Please don’t tell me I carry her in my heart and so in a way she never left me. And please, please don’t hit me with everything happens for a reason.”
“You must hear a lot of those kinds of things.”
“Not a lot, but more than I ever wanted to. So much that I never want to hear them again.”
“I can understand that.”
I wanted to ask her if she really could understand, or if again that was one of those things you were supposed to say, but I let it lie. I looked at the clock. 12 minutes left.
“What does missing her feel like?”
“What?” She caught me off guard.
“In a lot of ways English is a limited language. We have one word for love where other languages have dozens that attempt to capture all of its nuance and complexity. So, when you say you miss her, what does that mean for you? Where do you feel it, in your body? What does it feel like?”
“It feels like when you leave the house and you’re convinced you’ve forgotten something, and all day it gnaws at you. You can’t forget that forgetful feeling. You know you’ve lost something even though you can’t put your finger on it. You feel it everywhere. You can’t shake the not-rightness. The only difference is I know what I lost and that makes that feeling so much heavier. Like I am constantly being crushed by the weight of it.”
“What would it feel like to put it down?”
“Put it down?”
“You said it’s heavy, what would it feel like to set it down for a minute. Not forever, just a break.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because the pain is the only thing I have left to keep me close to her.”
Resa asks me if I’m still there. She tells me I can take some time to think about it. “No pressure,” she says. I tell her I will ride with her to the park if she promises not to sing me happy birthday in the car on the way there. She says we have a deal.
*Next chapter, Monday, June 16th. Read all chapters at A Soft Place to Land.*