He saw pain in her eyes, that was familiar. But he could see something else. Something that had not been there for a long time. Could it be...hope? His eyes traveled to her left hand, to the place where he had put a ring on her finger seven years earlier. It was still there. He stared at the swelling bump that could only be a child growing inside of her and asked himself the question that he could not yet voice, “Could it be mine?”. He didn’t know the answer to that question. Would knowing bring him more pain?
It had been eight months since they had parted ways. After their sweet little Claire had died in her sleep at five months, their world had broken into a million pieces. Although she had not been in their lives but a brief moment, their daughter had been the light and the joy of their lives. The day that she left, she took light and joy with her. He could still feel her warm little body nestled on his chest, her soft, tiny hand wrapped around his little finger. He could still see her dimpled smiles and hear her happy shrieks in his mind. He savored the hours he had spent walking with her in the night, singing sweet lullabies in her ear. He longed for those quiet moments again, when he could love and be loved so simply. He would always grieve for all the things that they would never be able to do together, for all the moments of life that they could have shared as a family, gone forever.
Putting words together to share their loss had not been something either of them had strength to do. They drifted apart over the next year and a half, both locked inside their own grief and not knowing how to find solace in one another. They rarely held each other. When their eyes met across the dinner table, they quickly looked away to avoid seeing the ache mirrored in the other’s face. He would hear her sometimes in the night, crying softly into her pillow. He never knew what to do to comfort her. He could never say the words, “It will be alright.” Because they were words that he did not believe himself. He knew that he loved her, but he no longer knew how to show it. Part of his heart was numb to love. It was too painful to love, because love could be lost.
One morning he woke knowing that there was nothing left to say. All he packed were his clothes and a tiny pair of Claire’s shoes that he had bought her for her very first Christmas. He looked at his sleeping wife one last time and had left their apartment, closing the door softly behind him. He had not seen or heard from her in the past eight months, because he had disappeared. He thought of her when he thought of Claire, which was every moment. He had missed her. Looking at her now, he longed for her touch, something that used to be as natural as the air that he breathed. He wanted to reach out his hand and run his fingers through her silky hair but he had ruined all that. He had thought about calling her many times but could not bring himself to phone her and endure the screaming silence of their broken hearts. Yet, now, she sat across from him in the back seat of a cab, pregnant, and eyes searching his face for some sign of the man she used to know and love.
.....stay tuned for the next part of this story coming soon.....
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