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I’m not ready for this car trip to end. Once I shared my story about Chris, it’s like Justin and I have been trying to fill in decades worth of history into the last forty-five minutes of the drive. I’ve learned about his pet turtle Moki that he adopted when he was eleven. He’s listened to me talk about the play Chris and I started to write in high school, a tragedy so canned and corny that a savvy director could probably convert it to satire without changing a single line.
We’ve talked about our dead spouses, about what we miss most about them, about the things that drove us crazy when they were still alive. Of course, Justin and Hester had this wild, insane romance that lasted all of a month from the time she showed up and asked him to dinner to the time he was a widower caring for the little girl she’d taken in, while my relationship with Chris spanned far more years filled with far more complicated trials.
I’ve come to realize that we’re both grieving in our own ways. My grief is a lot harder to compartmentalize. I still cry over Reginald at least two or three times a week. And I miss my daughter so much that the fact that I’m about to step into the same house as her sets my abdomen quivering so hard it’s probably the equivalent of doing a hundred and twenty crunches in sixty seconds. Even with Chris, I’m not only grieving his death, but the dissolving marriage we both were trying hard to save at different points before his accident.
And I hate to admit it, but I’m even grieving you. The way I lost complete respect for you, the way your church abandoned me as soon as you realized you couldn’t snap your fingers and make me go back home and pretend to live my happy little housewife lie. I thank God that I’m free from you now. In a way I think the spiritual abuse you put your congregants through is just as heinous as any crimes that have been committed against me in the past, but I know with the help of the Holy Spirit, I’ll learn to forgive.
Learn to let go.
I’m so busy thinking about how many things I’ve lost in the past year that I don’t realize we’re in a residential neighborhood until Justin pulls into a driveway and slows to a stop.
“This is it?” I ask, and he must sense my fear because he takes my hand in his. My sweaty, clammy hand.
“We’re here. You ready?”
I can hardly breathe. I don’t know what to expect. What if Gracie’s awake? What if she doesn’t remember me? Who am I kidding? Of course she won’t remember me. But what if it’s worse than that? What if she hates me? What if she’s scared of me? What if that tiny brain of hers has some latent memory of the day I nearly smothered her beneath me, and she cries and screams any time I try to come near her?
“I told Amy we’re going to keep things really low key, all right? Low stress for you and Gracie both.” Justin is speaking encouragement to me as he lets me out of the car and walks me up toward the house, but I can’t focus on the words. I can only sense the kindness in his voice.
He has his arm around me. It’s nothing romantic. It’s just that without his physical support, I literally couldn’t walk up these steps to the porch. I pause at the threshold. Do we knock? Ring the bell? Step right in?
Justin reaches out and raps softly on the door. I catch a quick glance at his hand. I want to find out if he still wears his wedding ring or not. I can’t believe I didn’t think to look sooner.
He’s completely unadorned.
He opens the door a crack and whispers, “Amy?”
Nobody answers.
“They’re probably sleeping. I’ll help you get settled in, and then I better take off.”
I want to tell him how thankful I am for everything, but I’m too overwhelmed. This is too much for me. I shouldn’t be here.
I think through Grandma Lucy’s prayer, the one she prayed over me earlier this afternoon when I sat in that gaudy flowered chair.
You tell us in your Word that you came so that we might have life and have it more abundantly.
There’s the slightest trace of whispering coming from upstairs. Justin hears it too. He beckons for me to follow.
So I speak that abundant life over your child today.
My feet are heavy on the carpet. So heavy I feel like an ogre fumbling after its prey.
I speak abundant life over her daughter as well.
It’s not crying I hear. Just soft murmuring. A woman’s voice and a baby’s coos.
A baby much older than my little Gracie.
I don’t know what plans you have in store for the two of them ...
Justin pauses outside the closed door. “I think they’re in there,” he whispers. “Do you want to go in?” He sees me hesitate and adds, “Amy won’t mind.”
He stands back so I’m the one to open the door.
... but I believe that they are plans for good.
The nursery is beautiful. Beatrix Potter decals line all the walls. An intricate mobile with characters from classic children’s books hangs over an empty crib.
That you will redeem the years the locusts have eaten ...
A young woman smiles up at me. She has a perfectly chubby, perfectly beautiful baby girl sitting on her lap, grabbing the pages of an illustrated collection of children’s poems. Tears stream down my cheeks when I see how calm this child looks. How happy.
“She only woke up a few minutes ago,” the woman whispers. “When I heard you pulling up, I thought I’d take her out for a spell.”
... that you will restore joy and gladness where once there was only bitterness and sorrow.
Justin gives me a gentle nudge, and I step into the room. I’m like Mary walking into the Secret Garden for the very first time. Or Lucy Pevensie entering the enchanted land of Narnia.
I’m staring at my little girl, and she’s staring back at me. She’s not smiling, which I didn’t have the heart to expect, but at least she’s not crying either. She’s curious. Like Alice after tumbling down that never-ending rabbit hole.
“Would you like to hold her?” Amy asks.
I don’t have to look behind me to sense Justin’s encouraging nod of approval.
I reach out for my baby. Except she’s no longer a baby, she’s a tiny girl. Big enough that soon she’ll be celebrating her first birthday.
Her first of many birthdays with her mom.
I have her in my arms. The newborn smell is gone. The skin isn’t as soft as I remember, but it’s still smoother than anything I’ve felt on anyone else.
“Hi, sweetie,” I whisper. Gracie pouts. She’s still not screaming, but I tell myself not to get my hopes up too high. It could take months, maybe even years to reforge the bonds between the two of us. It won’t come easily. It won’t come without its own share of grief and heartache, I’m almost certain of it.
The pout melts into a cautious smile. She reaches out and touches my chin.
Then again, I’ve been wrong in the past.
Never put God in a box, right?
***
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