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Past
Week of Death
Lo
There’s an irrevocable ache in my body, one that I’ve never experienced before. It’s debilitating, throbbing from the inside. The pain is unlike anything I could ever explain. It’s beyond words. It’s beyond understanding. Is that what a broken heart feels like?
How does one explain what insidiousness feels like?
I try to open my eyes, but they’re closed on their own accord. They won’t open for me. They won’t open for the fear of reality. They won’t even open for him. With my eyes closed, my mind can live in memories, can live in an ignorant bubble, can snuggle into a safe lie.
A sharp pain fissures inside of me, squeezing unrelentingly. It’s as if someone has clenched their fists inside of me, grabbing everything vital until I wither away. That’s the only description for this intenseness.
“Lo!”
I hear his voice, his fear palpable. But my eyelids are so heavy. They’re weighing down, making it impossible to blink or open.
“Fuck, Loren!” His voice is more panicked, and I want to reassure him, tell him I’m okay.
He shakes me, his rough hands gripping my shoulders, forcing my eyes to try and open.
I must’ve fallen asleep crying at some point. I just got that call from Dad. My mom. My chest tightens, and I curl into myself, whimpering.
He taps my cheeks softly. “Loren! Focus! Look at me, Peaches!”
Jase. My Jase. He’s yelling, but I can only hear a whine. Is that my whine? My eyelashes flutter, and everything starts to focus. Jase hovers over me, his eyes wild, his chest heaving.
“Baby!”
His voice makes my heart rate rise. I watch as he lifts his hands.
Blood.
My blood?
I can’t focus on his words. It’s like being under water, the noises around you echoing but not really making sense.
Why is there blood?
My hands go to my stomach. They hit the lump, the one that carries our third child. Our daughter. Our baby. Tears burn at my eyes, but I don’t understand. I don’t understand. I don’t fucking understand.
“We have to go to the hospital,” he explains, his voice barely below a scream.
I’ve never seen such fear in his eyes.
I nod, my mind foggy and confused. I don’t understand what’s happening. I was just asleep.
A sharp pain stabs me, the knife-like feeling digging into me, twisting until I’m screeching. I grip my stomach, trying to protect her.
“Jase,” I whimper, “please save her. Please.”
“I’m trying, baby. I’m trying.”
His panic has me worried. How much blood is there? I can’t see past my stomach. I’m so far along, too far along. It’s been a healthy pregnancy. We’re supposed to meet her in a little under a month.
He stops trying to help me up and instead lifts me, carrying me to our car outside. He’s shirtless, only in his sleep pants, and I’m in a negligee. I’m not embarrassed, though. I’m terrified, but I’m also in a fog. Not understanding what exactly is happening. Not knowing what day it is.
Mom. A howl escapes me. She’s gone. Fuck. She’s gone. The aching from that memory, from only hours ago, breaks me. The explosion of emotions overcomes me, startling me, taking over my every thought, consuming my every breath.
“Lo—Peaches, I need you to calm down, baby. It’s too much stress on her.”
Too much stress on her. Our daughter.
I try to control the emotions, try to absorb them within myself, hide them, let them disappear. I have to protect the life that’s still here.
Have to protect her.
He places me in the car, rushing to his side. His chest heaves sporadically like mine, matching my fear, uncontrollable and desperate. As soon as my belt buckle is one, he’s frantic.
“Inhale, exhale,” he soothes, placing a palm over the one clutching my stomach while he freaks out and reverses out of our driveway. “Breathe, baby.”
He massages my palm, his fingers touching my wedding band, caressing it like it’ll save us both. I take in a gulp of air, praying it can somehow change the last day—somehow save them both.
I let out that air, but it’s so shaky and withdrawn I know it’s not enough. I know it won’t bring Mom back—it won’t save her.
“That’s good, baby. Keep breathing.”
Turning my head toward him, I see so much fear in his eyes. How much blood, Jase? But he can’t read my mind. He can’t answer the barrage of questions, and if I open my mouth, if I allow them to tumble out, they’ll take over. That’s if words come out and not the wails that are begging for escape.
His eyes have tears. His skin is blotchy with emotion. His hands grip the steering wheel like he can’t let go, like if he does... he’ll die.
“It’s okay. It’s okay. It’ll all be okay,” he repeats over and over again, his voice barely over a whisper. He’s trying to be strong for me, for us. For our baby.
The city blurs around us, and when we get to the emergency room, he’s rushing over to me, unbuckling me, and carrying me toward the doors. His chest has blood on it, his forehead too. The wetness between my legs burns. It’s more prominent now. My sensations are coming back, the numbness of shock waning to the fear.
So much fear.
“Jase. Please say she’s okay.” It’s not a question. It’s a plea.
His eyes squeeze, and he’s practically running to the patient desk.
“I need help!” he shouts, his voice broken. “Please!”
Nurses’ eyes manage to look at us.
“Get a stretcher!” one yells while they all peer at us. There’s no fear. It’s awareness. It’s the knowledge of what needs to happen now.
Jase places me on the bed, but I grip him.
“Don’t let go, Jase. Please stay with me,” I cry.
“I’ll never let go,” he reassures, but soon after, they’re pushing me away. I can’t focus, though, not on him, not on them, and not their voices.
My eyes get heavy again.
Please save my baby. I don’t know if it’s a thought or a plea, but it’s the last thing I remember.
There’s nothing more difficult than giving birth to a child who has no heartbeat. Nothing more excruciating than to wake up to my husband in scrubs while tears drip down his face. Nothing sadder than a speechless man that’s stronger than any you’ve ever met be unable to hold back his pain. It kills me to see the pain on his face. It kills me to know why.
“Where is she?” I whisper, not wanting to know why he looks like he does. “Where’s our baby?”
And why is there this indescribable foreboding weighing on me?
“Lo, baby.” His lip wobbles as his entire body racks with sobs. No. No no no no no.
“Where’s our baby, Jase?” I cry, the pain unbearable, unshaking. “Where is she?” I scream.
The pain in his cries, and the loss in his whimpers, kill me. It’s bad enough not hearing the words, but seeing them physically disable him, have me empty.
I draw my knees up, bringing forth another pain. The bump that gave me comfort through my mom’s suffering is no longer there.
He tries hugging me, begging me to stop. Stop what?
“Where!” My voice comes out unhuman, like a wounded animal, like a lost soul.
Is that what I am? A lost soul?
*****
I THINK IT’S BEEN A week.
It feels like much longer.
I’m stuck in a constant battle of sleep and numbness. I’m hostage to seclusion and depravity of emotions that wreak havoc on my soul.
I’m not sure what day it is. If it’s night or day. If I’m alive or not. If the air I breathe is air I deserve. I killed her. My daughter. She’s gone, and it’s all my fault. How else did she not make it to live, to grow, to love? She missed it all. She missed everything a child should get. No hugs. No kisses. No love. You are so loved, baby girl. The sounds that escape me are animalistic, like one hit by a car, suffering until someone has the humanity to put it down. That’s me—broken, irreparable, and inconsolable.
I haven’t moved out of this bed other than to use the restroom. Even then, it’s a chore. The ache constantly wears on me. I’m barely alive... if you could call this living. I’m a shell. I’m barely here, and it’s anything but okay.
They’re gone.
Both of them.
Both of them.
Her name. We decided on a name last month. My heart breaks as I think of her. Think of her small body. Her tiny hands, her ten tiny toes, her button nose, her eyes that would never open, the lips that’d never smile, her mess of blonde hair like her father. She was so beautiful. Would she have his eyes or mine? Would she grow up to be sassy like Jaz or stubborn like Ace? I’ll never know. She never got the chance. We never got the chance.
Lilac Brae Collins.
Her name.
The one who has both Jase’s mom’s middle name and my mom’s middle name.
The perfect name for the child too perfect for this world.
I heave, the dryness the only thing coming from my throat. The tears won’t come. I’ve tried. I’ve cried all my body allows. I’ve vomited all my body would let me. There’s nothing left. I haven’t eaten. I haven’t seen my children, and Jase has kept them away. I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t want them to see me like this either.
My bed smells of sweat and sorrow. It beckons me to get out of it and find a new hidey hole. I make it all of ten steps before I shake uncontrollably. The weight of my body, the fatigue, and the dizziness takes everything out of me.
What did I do to deserve this?
Mom. Lilac. Did they die knowing I loved them?
That thought alone takes my breath away, purging me of everything I thought I’d numbed myself to.
“Mom, I know I didn’t say it enough, but I love you so damn much,” I cry out to no one. “I loved you, baby girl, even though you never heard the words while I kissed you goodnight.”
The crippling awareness has me shaking, or maybe it’s the lack of food and water. Jase tried shoving both down my throat yesterday, but I nearly bit his hand off. I stare at the ceiling, begging for answers no one will ever have for me.
“You knew that, right? You knew that you were my world, my savior, and the one that got me through everything, right?” Tears trail my cheeks, the pain eating me alive. “I know I didn’t come around often enough, Mom. I know you were alone a lot, with Dad having to work and with Nate in another state. I know, Mom. I’m sorry in your last hours you couldn’t speak. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything I needed to.”
I collapse to the linoleum, my knees smacking the floor with a loud thud. The ache smothers me. The pain doesn’t register in my mind, though. I’m completely void of feeling.
“I’m sorry, guys. I’m so fucking sorry!” My scream reverberates through the room. “Please. Please make this pain go away.”
It hurts so fucking much.
There’s so much regret in my soul. No wonder it’s why I’ve completely shut down. No wonder it’s why I can’t breathe on a daily basis. No wonder I feel paralyzed from deep within.
No one ever tells you how much agony heartbreak will bring. No one knows how immeasurable the pain is, that it comes when you’re weakest but also when you’re happiest. It hits you at random moments, plowing into you like a two-ton weight. It flattens you, breaks you, and slowly kills you.
“Mom,” I cry out, “Lilac.” Sobs attempt to overtake me, but the tears are still struggling to escape. “Why did you leave me?”
I grip my chest, wondering where my heart left. Did it leave with you? Did it leave with my stillborn child? Was it ever there to begin with?
I’d once thought it beat for Jase, but then I had Ace and Jaz, and learned it beat for an entire other reason. Now, who does it beat for? Because it sure as hell isn’t for me.
Life’s unfair, but even with knowing, the loss isn’t any easier.
“You were getting better! You had such good days, and still, you left!” The anger comes too, the absolute hate for fate, that she left. “Lilac was healthy! She was supposed to meet me, Mom! She was supposed to grow with Jaz and Ace—to know what love was like!” I beat the floor with my fists, then with my palms. The smacking vibrates up my arms.
“I know you didn’t have a choice! I know you were taken, but why’d you take her with you, Mom?! Why’d she have to go too?”
She gave up.
She gave in.
And Lilac did too.
“Why did you have to take her with you? She didn’t even get to meet me yet! She left with you. I know they say angel babies are ones that are too good for earth, but I wanted her! I wanted to raise her, Mom! I wanted her to grow, I wanted to see that. Why, Mom? Why did she leave me too?”
My entire body shakes with uncontrollable heartache. My chest getting heavier with each breath. My soul weeps for everything taken from me. The body ripped away from me, the heart taken with their deaths. With each memory passing through me, I cry.
It was a death sentence. Even knowing that, even realizing it was killing her that she’d never have survived, it hurts. It only hurts further that my daughter left along with her.
It’s like she knew—knew that she needed to help my mom be at peace.
And then I was all alone.
Surrounded by people, but completely alone.