Of Grief and Going On.
The loss was finally setting in, sinking into her bones as she lowered herself into the hot bathwater. She’d be lying if she pretended she hadn’t thought about filling her stomach with pills and letting the water take her under. She’d considered it. She’d considered the fact that the heat of the bathwater would hasten her circulation and allow a razor to do its job more quickly. Either way, Nicholas wouldn’t have much mess to deal with; it would all be contained in the bath with her body.
She wouldn’t be in it by then, she would have exited the skin and bones she’d been hauling around for 34 years and if she was lucky, she’d be with Adia again. She knew that he would understand her choice; he would know why she’d done it. But at the same time, leaving him wasn’t an option. She couldn’t leave him to carry the burden alone.
She slid into the water, the heat scalding her skin until it began to tingle. Nicholas was in the living room cleaning up the mess left by all of their guests. His mother had offered to stay and help, but he’d ushered her out of the house insisting that they needed to be alone to process things. She’d seemed to understand and finally left them to their own devices.
He had closed the door behind his mother and turned to his wife. He made no attempt to hug her or hold her, he hadn’t since the first time she’d lashed out when he’d tried to embrace her days before.
“You should get some rest,” he said quietly. “You have to be exhausted.”
It wasn’t as though he’d found any more sleep than she had in the days preceding, but he’d always been intent on protecting her, on making her life easier. There wasn’t anything that could make their current situation easier, but he was doing his best, trying to play the role he was convinced he had to play. She loved him for it, but it wasn’t the time to express that.
The tingling feeling faded as she listened to the sounds of his cleanup outside the bathroom. She slid down until her face was submerged and nearly panicked when she opened her eyes beneath the surface. She sat up quickly, water sloshing out of the tub and all over the tiles. She gasped for breath.
The coroner had found water in Adia’s lungs. What if that was the last thing Adia had seen? What if her last glimpses of the world had come through the shimmering surface of the water?
The idea of the bath lost its luster and the sound of the water quickly draining from the tub filled the small room. She wrapped herself in a towel and made her way into the bedroom, her hair and skin casting drops of water through the house, leaving a trail of moisture behind her on the floors.
Nicholas had heard her and he stopped scrubbing the dishes to seek her out.
He knew that she blamed herself for what had happened, but he was convinced that he was the one to blame. He hadn’t been able to cry for Adia, hadn’t been able to mourn because he was so intensely angry with himself.
He’d stayed late at the office and he knew that his wife was juggling a dozen different things between the three kids and a job of her own. If he’d just gotten home when he was supposed to, maybe it never would have happened.
He couldn’t go back in time to change it, but he wanted desperately to do so. He thought briefly about joining their youngest daughter in the afterlife, but he had Luca and Zoe to think about and he couldn’t leave the woman he loved to raise the two of them alone.
He heard her crying as he made his way towards their bedroom. She’d been trying not to cry, trying to stay strong for the kids and for him, but she needed to let it out before it boiled over like an unwatched pot. She had to let herself grieve before the pain of it ripped her apart.
Luca and Zoe were with her parents for the weekend and she didn’t have to put on the show any longer. She could let it out instead of holding it back. Staying strong was only going to get her so far, and he didn’t want to consider what would happen if she didn’t let herself feel the pain that was festering within her.
She was lying on the bed, her back turned to the door. The towel she’d wrapped herself in had shifted and the exposed skin of her torso was peppered with goosebumps from the chill of the air around her.
“Maya?” whispered as he stepped gingerly into the room.
She didn’t answer, but he could see her shoulders shaking under the weight of her quiet sobs. She didn’t want him to move any closer, but she knew it was only a matter of time before the bed would shift and creak under the weight of his frame.
He probably wouldn’t touch her, he was afraid after the way she’d reacted when they’d found out what had happened to Adia. He didn’t want her to lash out again, didn’t want to be on the receiving end of her fingernails like he had been before. More than that, he was afraid of the sounds that might come out of her mouth if she panicked. He still couldn’t shake the sounds of her screaming when the sheriff had told them that Adia had been found.
“Maya?” he repeated, the bed straining against his weight as she’d predicted.
He carefully adjusted the towel to cover the exposed inches of skin near her abdomen. His fingertips brushed one of the lightning flashes of scar tissue three pregnancies had left behind. Quickly, he pulled his hand away.
He didn’t know what to say that hadn’t already been said. He certainly didn’t know how to say something that would feel genuine. Telling her that Adia’s death wasn’t her fault didn’t feel like the right thing. Telling her that it would get better eventually felt like the kind of lie someone would tell you when there was nothing left to say or do. He wasn’t sure that there was anything that could be said. There certainly wasn’t anything to be said that would make the pain go away.
Adia was gone, plucked out of the front yard where she had been playing with her brother and sister. The coroner and the sheriff had told them what had happened in the days between her disappearance and the dogs finding her tiny body in a shallow creek three miles west of their home, but he’d blocked most of it out. As soon as they’d identified her, the ringing in his ears had started and he didn’t hear much that was said.
Maya had. She knew the minute details. She knew about the bruises on the three year old’s body. She knew about the cuts and scrapes that hadn’t come from playing in the yard. She knew about the water in her baby’s lungs that indicated she might have been drowned in the creek where they found her. She knew that she was alive until just hours before she was found.
The anger was rising, her fists tightened without her permission.
Nicholas wrapped his arms around her. “It’s okay to be angry.”
“I don’t need your permission,” she replied through gritted teeth.
“I know.”
His voice was calm, but she knew his pain was the same as hers. He held her tighter, trapping her in his grasp until her rigid muscles went limp.
“It shouldn’t have happened,” she whispered in a broken voice.
“I know.”
“I should have protected her. I shouldn’t have looked away.”
She’d left the kids in the front yard for less than two minutes. The phone had been ringing. It had been his phone call that had pulled her from her place as watchful sentry on the front porch. She’d been telling him off for spending too much time at work and not enough time with his family when she’d heard their oldest shouting from the yard.
He thought she’d hung up out of anger, it wouldn’t have been the first time, but he soon found that wasn’t the case. While there was nothing he could have done to change it, he wished he could.
“This isn’t your fault. This isn’t anyone’s fault.”
Somehow it suddenly felt like the right thing to say. He couldn’t be sure that she was even listening, but the words soothed him and he simply hoped she would hear them.
“Things like this shouldn’t ever happen.”
“Then why do they?”
He didn’t have an answer for her. He wasn’t sure that there was one. His only reply came in the tightening of his arms around her shaking frame. It was all he could do and while it wasn’t the comfort to her that he wanted it to be, it seemed like his only choice.
She wondered if there would ever be answers to their questions, if the man who had managed to destroy one of the most beautiful things in existence would ever be caught. She wondered if there could ever be a punishment worthy of someone like him.
She knew she should get up and at least dress herself in some pajamas, but she knew that Nicholas wouldn’t willingly relinquish his grip. He seemed to read her mind as he kicked off his shoes, his arms still wrapped around her as the heavy soles hit the floor. He wrapped the blanket around both of them, letting go for only a second before his arms were back around her.
She felt like he was holding her together, keeping her from falling to pieces. She didn’t mind; in fact, she was convinced that she needed it. She needed him. Their older children would be home before the weekend was over, and she had to keep herself together for them. She had to keep being their mother even though their little sister was gone. They needed Nicholas as well, and he knew that as well as she did.
Slowly things would get better, but that wasn’t to say that it would ever completely go away. There would always be a hole where Adia had been and it wouldn’t matter if the bastard that had killed her was ever caught or punished for what he’d done. There was nothing that could be done that would bring her back or fill that hole.
But they both knew what Adia would want. She would want for her family to be happy, for them to move on without her, even if it hurt like hell. She would be waiting for them, and until that time, they would have to go on without her. Perhaps moving on would be the hardest part, the longest process that they would have to endure. Maybe that was what they needed to make life worth living again.
They both knew that no matter what, they had to stay, they had to push through. There had to be a light at the end of the tunnel, even if they didn’t see it until they saw Adia once again. They could only hope that in the end it was all worth it. Staying had to be worth it.
Going forward was all they could do.