I know the grief will come later. It will come and come and come, doubling back on itself, crashing over me, hissing and spitting like a wild thing, an enemy I will have to learn to live with and maybe to tame and befriend, but right now I feel relief, that the struggle is over, that my daughter is at peace, and so am I.
I rise from my chair and go to the window, laying my palm flat against the cool glass. The sky is full of violets and mauves. James starts, and then he lets out a muffled cry as he realizes what has happened.
From the window I watch a couple walk from the hospital to a car. The woman is shuffling slowly and the man is holding a car seat. I can’t see inside but I know what is there—a newborn baby, born today, or maybe yesterday. Brand new and beginning. And in that moment, I don’t begrudge them their baby. I don’t begrudge them a thing.
They are beginning, and here we are, ending. And everyone must experience both.
“I’ll tell the doctor,” James says in a ragged voice. “If that’s okay? Rachel…?”
I nod, my gaze still on the couple. “Yes. That’s okay.”
The next few moments are taken up with mundane details, which feels strange after the profound transcendence of death, the ending of life that feels both beautiful and wrong. We must sign forms, and discuss practicalities, sort out next steps. The doctors are quiet and brisk; they have done this many times before, and it shows, but not in a bad way. They make me feel reassured, even though the bottom of my world has dropped out. I just haven’t dared to look down.
Then, even more strangely, after we’ve signed a few forms, we have to go. We have to leave Emily here, leave the nurses and orderlies to take her away. I cannot bear to think about it, where she will go, wheeled away on some metal gurney, gone.
And it feels wrong, to just walk away like that. To leave it all to someone else. At the doorway to her room I stumble, and then whirl around as I realize I’ll never actually see her again. I glimpse a nurse pulling a sheet over her head and I let out an animal sound of protest.
She looks up, startled, and James puts his arm around me to hold me up.
‘I’m sorry,’ she murmurs, but she doesn’t pull the sheet back down. Emily is already gone.
I walk on wooden legs out of the room, out of the palliative care unit, all the way to the parking lot. The sky has darkened to indigo and the wind holds an autumnal chill. I stand by the doors to the hospital, clutching my bag to my chest, feeling as if I don’t know where to go.
“Rachel, do you want to come back to our place?” James asks, his arm around Eva. “I don’t like the thought of you being alone.”
I don’t either, but I’m not sure I want to go back with them. My ex-husband is holding Eva close, her bump visible beneath her loose top, and somehow all of that is okay. That is right, but I don’t want to be a part of it right now. I shake my head slowly.
“I’ll be okay. I’ll talk to you soon. About… the funeral.” He nods, and then he crosses over to me and gives me a quick, tight hug.
“You were the best mom,” he whispers. “The absolute best.” I close my eyes. Were. Past tense.
I walk away from James and Eva, into the darkness of the parking lot. Slowly I unlock my car and slide into the driver’s seat. It’s as if I have to remind myself to do everything. Lungs, breathe. Heart, beat.
I think of Emily with the sheet over her head, and then I close my mind to the image, the thought. She is gone. She is free. That is what I need to remember, not what she looked like after. That wasn’t her, anyway. She’d already gone by then.
As I drive home I feel as if I am coming back into myself from a long way away. I notice everything—the brightness of the traffic lights, the beauty of the turning leaves on the trees, the streets of my city so familiar. I feel the smoothness of the steering wheel under my hands. The tick-tick-tick of the indicator sounds abnormally loud. I am fully present in a way I haven’t been in a long, long time, and it is both painful and good. I am here.
I pull up in front of my house on my quiet street. Outside the air smells of freshness and wood smoke. The sky holds a thousand stars and with one hand on my car to balance myself, I tilt my head back as far as I can, to take it all in, earth and sky.
The moon is large and luminous, ridiculously pearlescent as it rises in the dark night sky. The stars are twinkling like glimmers of promise.
Dan, Mama!
I picture Emily doing a determined jig, her face flushed with joy, her body vibrating with energy, with life. Dan! I can almost hear her voice ringing out. I smile.
Slowly I lower my head and blink the darkened world back into focus. My side of the duplex is dark, the living room curtains drawn tight. I haven’t spent more than a couple of hours there at a time in weeks; there is nothing in the fridge and most of my clothes are in a dirty heap in front of the washer. I know the place will smell stale and empty, unlived in and unloved, a house, not a home.
The other side of the duplex is warm with light and life. I see Andrew’s silhouette against the drawn curtains. He is carrying dishes back to the kitchen. I see Jake’s shape as he follows him, bouncing a little.
Slowly I walk to the stoop of my darkened house and reach for my keys. They are cold and sharp in my hand, and after a second I put them back in my bag.
I cross the scrappy ya
rd in front of the house to the other side of the duplex, feeling as if these ten steps are imbued with meaning, with choice, each one more than a mile.
From inside I hear Jake laugh, a pure, crystalline sound. I take a deep breath and then I knock on the door.
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