Unhinge

  I was still breathing.

  I still had a life that depended on me.

  I refused to think that this was the way everything would end.

  Outside, the rain picked up.

  Slowly, I rolled over and got on my hands and knees. A slice of blinding pain streaked through me, making me gasp. I moved toward the keys and ignored the sound of my blood dripping onto the floor.

  Before I crawled outside, I glanced over my shoulder, for one last look at my old life.

  Wes was now standing, staring down at the blood smeared across the floor with a dazed expression.

  I told myself to breathe. That I couldn’t think about him. I lifted my arm. I turned the doorknob weakly. The door cracked open and I slipped out onto the back porch. It took me minutes to make it down the steps. The rain hit my skin, powerful enough to wash the blood off my hands. Twigs snapped underneath my palms and cut open my skin. I barely registered the sting. I kept crawling. I counted my steps.

  Twelve, thirteen, fourteen…

  My hair fell around my face like a black curtain. I started to tell myself that if I kept moving, my life would be so good. So, so good.

  I told myself that the warm substance making my pajama top stick to my skin was just the rain.

  There was no blood on me.

  No pain.

  Nothing.

  I was fine.

  I hummed louder.

  Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen…

  It was getting harder and harder to move. The ground was getting closer and closer. The tips of my hair were dragging in the grass. I started to hum louder and louder until I was full-out singing.

  Eighteen, nineteen, twenty…

  The car was in sight. I pressed down on the unlock button but I didn’t have enough strength for it to work.

  Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three…

  I had to keep moving, but I was starting to feel dizzy.

  And at twenty-four steps my knees gave way and I dropped to the ground in a big heap. The water soaked through my bottoms, chilling me to the bone.

  It felt as though my body was fighting so hard to stay alive. But something inside me was giving up. It was dying.

  There was nothing but blackness and the cool, wet ground beneath my cheek. My eyes closed. I pressed a protective hand over my stomach. I hummed a beautiful hymn.

  My eyes started to close. I drew in one final breath before my world went dark.

  May 2015

  I distantly heard the sounds of a baby crying.

  My head lolled to the side. Slowly, my eyes opened into slits. My vision was blurry, as if a white veil were over my eyes. I opened my eyelids wider and my vision cleared. The crying let up too.

  Beep, beep, beep…

  Wires were connected to my body. A blood pressure cuff was wrapped tightly around my arm. I couldn’t find the source of the noise.

  I saw a woman in scrubs looming above me. I jolted and she laid a cold hand on my arm. “You’re up,” she whispered. Her lips curved into a wide smile. “You’ve been asleep for a really long time.”

  Furtively, I glanced around the room. The smell of bleach invaded my nostrils. Hospital smell. I tried to remain calm and continued to look around. The blinds were open, letting in bright light. On the ledge of the window were flowers and balloons with phrases that said “Get well soon.” Or “Praying for you.” Or “Thinking of You.”

  I swallowed. This wasn’t good. Not at all.

  I glanced at the nurse with nothing but fear in my eyes. “What happened? Why am I here?” I went to sit up and felt a slashing pain that shot straight to my stomach. I sucked in a sharp breath and grabbed the railings next to me. The nurse guided me back down to a lying position.

  “Lie down.” Her voice was so quiet and sweet. “You have all the time in the world to heal.”

  Her voice calmed me, but her words alarmed me. “What happened?” I whispered. Her hand stilled on my arm and her soft smile dimmed. “Let me go get your doctor.”

  “Wait—”

  She walked toward the door but before she left she smiled at me. It looked forced. “Your mom is here. She’ll be so happy to know you’ve woken up.”

  Beep, beep, beep…

  I stared around, searching for the noise. “What is that?”

  “It’s the heart monitor, honey.” I stared at her blankly. “I’ll get your mom,” she said one last time and then she was gone.

  The door shut behind her. All was silent except for the sound of the machine, the consistent beeping, and my frantic breathing.

  Wide-eyed, I turned and stared at the heart monitor. The noise started to increase. I squeezed my eyes shut but all I saw was crimson red. I heard screams. I felt Wes’s anger and it was strong enough to smother me. I felt fear and pain.

  But that was it.

  “Honey!” My eyes flew open and I saw my mother hurrying to my side. Tears streamed down her cheeks and for the first time in her life she was not completely put together. Dark circles were under her eyes. No lipstick. Her hair was pulled back. She looked like a completely different person, but the look in her eyes, the concern and strength…that’s the mother I knew and loved. To know that something hadn’t changed made me grip her hand tightly. “I’ve been so worried about you.”

  “Mom,” I croaked. “You need to tell me what happ—”

  “Shhh…” She brushed my hair behind my ear. “We can talk about everything later.”

  “But I don’t re—”

  And right then a commotion sounded outside my door. It was a man’s voice. I lifted my head from the pillow. I knew I’d heard it before. I just couldn’t place it.

  My door opened and I saw a flash of a tan arm and dark hair, before he was pulled back.

  “Sir, you can’t go in there!”

  “Let me see her,” he growled before the door slammed.

  My mother stood up and hurried to the door. She cracked it open an inch.

  “You can’t keep me from her!” the man screamed.

  I wanted to get up, and once again, I tried. I really did. But I couldn’t move. The pain was just too strong. It shot straight down my body to my stomach, making me suck in another sharp breath. My mother quickly shut the door, but not before I heard her say, “Go right now. Leave her alone.”

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  My mom stopped walking and peered at me carefully. Her mouth opened and closed repeatedly as she stared at the door and me.

  “Who was that?” I repeated.

  She waved her hand in the air, as if she were shooing a fly. “No one. It was absolutely no one.”

  “Mom—”

  “Honey. I promise. It was no one.”

  Much like the crying baby, the voice started to fade. I heard nothing but the soft squeaking of shoes and murmurs of voices and it was almost as though a voice was in my head.

  So I believed her; my mind was blank. It held nothing and here she was offering me up comfort. So I greedily took it like a hungry child.

  My hand trailed across the hospital sheets and gripped her hand tightly.

  I knew there was pain. I could feel it deep within my chest.

  My mother brushed the hair away from my forehead, a thing she used to do when I was little girl. “The doctor is going to be in to speak to you.”

  “About what?”

  She hesitated. “About your condition.”

  “Mom…” I took a deep breath. “What happened?”

  Her eyes widened. Her mouth opened and I thought for a quick second that she was going to tell me the truth, then someone knocked on the door loudly.

  She pulled away and faced the door like a mother hen on the attack.

  An old man with a white coat entered the room and her shoulders dropped.

  He looked in my direction and his expression brightened. He was an older, balding man with a belly that protruded over his pants, and rosy cheeks. He almost reminded me of Santa Claus.

  He looked too happ
y, too friendly to be a doctor.

  “Well, it looks like my patient is finally up,” he said as he walked toward me. He held out his hand. “Dr. Wendell.”

  I shook it. “Hi,” I said quietly.

  He gave me one last smile before he opened up his chart and got down to business. He sat in the chair right next to me. My mother sat on the opposite side, gripping my hand as though it were a lifeline.

  “Now, I wanted to speak to you about what has happened….” His mouth continued to move. My mom stared at me, a grave look on her face. But I couldn’t hear a single word.

  In my mind I saw flashes of crimson blood. So much of it. No matter where I looked it was all around me.

  My hands and body were drenched with it.

  I felt pain. Searing pain in my stomach that made me gasp.

  Ignoring the doctor, I pulled down my blankets to my hips and pulled up my hospital gown and saw a hideous scar on my abdomen.

  And then I realized the truth.

  My baby. The one good thing in my life was gone.

  My baby.

  My baby.

  My baby.

  My baby was gone.

  “I’m so sorry….” The doctor patted my arm. I felt numb. “I really am.”

  My mother wiped away my tears.

  I shook my head.

  The beeping became faster. The doctor glanced at the machine.

  I kept waiting for one of them to say this was all some kind of sick joke. I kept waiting for the nurse to walk into the room with a tightly wrapped bundle in her arms.

  It never happened.

  The doctor stood. The beeping increased. “Victoria,” he said quietly, “I need you to calm down.”

  I couldn’t, and how could he expect me to? My baby was dead.

  Everything was gone.

  He spoke to my mom. But, again, their voices were muffled.

  He called the nurse. She came running in and moments later the doctor administered more drugs into my IV.

  “No,” I moaned. My lips started to quiver. “My baby…”

  But my words faded and I slipped into darkness.

  Give me my baby, give me my baby, give me my baby….

  —

  I was released from the hospital three days later. I had to walk around my room, proving to my doctor that my C-section scar was healing correctly. Anytime he tried to speak to me about my loss, I turned him away.

  I didn’t want to hear it. I was barely making it hour by hour.

  The day I packed up, I felt numb. I had a destroyed marriage. A husband who the doctor said had died.

  I lost my child.

  And I had…I had something else. There was a huge chunk of my memories cut out and stolen from me. But I didn’t care. If they were gone I probably couldn’t handle it. There was a reason they were gone.

  As I prepared to leave I told my mom that she could keep the flowers or donate them. I couldn’t look at them. I turned away every visitor that wasn’t my mom or Renee. My mother wanted to drive me home, but I told her Renee was going to pick me up. I couldn’t bear one more pitiful look from my mother.

  I left dressed in pajamas and a broken heart. I breathed through the pain and tried to tell myself that it was nothing. I refused to look at the stitches.

  It was nothing.

  It was nothing.

  It was nothing.

  The entire drive back to my house I felt numb. I watched the people and buildings pass by but I didn’t really see. Everything was in black and white.

  My entire world was destroyed. It felt unfair that everyone else would be so…happy. Why couldn’t they suffer with me? Why couldn’t they feel this pain? And when would it end?

  It was nothing.

  It was nothing.

  It was nothing.

  The longer I chanted that in my head, the better I felt. I closed my eyes and imagined my pregnant belly. It was a good thought and for a second I could breathe.

  Renee and my mother agreed on one thing: They didn’t want me to stay at the house. But I did; everything else in the world was stolen from me, but this was not. Renee tried her hardest to change my mind but I wouldn’t be deterred.

  We pulled up into my driveway. I opened my eyes and stared at the house. I saw home and nothing else.

  When I unlocked the front door and stepped into the foyer it was deathly quiet, but the smell of bleach slammed into me. You could hear a pin drop. It was the unnatural quiet that moves in after something awful.

  The house was bare and boxes were everywhere. My mother told me I was getting ready to put the house on the market and move. I couldn’t picture myself doing that. Wes and I had built this place to start a beautiful family. Why would I move?

  Renee grabbed hold of my elbow. “You okay?”

  I gently shook her off and gave her a weak smile. “Good. But we need to turn on the radio or TV; it’s too quiet in here.”

  “Everything’s packed away but we can watch some videos on the laptop.”

  I walked up the stairs hating how empty the place was. In my mind, I could picture a male’s voice and laughter. It echoed in the foyer and gave me chills. “We need to unpack some boxes.”

  When Renee didn’t reply, I stopped and glanced over my shoulder at her.

  “Let’s just take everything day by day.”

  I didn’t reply. We walked into the master bedroom. It was completely empty. The blinds were open. Sunlight poured in and ran across the floors. Dust motes danced in the air. “Where’s my stuff?”

  “I have no idea. A lot of things were packed and ready to go. We’ll have to ask your mom.”

  That should have been enough to put me over the edge, but I was determined to stay. I dropped my bag in the middle of the room. Uncomfortable silence circled around Renee and me.

  She leaned against the doorway, staring at me. “You don’t have to stay here. You can come home with me. Or stay with—”

  “It’s my house. I have to stay here.”

  Renee ended up staying till midnight. I finally talked her into helping me unpack a few things. Towels. A few plates and silverware. One down comforter. She offered to stay the night with me if I wanted her to.

  I insisted that I wanted to be alone.

  “All right,” she sighed. “I guess I’ll be going. I was thinking that I could come over every morning for a bit. I have to go into the flower shop for a few hours but I can return around five or six. I’ve spoken with your mom and she’s agreed to stay with you during the afternoon.”

  “You don’t have to do that. I’m fine.”

  Renee sighed and grabbed her purse. “No, you’re not. I’m coming over here whether you like it or not.”

  “How will you coming every day help?”

  “I—”

  “It won’t,” I interjected. “I just need to be alone.”

  “I know…but I don’t want to leave you alone. I worry about you.”

  “I need to be alone. For a few days, okay?”

  She stared at me for a long second before she agreed. “But I’m coming over at the end of the week. No matter what.”

  And then she left.

  It made no sense. This was the time that I should be leaning on a shoulder. But I was wrapped in grief and pain and just wanted a moment to myself.

  A moment to try to think everything through.

  That night, the silence was too much. I slept in the middle of the room, staring blankly at a movie playing on my laptop. My ears started to ache, and then ring, and soon I heard the distant sounds of shouting.

  Finally, I gave up. I moved down the hall and stepped into the baby’s room. Instantly I felt a calming peace drifting over me. The curtains were open, letting in light from the moon. Boxes were stacked against the wall. A crib was slightly put together, but the crib mattress was out, leaning against the wall.

  This felt all wrong to me. I wanted to see everything put together. I wanted to walk in here and see a beautiful room, just waiting fo
r a beautiful baby.

  I turned on a light, closed the curtains, and got to work. No box went untouched. Clothes were hung. I put the mattress back where it belonged. The rocking chair was placed in the corner. I draped a yellow crochet blanket on the back of the chair. Diapers and lotions were placed on the changing table. I couldn’t hang anything on the wall yet since I didn’t have a clue which box the nails and hammer were packed in. Tomorrow I would search for them and hang the pictures.

  I didn’t know what time it was, but I wasn’t stopping until everything was back where it belonged.

  When I was down to the last two boxes, I finally sat with my back pressed against the crib and dragged one box in between my legs. It wasn’t taped shut. The flaps were tucked in on each other. On the side, in black permanent marker were the words VICTORIA’S STUFF.

  The second I opened it I was hit with a musty smell. I scrunched my nose and covered it with my T-shirt. There was nothing but a bunch of homemade arts and crafts. Baby dresses that I assumed I wore as a baby. A small scrapbook filled with pictures of me. At the very bottom was a beautiful baby doll.

  I gasped and reached for her. I remembered this doll. As a little girl I carried her everywhere. Her name was Evelyn. She had the most beautiful blue eyes. Her cheeks were rosy. She was wearing a white crinoline dress. The skirt was wrinkled, but the dress itself was in pristine condition. On her feet were small red Mary Janes.

  Looking at her brought the biggest smile to my face. This doll used to give me so much happiness. Not a single bad memory was attached to her.

  I put the rest of my childhood belongings back in the box, but Evelyn stayed outside. She belonged in here. I stood up and placed her on the rocking chair. “You belong right here, don’t you?”

  She just smiled.

  Exhaustion started to take over. Yet I didn’t want to leave this room. So I grabbed my comforter from the bare master bedroom and padded back to the baby’s room. This time, when I lay in the middle of the room with the comforter tucked beneath my chin, I fell asleep.

  —

  I woke up a few hours later.

  At first I forgot. I had forgotten everything that had happened, but all too quickly it hit me and I couldn’t breathe.