Chapter 22 - The Pregnancy We Lost
For years we referred to it as:
The ectopic pregnancy.
Medical noun.
At twenty fifth anniversary, I finally said:
“Our baby.”
Leo cried.
We had never named.
Because we never knew sex.
Because pregnancy ended before we knew.
Because grief had been buried beneath police and Agnes and loans.
Mia was not replacement.
We had always told her there was pregnancy before her.
At twenty one she asked:
“Do you think of them?”
“Yes.”
Then:
“Would I exist if they lived?”
Probably not at same timing.
I hated question.
“I don’t know.”
She nodded.
Then:
“Does that make you glad?”
“No.”
Good.
Life cannot be balanced that way.
We held grief and gratitude separately.
Then Leo and I visited hospital garden.
Not memorial plaque.
No need.
Sat.
I said:
“I was alone there.”
He looked down.
“Yes.”
“I was angry at you.”
“Yes.”
“I still am sometimes.”
He nodded.
“Okay.”
No defense.
Then:
“Are you angry at me?”
“For hanging up?”
“No.”
“For almost divorcing?”
“No.”
“For what?”
He thought.
“I was angry when you wouldn’t let me fix it.”
I looked.
“Fix?”
“I thought if I confronted Mom, changed job, sold house, then you should feel safe.”
Then:
“I had to learn safety isn’t a checklist.”
Exactly.
Then:
“Do you wish we divorced?”
“No.”
“Ever?”
“During first year, yes.”
He laughed sadly.
“Me too.”
Honest.
Then:
“Why didn’t we?”
“Because we changed enough to become a relationship I wanted.”
Not because wedding vows alone.
Then we held hands.
No closure to pregnancy.
Grief remained.
But it no longer belonged to Agnes’s violence.
May you like
That separation was important.
She did not get to own every memory around those forty eight hours.
