“Let them do what Cara never will,” He told his cousins, Karenna, who by then had a boy and a girl who were toddling about, and her brother, Mike, whose son, Rhys, was getting into everything he could reach. “Let them play.”
Ana scolded Rhys when he stood on his toes and leaned against the casket with his hands to smell the flowers.
“Don’t touch that!” She screeched and made to slap his shoulder, but Oliver leaned back and touched her arm.
“It’s all right, Mum,” He said quietly, shaking his head. He pulled one of the flowers from the spray and handed it to Rhys, “Here, Lad. Take this one and leave the rest, yeah?” He didn’t smile, but his voice was soothing. He looked back at Ana, “Mum, it’s all right. Really. None of this is what anyone wanted. It’s just what it is. He‘s a child. Let him do as a child does.”
Ana fell silent. She nodded and sank into a chair. I watched Eddie take her under his arm as she began to cry. Oliver looked away.
There is nothing more terrible in this world than a coffin made for a baby. By the time the service was done, the casket was filled with plush little stuffed animals, a rattle, some plastic rings, a book of nursery rhymes, even an empty bottle, a jar of strained peas, and a silver spoon. . It haunts me still, the sight of that delicate, rose pink box laid on a slab of white marble like some sacrifice on a pearl polished alter, covered in beautiful flowers so it could barely be seen.
We left her there, in that place, lying alone beside the wall. We went home and we sat together and we said nothing.
Our Cara was buried with her toys the next morning. Oliver and I leaned against each other so that we could stay standing as the reality of what had happened finally sank in. It was only moments before Edmond and Alexander had to support us. They collected us under our arms and kept us vertical, all of us in a cluster, while we went limp and sobbed. They kept us standing as we watched our baby being lowered into the ground and then they practically carried us across the grass and to the car when her casket had been swallowed by the earth.
Oliver and I fell against each other in the car and we wept as neither of us had ever wept before. I pulled away from him as the car left of the cemetery, straining to see the spot where she lie, pressing into my memory the picture of the place where we had buried every dream we never even knew we had.
And just like that she was gone. Cara, who should have been our miracle, had left us as quickly as she had arrived.
Bizarre, really, that tradition dictated we have a lunch after, as if either Oliver or I could think of taking a bite of anything. The only thing I could think of was drinking and drinking heavily, but I was too numb to lift the glass. “Tell me it’s not real,” I whispered to Oliver, “Please, lie to me.”
He blinked several times before he placed his hand against my face and stroked my cheek with his thumb. He said nothing, but his eyes replied, “Tell me the same.”
After, we went home to the cabin. Alex drove us, afraid we would be too distracted to get there safely. Lucy sat with him in the front of the car, her hands folded neatly in her lap. Nobody made a sound. Alex and Lucy saw us inside, both still unnaturally quiet. I went straight to the kitchen and took a sedative that the doctor had given me. I didn’t want to be awake. I didn’t want to think. All I wanted to do was go to sleep and wake up to find that it had all been a nightmare. The pill stuck in my throat and burned as it dissolved.
My sister made a pot of tea and sat with me at the kitchen table until the medicine overtook me. Neither of the cups touched, she helped me into my pyjamas and put me into the bed. Oliver had taken a pill as well just after me, but it seemed to take longer for it to affect him. I could hear him speaking quietly with his brother from the other room, their Welsh words mingling in the otherwise silent house.
Lucy lie with me on the bed, holding me the way a sister holds her sister when she’s afraid to let her go.
When I woke up hours later, the house was soundless. I knew Lucy and Alex had left long ago, probably at Oliver’s request, but I wished that they hadn’t. I stumbled out of the bedroom to check on Oliver, a feeling of worry sweeping me. What if something happened to him? What would I do without Oliver? Again, the thought plagued me. My heart and head both pounded as I caught my weight with my hands and held myself up against the wall.
I didn't see him at first. It was dark, but I saw Alfie was in the window watching him sleep on the sofa. The owl turned his head and blinked at me. He nodded and shifted his weight as if to engage me in a conversation.
“Hi, Alfie,” I whispered, “Thank you again for helping me.”
The bird closed his eyes and turned his head away as if to say it was nothing.
I stood for a few minutes and watched Oliver sleep. Bathed in the light from the moon, he looked almost like a child. He was so peaceful that I couldn’t bother him, even though I wanted to have him hold me more than anything in the world. I didn’t wake him to ask or crawl on top on him without permission like I normally would have. Instead, I went back to our bed and I cried alone.
A week passed before we slept again in the same bed. It had been a long, dreary day, raining off and on. He’d left for work at four that morning and stayed until six that evening. He was hot and tired, still had his studies to finish and didn’t seem to be in a particularly good mood. Nor was I. I’d sat in the front room and cried from the moment I woken up, but I had forced myself to stop and go to the grocery a few hours before he got home so that he wouldn’t know I had been doing it. I’d rushed to make him a decent dinner and tried to pretend that I’d busied myself studying all day by laying my books out open on the floor.
“Dinner looks good, Love,” He told me as he pulled off his work shirt and washed his hands in the sink. He didn’t mean it, although red fish was one of his favourites. He hadn’t even glanced at the table to see what was there. His deliberate politeness put me off just a bit.
“Thank you, Sweetheart.” It was the last thing either of us said for about twenty minutes. We sat on opposite ends of the table and picked at our meals. Neither of us looked at the other.
I hated it. I wanted to jump up and scream. I wanted to flick butter at him or kick the table so it bounced and his peas hit him in the nose. Anything to get him to smile or even shout. Anything to get him to speak. My God, this was us! Us! Oliver and me and we were sitting at supper like we were strangers or, worse, as if we were angry with each other. I hated that something was wrong and that something had come between us. I felt so frustrated and alone, but I sat and pushed my vegetables around on my plate instead of saying a word.
Oliver must have had enough silence, because he decided he’d break it. He didn’t look up at me when he spoke. In fact, he posed the question directly to his plate, “Do you want to try for another baby?”
I was not surprised that he had asked the question so boldly, but I was a little at the tone of his voice. It was so plain that he may as well have asked me to pass the vinegar. I took a minute to answer, waiting for him to look at me. When he didn’t, I responded with a joke. “I’d like to practice.”
He took the bait and laughed, “Me, too!” He raised his eyes to mine. It was such a relief to see him smiling, even if it wasn’t his usual mad grin, “But I’m serious. Do you want to give it a go for another? I mean, once you’re healed and the doctor says we can?”
I sighed, “What I want is to go on with our lives. I want to go to school and go to my job and come home and make you dinner. I want you and I to make love at our leisure as we always have, when we want and where we want. I hate that we can’t right now. I hate not being close to you. I hate it, Ollie,” I found myself sighing again, “I want to get back to being us. And if a baby comes out of that, then so be it. That’s magic. And if we never are lucky enough to have a baby, then so be that. We’re lucky enough to have each other. I think that’s magic enough.”