Page 82 of Keeping You

“I was wondering if you’d like to grab coffee with me. Talk?”

My chest feels tight at her word. I haven’t spent time alone with Rebecca since the night before she was admitted to the hospital eleven years ago. Chloe’s voice fills my head.

Maybe you should talk to Rebecca while you’re here. Maybe it will help you cope. This is not how you deal with all your emotions. I’m not sure you ever fully moved on, Grayson. If you want your marriage with Hannah to work, I think it’s time you face the past.

Having Hannah at my side through everything with my dad has cemented for me that I need to figure out my shit and find a way to keep my wife. I have a serious feeling that’s going to mean facing the one thing I’ve been running from for over a decade, but Hannah’s worth it. She’s worth everything.

I swallow past the lump in my throat and say, “Sure.”

She follows me to the car, where I tuck the groceries away before we walk to the corner café in silence. We each order a coffee and find a table in the corner. The silence is uncomfortable, and it makes me miss Hannah. With her, we can sit together and not say anything and I don’t feel like I need to leave or say something to fill the void.

“How’ve you been?” I ask.

She smiles softly. “I’ve been good. I enjoy my work. It lets me be home with Jack as much as possible, and Daniel’s able to be around when I can’t.”

“I’m glad,” I choke out.

She leans forward, resting her arms on the table as her hands wrap around her coffee. “You have questions,” she says. She’s always been able to read me. I don’t know if it’s that I’m easy to read or just years of being with someone.

I sigh. “Yeah.”

“You can ask them.”

I can’t look at her. Looking at her and asking these questions will probably crack whatever semblance of decorum I have right now. I find a spot on the wall over her shoulder and talk to it.

“I’m sorry.” The words fall out of me.

“For?” she asks, confusion filling her voice.

“I failed you,” I whisper, and my eyes quickly dart to her.

The look on her face has me unable to look away. She has no idea what I’m talking about.

“After we lost the baby, I failed you. If I had done something”—I run a hand through my hair, trying to gather myself—“anything. I don’t know. You went through so much. When your dad called—” I choke back a sob as a tear runs down my cheek. I’m on the cusp of losing it, but I know I need to push forward and have this conversation. “When your dad called and said you’d attempted to take your life, I knew I had failed you.”

“Oh, Grayson,” she says before shuffling her chair closer to mine. She grabs my hand and holds it tightly.

I look her in the eye, needing her to see how much this has eaten me alive for the last eleven years. I need her to know just how sorry I am.

“Grayson, you didn’t fail me. You’re the only reason it took me so long to do it. You kept me fighting right after.” She wipes at her tears, and my heart feels like it’s being ripped out of mychest the same way it did then. “I was so depressed after the miscarriage. I felt like I had failed you and myself. My body hadn’t done the one thing it was meant to do. Have a child. I spent every day sitting in my room, going over what I could have done differently so that we could have our baby. That night wasn’t the first time I had thought of ending it all. It was you and your love that stopped me each time before. That night was a bad one. It was right after Mother’s Day, and I was going through a drawer in my desk and I found a notebook I had forgotten about. I had used it when I first found out I was pregnant. I used it to write different ways to tell you. Seeing it had everything rushing in at once. I couldn’t take it. I needed the pain to go away. I didn’t want to burden you anymore, because I knew you were in pain, too.”

Tears are streaming down both of our faces now. I squeeze her hand to show her I’m still here with her, and she continues.

“When they admitted me to the hospital, they ran a battery of tests. One of them was a hormone test. They said that my levels were far from normal, and it was contributing to my depression. I got in to see a therapist, and I was able to talk through it all.”

I nod. It makes sense in my head now that she’s saying it. I’m a doctor, I’ve seen how badly a hormone imbalance can affect a patient. I think the trauma was so ingrained in me that I never thought to examine it more. I wanted to bury it all down as far as I could and never talk about it again. It was the miscarriage that made me decide to go to medical school. I wanted to do my best to be able to stop other people from experiencing the life-altering pain we did. I ended up in emergency medicine, helping stop people from losing those already with us. My heart wasn’t able to tolerate prenatal or obstetrics.

“And therapy helped?” I ask.

“Yeah. I still go. I don’t think I’ll ever be over what happened. We lost a baby we both wanted. We were ready to start a familytogether, but life had other plans. I’m happy now. Therapy helped me get to a point where I was ready to try to have kids again, and I’m glad I did. I wouldn’t give Jack up for anything in the world. My world begins and ends with him. I still have my bad days, but the good days outweigh them now.” She smiles. “I take Jack to the tree and tell him about you and the sibling he won’t meet. Our baby isn’t forgotten. I like to think that they’re looking over Jack and whatever future kids you or I might have.”

I shake my head. “I don’t think kids are in the picture for me.”

She squeezes my hand. “And that’s okay. Grayson, you don’t have to process this the same way I did. You don’t have to move on the same way I did. Your grief and pain are valid. I’m glad that you have Hannah to support you.”

My eyes leave hers, and she reads my evasive expression.

“You haven’t told her, have you?” she asks.

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