Page 120 of A Moment for Us
She turns her head. “I can’t . . . I just . . . can you hold me?”
She shifts over, and I climb onto the bed with her. My arms shelter her, and I wish I could shield her from the pain she’s feeling, but I can’t. All I’m able to do is try to hold her together. We stay like this, staring out the window as people come in, changing IV bags and talking, but neither of us pay attention. We just lie together, feeling the loss of a child, and I pray we can find our way through it all before I cost her anything else.
Chapter 35
Delia
My mother used to say that when the sun rises the day after heartbreak, the light clears away the pain.
She is a liar.
As the brightness from the sunrise fills the hospital room, I feel no better. I feel like I lost a baby, which I did. I try to find solace in the fact that I am still having at least one baby, but it hurts. It hurts because there was still a loss, and I have to carry her because it’s better for our son than if I deliver.
I use every bit of strength I have, which isn’t much at all, not to start crying again. Josh’s arm tightens around me. “You awake?”
“I am.”
He shifts and then stretches. “Did you sleep at all?”
“Off and on,” I say, keeping my back to him.
He was wonderful last night. He stayed in this incredibly uncomfortable bed, holding me all night long. I needed him, more than I can say, and I am so worried that, once this all sinks in, we’re going to fall apart. Josh has felt loss so deeply that he’s still recovering from it ten years later, and now to go through it again . . . I’m scared.
He moves his hand up my back, rubbing the tight muscles. “The doctor said she’d be in this morning to talk about everything.”
“She did say that.”
He sighs and then gets out of the bed. “Yeah, I know it doesn’t feel like it, but you’re going to be okay.”
I move to my back so I can look at him. “No, it doesn’t feel that way. It feels worse. It feels like I’m pregnant and like I lost a baby. The life we envisioned has been ripped away, and I don’t understand why. I have no answers.”
Josh takes my hand. “Because that’s what it is. We’ve lost a child, but we still have one, and we have no explanations other than it happens. I’m not really sure what the hell to feel either.”
“I just keep trying to wrap my head around how what should’ve been a good appointment turned into this.”
“Some of us just seem to be destined to suffer.”
My eyes widen. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing. It means nothing.” Only it doesn’t feel like nothing.
“This isn’t your fault, you know that, right?”
Josh lets go of my hand. “Yeah, I know that.”
“Do you? Because if you’re telling me this isn’t my fault, and I’m the one who is pregnant, then it sure as fuck isn’t yours either.”
Something in my stomach clenches because I can see something in his gaze. The way his eyes aren’t meeting mine.
Then he comes back to me. His hand brushes my hair back, and he gives me a sad smile. “I love you, and you’re hurting, and I can’t fix it. I can’t help you feel better because I don’t have any fucking way to change things.”
I wrap my fingers around his wrist. “We’re going to be okay.”
He nods. “Eventually, we will. We’ll move on because that’s what happens after loss. We just . . . keep going forward.” Josh leans in, his lips touch my forehead. “I’m going to grab coffee, want some?”
I shake my head, feeling unsettled. “No.”
“No?” Josh asks.
