Page 10 of No Room to Breathe
“No one can tell me why she did it.Not any of our friends.Not therapists.I don’t understand why she left me with...With all of this.”
She could feel the tremors rolling through him.He needed something that only she could give.But how could she deliver it so that he would hear it and heal?She decided to treat it like one of her cold cases.Gather information, consult the abyss, and work from the answers that floated to the surface.
“Tell me more,” she crooned.“Tell me what you remember.”
“Samantha was healthy.Happy.The day I met you, we were supposed to go to the ultrasound together.But duty called.She was good with that kind of crap.And after she showed me the video.The ultrasound video.”He gulped in a ragged breath.“We didn’t want to know if it was a boy or a girl.That fluttering heartbeat was enough of a miracle.”
He pulled his hand free, leaning forward to brace his elbows on his knees.“Then something went wrong.Just one day, it was all wrong and she miscarried.
“One day we were excited.And the next, she was hemorrhaging.”He choked.“We weren’t pregnant anymore.Devastated,” he rasped.“I can’t tell you all the medical crap because it’s a blur.I took her home.We muddled through.In shock, y’know?”
Belatedly, she realized she was rubbing his shoulder, but she didn’t stop.The “medical crap” was irrelevant to the relief she hoped to provide.
“I don’t know what changed.We were both sad.Worse than sad.Obviously, it was harder on her.Feeling that life, all the dreams, and then...Not feeling it.”
She wondered if he realized how in tune he was with his feelings.Empathy probably helped him on the job, at least with people who weren’t like her.
“I failed her.”He leaned back, tipping his tearstained face toward the sun.“I had to go back to work and I called a couple times a day to check on her.She answered that morning, but one afternoon it went to voicemail.”
Devyn’s abyss was offering up the details.She already knew what was coming, and she waited, giving him room to say what he needed to say.To share the burden, he’d been carrying by himself for too long.
“There was a knot in my stomach.I knew it and ignored it.Told myself she was asleep.Or needed space.I kept calling like an idiot.And then...”
Devyn’s psychic connection painted the full picture for her.The details of Samantha’s crisis—her emotional break—were bubbling up to the surface, quietly now, at a manageable rate.She could see Samantha through Cade’s lens.He loved her dearly, adored her confidence and inner strength.Although losing the baby was horrible, he couldn’t fathom a world where Samantha didn’t recover.His distress, heartache, and near-constant panic since her death was rooted in a sense of failure.He believed he’d failed her when she needed him most.
For months now, he’d berated himself about missing the signs that must’ve been there, compounding his grief and making it impossible to heal.No therapist could convince him that he’d done his best, that Samantha had made a choice independent of his efforts.But Cade continued to search for a way to reconcile and atone for what he perceived as letting her down.
Devyn’s informants—that’s often how she thought of the wisps of insight that came to her—wanted her to assure Cade that hehadn’tfailed.Samantha had lost her will to live under the tidal wave of grief.In that draining blackness, she’d simply surrendered.
She listened as he shared the rest of the story in his halting, heartbreaking way.As he spoke, the air chilled and Devyn sensed another presence pressing closer.She recognized what—or ratherwho—it was.Samantha had joined them.She might well have been lingering close to Cade all this time.
Ghosts and the afterlife weren’t Devyn’s strong suit.Her dear friend Serena often spoke directly with ghosts.She wished she could hand all this over to the expert.Instead, she leaned into her own strengths, hoping Samantha found a way to communicate if she needed that.
“Cade,” Devyn murmured.“None of this was your fault.”
“So I’m told.”
“Shh,” she soothed.“Can I hold your hand again?”Going this deep with a person she barely knew was risky.For both of them.Running wide open, with a ghost nearby, could peel back layers and show her more of his life than she needed.The invasion of privacy could make things worse—angering Cade and leaving her burdened beyond measure.
Too bad she was out of options.He was in such a state that circumstances demanded a departure from the norm.
He didn’t flinch or pull away as she cradled his hand in hers.“Samantha loves you.She wants you to be happy.”She paused for any input and only felt confirmation, a soft nudge to keep going.“Samantha is sorry for causing you pain.For adding to your pain.She couldn’t bear it, and didn’t want anyone else to find her like that.”
With a physical connection to Cade and Samantha’s ghost nearby, Devyn bore witness to both sides of that terrible day.Samantha, climbing into the bathtub with the knife, weeping as she gave in to the sorrow, her heart weighted with despair as she ended her life.Cade rushing in, long after Samantha was gone, holding her body and shaking with the crushing emotions.
“We could’ve tried again.Or not.”He swallowed another sob.“She was more important to me than children I hadn’t met yet.”
Devyn had heard a similar refrain from families of other suicide victims.“Samantha had met your child,” she reminded him gently.Although the bond between mother and baby during pregnancy developed differently for every woman, miscarriage was always an emotional assault.“The intensity of the loss, the grief, and the depression overwhelmed her, Cade.”
Devyn braced for pushback as she carefully pressed onward.“It’s okay to be angry,” she murmured, giving him words straight from Samantha.
“No.”A sharp denial.“She was tangled in a net she couldn’t escape.It wasn’t her fault,” Cade said.“I—walking in like that, I couldn’t believe my eyes.She wasn’t the type.She was so strong.”
He shivered.“Until she wasn’t.”
Devyn felt he was on the precipice and she asked her informants or Samantha or any available source to show her how to help him.Wait.Nothing else came through.So she did just that, sitting quietly with him in his agony.
“I’m angry.”His voice was low, but the shock of his admission reverberated like thunder.He looked up, his gaze full of misery.“I am angry.”
