by H P Tune
Mia nodded yet shrugged at the same time, tears burning her eyes. “Sort of,” she managed to scrape out from her constricted airway. “She was stillborn, but yeah, she’s here.”
Sighing, Juliet shuffled a little closer. “That’s…that’s just horrific,” she murmured, although she had to admit she was lost for an appropriate response, if there was even such a thing. “What was her name?”
Mia blinked a few times, a couple of rogue tears escaping. “Her name?”
“Yeah, what did you call her?”
“Umm, Zalia…Zalia Millie.”
Juliet smiled, ducking her face to murmur into Mia’s ear. “Beautiful,” she whispered. “But I was expecting something entirely traditional, for some reason.”
Responding with a tearful laugh, Mia sat up a little straighter. “She would have,” Mia explained, “but he didn’t care so much when she was…when she wasn’t, when she didn’t live.”
“Of course.” Juliet couldn’t quite hide the bite of her anger. “Excuse the lack of filter, but your ex-husband? Complete ass.”
Again, a small laugh escaped Mia’s lips. “Yeah, he was. Still is, no doubt. Did you know that no one has ever asked me her name? Not once. Not one person in my family or friends. All I heard was Oh, well, you can try again. Or a number of variations of that, anyway.”
“People are stupid.”
“And anxious. I guess the last thing they would want is to make me cry.”
Juliet shrugged. She had no tolerance for people taking out their own insecurities on someone else. She just wanted to yell at them to grow the fuck up and think about someone else for a change. “Yeah, God forbid, they might have to show some humanness.”
“Ah, for that, they would have to be human.”
Juliet chuckled. “Love it, and so true. I can’t imagine, Mia. I just can’t even remotely imagine what you’ve been through. But I’ll listen, to anything at any time; whatever you need.”
Mia nodded. “You get it. You get what it’s like to lose something so important. The most important thing in the world.”
“Mmmm, maybe. There’s no worse or anything, but I don’t think it gets much harder than what you’ve been through. And hey, I won’t ask questions or anything, but really, I hope you can feel like you can tell me anything.”
Mia turned and pressed a kiss to Juliet’s cheek. “Maybe ask me things sometimes. It helps. It helps me to talk about stuff.”
“Okay,” Juliet said, observing Mia take in a deep breath before she stood.
They paused, watching each other before Mia held out her hand. “Come with me?”
Juliet breathed a sigh of relief. “Of course.”
* * *
Weaving through small paths, Mia and Juliet followed some basic instructions on a card. The heat was sweltering, and sweat beaded quickly on their foreheads. They unbuttoned collared shirts to expose cotton camisoles, their shoulders still respectfully covered. Juliet silently debated at first whether to idly chat or to allow Mia’s silence to settle between them, finally deciding on some gentle touch and the occasional neutral comment.
She tapped at Mia’s back with her fingertips, keeping each movement platonic in the more public space.
“Left, Mia,” she said, catching Mia’s elbow when she took a step down a pebbled path to the right.
“This place is a maze,” Mia said, her shoulders rounded.
“Not sure who’s worse with directions, you or me. Hey, did you come here after the funeral ceremony? Or is this your first time?”
“First time. Stephen had our flights booked back to Edinburgh, so we left literally straight after. He was on the phone in the car, making business meetings. I still can’t believe that.” She met Juliet’s eyes with a distant stare, as if she were experiencing the pain all over again.
Juliet felt her nails biting into her palms and realized she had closed her hands into tight fists. “I get that people grieve differently but there’s a limit. And he should have been supporting you.”
“Leopards don’t change their spots do they? It took me a long time to learn that. He was never there for me. Not sure why it took me as long to notice as it did, actually.”
“When you want something to work…” Though Juliet knew that concept intellectually, she didn’t keep working at something that was broken; even when it was working, she tended to be half-gone anyway. Always better to bail first and save oneself the heartache of something falling apart in front of your eyes.
“Yeah,” Mia said. “I always thought that what I had was the best it would ever get—not the only thing I was wrong about.”
On either side of the path of the specific children’s section were tall cemented structures with elaborate murals across the expanse of slightly greying structures. Amongst the water theme were large whales and dolphins, sea turtles and fish, and a boat that glided through the water’s surface. Arranged in perfect lines were small glass squares with names and dates on them; there seemed to be an endless number of them. Some still were blank, presumably not yet holding the ashes of a tiny human.
“Should be here,” Mia whispered. Juliet watched as she held her hand out in front of her, drifting through the air in front of the small plaques; it was shaking uncontrollably.
Juliet nodded, standing a step behind Mia with her gaze running along the rows. She was still looking intently at the wall when Mia stepped back, forcefully crashing into her.
“Juliet, I can’t breathe.”
Juliet gripped both of Mia’s arms. “You can,” she said, her voice low and even. She moved one arm to wrap around Mia’s abdomen, the other hand holding tight to her bicep.
“I think we should leave.” Mia’s voice was barely a murmur.
“You’re panicking, it’s okay. Just stay here with me and breathe—slowly.”
Juliet stood like a pillar that Mia leaned heavily against. “It’s just you and me at the moment, see? It’s just us here.”
Drawing in an audibly shuddering breath, Mia tilted her head back a little, eyes casting skywards. “I should never have agreed to this.”
Juliet squeezed her tight to reassure her. “Agreed to what?”
“To keeping her here. I wanted to take her back home, or even to Scotland. We were mostly living there anyway.”
“Did you really have a choice?”
Mia shook her head and gave a soft cry. “No, not really.” She continued to shake her head. “I was meant to move on, to forget. But it’s made it harder, her being here. I want to remember.” Her uneven breathing took short, sharp inhalations interspersed with the occasional deep sigh. “What am I meant to say now when people ask if I’m a parent, if I have any children?”
“I don’t have the answers either, Mia. That seems so hard.” What does the death of a child do to someone’s identity, she wondered? To whom they are and who they planned to be?
“My marriage was fucked—just years of lies and make-believe—but I wanted a baby. I really did, but I didn’t deserve her. Things happen for a reason, apparently. And clearly, I wasn’t meant to be a mom.”
“I don’t believe that.” Juliet quickly kissed the back of Mia’s shoulder and ran her fingers down Mia’s arm until she stroked the inside of her wrist with her thumb. “I understand why you’d want to rationalise such a huge and substantial loss, so that it has some greater meaning, but shitty things happen all the time with no reason.”
“It’s not fair,” Mia whispered, turning in Juliet’s grasp, immediately hiding her face in Juliet’s blonde hair as she cried into the nape of her neck. “It’s not fair.”
Juliet nodded. Indeed, life had a strange habit of not being fair, everywhere and all the time. All you had to do was walk through a hospital to know that: drug addicts shooting crystal meth in the car park whilst professors die in the oncology wards; fertility clinics full of desperate childless parents when teenagers have children placed in state care straight from the maternity wards; people jumping off cliffs and surv
iving with the odd broken bone while loving families riding in a car for their daily commute ended up in a morgue.
Young men serving their country to please their fathers and never coming home.
Life was anything but fair.
* * *
Sitting back in the cool comfortable waiting area after they had returned from Zalia’s gravesite, Mia sat slumped in a chair. She was light-headed from the heat and rushes of emotion were still hitting her in waves. She watched Juliet tying her blonde hair up off the back of her neck.
When she finished her task, Juliet turned to face Mia, placing a hand on her knee. Mia offered what she could feel was barely a weak smile. She was oblivious to her own tears until Juliet wiped tenderly at her cheeks. She rushed to pull a tissue from her purse and blew her nose.
“You okay?” Juliet asked, rubbing her leg.
“Mmmm, okay. Though I doubt I look it.”
“You look beautiful,” Juliet said, smiling, “like always.”
“I needed to do this,” Mia said, exhaling heavily. “But I never would have done it without you.”
She leaned into Juliet, elbow jutting out slightly. It had happened almost without conscious thought, but they now moved together as if they fitted. The small movements, like a jutted cheek pecked with a kiss and the knuckles that grazed each other twice before intertwining. These tiny actions that seemed so natural, that were natural—these were the things that made them a couple, not corny declarations.
“Then I’m glad I could be here.”
Mia tried to smile again, but it fell away before it was even formed. She avoided Juliet’s eyes. “I feel guilty,” she blurted out. “And I still do, leaving her here. God.”
“You have nothing to feel guilty about,” Juliet said. “There’s nothing I can possibly think of that you should feel guilty about.”
Mia shrugged and crossed her arms over her chest. “I must have done something wrong. Babies are born in freakin’ forests and third world countries and…I must have done something.”
“Like?”
“I don’t know, I should have noticed that she wasn’t kicking. I should have…mother’s instinct or whatever.” Mia lolled her head back. “No. It still would have been too late.” She’d been through this a thousand times in her mind, and it never did any good.
“I don’t really know much about this stuff, but from what I do know, there’s little that you could have controlled.”
“The logical me gets that, but most days I find myself apologising to her. For failing her.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “For killing her.”
“Mia, no.” Juliet pulled Mia into her chest again and enclosed her in tightly-wrapped arms. “I can’t imagine how that feels.”
“If I could make it go away, I would.”
“You can’t punish yourself. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“What if I did?”
Juliet’s fingers dug in to Mia back, shaking her slightly. “Did anyone say that to you? Did anyone say that you could have done something different?”
“No.” Her voice had become strained.
Pulling back, Juliet cupped Mia’s face. “Then what makes you the expert, huh?”
“I have to blame someone, and who else is there?”
“It’s hard not to blame anyone. It’s hard just to say that it happened and that no one had control over that.”
“He said that he was relieved. Stephen, he said that he was relieved because it meant he didn’t have to be tied to me. That he could fuck off and live his own life again.”
Juliet shook her head, mouth slightly ajar as she dropped her hands to the small space between them.
“Who says that?” Mia said. “Who says, ‘Hey, you are such an awful person that I’m glad our daughter died, now I don’t have to see you ever again.’ Fuck.”
“An awful person says that, that’s who.” Juliet shot up slightly, a hint of anger edging her voice. “You were grieving and probably crazy hormonal, and he was treating you like you were trash. He should have been sharing your grief, comforting you, each other. Instead he was firing off insults and hurtful comments. And I don’t care that he had his own stuff going on. You never treat people like that, no matter how bad you’re feeling.”
“See?” Mia sniffled, covering her face with her hands. “I am so fucked up. Do you know what you’re getting yourself into?”
Juliet tugged at Mia’s forearms. “I figure we cancel all the fucked up-ness out, so we’re all good.” Mia couldn’t help but laugh. “You wanna go?”
“I want to go shopping.” It was random and tearful and brimming with the ridiculous. Mia took Juliet’s hand, and with a quick glance around, pressed a chaste kiss to her fingers.
“Well, okay then.” Juliet agreed with a cheeky smile. “If that’s what you want.”
“Yeah, it’s that or I’m going to spend the rest of the day curled up in bed crying into you, and that’s no fun for either of us.”
Juliet rolled her eyes. “I’m good with whatever. I could do with some food whatever we decide, though, and a cold drink. Alcoholic preferably.”
“You’ll love the shopping. We can buy clothes, have lunch, go to a million different cafés and bars, and not once leave the AC of the mall.”
“Mmm, so now probably isn’t the time to tell you that I suck at shopping?”
“What?” Mia asked with disbelief.
“Yeah, I walk into a shop, glance around, and make a split second decision whether there’s anything I like, and then I’m back out again. I shop like a man.”
Mia laughed. “You’re going to hate shopping with me then, I never get tired of trying on and buying.” She hesitated, red-rimmed eyes clearing slightly. “Actually, Manolo Blahnik has the most incredible boots this season. You will love them and…” She brightened as she leaned in to whisper into Juliet’s ear, “you would look so hot in them.”
“Hmmm, I don’t know a lot, but doesn’t he do those crazy heels that no one can walk in?”
“Hey, not no one. But yes, he designed those boots…I’ve seen them in a catalogue. Freakin’ amazing.”
“Okay, okay. If it gets that kind of smile from you, then they must be good. Should we go?”
Mia nodded and they both stood, straightening their clothes. Mia tapped at her lower eyelids. They were puffy and with dark rings, but the compact she had in her handbag would conceal most of it. She glanced back as they left, sighing and closing her eyes in a prolonged blink. She’d done it. She’d come back.
* * *
Mia was more than happy to return to Scotland a couple of days later despite the freezing Edinburgh weather they flew into. Doing a mad dash from the airport building to the car, they had both hastily greeted Martin before tumbling into the car’s backseat, a range of nonsensical complaints emanating from Juliet’s lips. It made Mia laugh.
The drive seemed longer, though Mia had only managed to stay awake until a little after the comfort stop halfway home; she outlasted Juliet, though. When they returned from the comfort station back to the vehicle, hot coffees consumed, they settled in, engaging in a passionate embrace that shut out the rest of the world. It began with Mia seeking a simple kiss, before it grew in intensity. Juliet’s cold hand slipped under Mia’s shirt and Mia had giggled at the touch, trapping Juliet’s fingers by the elbow.
Afterwards, Juliet had rested against her, ear to her chest as she closed her eyes. Only seconds later, it seemed, she was sleeping soundly, her head slipping down to the rise of Mia’s breasts. Mia had gently eased her to her lap, seatbelt half undone where Juliet curled along the seat.
They were still in that position when they arrived home and Mia slowly eased Juliet awake, despite the adorable peacefulness that she exhibited in sleep and the tiny amount of tongue sticking out at the corner of her mouth.
They stumbled inside, Juliet still half asleep and disorientated. Slumping onto the couch and rubbing her eyes, she asked, “Is it morning or night?” Her voi
ce resembled that of a sullen teenager just awakened for school against her will.
“It’s night-time, sweetheart,” Mia said. “Lucky for you.”
Martin’s lips clamped together with just a hint of a smile threatening to break through his professionalism.
“Humph. I feel like hell.”
“It was only a seven-hour flight, Juliet,” Mia teased, scratching at her head as she slipped past.
“You two want any food?” Martin asked. They both shook their heads.
“I think I’ll just get this one to bed.” Mia shared his grin, holding her hands out to Juliet and hoisting her up. “Come on, grumpy.”
“Hey, I’m tired, not grumpy.”
“Sure you are.”
Mia dragged her into the main bedroom and plonked her on the side of the bed, tossing her a loose tee to change into. A cursory glance at the bedside showed that Janet had turned on the electric blanket, and the room was heating up. It felt nice to be cosy warm and not sweltering, Mia thought.
As Juliet went about blindly changing, Mia pressed the messages button on her answering machine. She moved to undo her suitcase as she listened. The first was a distinctly British-sounding woman confirming something about the electricity company reading. Mia shrugged at Juliet. “Remind me to ask Martin about that. Maybe we changed companies.”
A familiar masculine voice resounded through the crackled speaker, and Mia froze, her hand held in mid-gesture.
Mia, it’s Stephen. I need to speak with you. Call me on the cell. The number’s the same. Please.
The message cut off with a distinct beep, and the room fell into a haunting silence. Juliet looked at her across the room, her T-shirt just barely hanging over a pair of black panties. She opened her mouth to speak but shook her head instead, walking directly out of the room.
“Juliet? Juliet!” Mia sprang into action to follow her, tripping on the edge of her suitcase when her little toe caught on the corner. “Ow, fuck.” She hopped twice before falling back into step. “Juliet! Come on, I don’t know why he’s fucking calling me.” She reached Juliet’s door just in time to catch a pained expression before it shut gently in her face.
