by Soraya Lane
“I haven’t forgotten,” he said quietly. “But you will always be more important to me than a child I’ve never met. You’re more important to me than anyone else.”
The tears were burning, fiery, but she refused to let them fall. “He was my child, our child, and I will never stop questioning the decision we made. Never.”
Matt moved away, and she turned when she knew he was no longer standing behind her. She loved him—she always would—but right now a little part of her hated him for loving her more than he’d loved their child. It was unfair and it was cruel, but she couldn’t help the emotions throbbing through every inch of her body.
“I can’t do this right now,” she said, squaring her shoulders and deciding to leave rather than argue. It was unfair to both of them. “I’m going into the shop.”
Matt nodded, face solemn. “Okay.”
It was strange seeing him standing there with a spatula in one hand, skillet in the other. He’d never cooked for her before, never taken on the role of caring for her until now.
Lisa collected her keys and walked out, wanting to be busy, wanting to stop thinking and blaming and wondering. She couldn’t stand staying in the house for a moment longer. Her hands were shaking when she got behind the steering wheel, but she forced herself to keep going. It didn’t take long to get to her shop, and she immediately saw Savannah, her manager, putting out the sign as she parked.
“Hey!” she called out when she walked in, the smell of her favorite scented candle hitting her the second she was inside.
The colors surrounded her, the fabrics calling to her and wanting to be touched, and she wished in that moment that she could just stay here forever. This was her place. This was where she belonged. This was where she could be herself, away from what had happened and the decisions that had been made.
“Lisa! You look amazing!” Savannah came running to her, arms open as she pulled her in for a big hug. “Are you okay? You don’t look like you’re just heading to the office today.”
“I’m okay,” Lisa said, returning the hug, holding her friend and long-time employee close to her body. “But here I don’t want to talk about it. The C-word is banned, and so is anything else unless it’s work related or gossip that you want to tell me.”
Savannah gave her a tight smile. “Understood.”
“Now show me all the new stock that’s arrived this morning and let me see the pre-orders. I want to know who I’m going to see walking through that door today.”
Savvy had known her long enough not to question her, and she took her by the hand and dragged her out back.
“I’ll show you everything, but first sit down. You need to show me every single new design.”
Lisa laughed and dropped into the chair, ready to kiss Savvy for being so normal with her instead of wrapping her in cotton wool. Work was what she needed. Work was going to be her savior. If only she could hide here and imagine the rest of the world away forever.
“Kelly, it’s me.”
Matt sat in his pick-up, staring back at the house. He was still parked in the driveway.
“Hey, how’s it going?”
“Like shit,” he said truthfully.
“I take it you’re not having a good day,” Kelly said, and he could almost feel her smile down the line.
“Understatement of the century,” he muttered. “I have a wife who goddamn hates me, I stayed out all night so I feel like crap, and I have no goddamn idea what to do.”
“For the head, I’d recommend Tylenol,” Kelly said, voice softer now. “For my sister, I’d say just give her time.”
“Kelly, it’s been a while now. All she keeps bringing up is the baby, or the babies we’re never going to have. I mean, why can’t she just get how lucky we are that she’s alive?”
Kelly sighed and he did the same, slumping over the steering wheel. He’d always thought he understood her. Yes, they were opposites in many ways, but that had always worked before—he’d understood where she was coming from.
“All her life, she’s had this dream of being a mom, having children, so right now she can’t stop thinking about what she’s lost,” said Kelly.
“I know. We always talked about having kids, but . . .”
“Matt, when you’re pregnant, you feel so protective of the little life inside of you. Every step, everything you do, you’re more aware. Add to that the fact you’d tried for so long. She lost a lot terminating that pregnancy—it must have been a hundred times worse than a natural miscarriage. At least then there’s nothing you can do to stop it happening, but this was a choice you both made.”
He heard what she was saying, and it wasn’t like it hadn’t hurt like hell losing the baby, but from the day he’d been told that his wife could be saved, that was all he’d wanted to focus on.
“Maybe I’ve been a jerk, but I just wanted to save her. I love her.”
“I know you do, but just give her time. She’s hurting.”
“So do nothing?” he asked.
“Think of some things you can do together. Make time for her. There’s nothing else I can suggest but just giving yourself to her when she needs you.”
“Do you know she’s back working?” Matt asked, leaning back in the seat now. “I didn’t even realize she’d been back there so often when I was at work.”
“The shop is good for her. We both know that. It’s like her therapy.”
Matt ground his teeth. Therapy for her, but it didn’t help him figure out what to do.
“Maybe you should call into the shop. It might be easier for her hanging out with you there instead of at home with all the baby reminders,” Kelly said.
“Thanks for all the advice,” Matt said.
“You want my real advice?” Kelly said with a laugh. “Don’t be an asshole again and stay out all night drinking. You want my sister to recover? Then be there when she needs you. And that means stepping up and pulling your own shit together.”
Matt grinned. “Thank god for a sister-in-law to pull me up by my boot straps, huh? Maybe I should call Penny too. Then she can give me a telling off as well.”
Kelly laughed. “You better believe it. We expect a lot from our unofficial brother—you know that.”
He said goodbye and started up his vehicle. Kelly was right: he needed to sort his shit out and try to understand what Lisa was going through. He’d been so hung up on saving her, on not losing her to cancer, but in reality he felt like he was starting to lose her anyway.
Matt had been in to check on his construction sites, but he decided to head into town and see Lisa before he got completely covered in dirt for the day. He grinned as he jumped into his truck. This way he could take her out for a nice lunch, surprise her.
“Let’s go see our girl, huh?” he said to Blue, opening the door and letting the dog jump in first to ride shotgun.
Blue stuck his head out the window as Matt started the engine. It only took a short time to get there, and when Matt pulled up on the other side of the road, he saw Lisa in the window, head tipped back, laughing at something as she dressed a mannequin. Matt sat watching her, slung his arm around Blue to give him a pat. It was nice to see Lisa happy, to see her smiling, joking around and in her happy place. He’d been racking his brain trying to figure out what he could buy her as a nice gift, and it hit him then. A really nice new book to sketch in, something that wasn’t too big to carry around. Something she could get started on a new collection with, focusing on the future. Maybe he could ask Savannah to look for something for him. She’d definitely know what Lisa would like.
“Come on bud, let’s go.”
Blue jumped out with him and followed alongside him as they crossed the road. Lisa had her back turned now as she pulled a skirt onto the mannequin she was dressing, but he could hear her laughing.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he called out as he walked in.
Her laughter died as she turned and stared at him. “Matt?”
“Thought we’d surprise you
. What’re you guys laughing about?”
“Hey, Matt,” Savannah said, stepping out of the window as Blue ran toward her, tail wagging.
“Hey, Savvy,” he replied, shoving his hands in his pockets and wondering why his wife was suddenly looking so dull, when he’d seen her so happy and full of life from across the road.
“I thought we could go grab some lunch,” he said, “or else I could help you wiggle clothes onto those sexy-ass ladies there.”
Lisa gave him a tight smile. Clearly his jokes weren’t going to make her laugh.
“I’m pretty busy today. Maybe we could take a rain check?” Lisa asked, coming forward to give Blue a big hug, blonde hair falling all over the dog as she bent to cuddle him.
“Ah, yeah. Sure thing,” Matt said. “Maybe a coffee instead? I didn’t pick up a hammer even for a minute so I could stay nice and clean for you.” He gestured at his white t-shirt. He couldn’t read her expression.
“It’s a nice thought, but I really want to keep going here. I’m behind on everything,” she said stiffly.
Matt nodded, but a pang of hurt hit him. “Sure. I get it. Come on, Blue.”
He bent in to kiss her but she turned her face. It had been like that since the termination, the loss of connection, her always pulling away. He hated the distance between them but didn’t know what the hell to do about it.
The dog reluctantly followed when he turned away and Matt waved to Savannah. “See you at home,” he said to Lisa.
“Yeah, I’ll see you later.”
Maybe it was just him, but he got the feeling that the reason his wife had lost her smile had less to do with how she felt after surgery and a whole lot more to do with him.
Lisa watched Matt go, never took her eyes off him as he crossed the road with Blue and jumped into his pick-up. She raised a hand as he drove off.
She hated the way she felt around him. Why could she come to work and feel like her old self, but not be that same person around Matt? She loved her husband, but when she was with him now . . . She sighed. All she could think about was what they’d lost, what they’d never have. And Matt was a constant reminder, because the overwhelming feelings of failure were amplified whenever she was with him. She hated herself for the way she’d behaved toward him, for being so cold when he was trying so hard.
“You okay?” Savvy asked, putting her hand on Lisa’s shoulder.
“Yeah, fine,” Lisa said, pushing her thoughts away, looking at the skirt she’d dropped in the window. “Let’s get back to making these ladies look fab.”
Savvy didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t ask any more questions and Lisa wasn’t about to bring the topic up again. She’d see Matt soon; right now she had work to do, and work was exactly what she needed.
8.
TWELVE WEEKS LATER
Lisa braved a smile and stared into her champagne glass, raising it slowly to her lips to take a sip. The last thing she felt like was celebrating or drinking, but the other option was to give up and sob on her bed. She straightened her shoulders and smiled at her husband, trying hard to make an effort for his sake.
Hell, he deserved a medal for putting up with her. There was nothing she could do to pull herself out of the way she was with him, but he was trying and she needed to acknowledge that, even if it was easier to say than do. The only place she still felt like herself anymore was at work, but she couldn’t exactly hide there twenty-four-seven.
“Happy birth day, Bump,” Matt said.
Lisa blinked away a fresh flood of tears and nodded. “Happy birth day.” She ran a hand over her stomach, something she’d never stopped doing even when the roundness had long since disappeared.
She swallowed the emotion and raised her glass again. After going sugar-, dairy- and gluten-free immediately after her cancer diagnosis, she knew she needed to make the most of the delicious bubbles now that she was easing up on her diet restrictions. “We should have been making a mad dash to the hospital today.” Lisa forced herself to push the words out. They hadn’t talked about him for weeks now, but today, not acknowledging him would have only made it harder.
Matt’s smile was slow. “I bet you’d have been waddling around in bare feet, praying he would get a hurry on.”
Lisa swilled the champagne again, held the stem so tight she almost hoped the glass would shatter. Their little boy. Their darling, sweet little baby boy.
“Do you ever wish we hadn’t found out?”
She nodded. “Yeah. All the time.”
“It made the whole thing more real,” Matt said, surprising her with his tenderness. “Thinking about what . . .”
Lisa met his gaze. “Our son would be like?” she answered for him. “Maybe just thinking of him as an it would have made it easier. We wouldn’t have built up such an idea of what he would have been like.”
They didn’t often talk about what they’d lost, because she always shut down whenever she thought about it. But today was the day they were supposed to have become parents. That she was supposed to have been staying strong and refusing an epidural, learning to breastfeed and refusing formula. Although after everything she’d endured now, she’d happily take the drugs and make up a bottle if it meant being a mom; all the preconceptions she’d held about motherhood were long gone. She just wanted the opportunity, wanted the chance to actually hold her own baby and decide what was best for him.
Instead, they had an empty nursery filled with even emptier cans of paint. Soft blue walls perfectly finished, a white sleigh crib pushed to one side, the big comfy armchair she’d found at a market never to be used for sitting with a baby. A delicate mobile forlorn on the floor where she’d been trying to assemble it. And still she couldn’t bear to go in there and take it all away.
“What are we going to do?” Lisa asked, not wanting to pretend any longer that everything was going to be okay when it wasn’t. Nothing about their life was going to plan; nothing felt right.
Matt leaned over and gave her that big, gorgeous smile that had made her fall for him over a decade earlier as a crazy-in-love sixteen-year-old. His fingers over her palm had always soothed her, made her so thankful to have her big, burly builder husband at her side. He’d always been so tough and strong, but what scared her the most now was that none of that physical strength had been able to save her when she’d most needed saving.
“We’re going to think up a whole lot of fun things to do together, things we wouldn’t have done with a baby in tow,” he said, as if it was the most logical suggestion in the world. “And then we’re going to do them all.”
She loved his optimism, even if most of hers had completely run out and left her as a “glass half empty” kind of gal. “You’re kidding, right?”
He laughed. “Nope. I’ve been trying all this time to think of something we could do together, and this is it. We can do a whole bunch of fun things.”
She sat back, tried to forget everything else so she could just stare at her man. She wanted to go back to the way she used to feel, only nothing felt the same anymore. “Okay,” she agreed, knowing she needed to make an effort. “Or maybe we could just come up with one thing, something we could do now.”
“While we’re at it, maybe we should think of what we’re grateful for.”
“You go first,” Lisa said, not sure what to say. She was trying so hard not to be negative, to give him a chance.
“Hey, I’m just thankful you’ve still got your long hair after everything we’ve been through. It’d be a bummer to be married to the pretty beach-blonde and have you looking all bald and ugly.”
Lisa burst out laughing. She hadn’t laughed for the hell of it in a long time with him, but something about the way he was looking at her made her crack up. Only Matt could ever get away with saying something like that, and it took her back in time.
“You always did love my hair,” she mused, running her fingers through her long locks. They were well past her shoulders, and she was so fortunate to have survived canc
er without losing them. “I don’t want to say something for the hell of it, but I am grateful to be alive, even if I don’t act like it sometimes.”
“I know you are,” he said, reaching for the champagne bottle and filling up both their glasses with a cheeky wink. “So fire away with your ideas. What fun thing are we going to do?”
“I’m blanking,” she confessed, not able to think of anything other than curling up to watch something on television before bed. Which was basically what she’d done every night lately.
“Come on, there must be something?” Matt asked.
“Um, I don’t know . . .” She hesitated.
Matt took her hand, squeezed it. “Come on, please. Just have fun with me. For old time’s sake.”
She felt guilty, knew how hard she’d been to live with lately. She took another sip of champagne and braved a smile. When he touched her hand, she didn’t pull away. Instead, she sucked in a breath and didn’t break the connection even though that had been her instant reaction lately. “Go on a road trip.”
Matt chuckled. “That’s actually a brilliant idea.”
Lisa raised an eyebrow. “It is?”
“Well it’s something that only a couple without kids can do, so hell yes, let’s do it!”
“You don’t have to drink this just because we’re celebrating,” Lisa said with a laugh, feeling so much more like her old self now that they were joking around and she was coming up with ideas. “Go grab a beer.”
Matt grinned and did what she’d suggested. When he returned, twisting the top on the bottle, he bent to kiss her, tilting her chin up with his thumb. “We’re going on a road trip, we’re going on a road trip,” he said in a stupid sing-song voice.
“I guess we actually could.” Lisa laughed, finding it hard to believe that she could even smile, given the way she’d been feeling, given what day it was. Maybe she just needed to take a leaf out of Matt’s book, because right now she was feeling better than she had in a long time. “One day,” she added, even as the familiar feelings of despair started to bubble up within her now that she’d acknowledged how good she felt. She forced them away, didn’t want to think about cancer or babies or . . . She swallowed and took a slow, deep breath.
