These Three Words

by Holly Jacobs

  He shook his head. “Hunter is a strong name. It—”

  The doctor came in, interrupting Gray.

  I started to smile, but then saw the doctor’s expression. He wasn’t my normal doctor but one of his partners. I’d met him on earlier visits. He’d been all smiles and chatty that day, but not now. Not today. His expression told me without words that there would be no joking today.

  “I’m just going to have a look,” he said.

  The doctor’s movements were firm and sure as he squirted more of the lubricant on my stomach and then moved the wand until he found what he was looking for.

  I didn’t watch the screen, but rather watched his face.

  His expression told me everything.

  I started to cry before he said the words. “I’m sorry. The baby’s heart isn’t beating.”

  I gripped Gray’s hand. “What?” I asked through my tears.

  The doctor wiped the goop from my stomach.

  I knew what he’d said. I knew it before he said it. But maybe I was wrong. There had to be some mistake. We were young and healthy. I’d done everything right. I didn’t smoke or drink. I’d cut out coffee as soon as I’d found out I was pregnant. I took my prenatal vitamins, drank plenty of water, and did moderate exercise on a daily basis.

  “You’re wrong. It was beating before,” I said. “The baby’s in an awkward position, that’s all. Tell him, Gray.”

  But Gray didn’t say anything. He continued to hold my hand as I sobbed because I already knew . . .

  “Your baby is gone, Mr. and Mrs. Grayson.”

  The other time I’d seen this physician he’d called me Addie as he measured and checked and we chatted. Now he rested on formality. It gave him distance that I wasn’t afforded.

  I pulled my hand from Gray’s and cradled my stomach.

  “He’s gone?” I whispered, feeling the weight of the words on my tongue and wishing I hadn’t said them. Wishing I could take them back. Wishing the doctor had been called away and had canceled today’s appointment.

  What I wouldn’t give for one more day or hour or minute of ignorance.

  One more day of dreams for this child. I’d had so many. Getting into mischief with Harmon and JoAnn’s new baby and Wills. Birthday parties. Milestones. First steps. First tooth. First day of school. First dates. First kisses.

  “What happens now?” Gray asked as he stood up.

  The doctor’s expression was still serious, but there was an undercurrent of sympathy as he said, “Mrs. Grayson will have a D and C. It’s a procedure that will remove any tissue and . . .”

  I reached for Gray’s hand again, needing to feel his presence, to feel his support. He wasn’t there. He’d taken a couple of steps and stood at the window. His hands were clenched.

  He was standing only a foot or so away, but it felt like more.

  It felt like so much more.

  I cradled my stomach and cried for my child.

  How could I love so completely someone I’d never met?

  How could someone I loved abandon me so completely at the moment I needed him the most?

  “That moment, when the doctor told us the baby was gone, feels like the first . . .” I didn’t know first what. The first moment I pulled away from him? The first moment he’d taken a step away from me?

  “We’d been so happy on the way to that appointment. We were still arguing about names. I wanted to name him Timothy and you wanted to name him Hunter. After we left, there was no reason to argue about names. There was no reason to argue at all. We couldn’t do anything for our son. He was dead. My hand rested on my stomach and I realized I’d never feel him kick. He’d never . . .”

  I started to cry now, though I hadn’t cried then.

  I cried for all the things our son would never do. All the dreams I’d had for him that were dashed in that one moment.

  He’d never take a breath.

  He’d never learn to crawl or say Mama.

  He’d never start school, fall in love, have his heart broken, then fall in love again.

  He’d never get married and have children.

  All my dreams for this baby died in that examining room.

  And after that first moment I hadn’t cried for him. After the shock, I’d gone numb.

  Gray didn’t cry either.

  He’d never said he was suffering, too.

  We didn’t talk about the baby. We didn’t talk . . . period.

  The next day he drove me to the hospital . . .

  The nurse started an IV in my hand. “This will all be over soon,” she said. “You’re lucky you weren’t further along. We’ll give you something that will relax you. They’ll put you to sleep and before you know it, the procedure will be over and you can get back to your life.”

  She left the room. And I lay there, an IV in my hand, wondering how she expected me to simply go back to my life. As if I’d never been pregnant. As if I didn’t have a room full of baby furniture, still boxed up. Still waiting to be put together for this baby.

  This baby who would never be.

  I wiped a hand across my cheeks. I was shocked that there were no tears there.

  Gray stood next to me. His hands were clasped behind his back and his spine was ramrod straight.

  The baby would never throw his arms around me and hug me. He’d never kiss me.

  He’d never tell me he loved me or hear me say the words to him.

  And then I realized my sorrow was for me as well. For the mother I wouldn’t have a chance to be.

  I wanted to be the mother who rocked him to sleep, who thought everything he did was wonderful, who sang him lullabies. I’d never be the mother who read him stories and chased monsters from under his bed.

  I thought about Gray and the father he never got to grow into. He hadn’t planned it and wasn’t good at navigating without a road map. But I knew in my heart he’d have loved our son. He would have grown into a wonderful father.

  He might not have had a father as a role model, but he had his mom, and Peggy was one of the best parents I’d ever met.

  I tried to say good-bye to the child I’d never know. I tried to say good-bye to all my dreams and hopes for him.

  “We lost our baby,” I said.

  “Maybe it’s for the best . . .” Gray started, but he let the sentence die there. Probably because of my look of horror.

  The tears I couldn’t shed dried up at the moment.

  They wheeled me down to the room where the doctor said something about removing the product of conception.

  I wanted to scream, this wasn’t a product of conception. It was a baby.

  My baby.

  “We’d had that blood test the week before . . . everything happened. When the lab called with the results, not knowing we’d lost the baby, they said there were no genetic anomalies. There was nothing wrong with our baby. The lab didn’t know about the D and C. And when I asked about the gender, the tech said he was a boy.”

  My hand rested on my stomach. For just a few short months, it had sheltered our baby . . . our son.

  I hadn’t cried for him.

  And after that moment, I didn’t reach for Gray again, either. Every time I did, I could hear the words Maybe it’s for the best . . .

  “After I lost the baby—” I faltered.

  I didn’t want to do this. How could saying the words to Gray help? It wouldn’t change anything.

  I remembered my promise to JoAnn and pushed the words past the lump in my throat. “So many people said unthinking things. I knew even as they said them that they didn’t mean to be cruel. They’d tell me that we were young. We could have another baby. I wanted to scream, but we’d never have this baby. I think that maybe even worse were the people who ignored the fact I’d been pregnant altogether. As if the baby we’d lost h
ad never existed.”

  I looked at Gray. I no longer saw the wires and tubes, I saw him. And I saw him in so many happier memories. But I also saw the one moment that had become the wedge that broke us apart.

  “When I woke up after the D and C, I reached for you, but you held yourself apart. You had said, Maybe. It’s. For. The. Best.”

  The words didn’t slip out; I pushed them. One by one.

  “Maybe it was for the best for you. We could go back to your precious timetable and have a baby at the correct, appointed time. But we’d never have this baby. Our son. Losing him? It wasn’t for the best. After that, you didn’t say anything.”

  Nothing.

  “That moment—those words—it feels like I’ve been stuck there ever since. We didn’t talk about the baby. You shut the door to the nursery when we got home and we walked by it every day, but we didn’t open it.

  “And every one of those moments piled on that first one until those moments were all I could feel and remember.”

  For months, all I could hear was Gray saying maybe my worst moment was for the best.

  I tried. We went to counseling. I planned a honeymoon.

  But try as I might, I couldn’t get beyond that moment or those words.

  “How did I lose you? You were the one constant in my life. How did I let you go? How did you let me go? Everything from before disappeared in that one moment, and I couldn’t find my way back to you. I couldn’t find my way back to the way we used to be.”

  And the tears I’d denied myself for eight months now flowed freely.

  “How did we lose each other?” That was the question I kept asking.

  “Yesterday,” I told him, “when you were in surgery and I waited for you, other moments squeezed past that awful place I’d been stuck. I remembered our first dance, I remembered the night you showed me the house and asked me to marry you. I remembered our wedding, Gray.”

  I could almost hear JoAnn saying, Hey, hippie, it’s time. I could almost feel the sand in my toes and see Gray waiting for me.

  “When Maude asked about our first date, I couldn’t tell her. It’s not that it was anything huge. In the scope of first dates it was probably fairly middle of the road. But I remember it, and, to me, that date changed everything. You’d always been my friend, and sometimes I used to wish you’d see me as more.

  “Then that night. It didn’t even start as a date. We were just two friends going out and . . .”

  I unzipped my coat as we walked toward the seating area of the Cornerstone Bar and Grill. “I’m not sure I’ll get too many more sunsets this season.”

  I didn’t take the coat off because I was still half numb.

  Late fall in Erie could be colder than some places’ winters. Blue skies became rarer as autumn began to deepen into winter. Even my layers weren’t enough to make tonight’s sunset a comfortable one.

  Despite the cold, I was glad we’d both stayed in Erie for college.

  “Pretty soon we’ll have to watch the sun set beyond ice dunes,” I said.

  I crawled into the booth, and instead of sitting on the other side like he normally would, Gray slid in next to me.

  “Is there something wrong with that side?” I asked, laughing.

  “The Steelers are playing,” he said, nodding toward the television that hung on the far wall. I did not follow sports, but I knew he did, and being able to see a game was enough of a justification for just about anything.

  “Want me to move over there?” I asked. Even though I’d scooted over in the booth as far as I could, Gray’s thigh was still brushing against mine.

  His expression didn’t change, but I saw teasing in his eyes. “I’m not afraid of your cooties.”

  I laughed. “I haven’t thought about cooties for years. They were all the rage in second grade. Ms. Timmons gave a lecture that day about how there was no such thing as a cootie, but all us girls knew that all you boys had them. Some more than others.”

  He nodded, then turned his attention back to the game.

  “Paul Humphreys asked me out,” I said. Paul had sort of attached himself to me in our Bio I class. We were lab partners now. Yes, he was okay, but my feelings for him were lackluster at best. “I’m not sure if I want to, though. I guess he’s nice enough, but I don’t know.”

  Maybe that was enough of a reason not to. Nice enough wasn’t a good enough reason to date someone.

  The waitress came and I ordered our usual pizza with everything except anchovies.

  “Don’t,” Gray said, quietly, his eyes still on the game.

  “Don’t what?” I asked. I thought maybe he was talking to the players, though Gray wasn’t one of those animated fans who talked back to sportscasters and audibly cheered their team. He didn’t wave a Terrible Towel, or holler at the refs.

  “Don’t go out with Paul,” Gray said simply.

  “Why not? He’s nice enough and he—”

  I didn’t get any further because Gray turned away from the television and his game . . . and kissed me. Not just some peck on the cheek. Not even some quick kiss. This was a kiss that spoke of a hunger I had very little experience with. It was a hunger that I wasn’t equipped to deal with in my teens.

  It spoke of something more than the friendship I’d always thought we had.

  Gray ended the kiss and sat back in his original position.

  “That’s why” was all he said. He went back to watching the game, but he draped his arm over my shoulder.

  It felt right there.

  “Gray, should we talk about this?” I asked. He’d been my friend all through school. And there were a few times I thought that maybe we could be something more, but those moments of possibility always passed before either of us acted on them.

  “Do you need to talk about this?” he countered.

  “Probably,” I admitted.

  He’d all but forgotten the game and didn’t even glance toward the screen when the rest of the restaurant cheered. He gave me his total focus as he said, “Okay, shoot.”

  “So was that kiss your way of saying we’re dating?” I asked.

  “I think that maybe we’ve been dating for months, only neither of us realized it. Something has changed.”

  I had noticed that since we’d started college and our classes didn’t intersect, Gray had made an effort to get together with me a few times a week. “I thought we were just friends hanging out.”

  “Can we be both?” he asked.

  Slowly, I nodded. “Sure we can . . .”

  “I guess the question is, do you want to?” He took his arm from my shoulder and looked at me, waiting.

  “Gray, you’ve been my friend since that first day of school. You know me better than anyone else. Moving from friendship to . . . well, something more, makes sense.”

  “Making sense doesn’t mean that’s what you want,” he pointed out in that very logical way of his. Sometimes that logic drove me crazy, and sometimes it was what I loved about him.

  I loved that he charted a course and stuck to it.

  I had no clue what I wanted. I was an art major mainly by default. I had no idea what I’d do with the degree. Gray knew he wanted to go into business.

  His sense of direction was a nice foil to my lack of it.

  So many things about him seemed to fill in the things I was lacking.

  He was quiet . . . I wasn’t.

  He was steady . . . I could be a bit of a will-o’-the-wisp.

  He guarded his emotions . . . I wore mine on my sleeve.

  I’d never thought about it, but maybe he filled in the pieces I was missing, and maybe I filled in things for him that he was missing.

  Maybe it wasn’t the ways we were alike that made us work as friends; maybe it was the ways we weren’t alike that made our friendship work.

 
And maybe those things would work all the better if we moved beyond friendship into some new territory.

  “It is what I want, though,” I told him. I realized there was no doubt, no worries, just a sense of certainty. Gray was exactly who and what I wanted. “More is what I want.”

  “Okay, then.” He put his arm back over my shoulders, leaned back, and watched the game.

  He was smiling.

  “I want to go slow,” I said.

  Without looking from the screen he said, “Addie, we’ve been moving toward this since kindergarten. I think I can handle slow.”

  I started to laugh and he tightened his arm around me.

  The waitress came with our sodas. Both had one of those plastic drink animals. Swans. They hung from the glass by their necks.

  We’d eaten at the Cornerstone many times, but had never had animals on our drinks. “Are they new?” I asked her.

  She shook her head. “The bartender puts them on mixed drinks. We have a bucket of them. I pulled these out for you two because . . .” She stopped and looked a little embarrassed, as if thinking better of the plastic swans.

  “Because?” I pressed.

  She chuckled in a way that it was apparent she was laughing at herself. “Because you look so cute, snuggled together on the bench. I had to hunt to find the swans. We have a lot more giraffes and monkeys than swans.”

  “Why swans?” I asked. Gray was intent on watching the game and seemingly ignoring us.

  “Call me a romantic—Chuck the bartender does—but I always try to find them for the couples that have . . . well, something special.”

  She blushed, and looked as if she’d suck the words back in if she could. Before either of us could ask what that meant, she said, “I’ll be back with your pizza in a few minutes.”

  “I don’t remember who won the game,” I said. “But I do remember when we finished, you picked up your swan and tucked it in your pocket. I kept mine as well.”

  I looked at him and I felt the tears start down my cheek. “When you collapsed, I saw that picture of us and the swan. I grabbed them. They’re right here on your nightstand. And I remembered, Gray. After months of not being able to move past that one bad moment, I’ve remembered so many of the others.”