Bo & Ember

by Andrea Randall

  I scrunched my eyebrows, a sinking feeling growing in my stomach as I contemplated the ways in which I may have abandoned him over the past few weeks.

  “How do you feel abandoned?” Dr. Bittman asked.

  Bo lowered his head into his hands and I watched his shoulders tighten. Tentatively I rested my hand in the center of his back. It was as hard as a rock.

  “By God,” he whispered.

  Chills shot through my spine at the emptiness in his tone. The helpless way in which his voice seemed to collapse as he spoke.

  “Go on,” Dr. Bittman said.

  Bo took a few deep breaths and sat back, wiping his hands against his jeans. “I’m angry with Him because I feel like I don’t matter to him. I’ve lost almost everything and I’ve been faithful through it all. Ember’s miscarriage was the last straw. The night we got home from the hospital I drove to the church when Ember was sleeping.”

  “You did?” I cut in quietly.

  Bo nodded and then addressed me. “I stormed in and screamed at Him … God.” His eyes filled with tears as he choked out the rest of his words. “I told him I was tired of playing his games … and that we were done. I was done. With Him.”

  My jaw swung open as I stared at Bo with wide eyes. “You’ve been different since that day, and I thought it was just from the miscarriage … I … you didn’t tell me, Bo. Why didn’t you tell me?” My cheeks burned as I waited for his answer.

  “I’d failed in my relationship with God, Em.” He shrugged. “I didn’t want to fail with you, too. I thought if I stopped relying on God that I could make myself a better man. One that wasn’t at His mercy.”

  “Ember,” Dr. Bittman cut in, “you look shocked.”

  I turned toward her, my throat having run dry. “I’d never prayed in a church before the day that Rae died,” I admitted. “Bo’s faith through everything is something that I’ve always admired.”

  “It is?” he asked.

  I nodded then continued. “I prayed, too, the night we got home from the hospital. I talked to God about how certain you were about His existence. I wanted that. I felt okay when I fell asleep that night.” I sniffled as my throat tightened. “I never felt God before that night. Ever. But I felt something around me as I slept that night … then the next day it felt like you were a stranger.” I wiped under my eyes, feeling some of the confusion that Bo had written on his own paper earlier.

  Dr. Bittman checked her clock. “This is a good place to stop for today. I want you two to go home and be gentle with each other. No yelling. If one of you wants to yell, get up, walk out of the room, and go scream in the pillow, another room, or the freezer for all I care. No yelling at each other. Let’s meet again in ten days so we can get through Christmas, okay? Today, I want you to talk about the baby.” She paused as she waited for it to sink in. “Talk about what you’d hoped and what you felt when it was taken away. Remember to use I feel statements, okay?”

  “Okay,” we answered in unison.

  The drive home was as silent as the thick snowflakes falling around us. Heavy and cold, but somehow peaceful. As I watched the wind whip the snow into frozen circles above the sidewalks, I felt lost. I’d failed in my understanding of my husband. He’d had a major falling out with God and I hadn’t had the faintest clue. Instead, I spent the following days taking it out on him and myself, thinking he was being cruel when, really, he was as lost as I felt.

  “I’m sorry,” Bo seemed to be answering my thoughts as he placed his hand on my leg, running his thumb over my knee.

  Not wanting to tease out his apology in the car, I nodded and placed my hand over his.

  “I am, too.”

  Now, the work was to begin. We had get back to a place of us. We had to be Bo and Ember again.

  Bo

  When Ember and I arrived home and I turned off the car, she remained still for a moment. The wind was howling outside as winter finally decided to make its appearance.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked as I studied her profile. Through this entire ordeal, the color remained in her face … the life in her eyes. She was incredible, and I was undeservingly fortunate.

  “Can you start a fire in the living room when we get inside?” she answered softly.

  “Of course.” I exited the car and walked to her side. She’d remained in her seat while I made the walk around the vehicle.

  I knew she often felt uncomfortable about waiting for me to open the door, but I was grateful she let me do it. My father always did it for my mother, and I remember asking her in high school why she sat there and waited because it sometimes seemed to make her uncomfortable, too. My mother looked back at me and smiled. “Because it means more to him than it does to me,” she’d answered.

  Once inside, Ember put a kettle of water on the stove and pulled tea down from the shelf above the sink.

  “Tea or coffee?” she called as I started the fire.

  “Tea’s fine,” I answered back as I adjusted the flue, thankful I’d had the foresight to have the chimney cleaned before we arrived back in New Hampshire.

  Once the kettle whistled and the flames were taking hold, Ember appeared with two steaming mugs of herbal tea.

  “Thank you.” I took my mug and followed her to the couch, where she waited with a soft and oversized blanket.

  I climbed under the cover with her and watched her face as her eyes fixated on the orange flames. I sat there for a moment in silence, appreciating the peace she brought to my life. Ember took a careful sip of her tea, and eyed me for a moment as a melancholy smile pulled at her lips. She rested her head on my shoulder, and in her next breath, she spoke.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the pregnancy right away,” she started. “I was freaked out, and I wanted to be sure because I didn’t want to throw a monkey wrench into anything unless it was real.”

  I squeezed my arm around her waist. “I get it. It’s okay.”

  “I feel like I cheated you out of … time, or something.”

  “Time?” I questioned.

  She nodded. “Like, time with the baby, even though it was inside me. I kept it to myself longer than I should have.”

  “Oh, Ember,” I sighed, “you had no way of knowing…”

  “Still,” she replied.

  After another few minutes of silence, I gathered the guts to speak.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. I was so angry with God, and I took your sister and parents for granted. I knew I was being a shit, but knew I wasn’t leaving you with no one to talk to. I can’t believe I wasn’t there for you … I never meant for that to happen. Shit…” I rested my chin on her head.

  “Bo,” she sat up and set her mug down, facing me with pure intensity, “neither of us knew what was going to happen, but we were emotionally unprepared. We both went into our own corners to lick our own wounds when we should have been doing that together. I feel like you pushed me away, while I did the same to you by not demanding that you do something for me. I had no idea what to even ask for … or how to ask for it.”

  “Where do we go from here?” I asked, looking down.

  “We need to talk about what Dr. Bittman said.” Ember’s voice shook as she continued. “I really did want that baby, you know. I felt like a mom.” Her mouth formed a perfectly horrible frown as she looked down and let her tears fall freely.

  “You looked like a mom,” I admitted as my own tears took over. “It was the most beautiful I’d ever seen you, knowing you were carrying our baby inside of you.”

  Ember’s head collapsed against my shoulder as she fell into heavy sobs. “I’m so sad, Bo.”

  I held her close and closed my eyes. “Me too, love. Me too.”

  She pulled back, wiping under her eyes. "And here I was clinging to this spiritual lifeguard you introduced me to, and at the same time you were, like, breaking up with it. Why didn’t you tell me? Do you really believe all the things you yelled at him? God, I mean.”

  I felt like
my nerves were going to claw their way through my skin. I’d never felt more watched in my life. And, not just by Ember in that moment.

  “I just don’t understand,” I confessed as I rested my forehead on her shoulder. Her arms draped around me as her fingers clenched the fabric of my shirt. “Why? Just … why? My parents, Rae, our baby. I don’t know how to make sense of it. Any of it.” A low growl started deep in my soul and pushed its way out into a full yell as I screamed into Ember’s shoulder. I yelled out until my voice cracked and the sobs took over.

  “I don’t know if there’s a sensible reason for everything,” Ember whispered as she rubbed my back. “But I know that I love you with every fiber of my being. More than that, I know that when I prayed to the same God you disowned, I felt hugged, Bo. I felt like someone put a bandage on my heart and told me it would be okay.”

  “I’ve felt like that before,” I admitted as I sat up. “When my parents died. After Rae died, it was a little harder to get there. A few weeks ago … I just … I couldn’t take it anymore. How much am I supposed to shoulder?”

  Ember’s eyes stayed on mine for a few moments, as she seemed to be weighing her answer. “As much as you’re given,” she stated definitively. “No matter where you and I are on what we believe and who we believe in, and all of that, I believe we are to take what we’re given and go with it. All of those things happened, Bo, and wouldn’t you say you got through them in much better shape with God than you would have without him?”

  I nodded as more tears rolled down my face. “I said some really awful things in that church, Ember.”

  She shrugged. “I’ve said some really awful things to my parents … to you. But all of your love for me hasn’t changed, has it? I called you an asshole last night, for God’s sake. Did it make you love me less?”

  I shook my head.

  “And,” she continued, “what I believe aside, don’t you believe that God is like a father?”

  I nodded again.

  “Then,” she sighed, “can we agree, for tonight at least, that you and God just kind of … had a fight?” She shrugged and looked at me with hopeful eyes and a comically twisted mouth.

  I chuckled. “It was kind of a one-sided knock-down drag-out. I lost.”

  Ember shook her head. “You don’t lose until you give up. Have you given up?”

  I looked down and realized that the longing in my gut showed me I still had hope. Still had a need—a desire—to be taken care of beyond what I could do for myself. The couple weeks I tried to do it myself ended up with my wife and me in a disastrous mess on a therapist's couch.

  “No,” I answered. “I haven’t given up.”

  Ember sighed, seemingly in relief, as she leaned against the arm of the couch and opened her arms, encouraging me to lay on her. It wasn’t often that we took this position, but I realized in that moment that’s exactly what I needed.

  To just be held.

  “God,” Ember grumbled in frustration. “Only you could make yoga stressful. Relax, damn it!”

  I broke into laughter as I bent forward, trying to touch the ground. “Is that how a yoga instructor talks?”

  “What is with your shoulders?” She ignored my question as she stood to my side and pushed down on my shoulders. “Get them away from your ears. What the hell?” She broke into laughter.

  “Come on, Ember! Help me!” I laughed some more, and it felt good.

  It was Christmas Eve, and Ember and I had spent the past week doing exactly what Dr. Bittman had asked—being gentle with each other. After our night by the fire, where Ember had soulfully encouraged me to find my peace again, I promised her I’d try. Today, though, I asked her to show me hers.

  I’d known for years that yoga was Ember’s go-to therapy. Through our time in California, I’d gotten used to seeing her in every pose. Headstands in the sand as the sun rose were her favorite, though she told me I wasn’t allowed to try that yet.

  “Okay,” she composed herself, “time to get serious.” Ember closed her eyes, took a deep breath, splayed out her fingers, and exhaled. I swear I could see all of the wild energy leave through her fingertips.

  “Wow,” I whispered. I’d intended for it to be in my head, but it flew out of my mouth while I watched her physically relax.

  “Now,” she spoke quietly as she slowly opened her eyes, “let your arms hang by your side, palms forward, your feet hip-width apart. Good. Breathe in through your nose, filling your toes all the way up to your mouth. Then,” Ember closed her eyes as she once more demonstrated her impeccable exhale, “let it all out.”

  I did as instructed, remembering to keep my shoulders away from my ears.

  “Excellent.” Ember’s voice sounded like she was narrating a guided meditation. I’d buy that CD. “This is Tadasana. Mountain Pose.”

  “I’m doing a pose?” I said a little too excitedly.

  Ember simply nodded, keeping the slightly drunken smile on her face. I knew this to be her “ohm” smile, and I wanted to wear the same one.

  “Now just watch me once,” she continued. “So you can see what I’m doing and the language I use. We’re going to do a full sun salutation.”

  I nodded and simply watched and listened as my wife flowed through the most beautiful set of movements I’d ever seen.

  Her voice never went above a meditative hum. “Urdhva Hastasana, Uttanasana, Ardha Uttanasana…” She got slightly quieter as she lowered herself to the ground in a pose that looked exponentially harder than a push-up, but her breath never changed.

  The muscles in her arms and shoulders rippled beautifully beneath her skin as she flowed into what I knew was downward-facing dog, and back up through the reverse of the same movements until she was once again standing in “Mountain Pose.”

  Ember took a deep breath and opened her eyes. “Ending in Tadasana…”

  “Jesus,” was all I could say as I stared at her flushed cheeks and completely relaxed aura. It was the first time I could see an aura, and it was stunning as it blended with the lights from our Christmas tree. A soft glow that came from somewhere inside her bordered the edges of her body. When she smiled, it got brighter.

  Ember drifted toward me. “Okay, you try. I’ll explain what you should be doing as we go through it. Your job is to keep breathing deeply, okay?”

  I nodded.

  She tugged on my shirt. “You might want to take off your shirt.”

  “I’m not doing yoga for your pleasure,” I teased. It had been a long time since we’d goofed off with each other, and it felt good.

  Ember rolled her eyes. “Do you think I do yoga for your pleasure? Ever notice how tight my yoga clothes are?”

  I grinned and wiggled my eyebrows.

  She smacked my arm. “Pig. That’s because I spend half my time upside down and don’t want my clothes in my face.”

  Suddenly, yoga clothes made perfect sense beyond my visual gratification. I removed my shirt and Ember took a step back, visually assessing me.

  I tossed my shirt at her. “Liking what you see?”

  “Mm-hmm. Now, take a deep breath, and listen to my words.”

  Within seconds, our playful banter was transformed as Ember’s voice dropped half an octave lower.

  She took exaggerated breaths to remind me when I was supposed to breathe.

  “Now,” she hummed, “Ashtanga Namaskara and flow to Urdhva Mukha Svanasana…”

  I opened my eyes to find Ember demonstrating that push-up like position. I moved overconfidently into that position. Once I was in it, my triceps were screaming.

  “God!” I grunted. “What kind of demonic push-up is this?”

  Ember ignored my cries for mercy. “Stop holding your breath. Move right into Adho Mukha Svanasana.”

  I was breathless. “That’s downward dog, right?”

  Ember chuckled. “Right.”

  “Yes, I got one!” I exhaled and moaned in ecstasy once the burning in my arms ceased.

  Ember guided me calml
y through the rest of the sequence, until once again I was standing in Mountain Pose, feeling rather victorious.

  “Take three deep breaths before opening your eyes.” Ember slipped into the exaggerated breathing that sounded like the ocean waves.

  “What’s that kind of breathing called again?” I asked as I took my last required breath.

  “Ujjayi. That’s Sanskrit for ‘to be victorious.’ My mom always calls it ‘ocean breath’ though. You can open your eyes now.”

  I smiled as I looked at Ember, who seemed to be studying me curiously. Her head was tilted to one side and her eyebrows were drawn in slightly.

  “What?”

  “I want to try something on you.”

  Ember slowly sank to her knees and moved into a position I’d seen her in several times over the last month. Often in the morning, when I’d walk by her and Willow on my way to make coffee in the days following the miscarriage, they were in that position.

  She stayed on her knees, and stretched her arms out in front of her, folding the top half of her body onto her thighs. Her forehead rested on the ground.

  “Do this,” she whispered. “Next to me.”

  I moved, as instructed, and found that the pose was a bit harder than it looked, but I was able to get there.

  “Remember,” she continued, “shoulders away from your ears.”

  “K,” I whispered.

  I sank into the position and started breathing deeply. On my third breath, my eyes were clouding with tears and it wasn’t from pain. Muscle pain anyway. Searing through my chest was a deep ache I’d only felt a few times in my life. I sniffed.

  “Weird, right?” Ember sniffed back.

  “What … what the hell?” Tears were falling hard, and yet, I felt okay.

  “Don’t fight it.”

  “What is it?”

  Ember’s voice was heavy with her own tears. “Willow and I cried in this position almost every morning for two weeks. Certain yoga poses unlock certain emotions.”