I had little depth to my life and while I had thought myself content with the existence I led, I realized now that wasn’t true.
The realization made me defensive.
“What about you? Is this what you consider a happy life? Still living in abandoned houses, scrounging for food, barely getting by? Is it a happy life to contract hepatitis B and not realize it? To have so little regard for your health and safety that you would be in a position to contract it in the first place?” I stared out over the park. “You lied, Yoss. You were going to do something better. You told me over and over again that that part of your life was over. Your promises are all broken. Why should I have bothered to keep mine?”
Yoss was silent.
Our breath puffed out in front of us. Small, white clouds drifting off into nothing.
One heartbeat.
Two.
Three.
On and on. Constant and continuous. Infinite.
“Tell me a story, Imi.”
I sighed. “I’m not in the mood for fairytales, Yoss. I haven’t been for a long time.”
He looked at me, his eyes full of remorse and something else. Something stronger. Something that made my heart constrict and my throat tighten. “Then tell me a true story. Something that really happened. Something happy. Something about you.”
“I don’t think I have one of those kinds of stories.”
Yoss put his hand on top of mine. Cold fingers wrapped around frozen skin. “That’s not true, Imogen.”
We stood there, staring at each other, and I wanted to give him what he asked for. My anger was gone. I had never been able to hold onto the useless emotion, much less when it was directed towards Yoss.
“Let’s go inside.” I inclined my head towards the door.
Yoss nodded and followed me back into the warmth of the hospital café. We stood just inside, neither of us moving.
Tell me a story, Imi.
Could I give him a story? Could I open myself up to him the way I once had?
An angry, obstinate part of me didn’t want to. He left me. Discarded. Thrown away. He let me wonder where he went. What I had done wrong. I was alone in my love for him. All alone…
Yoss pushed his hands into the pockets of his robe. “Are you sure I can’t talk you into a cup of coffee?” He tried to laugh. It didn’t quite work.
“You want a true story from me? Why should I give you anything that’s true, Yoss?” I asked him, forgetting for a moment that we weren’t alone.
Yoss’s shoulders slumped a little. He rubbed his newly grown beard. “You don’t have to give me anything, Imogen. I have no right.”
And it was his self-condemnation that shattered my resistance. That broke my heart and mended it.
This was Yoss.
And I was Imi.
That meant something.
He asked me for a story.
I had always given him one.
I’d give him one now.
“Come on,” I told him.
We walked quietly towards the elevator and I took him down to the sixth floor.
He gave me a strange look when he realized where we were, but he didn’t ask questions. Even though I knew he wanted to. I was glad. I wasn’t ready to give voice to what I was handing him.
Then tell me a true story. Something happy.
Sure, there had been happy moments in my life. Some more vivid than others. Meeting Yoss underneath the bridge on a warm summer evening, blood on my hands and tears in my eyes.
The first time he kissed me. How scared and exhilarated I felt when his lips touched mine.
The night we made love for the first time after the fire. With snow falling from the sky and grief on our tongues. All trembling hands and hot skin.
There were other moments too. The ones that came after Yoss. The day I graduated from high school. Making the Dean’s List during my first semester in college. Moving into my own house. Starting my job. Meeting Lee.
But there was one moment that trumped them all. Even though the ending was far from a fairytale, the brief instant at the beginning was one of the few times in my life I remember experiencing true, complete joy.
It had been different from the happiness I had felt with Yoss.
Different, but powerful. Profound in a way I knew I would never experience again.
We continued to move slowly, but Yoss was walking easier now. He still held onto my arm, though he no longer relied on me to support him.
“Hi, Imogen!” a nurse named Brittany called out. I lifted my hand in a wave.
“Is it okay to go back? We won’t be long,” I asked with a small smile. Brittany nodded and then noticed Yoss beside me. “We’re just taking a walk. Getting the blood moving. I figured he could use something cheery after looking at hospital walls all day,” I explained
Brittany grinned. “Enough said. Go on back. But just so you know, Maria’s on duty. You won’t be able to actually go inside. You know what a Nazi she is about germs,” Brittany laughed.
“We just want to peek in through the window. I’ll make sure not to anger the Kraken.”
Brittany snorted and hit the button opening the double doors in front of us. “Thanks,” I said as I led Yoss down the brightly lit corridor. The doors shut behind us, closing us in. The air smelled different here. Like baby powder and something sweet. I inhaled deeply.
Yoss gave my arm a small squeeze. “You come here a lot, don’t you?”
“Yeah. Sometimes I just like to imagine how different my life could have been,” I admitted. I turned left and then stopped in front of a large window that looked into a lovely room painted in colorful swaths of blue and pink. A matronly woman with grizzled grey hair and a mole on her chin prepared a bottle at the counter, her back to us.
Yoss looked confused. “And that makes you happy? Thinking about how things should have been? How things didn’t turn out?” He seemed horrified.
I pressed my palm to the glass. “I like to remember when things seemed possible.”
I watched as Marie dabbed the formula from the bottle on the inside of her wrist before picking up a small baby swaddled in a blue blanket. He latched onto the nipple and began to drink.
Marie rocked him back and forth while he ate, patting his bottom the whole time.
My eyes drifted over to a little girl in the bassinet closest to the window. She wore a tiny pink and blue striped hat, her face scrunched up as she slept.
I felt myself smile. I couldn’t help it. Maybe I should have felt devastated standing there, staring at babies that weren’t mine.
But I wasn’t.
“You wanted me to tell you about a happy story. A true story. This is it,” I said.
Yoss glanced at me, then back at the sleeping infant. “You have a child?” He sounded surprised.
“It’s been fifteen years, Yoss, a lot happens in that amount of time,” I reminded him.
“I just didn’t think…” His words drifted off and he never finished the thought. But he was shocked. I could tell. As if he hadn’t expected me to be a mother. That hurt more than spending time with babies that could never be mine.
“No. I don’t have a child. Not now anyway,” I told him. Yoss glanced back at the baby sleeping in the crib.
“Then why—?”
“Chris and I had been married for a year,” I began, cutting him off, wanting to get the words out before I lost the nerve. “We both wanted children. It was one of the few things we ever agreed on. So we started trying to conceive. There were a lot of disappointments at first. I started to think something was wrong with me. That I wasn’t meant to have children.” My chest constricted painfully at the memory of those horrible few months when I’d get my hopes up only to have them dashed into the ground.
But then my heart lifted at what came next. “After a few months I missed my period. I started to get sick in the morning. So I took a test.” My smile grew wide. “I was pregnant.” I sounded breathless as I remembered that moment w
hen my entire world changed.
I could still feel the joy. The hope. It was the only time Chris and I were truly happy to be together.
“I was going to be a mother. And I was going to be a good one too.” My hand that was pressed against the window curled into a fist. “I was never going to let my baby grow up feeling second best or unloved. They’d always know that they were first in my heart.”
“You would be an amazing mom, Imi. I always knew that,” Yoss said softly, but I barely heard him.
“Weeks passed and my belly got a little bigger. Not much. Just enough to start wearing bigger pants and stretchy shirts. Then the day came when we were able to find out the sex. We were having a little girl.” Breathless. Joy. So much happiness.
The baby in the bassinet began to stir, her little mouth open and closing. “We were going to name her Gabrielle. Gabby for short. I bought her pretty pink blankets and Chris put together a crib. We argued over colors for the nursery. We never could decide. Though in the end, we didn’t need to.”
“Imi—”
“For three months I was the happiest I could ever remember being. Even when I was with you, it was nothing compared to feeling Gabby growing inside of me,” I told him. Heartbeats. Excited smiles. Contentment.
I watched as Maria put one baby down and picked up the tiny girl who was now crying. I wished I could hold her. If one of the other nurses were on duty I’d be able to. But Maria wouldn’t allow it. So I’d be have to okay with watching from the outside.
“That’s my happy story, Yoss. The one that’s real.”
I felt Yoss press his shoulder into mine. “Where’s Gabby now?” His question was gentle. His words were knives.
This was the part of the story I didn’t like to think about.
“I suffered from a placental abruption at twenty-eight weeks.” Pain. So much of it. Blood. Red and dark running down my legs. Then an emptiness I never recovered from.
“I woke up one morning and I knew something was wrong. I could feel it. Just a few weeks before I had felt her move for the first time. That morning she wasn’t moving at all. And I knew. Chris rushed me here and I gave birth to our little girl.” I took a deep breath. “And then two days later we buried her.”
Yoss didn’t say he was sorry and I was thankful for that. I didn’t want his sympathy any more than he ever wanted mine.
“But those twenty-eight weeks were amazing. The most perfect time of my life. I was a mother. And I knew the second I found out about her that that was the only thing I ever wanted to be.” Marie realized we were standing there and gave me a sour look. I knew it was only a matter of time before she came out and told us to leave.
I took Yoss by the arm and started to walk him back to the elevator. He had been on his feet too long. I could tell that he was exhausted; his eyes were drawn. He also looked incredibly sad and I knew that my story had done that.
“A happy story doesn’t always have a happy ending,” I said as we left Labor and Delivery, feeling the need to defend my feelings.
“You didn’t have any more children,” he stated. Not asked. I noted the difference.
“No. After losing Gabby I had two more miscarriages before I was told I would never be able to carry to term. I learned that some things weren’t meant to be.”
We waited in front of the elevator and I felt strangely relieved to share my loss with him. Losing Gabby and each subsequent miscarriage had chiseled away at the shaky foundation of my marriage. Chris hadn’t understood why I chose to lock myself away in order to cope. The horrible truth was that I hadn’t loved him enough to explain.
Yoss was right. I was different. Imogen Conner was a changed woman. I had felt it the day Yoss left me. I had felt it when I was told I would have to give birth to a dead child. I had felt it when my husband closed the door behind him as he walked away from me and our marriage.
And while each had hurt in different ways, I had accepted them. I lingered over some. I swept away the others.
I felt I was stronger for it.
I had given up on happy endings and one day soons.
I was okay.
But seeing Yoss again had made me question all of it.
“Did you think about adopting?” Yoss asked and I flinched. I couldn’t help it. It had been the source of a major disagreement. One of many but perhaps the worst. The one that ultimately ended us.
I had suggested adopting. Chris had been adamantly against it.
“I won’t raise another person’s child!” he screamed, slamming his fist down on the table. If we weren’t so emotionally disconnected I would have seen the despair in his eyes at the thought of never having a baby with me. I would have realized that his anger was not only about losing our dream of a family, but it was about losing me as well.
Because I had checked out of our relationship a long time ago. Maybe I had never really checked in.
“I’m not married anymore. I’m not sure I’m up to raising a baby on my own,” I admitted.
Yoss started to take my hand just as the elevator doors opened, but then promptly stopped himself. “If you want it, you can have it, Imogen. Don’t make excuses because you’re scared,” he remarked harshly, almost angrily.
“That’s not fair, Yoss, and you know it.” I was starting to get just as angry. Just as frustrated.
Yoss ran his hands over his face, letting out a beleaguered sigh. “I wanted so much more for you than this.”
“Than what? I’ve done all right for myself,” I argued half-heartedly.
“Your happy story shouldn’t be remembering dreams you gave up on. It’s not right. Not for you, Imi.”
Yoss dropped his hands and in a sudden movement he grabbed my upper arms and pulled me towards him. I barely had time to register what he was doing before his mouth crashed angrily against mine.
Teeth. Lips. Tears.
Heartbeat slamming in my ears. His fingers curled almost aggressively into my skin.
He kissed me, not like the boy he had been, with passion and longing. This was a desperate kiss. Full of pent up emotions that had been bottled up for entirely too long.
He moaned low and ragged in the back of his throat and my knees started to buckle. I was just bringing up my arms to put around him, to try to soften the attack, when he abruptly ended the kiss.
His eyes were bright. His cheeks were flushed. Our breathing was erratic, coming in short, angry bursts.
I hadn’t kissed him in so long. But I hadn’t forgotten how he could make me forget everything. I lost all sense and reason when Yoss put his lips on mine.
I wanted, more than anything, to do it again.
But then I realized where we were.
I cast a quick look around, hoping no one saw us. There were people about, but no one seemed to be paying us any mind.
I touched my tender mouth, still feeling him there. Harsh. Almost enraged. His hands were shaking and I reached out to touch him, but he tensed, backing up slightly. Increasing the distance between us.
“Why did you leave me underneath the bridge?” I asked. For the third time.
And again I didn’t get an answer.
We were engaged in a frustrating dance where I’d ask the important questions and he would ignore me completely.
Once on the elevator, I hit the button for the third floor, staring at the ceiling as we began to make our decent. Yoss didn’t say anything else.
Neither did I.
He refused my help getting back into bed and I didn’t push it. He seemed upset. Frustrated. I didn’t really understand what had prompted the drastic mood shift and I was too emotionally exhausted to question it.
Talking about Gabby had left me open and raw. Kissing Yoss had rendered me oozing and vulnerable. I needed to leave before he inflicted more damage.
“I’ll check in with you before I leave,” I told Yoss as he lay back against his pillows, clearly tired. I felt guilty for letting him do so much when he was still recovering.
&n
bsp; “You don’t have to. I’ll be fine. Just go home,” he said as I turned to leave.
I hesitated, hurt by his dismissal. “Okay.” That’s all I could say. Even though I wanted to argue with him. I wanted to scream and cry and yell. The numbness was gone. I was all emotion. Too much emotion.
But I couldn’t give it to him. Not yet.
“I’m sorry, Imi.” His apology whispered in my ears as I left the room. But it was the words that followed that burrowed deep.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be who you deserved.”
I stopped just before opening the door.
“I’m sorry I believed that you already were,” I responded softly.
I left, not sure if I imagined the sound of his sobs.
Fifteen Years Ago
Summer felt endless. Warm days. Cool nights. Toes dipped in the river. Swimming in the current.
Drying in the grass and laughing with new friends.
Sunsets and stories.
Holding hands and stolen kisses.
It sounded perfect.
It wasn’t.
Far from it.
Summer was also dark corners and silent secrets. It was falling in love with a boy who was trying to keep himself from crumbling.
We were homeless. Living in a dirty warehouse falling asleep to the sounds of crying every single night hoping that the next day would be better than the one before it.
It was ugly.
It was real.
But there were moments that were almost beautiful. It was impossible to be with Yoss and not see the hope in the middle of so much misery.
His lips were warm on mine. I tried to ignore the taste of blood on my tongue from where his skin was split. I ran my fingers over a new burn on his arm. It was small, circular, like the end of a cigarette.
He had been gone all night. I had woken up to an empty bed and a stomach full of fear.
But then he showed up before sunrise and I was all right again.
“Get a room,” Di groaned, throwing something in our direction. Yoss grinned under my mouth, kissing me one last time before pulling away. His green eyes were shadowed, but happy.
One Day Soon Page 15
