On the Way Back

by Fox, Ella

  When I went to speak, he held up his hand to stop me. “Don’t knee jerk answer with more bullshit,” he instructed. “The worst thing possible had just happened, and you were reeling. You needed someone or something to blame and when the doctor told us they’d need to do an autopsy to try to figure out what happened, you chose to apply blame to the easiest person for you to be mad at—which was yourself. No one ever judges us as harshly as we judge ourselves, but the reality is that quite often the verdicts we come to aren’t based on fact.”

  I frowned as I took in everything he was saying. The pain of the doctor telling us that Melody was gone had been so excruciating that I’d crumbled. They’d had to sedate me twice—once in the office after the ultrasound and again when they took her from us for the last time, but it hadn’t done anything for the pain in my heart. With no answers offered after the ultrasound and none after the delivery, I’d been confused and angry. When they laid our daughter in my arms and I’d seen how perfect she was, it felt like my world stopped spinning. In that moment, I’d known it was my fault.

  “Take the narrative you’ve applied to the memory out and really, truly think about it,” Garrett insisted. “Go back to the day you told me you were pregnant. Think about the way you felt after you told me. Do you remember what you thought and felt that day?”

  Letting out a long breath, I thought back to the morning I’d told Garrett we were having a baby. I remembered the sound of the plastic cup he drank his morning shakes out of hitting the floor after it slipped from his fingers, and the way he hugged me tight, like I’d given him the moon, and I remembered him dropping to his knees, kissing my stomach with pure joy. I thought about those few minutes often, the memory of that joy so bittersweet it made me cry. The thing was that the memory of that day always stopped there, because in my mind what came after wasn’t as important. Only now did I see how wrong I was.

  For the first time in forever, I thought about what had happened later in the day. That night, in the quiet of our bedroom where I was curled up next to my husband after he fell asleep, I’d had a realization. The day I’d taken the home pregnancy tests, I’d fallen in love with my baby between one breath and the next. I’d been staggered by the enormity of the feeling, but the anxiety that came up behind it had felt bigger. I’d started crying as one terrible what-if scenario after another danced through my head. Sadly, each scenario had been a memory of my childhood with Jewel, and the idea that I’d fail my child in even one of the ways my mother failed me caused me such panic I lost it.

  All of the anxiety and worry I’d had about being pregnant hadn’t been about the baby at all. It had always been about me, and the ways I could fail a child. Those thoughts terrified me as nothing else ever had because already I loved my baby so much that the idea of fucking up in any way was anathema to me.

  I’d spent the few days between taking the home pregnancy tests, having a doctor confirm, and telling Garrett the news, in a fog. It cleared up the moment I walked into the kitchen and found him singing Here Comes the Sun. In that moment, I got it. All the pieces came together in one perfect moment as my nerves faded away. We were going to be parents, and I couldn’t wait to meet our child.

  The rest of the day had been amazing. With each passing hour, I felt stronger. So, while Garrett slept, I’d had a silent conversation with the baby inside of me. I’d vowed to love him or her like crazy, to always be there for them, to protect them at all cost, and to be the best mother I could possibly be. My eyes had been full of happy tears when I told my baby how honored I was that they’d chosen me to be their mom.

  At some point during every single one of the days where I’d been pregnant with Melody, I’d mentally promised those same things to her. I hadn’t just been excited about being a mother—I’d been ecstatic. By the time I was eight and a half months pregnant, I’d been more than ready to step up to the plate and be a mom. The only thing I’d feared at that point was the pain of delivery.

  Thinking back to that time hurt like hell, but for the first time, the pain was for a good reason. Taking a shuddering breath, I met Garrett’s eyes.

  “I can’t believe I let myself forget. You’re right—I never would’ve ended the pregnancy. I loved our baby so much,” I murmured. “As scared as I was of fucking up, right from the very beginning, I was in love.”

  When he pulled me into his arms, I went willingly. I held on tight as I sobbed for the second time that day—only this time, my tears were from relief. I’d spent every single day since Melody died hating myself for something that had never really happened. The idea that my daughter might have gotten to heaven and found out that I’d been on the fence about having her had caused me such extreme pain that it nearly destroyed me.

  Understanding that wherever she was, she would only know how much I’d loved her from the very start was more than I’d ever dared to hope for. The shame of the things I’d believed was the biggest reason I’d refused to go to therapy in Los Angeles. The thought of telling a stranger that story and having them judge me as harshly as I judged myself had been more than I could handle.

  I’d been working up the courage to see a therapist in Vegas, but still, I’d worried about being judged. The worry had been so extreme that I had pretty much talked myself into being less than one hundred percent honest with a doctor. Nothing could change what I’d done, so it was pointless anyway.

  It had seemed hopeless, but thanks to Garrett, I had a sliver of something I hadn’t felt in over a year.

  Peace.

  Chapter Eleven

  Garrett— August 2001

  On one hand, it killed me to hold my wife as she cried uncontrollably. On the other, I was relieved because I knew they weren’t the same kind of tears as the heartbreaking sobs she had shed over the last year.

  These weren’t tears of loss—they were tears of relief. After all this time, she’d found something she hadn’t understood was missing.

  She cried for a long, long time, and I held on tight through it all. I held back tears of my own as I thought of what a fucking moron I was for not figuring out that she’d found another way to judge herself so harshly. Eventually, her tears started to calm.

  As they did, my thoughts drifted to Shaelyn’s mother, the stupid, selfish cunt who had torn her daughter down for eighteen years. I blamed her almost entirely for the fact that my wife had spent a year hating herself. The truth was that I wanted to strangle her, and that was just for starters. Never had I known a more despicable person, which was saying a lot since I worked in Hollywood. In the middle of thinking about all the ways I could destroy whatever career Jewel Monroe had left, Shaelyn pulled back and began wiping at her face. Shifting my attention to her, I was relieved to see that her tears had stopped.

  “I know there’s more to talk about, but I need to go wash my face,” she murmured. “My eyes are so puffy I can barely see, but I know your shirt has to be covered in tears. Do you want me to go ask Alan for one of his shirts?”

  I gestured with my head toward the door to the hallway. “My overnight bag is out in the living room. Also, I asked Alan and Goldie to clear out for the night so you and I could talk.”

  Something flashed across her face so quickly that I couldn’t decipher it. My bet was that she’d had a moment of panic. We hadn’t done anything more than hug in over a year—and that included kissing. After Melody died, it was as if Shaelyn’s body shut down, and I wasn’t the kind of asshole who would push it. It physically pained me not to touch my wife, but I would never push her.

  “They’re gone?”

  Nodding, I sat back and helped her off the bed. “I knew our conversation was going to be deep and I didn’t want Goldie to be here worrying about it. They’re at a suite on the strip—I told them I’d call or text if they were needed. Don’t worry—I know I’m sleeping in the guestroom,” I assured her.

  There was a faint blush on her cheeks as she nodded and turned away. “I didn’t think you were trying to… you know.”
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  It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that I was dying to throw her on the bed and make love with her until neither of us could move, but I figured that was too big a step to take.

  “We aren’t there yet but anytime the mood strikes you just clue me in and I’ll you know you all night long,” I teased.

  The soft laugh that followed as she walked away was like music to my ears. She wasn’t back to normal by any stretch of the imagination, but for the first time in more than a year, I saw real signs of progress.

  In spite of the fact that her hair was up in a half-undone ponytail, it was noticeable that she’d had it colored. The so-damn-pale-it-was-nearly-translucent shade her skin had been for the last year had been replaced by her regular light golden tone. Another great thing was that she no longer looked as if a stiff breeze would blow her away. She’d dropped at least ten or fifteen pounds below her normal weight. She hadn’t gained it all back but she wasn’t skin and bones, which told me she was eating. The thing that relieved me most was the disappearance of the swimming-pool-size bags beneath her eyes. Even with her eyes swollen and puffy from crying, she no longer looked ill. The haunted look she’d had still lingered, but it was far less noticeable.

  I pulled the black tee I was wearing off and bundled it into a ball as I walked to the living room. Unzipping my overnight bag, I shoved the wet-with-tears-tee into one of the side pockets before I opened the main part of the bag and pulled out a well-loved tee with the word Moab across the chest. In some ways, it felt like a lifetime had passed since the day I’d arrived on that movie set in the desert and met the girl who changed my entire life. In other ways, it felt like it had happened just yesterday.

  Closing my eyes, I remembered the first time I saw Shaelyn in the makeup trailer. People have argued over whether love at first sight is a real thing since forever. When I looked over and saw Shae for the first time, it wasn’t that I fell instantly in love, though I don’t think it was far off.

  I’d been hit with a feeling so powerful that it had rocked me to the core. Between one blink and the next, I’d known my entire life was about to change because of her. When she looked up and met my eyes, I’d waited to see that same knowledge hit her. There’d been something there, just a flash, but then she blinked and it was like nothing had ever been there at all. When she lifted the book she was reading so that it blocked my view of her, I’d been blindsided by the immediate sense of loss.

  Something about that girl got to me on a soul level from the very beginning, and nothing had changed about that. I loved her more than I’d ever suspected it was possible to love someone, and that only grew as time went on. Losing Melody was the most painful experience of my life, but even that made my love for Shaelyn grow. We had a shared pain that no one else could ever understand the way we did. Although our families had mourned, it was different for Shaelyn and me. We were parents who had lost a child before she ever took a breath and the memories of the delivery experience were ours alone. There wasn’t a day or even an hour that went by where I didn’t wish that day would’ve ended differently. I would’ve given up everything if it meant our daughter could have lived.

  “Are you okay?”

  I startled at the sound of Shaelyn’s voice. Opening my eyes, I turned and saw her leaning against the entry to the living room.

  I nodded as I shook my shirt out before I pulled it over my head. “I’m good—just thinking.”

  “About?” she asked, her voice soft.

  Turning her way, I gestured to the shirt I’d just put on. “This made me think back to the first time I saw you. When you lifted that book up in front of your face to avoid eye contact, I assumed the insane interest I immediately had in you was one-sided.”

  Her eyes went soft as a smile played at her lips. “I thought you were probably waiting for me to go bananas the way the rest of the world did whenever you paid them any attention.”

  I snickered and shook my head. “The reality is that I was thinking I had work to do if I wanted to get your attention.”

  She let out a quiet laugh. “As it turned out, you didn’t need to do much work at all. You had my attention from that day on.”

  “Has that changed?” I asked. I knew it hadn’t, but I needed to know if she was able to acknowledge that truth.

  “The only change is that it’s grown stronger over time,” she admitted.

  I felt those words in my chest. In many ways they were validation that I’d been right to fight for her, for us, no matter what. I held her gaze as I crossed the room to where she stood. When I opened my arms, she didn’t hesitate to step into my embrace.

  We stayed like that for a minute. I wanted to hold her forever but being so close to her was once again having an effect on my body that I knew she wasn’t ready for. Letting go, I gestured to the couch. Once she sat down, I took position next to her while she got comfortable. Turning to the side so that she faced me, she positioned her back against the arm of the couch and crossed her legs pretzel-style.

  “Tell me about what upset you earlier. Alan told me a little, but I want to hear it from you. Locking emotions up and pretending that not talking about them somehow makes them less powerful hasn’t worked and it never will because it can’t. The more we bury, the more there is to deal with.”

  Shaelyn winced as she licked her lips and looked away. Taking a deep breath, she exhaled slowly. “I didn’t think it was possible to hurt any more than I already do but Jesus, Garrett. How is it okay that we lost our baby, but Jewel had a daughter with no problem? She doesn’t even like children!”

  I’d been thinking on that ever since Alan had called to tell me Shaelyn was having an emotional breakdown. Although I wasn’t crying or lashing out, I was just as angry and emotional about it as my wife was. I’d had a front-row seat to the havoc Jewel’s bullshit had created, and I hated her for it. The way I felt about Jewel Monroe was neither kind nor positive, and knowing that she had another innocent child at her mercy made me fucking sick.

  My wife and I would willingly have died for our daughter, as most parents would. Jewel was far too fucking selfish to ever consider putting anyone before her. She didn’t give a shit about the first daughter she’d had and neglected. She wasn’t the type of woman who would change, either. Her kind of petty selfishness was cemented into her DNA, which meant she damn sure shouldn’t have had another child.

  “It’s not okay that she had another child,” I answered. “In fact, it’s beyond fucked up, and it makes me want to punch walls. Jewel is a cunt, and I feel sorry for that child. But conflating the two things isn’t right. Our losing Melody didn’t mean that woman got to have a healthy child. The two things aren’t connected at all, Shae. Sometimes life is fucked up and unfair—and unfortunately, this is one of those times. The randomness of it doesn’t make it any easier to swallow, but that’s the truth.”

  “I know that in here,” she murmured as she tapped at the side of her head with her index finger. “My heart is another story. It feels like a kick in the face that she came here with a child in tow. Some part of me hopes that she’s changed and that baby…”

  Pausing, she took a breath and looked away. “But she’s not just a random baby. My sister. Lola,” she said. “That’s her name. I want to believe Jewel can love and parent far better than she ever did with me, but I know that’s nothing but fantasy. Even though I tried to convince myself that maybe that’s the case, I know it’s not. My neighbor spouting her mouth off about bullshit sends that message loud and clear. Jewel’s still spreading lies, still refusing to take responsibility for her actions, and still venomous. On top of everything else—the anger and the frustration with the universe, mostly— now I’m worried about a child I’ll never meet.”

  “I can’t argue any of that,” I admitted. “The timing is fucking shit, and I hate that you’ve just had all this bullshit dumped on you, but you can’t let Jewel hold you back any more than she already did. Does it suck that you can’t change who she is for y
our sister? Of course, it does. It sucks for you, it sucks for Goldie, and most of all, it sucks for that baby. I wish I could tell you that there was a solution, but there’s not. Sometimes the hand life deals us is shit, and there’s nothing that can be done to change it—something you and I know all too well.”

  Tilting her head back to look at the ceiling, Shaelyn nodded as she let out a long breath. “You’re right. It’s out of my hands—and out of Goldie’s, too.”

  When she looked back at me, I was relieved to see that although there was emotion in her eyes, it wasn’t the kind of pain I’d lost her to before. She’d turned a corner somehow, but I knew there was still a long road back.

  “Now we need to talk about what is in your hands, Shae. No more bullshit, no more half-truths or evasions. That ended the second I was told why you really left me, and it’s never happening again. Can you do that?”

  “I… yes.”

  I could see that she was scared as fuck, but mixed in with that fear there was a desire for change along with some determination. It was time for her to tap into all of that and fight— for herself, and for us.

  “On the way here I thought a lot about all of the things I should’ve or could’ve done differently over the course of the last year. Above all else, the one thing I wish I’d been stronger about was getting you to see that you need help. Every time I brought it up you balked and I backed off because I hated upsetting you. That’s my failure, straight up. Sometimes upsetting the person you love is the realest way to help them. I failed you then, but I won’t make that mistake twice. It’s time, Shaelyn. You need—”