Four more times those intense cramps grabbed hold of my body, and as I curled up on the floor on top of a towel, I thought about going for my cell phone. The pain was excruciating, and had I been in a city, I might have called an ambulance. Where I was in the middle of nowhere, though, it would have been pointless. Besides, I knew in my heart it was too late.
-§-
“Camdyn?” Cole’s gentle voice roused me from what felt like a nightmare, and I remained fast where I was on the bed, unwilling to move. “Please, talk to me.”
His voice sounded broken, and I immediately felt horrible for not considering his feelings. He must have been alarmed, walking into the room and seeing a pile of bloody towels, me lying there motionless on the bed with the old cigar box he used to hold guitar picks next to me. Everything had happened so fast, all I had cared about was putting on some clean clothes and trying to make sense of anything.
“I’m okay,” I whispered. I wasn’t certain if that was his concern at that moment, but it was all I had to offer.
“Why didn’t you call me?” he wondered, his words catching in his throat.
Raising my hand from my face, I reached out and touched that cigar box, running my finger down the side. “It just happened so fast, Cole.”
Sinking beside me on the bed, he scooped me up and held me against him, shoulders shaking slightly as he fully realized what had gone on in our bathroom.
“The baby?” he wondered, emotion changing the tone of his voice. My fingers trembled as I drew the box slightly closer, forcing myself to breathe.
“She was absolutely perfect.”
Chapter Seventeen
There are now four stones in the woods behind the house, where Cole placed that wooden bench in the spring. Three for Willa and Robert, and one for Cole and me. He wanted to invite his parents over and have some sort of service, but I just wanted to be alone with my sorrow. Whether he understood I’m not really certain, but he allowed me to do things quietly.
Cole took me to the doctor the next day, but there was really nothing to be done. Everything had happened as it should in our unfortunate situation, and life could go back to normal. There was no need for a death certificate, because I hadn’t made it to that magical twenty-week gestational stage.
Upon returning home from the doctor, Cole and I sat on the bed with the cigar box between us, unsure of how to proceed. When my grandma passed away, we went to the funeral home and they ran us through a checklist of things we needed to do. This was entirely different, because our baby didn’t exist to anyone but us. No one cared what we did with her.
“We should name her, don’t you think?” Cole’s words hung in the air between us, as though I could reach out and stuff them away, pretending they hadn’t been spoken. It wasn’t necessary to look at him to see the grief on his face – it was imprinted in my mind from the way his eyes looked earlier as we shared our unspoken sadness when he studied our baby.
“I was thinking maybe we could name her Hope,” I suggested quietly, glancing down at my fingers. They didn’t seem large now, but they had seemed gigantic when I was staring at hers.
“No,” he said with frustration. “No, Camdyn, I can’t bury hope in the backyard. I need to hang onto a little of it to keep putting one foot in front of the other.”
We didn’t discuss it anymore at that moment, but about an hour later I pulled one of my books from its shelf in the den – the complete works of Edgar Allen Poe. When I found what I was looking for, I took it to my husband and placed it in front of him, watching as his eyes skimmed the words. As he finished reading, he nodded up at me as he fought tears, and I knew we were in agreement.
I ripped a blank page out of one of the old journals I had from my grandmother, and on it I carefully wrote the words from the poem.
Neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee
That afternoon, we laid Annabel Lee Parker to rest beside the rocks where Willa had given her babies to the earth, and Cole fashioned a new rock beside them with the letter “A” crudely carved in the center. We would get something proper for her, he said, but I wasn’t sure it mattered. Whether a roughly carved rock or a smoothly chiseled stone, the impact on my heart would be the same.
-§-
The night I was supposed to have been on Almost Midnight with Jamie Price, we stayed up to see if he mentioned me. At first I told Cole I just wasn’t tired, but he figured out pretty quickly that wasn’t true when I yawned my way through the local news. Once he realized I was trying to watch Jamie, he resigned himself to staying up as well and placed his arm around me, drawing me closer on the couch.
Watching television together that night was the first “normal” thing we had done as a couple since everything began. Cole had employed himself in the habit of finding things to do, and when there wasn’t anything left to fix or tinker with around the house, he focused on improving his baseball skills. I had barely seen him the last couple of days, and when I had, it seemed we could not avoid uncomfortable, difficult conversations.
Snuggling closer under his arm, it would have been easy to doze off, but I forced myself to remain awake. The instant those opening credits began rolling, I sat a little straighter.
“It’s Almost Midnight with Jamie Price,” the announcer stated. “Tonight’s guests: Tom Hanks, crazy pet tricks, and musical guest Reba McEntire.”
“I could have met Tom Hanks,” I said with a huff. Cole chuckled and rubbed his hand softly against my arm. He had a plate of chocolate chip cookies sitting nearby – no doubt given to him by Rosalie. The smell of the chocolate was tantalizing, as I had barely eaten anything the last few days.
“Hello, hello,” Jamie stated as he stepped out toward the crowd, making a joke about a guy sitting in the front row. The gentleman appeared to be in on it, so the two bantered for a moment.
“Want a cookie?” Cole whispered, holding it in front of my face. Giving him a slight grin, I took it from his hands and broke it in half.
“We’ve got a great show for you tonight. Tom Hanks is here.” Applause came from the audience as Jamie waited patiently. “Musical guest Reba McEntire.” More waiting. “And Miguel is back with his dogs to show us some more crazy pet tricks.”
“Totally exciting,” Cole remarked. I instructed him to shush as I bit into my cookie. It tasted a little like heaven, and I savored it as I let my hand drop and rest on Cole’s thigh.
“Before we get to all that, though, I have some sad news that I wanted to relay to you,” Jamie continued. “Camdyn Taylor was supposed to be here with us tonight, but unfortunately she was not able to join us.” A couple loud sighs came out of the crowd, which made me want to laugh. “As you might recall, our beautiful friend was here last month looking very pregnant – an obvious joke done with some extra padding under her clothes. Our writer friend was pregnant, though, and nearly halfway through her pregnancy. All kidding aside, the lovely Ms. Taylor has lost her baby. I am quite certain this is a difficult time for her as well as her husband, so if you would send a prayer or some kind thoughts in her direction, I’m sure they would be much appreciated. Camdyn, if you’re watching tonight, we love you. Our hearts are breaking for you, and we can’t wait to see you again.”
“Wow,” Cole breathed, handing me another cookie. “That was really nice.”
“Yeah, it was sweet,” I admitted, biting into the mound of chocolate chips. “It made me want to cry, but I can’t. I think I must be dehydrated.”
Cole began laughing, and I couldn’t help but join in. Believing that I was subconsciously asking him to get me a drink, he poured me a glass of milk and then returned to his place on the couch.
“You have chocolate on your cheek,” he whispered, wiping it away with his thumb. I reached up and placed my hand over his, looking into his eyes. “Camdyn, I really… I just don’t know what to say. I�
��m struggling.”
“Stop trying to think of what to say and just be here, Cole. Words are useless to me right now.”
“I know,” he answered, shaking his head. “You don’t look pregnant anymore. You look like…”
“Death warmed over?” I completed for him, offering a slight smile.
“No, like quiet desperation,” he sighed. “I wish I could help you.”
Me, too, I thought. Rather than verbalize the words, though, I leaned forward and pressed a quick kiss to his lips, and then settled my head against his shoulder once again.
-§-
After a week had passed, I began jogging again. I missed the way my heart pumped when I was sprinting through the woods, and Pop seemed pleased that we were out gallivanting again as well. He ran steadily along beside me, as though he were keeping watch, while we traveled the length of the trail and then kept going right to the back of the property. I hadn’t intended to visit the little grave, yet there I was. Rather than continue to run, Pop just settled by the bench and waited. He knew the drill – it wasn’t as though I hadn’t been in the same exact spot every day since Cole carved that “A” on the rock.
Sitting on the bench, I kept my eyes on the little spot as though I expected something to happen.
“How did you do it, Willa?” I breathed into the wind. Almost in response, it whipped up a bit, blowing my ponytail hard enough that a couple strands flew in my eyes. I pulled my jacket closer and drew my legs up to my body for warmth.
For the briefest of moments I wondered if Annabel was watching me from heaven. She must have thought me pathetic, spending so much time sitting on that bench while life passed me by.
The day before, she was probably borderline ashamed of me. I was in dire need of some shampoo and deodorant, and I couldn’t bring myself to ask Cole to pick them up for me, so I drove into town and stopped at the drug store. I had taken pains to appear as presentable as possible, even though I was wearing yoga pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt. Getting dressed had seemed so uninteresting the last week or so. When I glanced in the mirror I knew my eyes looked frightful, but it was the middle of the day and I shouldn’t have seen anyone I knew.
Unfortunately, I bumped into Liz’s friend Muriel while I was picking up some toiletries. She knew about our news, naturally, because when you live in a small town, everyone knows things – sometimes before you even figure them out yourself.
“Camdyn!” she exclaimed, streaming down the aisle in my direction, her graying hair flying behind her like a flag. “Liz told us about the baby. It’s such a horrible thing.”
“Yeah,” I muttered. Everyone in that town had the distinct pleasure of completely knowing everyone else, and they often forgot that I had only been one of them for a few months. Even though Muriel probably felt like she knew me, because people undoubtedly gave her the scoop, I didn’t know her enough to want to exchange pleasantries in the drug store.
“It must be so hard for you, with Sara and Rachel being pregnant.”
Why, yes, Muriel. Thank you for rubbing salt in my wounds.
“No, it’s fine,” I assured her, attempting to walk in the other direction. Her long, thin fingers reached out and grabbed my arm, stopping my forward momentum.
“It’s hard to understand, you know, but it’s better that it happened now before finding out that something was wrong with the baby.”
What?!
“And you’ll have plenty of other babies, I’m sure, you and Cole. Bless your heart. I’ve gotta go, so you take care of yourself.”
I’d like to say that her comments were an anomaly, but two other people had said practically the same thing when they called me on the phone offering their condolences. This particular time, I endured the cashier’s sympathetic gaze and then walked out to my car, cool as a cucumber. Once tucked safely inside, I punched the steering wheel three times and screamed, fists shaking as I sat in that drug store parking lot.
Had Annabel seen that, she probably would have been grateful that she didn’t have such a horrible mother.
Tears no longer threatened every time I thought about my baby, but I was filled with rage on more occasions than I liked to admit. Every time someone even brought up the subject of God’s will, every fiber of my being longed to tell them to shut their mouths.
Hannah called at long last, after all those weeks of ignoring my calls, because she had heard Jamie talking about the baby on his TV program. I listened to the words she spoke on the answering machine without bothering to respond. It was easier to care about her grief when I didn’t have my own to contend with.
Kneeling to the ground, I ran my hand over the “A” carefully, tracing every crevice with my finger. Whatever Annabel thought of me, surely she could see that I had loved her, and that she was wanted.
Pop kept me company as we walked back to the house, and I shivered when I pulled the jacket off just inside the back door. It was unseasonably cold for late September, Cole had informed me the night before. Of course, that had been around eleven o’clock at night, when he finally came home.
“Where were you?” Cole called from the kitchen. “I was getting ready to send out a search party.”
“Jogging,” I answered simply.
“Out by the gravesite again?”
It wasn’t difficult to pretend I didn’t hear him, because I had crossed to the stairs to remove my shoes by the time the words met my ears. Question avoided for the moment, I walked into the kitchen as though nothing had been said.
“Something smells good,” I offered, attempting a smile.
“It felt like a chili kind of night,” Cole answered quickly. “You’ve got some color in your cheeks.” It was from the icy wind, I was certain, but I didn’t explain.
“Pop is quite the jogging partner. He’s calming down a bit, I think.” Leaning in across his arm, I took a big whiff of the chili.
“He’s probably trying to protect you,” Cole stated, dropping the wooden spoon he was holding to the counter. With one hand, he grabbed me around the waist and pulled me close. “I’ve instructed him to do that, you know, while I’m not here.”
“Oh?” I asked as he lowered his head to plant a feathery kiss on my neck. My heart skipped a beat as his fingers drifted into the hair at the nape of my neck, and his mouth claimed mine eagerly. Feeling his breath escape against my lips, I allowed him to draw me even closer. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“I’ve been right here,” I whispered.
“Not like this,” he argued, kissing me again. A slight protest rose within me, and I took a step back, withdrawing from his arms. With a heavy sigh, he picked up the wooden spoon and went to task with his chili again.
As soon as we were finished with dinner, he went to Jeff’s to watch the game, and I was asleep long before he came home.
-§-
“Aunt Rosalie’s fixing dinner tonight,” Cole casually mentioned the next night when he arrived home from work. “She’d like us to come over.”
“Do we have to?” I asked, looking up from the book I was reading. It was impossible not to catch the roll of his eyes before he sat next to me on the couch.
“You don’t have to do anything,” he stated. “You can sit here and curl up in a ball and wait until you blow away, I guess, but that’s a heck of a way to live.”
“Okay, you don’t need to get agitated,” I said under my breath.
“What do I have to do to get through to you, Camdyn? You’re slipping away from me, and I can’t figure out how to hold this together.”
“I’m fine,” I insisted, closing the book with a snap. “We’re fine.”
“We’re fine,” he repeated warily. “You won’t let me touch you. Every time I try, you back away.”
“I’m not ready.”
“That’s not even what I’m talking about. I try to kiss you, and I can sense that you don’t want that. When I put my hand on your arm, you flinch.”
“Maybe I’m just a little edgy…”
/>
“Edgy?!” he exclaimed, standing up and shoving his fingers into his hair. “I need my wife. I need you, Camdyn.”
“I know…” I began as the phone started ringing. Squinting his eyes and rubbing his forehead, he crossed over and picked up the receiver, mumbling a hello.
Sensing his agitation, I stood and walked to the window, staring out at the fading remains of the day. My heart didn’t want to fight with Cole, and I saw it coming. Just relax and try to console him, I told myself, determined to convince him that things were fine.
“What?” he said into the receiver, pacing over to the countertop in the kitchen and settling his fist on the rock surface. “I heard you. Not now – just, not now.” He hung up, and for a moment I hesitated to ask him if something happened. As though he forgot I was in the room, he focused his gaze at that handset in his palm, let out a deep, guttural breath, and hurled the phone at the wall with the force of a fly ball that was shot back to home plate from center field. The splinters of the plastic flew in a dozen directions, and I jerked back, shaking as I stared at him with fear in my eyes. Pulling his keys off the table, he stepped out the front door without so much as a glance in my direction.
-§-
They had Grandma Ivy’s funeral three days later.
Four long hours passed before Cole finally returned home that night, apologizing for losing his temper and informing me that his great-grandmother had passed away. I immediately understood his fury – I was tired of staring death in the face, too. The longing to feel close to him built up in me, but as I tried to touch him that night, he shrugged away from me and told me to go to sleep.
I wore peach lace with a black sweater for the funeral – my first tangible step into the real world since the beginning of our heartache. It felt strange to be dressing up to rejoin the living only to celebrate another life taken, but I couldn’t talk to Cole about it in those terms. He was barely conversing with me at all.
For No Reason (The Camdyn Series Book 4) Page 22
