Page 69 of Promise Me This

“When you were here the first time, what seems like a lifetime ago, Callum would begrudgingly answer my calls once or twice a month in the few spare moments he wasn’t with you.” I start to interrupt, to apologize, but she squeezes my knee and I fall silent. “He was generally such a private child, but there was just something about you. He’d have shouted your name from the rooftops if there were a rooftop accessible to him.

“Once, I caught him just after the two of you had returned from a hiking trip in Wicklow. Callum told me all about how you took turns holding ten schoolchildren from a bus tour up on your shoulders to let them see the eggs in a bird’s nest at the mouth of the trail.” A huff of amusement passes over her parted lips. “He was so taken with you, you know that?”

I shake my head at the wallpaper rather than at her. It’s different from the one in my attic. A dark, forest green with golden vines winding the length of it fills the room, making it feel smaller. Or maybe it’s just because I’m feeling too big all of a sudden. Too seen.

“I don’t understand. What does that have to do with anything?” I ask the wall.

Her hand on my knee grows firm like she’s holding on to me for dear life.

“I had another baby, before Callum.” Her voice is gravel. It’s gargled water. It’s a gasping breath.

I look at her, seeing clearly for the first time in days. Her skin is weathered and soft around her eyes, but her spirit is as evergreen as her irises. The memories sparking to life within her now are as real and as raw as if they’d happened yesterday.

For her, they must’ve. Just as mine did for me.

“He doesn’t know about it, and I’d appreciate it if you'd keep things that way.”

“I would never—”

“I know,” she interjects. Her lips form a sad phantom of a smile. “I know you wouldn’t, Leona.” Her voice warbles, and I want to tell her that it’s okay. That she doesn’t have to tell me. But I know from experience how lonely it is to carry someone’s whole life story within yourself. To have no one to share it with. So I stay silent.

“I miscarried. It was just around the twenty-week mark, by my count. Everything was fine. I was young, had no health problems, and didn't have a reason in the world to be worried. But then one day I started bleeding, and it didn’t stop.

“The doctor said there was nothing he could do. I had to deliver that tiny, tiny baby. A girl, if you can believe it.” She grins at the memory even as tears leak from the corners of her eyes. “I had a little girl. Then they took her away. In those days, the doctors didn’t even let you see the baby, though I’ve no idea why. I didn’t even get to say goodbye. I didn’t even get to bury her.”

Before I know it, my own tears are falling, and the only sound in the room is our respective sniffling. It feels as though we’ve run into an old friend that we failed to discover we both know before now. Grief, that long lost link, embraces us, and we embrace each other, completing the circle.

“Now look at me, blubbering like a baby,” Siobhan scoffs, drawing back just enough to pat her eyes dry before offering her handkerchief to me. I shake my head, opting instead to wipe my eyes with my cotton sleeve.

“I had a daughter, too. She was stillborn at the beginning of my third trimester.” I stare at our feet where they dangle off the edge of the bed. Siobhan waits, not rushing to fill the silence after my admission. I hesitate on the precipice of honesty. “How did you know? That we were the same?”

“After I lost the baby, it hurt too much to talk about. It’s a pain a man could never understand. Even his father, the bastard, could only grieve her so much. But I felt her; I carried her. She was as real to me as Callum,” she whispers. I wonder if she knows that her arms have wrapped around her middle like mine so often do, cradling someone who is no longer there. “That's why he left. When we finally had Callum, I obsessed over the boy. I didn’t save any of myself for the marriage. Can’t be blaming him for wanting more than a shell of a wife, you know.”

I bite a chunk of skin off my lip, tasting metal. “But how could he leave Callum? After all that?”

She shakes her head. “It took years after the miscarriage before I could be in the room with another child. Or even see a pregnant woman without tearing up. I think, when Callum came along, it was like that for him, too. Maybe his grief manifested itself in that way.” After a long pause, she lets out a harsh laugh while staring up at the ceiling. “Or maybe he was just a sorry bastard, and I’m giving him too much credit.”

A laugh sputters out of me, and it does wonders to ease the tightness in my chest.

“I see that same thing in you, with the way you orbit Niamh.” Her gaze falls to me, and I make myself meet it. “Nobody who lifts up ten children to see baby birds would keep that little ball of sunshine at arm’s length the way you do. Not without a reason.”

I feel suddenly exposed, and my skin catches flame. “I’m sorry, I never meant to—”

“Stop apologizing, Leona.” She cups my cheek tenderly, forcing me not to break eye contact no matter how badly I want to. “I’m not accusing you or judging you, or any of it. I simply want you to know that I’ve been there, I’ve walked the path you are on, and I’m reaching back for you. You’re going to make it, you hear me?”

A sob lodges in my throat, desperate to be let out. I can hardly breathe around it, but I nod.

She studies my face, stroking my cheek with her thumb in a calming metronome. “Was the baby Callum’s?”

I can’t hold it in any longer. I nod through the torrent of tears that flows over her hand. My trembling palm is pressed firmly against my chest, trying to suppress the ache that threatens to split me open. I wait for the admonishment. For the anger. For her to kick me out of this room for keeping this from her, but it never comes.

Instead she releases my face to wrap her arms around me and pull me into her. Her gray hair fills my vision, and the scent of jasmine invades my senses. It reminds me so acutely of my mother that I unravel even further.

“Callum’s a lot of things. He’s stubborn and a workaholic and not very sociable these days.” Her lips move against my hair, tickling my scalp. I focus on the sensation as I try to steady my breaths. “He’s grumpy as the Irish weather. But he’s a damn good father to Niamh. He’d love to know he had another baby.”

“He’s going to hate me,” I say, whimpering like a child.

“He’s not going to hate you.” She pulls back to look at me, smiling in that soft, knowing way that seasoned mothers do. “I don’t think that boy could get an ounce of his body to hate you if he tried. You were barely more than a child yourself, Leona. He will be angry at first, like I imagine you were when you lost her. Mad he got you into this in the first place. But it’ll pass, and you’ll both be better for it. You’ll have each other to lean on.”

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