Page 13 of Between Our Hearts

He opened mouth to ask for clarification when she turned in his arms.

Her pale green eyes bore through him. “I’m sorry.”

Clenching pain ripped through his chest as understanding smashed at his brain.Again. It happened again.He wanted to drop to the floor of the shower and drag his knees to his chest, but Sadie’s haunted eyes were still watching his. Like the other times, he packed up his emotions and put them in a box.

He brought her to him, gripping her tightly. “It’s not your fault, love.”

Clark expected her to stiffen, to push him away like she’d done the first two times. To tell him she needed space and then not talk to him for days except for the necessary parental exchanges. To neverreallytalk to him about how she was feeling, even though ever since the first miscarriage, grief had gripped him so strongly that he felt he was chained to a boulder as he walked through his day. Lottie’s smiles and giggles would extend the chain by a few feet, but then he’d stumble upon the box of toys they’d stored away for the next baby, and it’d shorten to a few inches.

But Sadie didn’t.

His strong, boss-surgeon wife crumpled onto his chest and wept so savagely in his arms that he felt as if his entire world was being decimated. The pain he’d experienced seconds before was insignificant compared to the unthinkable torture of his own powerlessness in the face of Sadie’s heartbreak. His hand found the back of her head as he clung even tighter, kissing her forehead.

Each time this happened, helplessness raged through him like a violent and angry dragon. Its scaly claws ripped at his organs; its sharp teeth devoured him from the inside out. Though he was useless in the face of Sadie’s anguish, at least this time she was letting him hold her.

When the heaving of her slippery shoulders evened out and her breathing slowed, his mind raced to find something soothing to say, but all it fixated on was how they couldn’t go on like this.

“Maybe we should take a break.”

Her swollen eyes flashed with irritation as they pulled away from him. “I’m thirty-eight. Things are only going to get harder the longer we put it off.” Being of “advanced maternal age” weighed heavily on Sadie’s mind.

Hesitantly, he opened his mouth.

“Don’t.” Her eyes shot daggers at him as she took a huge step back. The water sprayed between them, and she batted at the showerhead to push the flow against the wall.

His lips pressed together and creased into a frown. He’d made the mistake of bringing up adoption a month ago, and she’d had a reaction just like this. He didn’t see any issue with giving a good, loving home to a child who needed one, but Sadie only saw that option as failure. And if there was one thing Sadie didn’t do, it was fail. She’d conquered every difficult obstacle in her life, and in her mind, she was going to overcome this.

Except maybe this wasn’t something she could strong-will her way through.

Crossing her arms over her chest, her eyes slid to her feet. “I need to finish showering.”

The bones that protected his heart felt like they were splintering.

“Sure.” His hand found the handle to the door before he stopped, swallowing against the thick saliva clogging his throat. “I love you.”

Sadie’s dewy lashes blinked, but she didn’t raise her gaze. “I love you too.”

Clark didn’t stop to strip his clothes or dry off. He simply grabbed his towel, wrapped it around himself, and raced to the back deck. Later, he’d go back and mop up the water from his footprints, but right now he needed to drag clear air into his tight lungs.

The fickle southern spring was in a mood today. It’d been nearly eighty degrees and sunny yesterday, but today it hadn’t peaked over sixty. He’d put Lottie’s aqua puffer in the coat closet earlier this week only to drag it back out on their way to Dad Bod Fitness class this morning.

He felt the cool deck boards beneath him before he realized he’d collapsed on the top step, cradling his head in his hands. When Sadie’s body had heaved irregularly against his moments ago, he’d had to stop himself from finding solace in her breakdown. It felt perverse, but since it was the first time he’d seen her cry, a part of him had almost sighed with relief.

At last, they were going to discuss the boulder that had pushed itself between them. At long last, she’d shown him she was as emotionally eviscerated by this as he was. He’d foolishly thought that they could finally work through their sorrow together instead of drifting further apart.

But then she’d pushed him away.

Again.

A halting breath left his lips as he raised his face to the dark backyard. The crisp breeze blew over his saturated clothes helping clear his mind.

He couldn’t do this anymore.

He couldn’t function in a vacuum, even though he knew Sadie didn’t want their families to know that they were having issues.

He’d overheard Jayce talking about going through a miscarriage with another dad the other day at class. Even though it was a betrayal of the trust of the woman he loved more than anything, he needed to be able to talk to someone. He needed to not feel so alone in this.

Standing up, he stripped off his wet clothes under the bright moonshine—one of the bonuses of living on five acres that was mostly forest. Once he’d toweled himself completely, he went straight to the garage. The plastic bin that held the accessories for Lottie’s swim lessons also included his trunks. After pulling them and his boots on, he hung up his wet clothes, pushed out the side door, and padded across the cement driveway to his woodshop.

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