Page 30 of Between Our Hearts

But after her second miscarriage in January, she’d been using this small grey room more and more. Sadie entered her office and sat at the computer to type out the decisions she and Dr. Duran had made about “synergistic practices” between their two departments. An hour or so later, when everything had been catalogued and sent off, her eyes drifted to the picture of her, Clark, and Lottie on their daughter’s first birthday.

Her fingertips touched the cool metal edge of the picture frame as she gazed into the happy faces of the past. A smile lifted the corner of her mouth as she brushed a thumb over the glass protecting Clark’s grinning face. Setting the frame down, she glanced at her computer screen. There was no reason that she couldn’t finish the rest of her tasks at home.

Sadie pushed to her feet, gathering up her belongings, when shooting pain stretched across her lower abdomen, doubling her over. An agonized groan escaped her lips before she could inch forward to tap her office door closed. Awareness dawned that she was starting her period. Each time after was uncomfortable, but the pain she was experiencing now was nearly as bad as her last miscarriage.

She was prone on the carpet-tiled floor before her mind had caught up with the action. Scratchy carpet fibers poked at her cheek as a somber breath echoed in the empty room. The agonizing cramping only reminded her that she was no longer filled with life, as she should have been.

Though this time it had been a punch to the abdomen, there were times when the sorrow would unexpectedly sneak up on her. She’d be mid-surgery, or driving, or brushing her teeth, and one thought would prick at her consciousness. It’d start at a finite point, like the tip of her shoulder, and then diffuse through her whole body like a drop of dye in a glass of water, insidiously spreading throughout all her tissues and organs until she had to fight to stay upright and breathe through it.

After the worst of the cramping had subsided and she’d collected herself, Sadie drove blindly until her car sat in the familiar parking lot. The entire time she picked out, held the flimsy, slightly dirty plastic container in her hands, and stood in line to pay, she tried to ignore the cracking sensation in her chest.

Sadie dragged in a ragged inhale, and the scents of wood and soil in the hardware store jockeyed for her attention. She felt like she had many times before—that she had to pick one. Wood or Soil. Clark or her coping mechanism. She couldn’t have both, even though that was what her heart yearned for.

As the older woman in front of her paid with a check, Sadie warred with herself internally.

This is crazy. You know that. You’re a doctor. You have to acknowledge by this point that this is a compulsion. You need to talk to someone. You need to tell someone how you’re feeling. You can’t keep burying your emotions.

She shook her head.

It’s fine. This is fine.

Silence was her companion as she finished the drive to the park on the other side of Northwood. Two weeks after that first flower had been planted, Sadie had found herself pot in hand at another well-manicured green space. Over the last year, she’d found solace over and over again as her locations had expanded from one to nine.

Eventually, she’d become more selective. The park couldn’t be too small, unless there was a natural tree line because the plants would be discovered too easily. As kind as Deborah had been at Peaceably Park, she doubted she’d receive the same sympathy from other groundskeepers.

Sadie’s tires crunched on the gravel of the eight-car parking lot, and a relieved breath left her lips finding it empty. Lake Trail Park was more of a large nature preserve than a park. There was a mile-long mulch trail around the man-made lake, one single ramada with a cement table, and a bathroom.

She dug her trowel out from the hidden storage bin in the back hatch and walked toward the side of the lake, mindful of the poison ivy that was flourishing everywhere. Minutes later, when she pressed the soil firmly over the third plant, she waited for that flooding sensation to pour through her veins. For the glimmering of relief to descend upon her after adding life to the earth because her body couldn’t.

Only this time, it didn’t.

This time, the shredding feeling in her chest matched the one that was ripping through her belly.

She stayed in a kneeling position for a long time, her forehead almost touching her forearms stacked on her quads. Eventually, she rocked back on her heels, pushing to an unstable standing position. Nothing was lighter. Only heaviness remained, pulling on her weary muscles, trying to disintegrate her bones.

Sadie gave herself over to gravity, allowing it to mold her with rough hands until she was rolled into her ball, perched on the nearby log. The sun began to dip behind the trees just beyond the water when her phone rang in her chest scrub pocket. She released the pressure of her thighs against her stomach enough to glance at the screen.

Clark’s smiling face stared at her. Over the last few months, he’d stopped calling to ask if she’d be home for dinner. Generally, he’d wanted to know if he should go through the trouble of cooking a full meal, or if he could just eat a quesadilla with Lottie and call it a night.

Sadie knew he’d stopped calling because she’d so rarely made it to dinner. Somehow, after being home the last few nights, she’d apparently reset their behaviors. The screen glowed and vibrated in her hands before the call was sent to voicemail. She pressed it to her forehead with a halting exhale.

I’m sorry.

Sadie couldn’t even say those two words out loud to the emptiness of the lonesome park surrounding her. They stayed trapped in her mind with all the other words she wanted to tell her husband.

Please help me.

I’m in so much pain.

If she let everything that brewed inside her out, she’d break open at the seam. A line would split down the middle of her body that even the talented Parker couldn’t suture back together.

Parts of her weren’t evenheranymore.

Each time she miscarried, a percentage of her turned over to grief. Her body became marred and tangled. She wasn’t even sure what segments were still her. A couple of ribs? Her ulna? The cartilage composing her nose?

How could Clark love this version of her? The version of her that was more broken than not. He’d only ever known her as a confident, accomplished woman.

He can’t.The truth whispered on the breeze blowing across her face.

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