Page 37 of About Time

I’m carrying Hattie in my arms, with her head hanging limply, and both of us covered in her blood. The moment anurse comes out and sees us the doctors and nurses burst into a flurry of activity. They have me lay her on a gurney, and in moments she’s out of my sight. The moment she’s taken from me I fade into a sort of half-existence. My life before her was shallow and unfulfilling. The idea I will have to go back to that is inconceivable because my ignorance made me think I was happy. Being married to Hattie for the last three months has opened my eyes to that reality, and I’ll never be able to convince myself I’m happy being on my own again.

I’m not sure how much time passes while my mind replays the horrors of the last few hours. The doors open and a doctor approaches me. My stomach drops seeing the solemn look on his face. I’ve never been this scared in my life.

“Your wife suffered a placental abruption. She needed a blood transfusion?—”

“Doctor, please just spit it out. Is my wife okay?” I interrupt him.

“Like I was saying, she needed a blood transfusion. I’m sorry to tell you that she miscarried. We had to perform an emergency D&C to prevent infection and halt the bleeding. She’s in recovery now, and the anesthesia hasn’t worn off yet, but you can go in and sit with her.”

I stand up to follow him, and he gets a better look at my current state. “Why don’t you follow me and I’ll have one of the nurses get you a pair of scrubs and show you to her room after you’ve changed.”

I speed through scrubbing her blood off my hands and arms, and changing my clothes. After I finally make it to her bedside, I take her hand. It’s so cold that I have to focus on the rise and fall of her chest to reassure myself she’s still alive.

Once again I’m reminded that while Hattie fills my life with so much joy and love, the only thing I bring her is pain. For awhile, I convinced myself we could actually work, but now I see clearly. Staying in her life may actually be the end of her.

I love her far too much to be selfish enough to keep her. I finally understand what is meant by setting someone you love free. She may hate me for a while, but her life will be so much better without me in it.

Not yet though. I need to make sure she’s really okay. When we part I want to know that she’ll be happy. I won’t be without her, but at least I’ll be satisfied knowing she’s living the life she is meant to live.

Chapter Sixteen

Hattie Past- Age 19

There aremoments in life where it’s hard to understand that the world didn’t stop for everyone. When you experience a loss so profound it feels like it should. How is it fair that I get to wake up to see the sun rise and set again and again when my baby will never even see it once?

There are so many questions I’ll never have the answers to. I won’t know if my baby was a boy or a girl, and I won’t know if they would have looked more like me or Charlie. The not knowing plagues me, but the biggest question is why I can’t cry.

“Doll, you’re freaking me out,” Charlie says as he helps me get out of the truck.

“Hmm?” I blink my eyes and try to push through the fog that surrounds me. “The doctor said I’ll be okay.”

The bed dips down as he sits next to me. “I know he did, I have been here. I’ve been watching you all night, but it has felt like you’ve been somewhere else.”

Charlie rubs his hand down my hair, tucking some of it behind my ear. “Where have you been going inside that head of yours?”

I try to lick my lips. They’re cracked, and my tongue feels thick. Without me even having to ask Charlie leans over me and grabs the glass of water he put on the nightstand.

“Thank you,” I say, my voice still scratchy.

My thoughts move slowly through the sludge inside my brain. It takes me several seconds to remember he asked me a question. “I’m sorry I keep zoning out.”

He bends down and kisses me on the head. “It’s perfectly understandable.”

The days fly by, especially since I spend at least half of them inside my head. Charlie sets me up in our room and then leaves me to rest. That first night it’s hard to sleep alone in our bed. I can hear the hum of the television in the living room. I don’t know if he’s fallen asleep with the TV on, or if he never intended on coming to bed.

Time is supposed to heal wounds, but a week clearly isn’t long enough to recover emotionally from losing a baby. It sure as hell hasn’t done any good for my marriage. Each hour that passes I can feel a divide between Charlie and me growing, and I don’t know how to stop it. Every night I go to bed alone, so I can, “have space to recover,” as he keeps telling me.

Nighttime is confusing. It’s horrible and wonderful at the same time. For brief moments I have peace, but to get them I also have to survive moments of absolute terror. I never get one without the other and somewhere in the middle of the night I keep waking up screaming.

“Doll, wake up. C’mon you’re okay,” Charlie’s voice is pleading as he shakes me awake.

Charlie has pulled me into his arms and rocks me back and forth. This is part of the peace. For the briefest of moments, I let go of the pain and just absorb the feeling of warmth and security of having his arms around me.

He gently moves me off his lap to look me over, and just like that, I know the moment is over. The first couple of nights I had hope that we’d fall into each other’s arms and hold on through this pain until it didn’t weigh so heavy. I gave up on that idea after the fifth night.

Charlie hasn’t slept beside me since we lost our baby. I’m starting to fear it was also the night I lost my husband. There are a lot of things I’m actively ignoring, but one thing I can’t is that I haven’t been to school in a week.

Monday morning, eight days after I lost the baby, I force myself out of bed and into the shower. It’s time to rejoin the world, whether I want to or not. I’m not going to be a mother right now, so I should at least try and remain a student.

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