Page 34 of Reclaimed (Hostage Rescue Team)

Ten months ago

Summer didn’t bother moving when she heard the sound of Adam unlocking the back door. She lay curled up on her side in their bed—well, her bed now, since he’d moved into the spare room a few weeks ago—in the darkness, and waited.

He didn’t call out her name. He knew she was home because he would have seen her car parked in the garage on his way in.

When she heard his footsteps coming up the carpeted stairway, rather than excitement tingling in her gut, there was only a heavy foreboding.

His hushed footfalls came to the door and stopped. The door creaked slightly as he opened it. He didn’t come in, just stood there backlit by the sunlight streaming through the windows at the front of the house and stared at her a moment. Well, what he could see of her huddled under the blankets with all the blinds drawn in the room.

“It’s two in the afternoon,” he said, his tone loaded with a disapproval that made her feel even worse.

She shoved back the annoyance. She knew exactly what time it was. And she didn’t want to have this fight again so she didn’t bother answering.

Adam expelled a sigh and folded his arms across his chest. “This is the fourth time in two weeks.”

The fourth time in two weeks she’d left work in the middle of the day and come home to lie in bed in the dark. Alone. Ever since this latest miscarriage had sent her careening back into the tailspin she’d struggled so hard to pull out of after the stillbirth.

This time she wasn’t sure if she’d make it.

She fought the urge to roll her eyes at her husband. Like she needed to be reminded of that? She was more than fucking aware of how much work she’d missed. Her boss was growing increasingly annoyed with it too. His fading support didn’t hurt as much as Adam’s though.

When she didn’t respond she could literally feel the poisonous silence spread between them. Normally the building tension would eventually push her sadness into anger, which was a relief in a way, but lately rather than arguing she’d just begun retreating farther into herself instead.

The release of yelling and fighting felt good in the moment, but it always made things worse in the end and she’d crash even harder. So, better not to say anything at all.

Adam stood there for a full three minutes, staring at her. Waiting for her to say something, or maybe hoping she’d spring out of bed and “get over it already”, she wasn’t sure. She could feel the weight of his judgment, the heavy pressure of his frustration pressing down on her. And she was already so deep beneath the surface, she was afraid that one day she may never come up for air again.

It was clear he would never understand how badly she was hurting inside. That he didn’t get it.

So many times they’d fought about it. She’d tried over and over to explain how badly the stillbirth and latest miscarriage had affected her. But it didn’t matter how many times she’d talked to him about it, tried to explain her side of things.

Bottom line: He hadn’t been there. He hadn’t seen what she’d gone through. He hadn’t held little A.J.

None of that was his fault; she knew he’d gotten to her as fast as possible. But she couldn’t forgive him for this.

He had no patience for what the counselor had warned them would be a two steps forward, one step back kind of recovery. Maybe because hers was more like a one step forward, one step back cycle of endless suffering.

Just when she felt like she might finally be making progress, it hit her all over again. The guilt and loss.

She wasn’t the kind of person to make excuses or curl up in a ball when things got hard. But this had crippled her emotionally. Nothing had worked. Not even the meds she’d finally agreed to try to help balance her brain chemistry.

Some days she functioned at an almost normal level and others were like this, when the crushing sadness hit her like a brick wall and she had to leave work. Sometimes it took two or three days for her to be able to drag herself out of bed and go to the office.

No one understood her pain, and no one could help her. Even though they meant well, she’d stopped taking calls from her family and friends. She was sick of the pep talks, of Adam’s tough love speeches.

You have to want to help yourself.

You have to get out of bed and try.

You need to let go of the past.

It didn’t matter that she understood the reason behind them. Adam couldn’t stand seeing her like this and wanted to fix her. Well, he couldn’tfixthis, and every time he opened his mouth he just pushed her farther away. Yes, she was perfectly aware that adoption was a possibility for them, that plenty of babies and children out there needed a good home.

But she’d wanted so desperately to have her own child.

Still in the doorway, he took a deep breath then let it out in a slow exhalation of air. Obviously trying to make an effort to curb his frustration and not get angry. Still, she braced herself for another lecture.

His SF background made it impossible for him to accept her current condition, or that there was nothing he could do about it. As far as he was concerned, she could conquer anything if she just put her mind to it. He was angry because in his opinion, she’d given into the depression. To her it felt like he didn’t even try to understand what she was going through.

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