Page 74 of The Problem with Falling
Plus, I loved her voice.
I loved her.
I felt her slipping away, though.
Or maybe it was me fading away.
Everything hurt.
I felt exhausted.
Molly took my hand in hers and patted it gently.
I felt a little less separated from reality.
I felt a little bit more at home.
I wanted to hold on because I knew how much it would hurt her for me to leave her side. Yet each passing day felt shorter, and the hourglass of my life was losing more and more sand.
How many more breaths did I have left within my lungs? And how many of those breaths could I use to tell Molly how much I loved her?
I love you, I love you, I love you, I thought when words were too hard to produce.
That was when she’d squeeze my hand as if she could hear me, then she’d kiss my forehead and say she loved me, too.
Still… I was tired.
I wondered how long the exhaustion would last until it turned into a deep slumber.
CHAPTER 23
Harry
Thirty-Three Years Ago
Molly’s eyes were glassed over after she came out of the doctor’s office she’d entered with Christina. She held her hands against her chest as tears settled in her eyes. I stood from the chair in the waiting room and rushed over to her. I wanted to go into that back room with them, but Christina said she only wanted her mom for that part.
I respected that decision—there were many things in my life that I only wanted my wife for, too.
“She’s…she’s pregnant,” Molly whispered as she broke down into sobs. I wrapped my wife into my arms and held her tighter than I’d ever held a person before.
Our daughter was taken advantage of. A man forced himself onto my daughter. Onto my flesh and blood. Onto my heartbeats, and now she was in a doctor’s office being told that she was carrying his child.
I didn’t understand it at all.
I didn’t comprehend how God could allow something like this to happen to my sweet angel.
It wasn’t fair.
It wasn’t right.
I felt nauseous just thinking about it.
“What are we going to do?” Molly asked, sobbing into my arms. “What on Earth are we going to do?”
“Get through this together,” I told her. “We’ll get through this together.”
“She’ll never be the same again. The life she knew before this is gone forever.”
