me. Whatever you put in my way, I will move it. I’m not afraid of anything you show me. I’ll never leave you.”
She took his head and pressed her brow tight to his. “You’re my husband.”
At the simple declaration, his eyes blurred hot and he hugged her hard.
“You’re the father of my child,” she said. “You’re my life, you’re helping me breathe, you’re keeping me alive. And I swear you are the only thing I love in this fucking world right now.”
His body shuddered in her arms. He dug his fingers in the stale tangle of her unwashed hair and tasted the misery on her skin.
“God, I hate everything,” he said. “I love you and hate every fucking thing else.”
The fertility clinic put them in touch with a support group for parents of stillborn babies. Daisy found some comfort in the meetings, but Erik was strangely untouched by them. The horror stories shared around the circle beaded up on his skin. Nothing stirred his empathy or validated his feelings. He sat through the sessions with an attentive expression, surrounded by people in the best position to understand him. Yet he felt utterly misunderstood.
Worse was having to see marriages straining and crumbling before their eyes. People attending solo because their spouse wouldn’t come. On more than one occasion, Erik was the only male present in the circle of chairs, listening to women grieve not only for the loss of their child, but the loss of communication, of support and intimacy. He felt the eyes on him as if he were the representative of the absent men. Tearful glances asking, what’s wrong with him? What am I doing wrong? Tell me.
He had neither answers nor understanding. Overnight it seemed he and Daisy had crept into a new phase of mourning and they couldn’t bear being apart. They followed each other everywhere. One’s five-minute errand was cause for the other to get in the car.
“I’d like to be alone.”
“Fine, I’ll come with you.”
It got slightly ridiculous. He sat on the bathmat waiting for her to finish showering. She waited for him outside the men’s room at restaurants. They stopped what they were doing eight times a day to put arms around each other, helping each other limp and hobble toward an unreachable finish line.
Barbegazi had never been such a mess. They let the food spoil, the dishes pile up and the laundry go undone. The garden beds fell to weeds and the clutter accumulated. It could all be cleaned up later. Right now, they put their feeble energy into each other. All the little triumphs of their love story had been banked away over the years, accumulating interest. Now they made lavish withdrawals, cashed in every bond, every insurance policy.
By day, they spent their emotional capital hand over fist, each splurging on silly necessities the other needed.
“You’re the strongest wreck I’ve ever known,” he said when she succumbed to tears.
“You’re the most useful person in my life,” she said when he gnawed mercilessly on his heart.
At night, they lay down together, pulling marriage over their tired, aching bodies like an extra quilt.
“Fuck everything else,” they whispered. “I just need you.”
Erik woke up to find the other side of the bed empty and piano music tinkling from the room that was once the office and meant to be the nursery. Peeking in, he found Daisy doing a barre, holding onto the side of the crib. Stretching and limbering. Doing her core exercises.
“Does it make you feel better?” he asked, sitting on the floor to watch.
“First position is always first position,” she said, smiling. Then slowly her outstretched leg touched the floor again. The smiled dissolved and her gaze went far away. “No, it doesn’t make me feel better,” she said. “I’m so confused. I can’t find my center. I can’t balance. Everything hurts. And I don’t know if I should get back in shape or just screw it because I’m going to try to get pregnant again anyway. I don’t know what to do with myself. So I’m going through the motions of what used to make me feel better.”
She returned to her routine but stopped after a minute.
“Do you want to try again?” she asked.
“Not now.”
“I meant one day.”
“Yes,” he said. “But not now. Right now I’m taking care of you.”
Elbows on knees, he sat and watched, letting the strains of Chopin fill his chest with a dull melancholy. Letting Daisy fill his eyes with her beauty and her pain.
You are my wife.
He