Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 131486 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131486 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
“Yes, sir.” Deja’s throat bobs with a deep swallow. “Aunt Byrd and…and Henry.”
Hearing his name turns a screw in my chest. It probably always will.
“Yeah,” I reply, some of the heat draining from my voice too. “We all lost Henry, but your mom, she carried him. The same way she carried you and Kassim. And the way she lost him was…”
The inside of my throat burns, and I wish I could swallow the words, wish I could swallow this whole conversation. It’s still painful to think about, to talk about, and I realize that I never do. Hell, I never really have.
The memory of Yas, usually bright as a sunbeam, dulled, disheveled, perfectly still in the rocker and staring at the wall of Henry’s nursery tortures me for a moment, and I’m back there. Back in that desperate, despondent, enraged place. Not even sure where to direct my fury. Helpless because every day I could feel her slipping away. I knew I was losing her and there was nothing I could do to hold on.
“She had to deliver him, Day,” I continue. “Knowing he was already gone, and it was too much. It was so hard.”
“I know, but she—”
“No buts. If I ever hear you talk about your mother that way again, you’ll have to deal with me.” I lift her chin so she can’t look away. “You got that?”
Her nod is slow and uncertain, and I feel a bit of remorse. Maybe I was harsh with her, but it pissed me off to hear her talk about what Yas went through, not only dismissively, but with blame. I kiss her forehead to remove some of the sting, and my own words play back. Defending Yasmen to Deja. Trying to understand. There’s a voice in the back of my mind wondering if I should have done more of that when I had the chance.
Chapter Seven
Yasmen
This is the fourth year of Screen on the Green.” I grip the mic and smile to the crowd gathered on the lawn of Sky Park. “And on behalf of the Skyland Association, thank you all for coming. Now, before we start with our feature, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Sinja Buchanan, who owns Honey Chile right off the Square, is coming to do some movie trivia with you.”
I hand off the mic and step down from the small dais, ready to head toward the spot where Hendrix and Soledad are already camped out. I haven’t seen them since brunch last week, and my lips quirk with the beginnings of a grin at the thought of an evening with my girls.
“So good to see you, Yasmen,” Deidre Chadworth says, stopping me with a hand on my shoulder when I’ve almost reached my friends.
“Oh, thanks, Deidre.”
More than once, a well-meaning neighbor stopped by, ringing the doorbell, waiting on the porch with a casserole or pot of stew. Some days I just ignored them until they went away. Deidre, one of the more persistent ones, hadn’t brought food. Being the owner of our local bookstore, Stacks, she always came bearing books.
“I stocked the new Sarah MacLean release,” she says, her smile and the wicked glint in her hazel eyes telling me it’s a hot one. “And the new Beverly Jenkins.”
“I’ll try to make it in this week.” I touch her arm, speckled with sun spots and decorated with jangling bracelets. “And I never thanked you for all the times you came by when I was…”
I’m not sure how I want to talk about my depression. My philosophy had always been to deal with shit and move on—until the thing happened that I just couldn’t move on from. It was like waking up every morning on a narrow window ledge and wondering…Is today the day I fall?
“Oh, honey,” Deidre says, squeezing my hand. “I understand. I lost three before I had my Charlie.”
“I didn’t realize. I’m so sorry, Deidre.”
“Two were miscarriages, and that was hard enough, but that last one.” I recognize the kindred pain flickering in her eyes. “Like Henry, he was a stillbirth.”
Unless you’ve been through it, you don’t grasp the powerful horror of that word.
Stillbirth.
Entry into a world that child has already departed. The paradox of birth and death swaddled in one soundless moment. Not the first slap on the bottom and cry of new life, but a mother’s dirge. A bell that never tolls. I curled into myself in a sterile room with starchy white sheets, hot, silent tears carving grief into my cheeks. Sinking through my pores and infecting the marrow. An inescapable pain shut up in my bones.
“You learn to live with it, ya know?” Deidre says, sympathy, rare understanding in the smile she offers. “But anyone who thinks you ever ‘get over it’ hasn’t lost what we have. I’m just glad you’re still here.”