I gently pushed my hands under her body and lifted her into a sitting position. She didn’t respond in any way. I sat on the edge of the bed and started shoveling eggs onto the fork. When I held it to her lips, she didn’t move. She stared at my shirt, just a blank stare.
“Kat, I need you to eat at least a little bit.”
It took a few minutes, but she finally opened her mouth slightly, allowing me to feed her. After three forks of eggs, it was clear that I wasn’t going to get her to eat anymore. I had to hold the bottle to her lips to get her to drink water. Sighing, I set the tray aside and helped her to lie back down. I kissed her on the cheek and brought the tray back downstairs. I stared out the kitchen window, just staring at the muddy yard. I felt like a failure. I couldn’t protect our baby and I couldn’t help Kat. I didn’t even know where to start.
I ate some breakfast and then cleaned up the kitchen. I didn’t want to go back upstairs. I didn’t want to see the shell of the woman I loved. But she didn’t have anyone else. I was the only one here for her right now. I wanted to call her mom, but I wanted to give Kat a chance to be alone and deal with this. Maybe tomorrow would be a better day.
I walked back upstairs to check on her, but she was sleeping again. I took a seat in the room and spent the day keeping an eye on her. I stared out the window from my chair and watched the sun slowly sink in the sky. After days on end of crying, I was exhausted. I never thought I would see the day I would cry. I wasn’t an emotional person, but losing Angel had been too much. But I couldn’t afford to just lay around and think about what I had lost. Crying wouldn’t make this better. It wouldn’t bring her back and it wouldn’t help me get through my days. I had to get to work. I had to keep my business functioning. I had no idea when or if Kat would ever want to go back to work, so I had to make sure that I could support both of us. And we would have hospital bills coming soon, and I had no idea what was covered under her insurance.
I slipped out of bed, making sure Kat was comfortable before I left the room. I shut the door quietly and sighed when I saw the baby’s room door was standing open. I stood in the doorway, staring at the crib I had made and the dresser that was on the far wall. I had just finished it last week. We hadn’t even put clothes in it yet. The rocking chair was waiting for a mother and child, but we wouldn’t be using it. I shut the door to the room. I couldn’t see this every time I came up here. I walked downstairs and into the kitchen. Joe and Andrew were sitting at the kitchen table talking, but they shut up as soon as I stepped into the room. So, they were talking about me.
“Don’t you guys have anything better to do?”
“We were just waiting to see if you needed anything,” Andrew answered slowly. I glanced back at him and frowned. He was wearing his usual weird clothes, but he had a suit jacket thrown over his bright purple shirt, which made the whole ensemble even weirder.
“What’s going on?”
“What are you talking about?”
I waved at his clothes. “What’s with the clothes?”
“I always dress this way.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at him. “No, you don’t normally wear a suit jacket. And you look like you tried to actually style your hair like a normal person.”
He rolled his eyes at me.
“Look, if you’re trying not to piss me off, I’d rather that you just be yourself. I can’t stand everyone walking on eggshells around me.”
“It’s not you,” he sighed.
“Then what is it?”
He picked at something on the table for a moment. “I…I applied for a job a week ago at this computer company.”
“That’s great.”
“I didn’t get the job,” he said defeatedly.
“Oh…Was it because you didn’t have the education? Because you could go back to school-“
“It wasn’t that. They said…they said I didn’t fit in with the company. Apparently, I’m too “hipster” for them. They said that I dressed too funny. They didn’t think clients would take me seriously dressed like this.”
I stared at him, trying my best to hold back the laughter that was bubbling up inside me. I nodded, trying anything to not laugh at what he was telling me. But there was no holding it in. I burst out laughing, running my hand over my face as tears poured from my eyes. God, I hadn’t laughed like this in…My laughter slowly died down until there was nothing left. The pain returned, and when I looked at my brothers, it was like they knew exactly why I had stopped laughing.
Was this the way it would be from now on? Would all happy moments be killed by the pain of losing her? I stumbled over to a chair and plopped down, resting my head in my palms. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t be this lifeless human being. I needed something to push me on, to make me feel even an ounce of something other than the pain.
“Is there anything we can do?”
I ran my hand over the beard that had grown in the last week. “I just need to get back to work. I can’t…I need to work.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to take some time off?” Joe asked. “We can fill in for you.”
“That’s nice of you guys to offer, but what would I do all day? I can’t just sit around here.”
“What about Kat?” Andrew asked. “Are you sure you should leave her?”
“I’ll talk to her mom. Maybe she can stay here for a little bit.”
“What about the funeral?” Joe asked. “Maybe you should wait until after that.”
I nodded. “Maybe. I have to at least check in at the office tomorrow. I don’t have a fucking clue if anyone’s even going out on jobs.”
“RJ’s running things,” Joe supplied. “I called him after we found out about…Anyway, I figured you weren’t really thinking about that stuff. I’ve been checking over there every day to make sure there’s nothing that needs to be taken care of.”
I didn’t know what to say. I knew Joe was working toward having his own tattoo parlor, so I knew he wouldn’t want to help me out in the long term. I had offered him jobs before, and he never took them. The fact that he stepped up and took over like that just shocked the hell out of me.
“Thank you,” I choked out.
“I can help out, you know, until you’re ready to get back to full time.”
“I appreciate that.”
Katherine
“Katherine?”
My mom was here. I stared at the wall, but I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. The only thing I could do was replay the events of the last week in my head. Everything from the last time Eric and I made love to leaving the hospital. That was really the last thing I remembered. I slept a lot over the last few days. Getting up to go to the bathroom was a chore. The nurse had told me that delivering a stillborn baby was nothing like delivering a newborn, but I didn’t want to hear it. She was right though. My whole body felt like I had just been in a car accident. I ached in places that I didn’t know I could ache. But nothing hurt more than the pain in my chest.
I finally shifted in bed to look at my mom. She was dressed all in black, like she was going to a funeral.
“Is it today?” I asked, my voice nothing more than a whisper.
“Yes, honey. I thought I could help you get ready.”
I nodded and allowed her to help me with everything. It took a long time, but after an hour, I was finally ready. I walked out of the bedroom to the top of the stairs, but that had been enough to do me in. I knew I couldn’t make it down the stairs. As if on cue, Eric appeared at the bottom of the stairs and rushed up to get me. He must have seen my legs shaking.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured, lifting me in his arms. I didn’t protest, even as he walked past all of our family with me in his arms. His dad held the door open for Eric and he took me outside to the big tree where I wanted Angel buried. There was already a hole in the earth, waiting for the casket to be lowered.
My breath stuttered in my chest as I thought about my little girl being buried in the ground, al
l alone and cold. It didn’t matter if she was already gone. She would be alone in that tiny grave. I didn’t want that for her. I knew I could visit her every day this way, but no child should be so alone.
“Kat, it’s okay.”
“She’s alone,” I cried.
“No, she’s not. We all have something for her, so she’ll never be alone. She’s going to have a little piece of all of us with her.”
I swiped at my tears and nodded. Eric set me down in a chair and nodded to the funeral director. He opened the casket for us, and my heart stopped. She looked just as peaceful as she did in the hospital.
Derek stepped forward first, pulling out a gun. “Hey, princess. I got you a gun. I would have taught you to use it when you were older, but now you’ll have it with you, to protect you from anything.” He set the gun in the bottom of the casket and took a step back.
Then Andrew stepped forward, holding an iPod and earphones. “I don’t want you to get lonely, so I brought you some of the best music. I even uploaded some of your dad’s music, even though it sucks. And I know your mom really likes country music, so I put plenty of it on there.” He set it down in the casket and moved for Joe.
“I made a drawing for you. I would have taken you to get this tattooed on your body the moment you turned eighteen. I’d probably have to do it behind your dad’s back, but you would have loved it.”
Eric’s mom stepped forward and gently pulled a hat onto Angel’s head. “I made this for you, sweet girl. Now, you’ll never be cold.”
She pressed a kiss to Angel’s face and stepped back. Then Robert came forward. “So, if Derek’s gun didn’t scare off the men, and you ended up marrying one of those jackasses, you might need me someday.” He placed a phone in the casket. “I programmed my phone number in there, so you could call me. I’ll always answer.”
Will placed a small history book in the casket. “This is a book, Helen of Troy. You’re so beautiful, that I know you could have started a few wars.”
I turned to Eric, tears in my eyes. “I didn’t get her anything.”
He knelt down beside me and pulled something from his pocket. “I took care of it.” He opened a jewelry box and inside was a tiny bracelet with the letters E, K, and A dangling from the chain. “This is from us.”
He walked to the casket and placed it around her wrist. I wasn’t sure what happened after that. I knew I was crying, but everything was a blur. When they closed the casket, I started sobbing. When she was about halfway into the ground, I lost it.
I started sobbing, gripping his shirt and yelling at him for allowing them to bury her. I knew it didn’t make any sense, but I couldn’t stand the thought of her being alone. Eric lifted me in his arms and carried me back to the house while I sobbed against his shoulder.
“How could you do this to me?” I started hitting him, but he just held me tighter, hurrying toward the house.
“Kat, we have to bury her. You know we have to.”
“No,” I choked out. “She needs her mother!”
He shoved the door open and walked through to the living room, setting me down gently on the couch. He crouched down in front of me, holding onto my hands as I tried to get in a few more swipes.
“Kat, listen to me! Listen to me.” I stopped swinging at him and looked into his eyes. There was pain there, just as intense as it was in the hospital. “She doesn’t need us anymore. She’s gone. She’s not hurting. She’s at peace.”
My lip quivered as I stared into his eyes. I knew he was right, but my heart couldn’t understand it right now.
“Eric, why don’t you take her upstairs?” my mom suggested. “I’ll stay with her.”
Eric nodded and picked me up. Part of me just wanted to stay with Eric, but the other part of me was angry with him for allowing our daughter to be taken away. I knew it wasn’t rational, but grief never was. When he set me down and walked out the door, I felt like a door was shutting on a chapter of my life. It felt like nothing would ever be the same again.
At some point during the night, I finally accepted that what happened was necessary. There was no point in being upset about it anymore, and I couldn’t just sit here and cry anymore. I had nothing left to give. I was emotionally spent. It was like as soon as I accepted that she was really gone and I would never hold her again, my emotions just dried up. I didn’t feel a thing. I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t angry. I just existed.
Eric came to bed that night, but neither of us said anything. I didn’t know what I would even say if he spoke to me. I drifted off to sleep at some point, and when I woke the next day, I just laid there staring at the wall. Nothing existed around me. People moved in and out of the room, but I hardly noticed them. I did everything on autopilot. I went to the bathroom when I needed to, but I mostly just laid in bed. It was like I was on life-support. My body was alive, but nothing about me functioned like normal. And the only good thing about any of it was that I didn’t feel anything. And if I didn’t feel anything, I couldn’t be hurt.
Eric
I walked into the office the day after the funeral, ready to get back to work. I just wanted to bury my head in something, to accomplish something. I didn’t want to think about the child I lost or the woman at home that couldn’t function. Her mom was there with her during the day so I could get back to work. I had no idea how long that would last. Everyone else had lives to get back to. My parents were leaving tomorrow and heading back to North Carolina. Derek had headed back home after the funeral yesterday. He had already been gone for almost a week. He couldn’t take off any more time.
Joe was in the office, arguing with Anna over something when I walked in. They saw me and instantly got quiet. I stood there in the doorway, pissed off. It was starting already. Irritated, I tossed my bag on the ground and stormed over to the desk.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Joe said quickly, narrowing his eyes at Anna. She pursed her lips, but didn’t say anything.
“Look, this is still my business.”
“It’s nothing you have to worry about,” Joe said. “You just…this isn’t something you need to deal with.”
I sighed heavily, shaking my head. “Look, I don’t need time off or for you to coddle me. I don’t need everyone to stop talking as soon as I come in the room. I need to get back to work and get back to normal, so tell me what the hell is going on so we can fix it and move on.”
Anna turned to me and handed me a piece of paper. “Uh…Mrs. Cranston is requesting service. She said that her roof is leaking. Everyone else is out on a job right now. I can’t get anyone over there for a few days.”
“I told you, I’ll take care of it,” Joe hissed.
“No, I’ll do it,” I said. I needed the distraction, and getting up there with a hammer and nails would feel good. I could do something other than sit around and think. This was just what I needed.
“Eric-“
“Joe, you’ve never repaired a roof. I can’t send you over there to do it.”
“I helped with putting in the new roof on your house.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“Then I’ll come along and watch. I need to learn, right?”
I eyed him warily. “Are you planning on sticking around?”
He shrugged one shoulder, not really looking at me. “Maybe. It was nice working here, you know, having a day job.”
“You love your job,” I pointed out.
“How do you know?”
“Joe, you’re saving for your own shop. You wouldn’t be doing that if you weren’t serious about it.”
“Well, maybe I’m not so sure anymore.”
I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not. I had a feeling he was only doing this so he could keep an eye on me, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
“I’ve been doing this for a week now. It’s not so bad. I figured I could try it out for six months and see if it works.”
“Fine, you can come, but you do eve
rything I tell you to.”
“Fine.”
“Alright, call Mrs. Cranston and let her know that I’m coming by. Joe, let’s go load up the truck.”
We worked in silence, me handing him things we would need and him putting it in the bed of the pickup. I couldn’t be sure that we had everything we needed, but if it was just a small job, we should have everything we needed. When I pulled up to the curb, Mrs. Cranston wasn’t her usual jovial self. It was fucking depressing.
“Mrs. Cranston, you have a leak?”
“Yes, I’ll show you where.”
The pity in her eyes killed me. I just wanted normal. Was that really too much to ask? I didn’t want everyone looking at me like some charity case. We got to work on finding the leak. I walked Joe through the process of assessing the damage and how to replace everything properly. To my surprise, he paid attention and dug into the work, doing everything I asked and actually did a good job. By the time we were done, I felt lighter than I had in days. I was sweating and dirty, but it felt good. I could deal with this. I could move on as long as I kept putting one foot in front of the other. Life would continue. It wouldn’t be as bright as it would have been with Angel in the world, but at least the pain wouldn’t be so intense.
I stayed at the office later than I should have, but getting wrapped up in work had helped so much that I just couldn’t stand the thought of going home. Once I was home, there would just be an emptiness there. I knew that I should be there for Kat. I knew that she was hurting. But I couldn’t just sit around and feel sad. I needed to do something that would make my life feel like it meant something again.
Maintenance Required: A small town romance (The Cortell Brothers Book 1) Page 29