Bo & Ember

by Andrea Randall

  “Morning,” she whispered. “They were going to bring you some of their tea, but I insisted that crap wouldn’t do.”

  She handed me my cup, and upon inspection, I found my favorite tea—which happened to be hers as well. “I’m sorry I always teased you for bringing your own teabags everywhere. This is perfection.” I inhaled the calming aroma before taking a sip.

  Willow’s hand cuffed my wrist as I set the cup on my lap, still holding it. She met my eyes and offered a slight shrug of her shoulders.

  “I don’t know what to say, either,” I replied to her unspoken words.

  “How are you feeling physically?”

  “Still drugged, I think.” I so rarely took medication, that whatever they’d given me last night was still soaking my system. “When did you get here?”

  “Around nine. You were kind of in and out. I’m sorry it took so long for me to get here. I had to rent a car and all that shit.” Willow was frustrated.

  I shifted over on the bed, patting the space next to me. “Come. Sit.”

  “Really?”

  I nodded. “Please.”

  Willow adjusted herself next to me, and I put my head on her shoulder. “Thank you for coming. I needed you.”

  She kissed the top of my head. “I needed you, too.”

  It’s funny how you don’t realize you fell asleep until you wake up. My eyes slowly peeled open, and I realized Willow wasn’t in bed with me, but I saw that Bo was awake. Still in the chair he was in earlier, but now he was watching me while he rested his elbows on his knees.

  “Hey,” I whispered as I rubbed my eyes. “Where’s Willow?”

  Bo sat up. “She went to get some lunch. Sorry I missed you when you woke up earlier.”

  This was the first time we were talking since I’d lost the baby. Neither of us could look the other in the eye.

  “The nurse and social worker came in while you were sleeping and asked again about the…” Bo trailed off, clenching his jaw.

  “Cremation?” I choked out, clearing my throat to avoid crying. I wasn’t ready to cry yet. Not here.

  He simply nodded. “They left the paperwork.”

  I hadn’t been able to think about anything else since the option was presented to me. It seemed wrong, deep in my heart, to leave the hospital without the baby.

  “I think we should,” I suggested softly.

  “Okay.” Bo’s tone was soft, but businesslike as he scribbled his signature on a sheet of paper and handed it to me.

  I wasn’t about to ask him if he wanted to talk about it further. It was clear he didn’t and, really, neither did I. I signed where I was supposed to, and Bo left the room with the paper in hand. When he returned, he sat in the chair next to my bed.

  “Everything’s all set. The funeral home will contact us when … it’s ready. Will be a few weeks.” He held my hand, but it didn’t feel right. It felt like a stranger’s hand.

  “Bo,” I whispered, feeling the words build that I’d planned to save for later, “I’m sorry.”

  He dropped his head and brought our intertwined hands to his forehead as he took a deep breath. “Don’t, Em. Don’t apologize. This wasn’t your fault, okay?” He spoke to the floor, and I could tell by the rigid set of his shoulders that he was holding back tears.

  “I know.” I took a deep breath and held the tears back. “Can Willow come home with us?”

  Bo looked up, studying my face. “What?”

  “I need her.” I couldn’t have explained it if he’d asked me to, but he didn’t. He simply nodded.

  “Of course, love. Whatever you need.” He kissed my knuckles and rose to his feet. “Are you hungry? I want to grab some lunch.”

  I took a minute to decide if the emptiness was hunger or loss. Finally, I nodded. “Yeah, I’d love some food. I don’t care what.”

  Just as Bo exited the room, Willow entered. They mumbled a tired greeting to each other. When Willow sat, I updated her on our decision regarding the cremation.

  She sighed in apparent relief. “I’m so glad you’re doing that. I was hoping…”

  “Why?”

  “I think it will make it easier to grieve. You can decide what—if anything—you’re going to do with the ashes when you’re ready. I’m proud of you.” She leaned forward and kissed my forehead. Willow and I hadn’t shown this much affection toward each other since I moved away in high school. It was exactly what I needed.

  “You didn’t call my parents, did you?” I winced at the thought.

  Willow winced back, and I groaned.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “It was a bit of an emergency. Once I got here and talked with Bo, we called them together. I’m surprised Bo didn’t tell you…”

  “We didn’t talk much.” I bit my lip and looked down. “I did ask him if you could come home with us.”

  Willow scrunched her eyebrows. “What?”

  “I know you’re busy and you have a job, but I need … I just need you for a few days. I don’t know. I’m sur—”

  Willow interrupted me. “Of course I’ll come with you. I’ll make some calls and rearrange my schedule.”

  “How’d you get out of the stuff at Grounded Sound yesterday?” I realized it would be weird for Willow to have to take off on a business trip.

  She shrugged. “I told them there was a family emergency.”

  I stared at Willow as realization sank in. “Who knows about this?” I asked flatly.

  Willow didn’t hesitate in her answer. “Yardley and Regan. I didn’t think before I said “family emergency,” and Regan wouldn’t let me off the hook. I spoke briefly with Yardley and let her know what was happening, and that one of us would get in touch with her in a couple of days. I wanted to make sure you had some space to get home and rest.”

  “Thanks for being my impromptu PR.”

  A few minutes later, Bo and a nurse entered the room at the same time. The kind nurse told me that I was welcome to shower at any time, and after I finished my lunch they would do my final vitals and process my paperwork to be discharged. Bo and I ate in silence, while Willow took care of some business on her laptop.

  I knew what was coming after the shower. When it happened, though, it went smoothly. I held a tiny blanket in my hands. One the nurses had used to cover up our baby before taking pictures we hadn’t asked for and sealing them in an envelope we didn’t want. Well, didn’t want now. Both Greta and Willow encouraged us to hang on to those things until we’d gotten through the bulk of the grief. Then we could choose to look at the pictures or not.

  Not.

  The grief was too thick to even know what a “bulk” of it would be. How long it would take. The blanket was soft, though, and I rubbed it between my thumb and forefinger as we drove.

  Willow was following behind us in her rental car. I was given instructions to rest for the next few days, and then slowly return to normal activity.

  I didn’t know what normal even was anymore. Bo and I were dating, then suddenly we were married, then we had a recording contract, then I was pregnant, then I wasn’t. There wasn’t a single shred of “normal” as far back as I could remember.

  “Is Tyler still at the house?” I asked after twenty minutes of silence on the highway.

  Bo kept his eyes on the road. “He’ll be back tomorrow, if that’s okay with you. I told him what happened and asked him to go home and return tomorrow so we could have some down time. I’d have put the project on longer hold, but the snow…”

  “No, it’s good. It’s okay.” I put my hand on his leg. “The whole world doesn’t have to stop.”

  I wanted it to, though. Badly. Even if just for a minute so I could find my bearings in this new world.

  “Shit,” I whispered.

  “What?” Bo’s voice was shaky.

  “Monica…”

  Bo swallowed hard. “I wasn’t sure how you’d want to handle that so I haven’t called her or Josh. I figured we’d wait till we got home.”

 
Suddenly I was questioning how I was going to tell my still-pregnant best friend that I’d lost my baby. Just as quick, the thought entered my head that I didn’t want to see her. I’d just send her the stuff I bought in New York.

  My mind began to spin with the thousand tiny loose ends I’d have to tie up. In the meantime, I had to get home with the blanket of the baby that wasn’t meant to be. The grief would come, and I wanted to prepare for it the best I could. It was like a freight train sounding its horn in the distance, and I was tied to the tracks.

  It was too warm for a New Hampshire December. The whole drive back home I’d planned on asking Bo to build a fire in the fireplace in the living room and curling up on the couch in his arms. The further north we got, however, the harder it rained. It was a funny thing, the rain. It was so loud that I couldn’t hear my thoughts, but each drop that hit the windshield took its time trickling down. But, I knew if I stuck my hand out of the window, it would feel like a million needles pricking my skin. It sounded hard, felt sharp, and looked beautiful. What a curious thing it must be to be a raindrop.

  It was fifty-five-fucking degrees when we turned down the driveway. One thing I found to be grateful for was the rain; the sun would just have been mocking.

  Bo put the car in park and exited, walking to my side and opening the door. I didn’t always wait for him to open my door, but this time I did. We both needed it, I think. He put his arm around me and we hurried up the stairs to get out of the rain.

  “Willow texted me a little while ago,” I shouted above the rain. “She’ll be here in about an hour. She pulled off for some food … probably to give us some time.”

  Bo nodded and unlocked the door. Stepping in was a bit jarring, because from the entryway we could see clearly that the wall had been taken down in the dining room. There was lots of thick construction plastic and plywood around, sealing the outside air outside where it belonged. It was a bigger hole than I thought it would be.

  “Did you want to rest upstairs?” Bo went to take my hand, but paused when his fingers touched the tiny, soft reminder it held.

  I shifted the blanket to my other hand and grasped his. “If it’s all right with you, I think I want to sit outside for a few minutes.”

  The walls of the house felt just confining enough for me to crave the swing on the covered front porch.

  Once again he nodded, the emotion of his eyes indecisive. “I’ll bring in our bags from the car. Do you need anything? Tea?”

  I wrapped my arms around myself even though it wasn’t cold in the house. “Tea would be great. Whatever’s in the cabinet. I don’t care.” I forced the corners of my mouth to twitch upward as I turned and headed for the door.

  As I sat down on the swing, letting the momentum of my body carry me back and forth a few times before stilling, I watched the rain again. It was so heavy that it looked like waves were crashing through thin air. There was too much sensory input, so I closed my eyes.

  For a few moments, I listened. Not only could I hear the wind and the sound of a million raindrops hitting the ground, but I could hear the slower ones, too. The drip-drop that splashed water onto my left elbow from the gutter that needed to be fixed. The rippling of water over the stones by the front stairs…

  Slowly, I let my eyes open as I took three deep breaths. My eyes focused on the railing a few feet in front of me. It seemed as though the rain morphed into slow motion as I watched individual drops cling to the top beam of the porch before free-falling to that railing and splattering into ten new droplets of frigid water.

  I knew I was clinging.

  And I was ready to splatter.

  As the long-awaited sob choked my throat, I clutched the tiny yellow blanket in my left hand and I ran. I didn’t care about slipping on the repair-ready front stairs, and I sure as hell didn’t care that I wasn’t wearing a coat. Bo’s head was buried in the trunk of the car as he dug around for our things. I splashed through an ankle deep puddle near the rear of the car, startling him.

  “Ember!” he shouted. “What are you doing?”

  I didn’t answer, I just kept running. I shouldn’t have been running. They told me to rest.

  It hurts to run. It hurts to sit. It hurts to exist.

  I knew I was still bleeding, and running would only make it worse, medically speaking. Emotionally, nothing was worse. I growled and screamed as I ran to the far corner of the property, where I found the giant willow tree.

  Leaf-bare from a successful turning of the seasons, its branches hung in frightening patterns around the trunk. Skinless fingers all pointing in different directions. There was no hiding behind the lush green hug of Mother Nature.

  Once I reached the base of the tree, where I’d fallen asleep more than once in more desirable weather, I collapsed to my knees, screaming unintelligible words and setting the tiny square of a blanket on a wet leaf. New Hampshire hadn’t had a deep freeze yet, but the ground was painfully cold as I clawed at the dirt around the hundred-year-old roots.

  “Ember!” Bo’s voice was faint, but growing louder.

  I had to get this done before he got here. He’d have an opinion, and probably one I didn’t want.

  I dug harder and faster, kicking dirt up into my eyes and mouth as I prayed for the ground to open up just enough. Once it looked like it was deep enough, even though I had no way of knowing what “enough” was, I picked up the blanket and pressed it into the cold, wet ground. I couldn’t see anything. There was too much rain and far too many tears. My throat turned more raw with each scream I let out.

  Before I let one handful of soil escape my hands to cover up the blanket, Bo raced to my side, throwing himself down on his knees next to me, and pulling my hands away from the dirt.

  “What are you doing?” he cried as his raspy voice crackled through the rain.

  As my eyes met his, I was pulled from my trance. My eyes fell to the sight of his hands wrapped around my dirt-smeared wrists, and I lost it.

  “It’s gone!” I screamed as I fell into his chest, sobbing with the force of hollowness threatening to swallow me whole. “Gone…” I trailed off into sobs once more.

  Bo released my wrists and pulled me tighter into his chest, keeping one arm wrapped around me as his other hand stroked the back of my head. With my ear on his chest, I heard the scream brewing, and when he finally let it loose, it was the only sound all day that had cut through the rain. His chest shook with hard sobs as he rocked me side to side.

  Once the shaking of his shoulders calmed, Bo rose to his feet. I felt him slide the rain-soaked blanket in his pocket as he slowly lifted me in his arms before making the long walk back to the house. I think the rain had stopped, but I can’t be sure. Rainwater continued trailing from my hair down my neck, causing a surge of goosebumps over my skin with each drop.

  Bo opened the door and kept moving up the stairs and all the way down to our bedroom, never once breaking his pace. I thought he was going to set me down on the bed, but he moved us into the bathroom, setting me down once we reached the tile floor.

  “Can you stand for a minute?” His voice was shaking.

  I nodded and he set me down. He pulled back the shower curtain and turned on the water, letting it run as he pulled my shirt over my head. Once it was off, I opened my eyes and met his. For the first time in twenty-four hours, we were staring at each other. It was almost too much to stare into the eyes that could have been mirrored in our baby. But I kept looking. For him, for us, and for my strength. I’d always found strength in his eyes, and now was no time to stop.

  He brought his hands to my face and kissed me square on the mouth. Even his lips were trembling. I did the only thing I could do and kissed him back. I wrapped my hands around his neck and squeezed as hard as I could, needing to feel something other than emptiness.

  “Thank you,” I whispered. “I’ll be out in a few minutes, okay?”

  He pulled back his head slightly, looking down to make sure he was in my eye-line. “You sure?”


  I nodded, leaning forward to give him a reassuring kiss on the jawline. I knew I was still bleeding some, and didn’t want him to see it. It would be bad enough that I had to.

  Bo kissed me once more and left the bathroom, leaving the door cracked behind him.

  I finished undressing and stepped into the shower, where I turned the heat up as high as I could stand it. I wanted so badly to slink down the wall of the shower and sit in the tub, letting the scalding water pellet my skin. But, I stood.

  For me.

  Once I was under the covers and Bo had left the room, I stayed curled up on my side, and prayed.

  “Hi,” I whispered. “Um … we haven’t really talked since the day Rae died. Sorry about that.” I swallowed hard and clenched my eyes even tighter. “I don’t really know who I’m talking to, honestly. Bo thinks you’re one thing, and my parents say you’re another. Either way, I just need you to be real. Please.”

  Bo

  Ember fell asleep quickly after her shower. I’d met her in the bedroom with tea, a glass of water, and her prescribed pain meds. She took the pills and drank the tea before falling into a deep sleep before Willow even arrived.

  Willow swooped in and ushered me from the bedroom and into the kitchen, where she made me a dinner that must have been from the co-op cookbook, because it had the flavor of all the meals Ember cooked.

  “Just eat,” she commanded as she fluttered around the kitchen, tidying up what little there was to tidy since we hadn’t been home more than a few hours.

  I never thought I’d see Willow flutter, or in any sort of caregiving role, but there I was, being taken care of by my wife’s half-sister.

  “What’s with all the mud on the porch and entryway?” she asked as she sliced and diced vegetables, putting them in different containers and stashing them in the fridge.

  I told Willow what I could remember from that horrific scene, though it came out in bursts. It was like my brain was already blocking it out.

  “Where’s the envelope of pictures and the little blanket?” She sat across from me with a steaming cup of tea.