All but the blanket in which we’d swaddled her while we waited for the paramedics. Only now did I realize I never knew what became of it. I guess I assumed it went with her to the hospital or was lost somewhere along the way in that long grim process between institutions of hope and the desolation of the grave.
Now, door open, my hand still on the knob and my lungs shuddering with the strain of holding back the tears, I finally knew where that blanket had ended up.
It was sitting there before me on the floor of her room.
THERE WAS ONLY A SINGLE window in that room, and with no curtains or the crib to obstruct it, the streetlamp outside cast a hazy oblong of yellow light on the hardwood floor. The blanket sat in this wedge of sickly light. All I could do was stare at it in sad wonder. Why was it there? How was it there? Even though it had been some time since I’d last entered the room, I knew without a doubt that the blanket had not been there on that occasion or any other following Robin’s death. Assuming the sound I’d heard had been the blanket being displaced from its original location, who or what had moved it, and from where?
The answer when it came was obvious and unpleasant.
The squirrels. Invasive little fuckers must have tugged it free from wherever it had been stowed.
The closet door, however, was closed. I stepped inside the room and looked up. The two small vents in the ceiling were shut too, or at least shut enough to prevent rodents from infiltrating them. Still, despite no apparent means of ingress, I knew better than to assume there wasn’t one. Squirrels are crafty bastards when they need to be and for all I knew, they were living beneath the floorboards and could spring up out of them whenever they saw fit. I made a note to call pest control on Monday, knowing I wouldn’t do any such thing. It was merely a rational response to an irrational event.
Braced by a level of unease I couldn’t accurately explain, I crossed the room and scooped up the blanket. When the material touched my fingers, I felt a jolt of discomfort that travelled like an electrical current up my arm into my chest and neck, and reflexively I let the blanket fall to the floor. Then I followed it down, landing hard on my knees, and brought a hand up to cover my mouth, as if worried someone might hear me choking on the tears.
In the square of light on the floor, that pale blue cotton blanket might as well have been a view into my daughter’s open grave for all the sorrow it invoked. I wanted to touch it again, bring it to my face and smell it to see if it still had her scent, but I was afraid. Instead, I spent an hour just staring at the picture in the center of it, which depicted two rabbits dressed in Victorian clothes holding red balloons made of felt. They looked strangely sullen for something intended to comfort children, their clothes shabby and old. One rabbit was taller than the other. Their oversized eyes looked like ragged thumbprints, their mouths hanging open, tongues exposed, as if they were supposed to be speaking a message their creator forgot to add. Age had unraveled the embroidery in places, giving some of their limbs a palsied, unfinished look. The smaller of the two rabbits had free-floating hands, his wrists undone by wear. If anything, their postures and expressions indicated irritation, as if observing them was a form of intrusion. One couldn’t help but feel as if they were originally intended to be looking at each other, not the viewer, and had ceased their discussion to chide me. There were three wavy lines of dashes beneath their feet to indicate the ground upon which they stood. It looked like furrowed earth, like farmland. It was an odd and not at all cheery illustration, which led me to wonder, for the first time, where and why Lexi bought it.
I wiped my eyes and rose, knees aching, and grabbed the blanket. This time, there was no jolt, though the material was cold against my skin, no doubt from lying on the floor.
Closing the door behind me, I left Robin’s room and headed for the phone.
Despite my sorrow, despite the surprise at finding Robin’s blanket, I was not drunk or foolish enough to squander the opportunity to use it as leverage.
IT TOOK FOUR ATTEMPTS to get Lexi to answer, but despite the late hour, I persisted, and at last, she picked up, her exasperation quickly giving way to interest at the mention of my discovery.
“Her blanket? Which one?”
“The one from her crib. The faded blue cotton one with the rabbits and balloons on it.”
“Didn’t we...? I thought we lost that.”
“Me too.”
“You said it was just lying on the floor?”
“Yes.”
“How come you’re only finding it now?”
“I don’t—”
“That was her favorite blanky, remember?”
I resisted the tactless urge to point out that nine-month old children probably aren’t developed enough or haven’t lived long enough to prefer one thing over another, and waited for her to continue.
“Why would it be there though? We cleaned that room and put everything away.”
“That was my thought.”
“You don’t think...?”
“I didn’t think anything, to be honest. I just grabbed it and called you.” The lie was meant to dissuade the notion I knew was forming in her head, the same one I’d resisted because it could only lead to more pain. No, Lexi, I do not believe it’s a sign.
“I’d like to have it, Stephen. Would you mind?”
I looked down at the blanket spread across my lap, the blue so faded it was almost gray, one rabbit swollen across my knee, the other vanished in the fold between my legs. “Of course, babe. I can mail it to you, or drop it off on my way to—”
“No, that would take too long. Can I come over and get it tonight?”
I sat up, startled, blanket and fresh drink forgotten, and focused on the hairline crack in the living room wall. Committed as I’d been not to entertain false hope, in that moment it was hard not to acknowledge it capering in the background. “Sure, sure. When?”
“I could be there in an hour if you’re staying up.”
If I hadn’t planned on being up late drinking anyway, I’d certain have amended my schedule to accommodate her. She hadn’t stepped foot in this house in so long and even though I knew I should manage my expectations (she was, after all, coming for the blanket, not me), it was hard to deny the pulse of excitement at the prospect of her visit.
“I’ll be up. Of course I will.”
“Okay. Thank you, Stephen. I’ll see you soon.”
And then she was gone.
I took a few moments to let the hope war with reason before I realized the place was a mess. In a heartbeat, I was on my feet and flitting from room to room, clearing away the evidence of my enforced bachelordom. Then, with mere minutes to spare, I took a quick shower, brushed my teeth, and changed my clothes. By the time the doorbell rang, I was as presentable as I was going to get on such short notice.
LEXI, ON THE DOORSTEP, her hair misted with rain. “Hey.” Behind her, the waxy leaves on the succulents glistened in the dark and wept tears of their own. Her smile was frail, uncertain, her arms folded defensively against whatever negative (or perhaps even positive) responses I might have about her being there. I was careful not to rush her and smother her with kisses or wrap my arms around her and squeeze her so tight she’d never be able to leave again. Instead, I smiled and stepped back to let her in. It felt weird permitting her entry to a house we’d shared for six years, the house where we ate, slept, discussed everything under the sun, made love, became parents elated and then later, devastated. The house where we became us.
As she passed me in the hallway, the scent of her perfume set my nerves alight, and I shut the door on the night and the rain with my eyes closed, before following her into the living room.
The blanket was folded on the back of the sofa. Immediately she spotted it and picked it up. I watched her bring it to her face and breathe deep, her eyes shimmering with tears.
“God. It still smells like her.”
“Do you...would you like a drink?”
She nodded silently and sat
down on the sofa, the blanket folded on her lap. She stroked it as if it were a sleeping animal. “You didn’t think it was strange that the blanket was just there for you to find?”
I measured her whiskey as carefully as my words. “I was just surprised. I hadn’t been in there for a long time. Could be it fell from one of the boxes and we just didn’t notice it on our way out.”
I dropped two ice cubes into her drink and took both glasses out to the living room. I didn’t wish to crowd her, so I sat on the armchair opposite and set our drinks down on the coffee table between us. She was still fawning over the blanket and paying me little mind.
“I don’t remember where you bought that,” I said, when the silence between us began to thicken.
A wistful smile brightened her pale face. “If it had been any other place, I probably wouldn’t remember the name of it, but it wasn’t. I got it at Columbus Market, remember? It was the Sunday right after we found out I was pregnant. You spent most of the time poring over the old paintings and first edition books. I was looking at decorations for the house. Then I saw that old man with the sign for baby clothes on his rickety little stall.”
And with that, I remembered. “Only, he didn’t spell it right.”
Her smile broadened, fingers tracing the outlines of the pair of rabbits on the blanket. “He spelled it ‘Baby Close.’”
“Yeah, I remember that now. The guy with the glass eye.”
“He was so sweet to me.”
She had yet to look away from the blanket. Instead, she continued to stroke it lovingly as if somehow that might make Robin appear from the material. Then, abruptly, her face collapsed and she burst into tears. I moved to her side so fast I knocked my drink over, and clumsily took her in my arms. At first, she resisted, her body stiff as a board, but then she relented and leaned into me, her face buried in my shirt as she sobbed, her fingers like claws grabbing at my shoulders as if she was trying to climb inside me for a place to hide. I held her tightly, my chin resting on the top of her head, and now it was impossible not to hope that this moment, this breakdown, our togetherness, might signal a willingness to tackle the grief as a unit instead of apart.
“Why did she have to die?” my wife asked, and for that I had no good answer, and nowhere to find one. What words did come were lost in my own tears, and then we were crying together, a shuddering, ugly mess of whispers, sighs, and sobs.
When at last we were as composed as we were going to get, we sought solace in the whiskey. Lament became celebration of the light Robin had brought to our lives for her brief stay with us.
“I’ll never forget the first time she threw up on you.”
I grimaced. “Jesus, the smell. It was like she’d been eating from the trashcan.”
“I couldn’t stop laughing.”
“I know, I remember. I also remember wondering how on earth I was going to be able to deal with that every day until she was old enough to take over.”
“And I remember worrying that you were going to keep trying to make excuses so you wouldn’t have to.”
More tears followed, then comfort, then laughter, and finally love. We held hands and sat close enough that I could feel the warmth of her through my clothes.
“I feel like I didn’t even have a chance to know her,” Lex said. “That she was this precious, beautiful little thing I was tasked with seeing through life and I couldn’t keep her safe. What kind of a mother...what kind of a person does that make me?”
“Don’t say that. You were a great mother. You doted on her. We both did. Horrible things happen every day. Losing her was just...the horrible thing that happened to us.”
“I don’t know what to do, Stephen. I really don’t. Every day I’m alive seems like an insult to her memory. Why should I be allowed to go on when something so innocent was just casually snuffed out, for no reason at all? I still wake up every morning forgetting that she’s gone, until the pain rushes in and it’s so fresh and so sharp I want to die to escape it.” She wiped her nose on her sleeve. “So many people keep saying they’re sorry for my loss that I don’t want to leave the house. It angers me. Even though I know it shouldn’t, that they’re just trying to be caring, decent people, it makes me mad. I want to ask them what they’re sorry for, or how they can even pretend to be sorry when they don’t know how it feels. It puts a brick wall up between us, and it’s unfair because it makes me forget that everyone has lost someone, and nobody knows how to cope. I end up hating myself for hating the people who care.”
I threaded my fingers through hers. “That’s how I’ve felt, so many times. But we must go on, Lex. There might be a million reasons why we can’t, or shouldn’t, but we must, and that’s all there is to it.”
“I don’t know how, though. Most of the time I don’t even know why I should be allowed to.”
“Me neither.” I took a deep breath and slowly released it. “All I do know is that I don’t want to do it alone. And weren’t we always stronger together? We always said nothing would come between us, that there was nothing we couldn’t conquer. I know at the time we never imagined in a million years it would be something this fucking apocalyptic, but still...I meant it then and I mean it now. We’re stronger together than we’ll ever be alone.”
“I know, but...I see her in you, Stephen. She had your eyes, and it got so that looking at you felt like looking at her, and all I could see was the accusation, the blame. I couldn’t bear it. I still can’t.”
I put my hand to her cheek and turned her head so that she was looking at me.
“Lex, she’s at peace. Our little girl is at peace, and it’s time you allowed yourself the same mercy, but you’ve got to let me help you, and you’ve got to help me too. I need your strength or I’ll never make it through this.”
Lex moved away and I felt dread in my chest that maybe that had been the wrong thing to say or the wrong time to say it.
For a long while she just stared at the blanket in her lap.
“Lex?”
“I love you,” she said then, so low I feared I’d misheard, but then she kissed me so very softly, her fingers on my cheek, and asked if she could stay rather than risk a drunken drive home in the rain. I answered by leading her upstairs where we lost ourselves in each other for a time. It was a merciful, wonderful, blissful reprieve from the sorrow.
We fell asleep to the sound of a storm.
I AWOKE TO SUNSHINE streaming through a window still speckled with the previous night’s rain. For a moment, I was unsure whether I’d dreamed the events of the night before. It would hardly have been the first time my subconscious had hoodwinked me with elaborate fantasies of a life less hostile than mine had become. The fear was not helped by the fact that I was alone in my bed. A quick check of my watch showed that it was almost noon, which meant I was four hours late for work. Not that they’d mind. Principal Lewis seemed to understand that my attendance on any given day was directly proportional to my emotional state, and that maybe being faced by a bunch of children wasn’t the best thing for me at the time. I’m not entirely sure he was right about that. I loved my students and maybe seeing them might have helped. I don’t know, but I was quite happy to take advantage of his assumptions to the contrary.
I hurried downstairs, head pounding from an incumbent hangover I was too alarmed to fully acknowledge.
Robin’s blanket—Blanky—was gone.
So was Lexi.
But any disappointment I might have felt was dispelled by the note she’d left for me on the kitchen counter.
It read:
THANK YOU FOR BEING there for me last night. I felt more human than I have in months. And I’m sorry I’ve been so distant. I think I forgot how good you’ve always been for me, and I shouldn’t have shut you out. I’m not going to make unreasonable promises to you. Not yet. There’s a lot of ground still to cover, but call me when you wake up. We have a lot to discuss.
Love,
Lex
P.S. I stole a bagel.
THERE WAS MUCH TO REGISTER about that note, all of it good. For the moment, as I released a breath that felt as if it had been trapped in dusty lungs since the day Lex left to go stay with her parents, I chose only to focus on a single word from the letter: Love.
I brewed myself a cup of coffee and scooped up the phone. Dialing my wife’s number, I was astonished and gratified to find that I was smiling. It seemed totally inappropriate, absolutely alien, and immeasurably good.
She answered on the first ring.
3
THE WALL BETWEEN US did not come down overnight, nor did we expect it to. It was heartening enough to know that the will was there, and thus we were content to remove one brick at a time. Lexi did not move back in with me, though it was discussed as an eventuality, and while disappointed, I deferred to her wish to maintain a little distance.
“It’s just easier to think, being away from there, easier to heal.”
I understood, of course. She needed to build up the strength to be able to face the house in which she’d endured the worst thing that had ever happened to her, even though my own suffering would have been greatly allayed by her presence. But I could wait. I would wait, for as long as it took. It was enough to feel her love again, to feel that wall crumbling down.
Over the next few weeks, we met for coffee, went for walks, went to the movies. Afterward, she’d come home with me and we would make slow, passionate love until the sun rose, and then, whenever possible, stay in bed together all day, just talking and holding each other. On one of these days, we ordered pizza and wings and messed up the sheets and each other, which led to us sharing a shower, something I don’t think we’d done since our early dating days. It didn’t kill the pain—nothing but time would do that, and even then, not completely—but it was a wonderful reprieve from its sharpest edges.
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