Having the room set up for the baby Scarlett and I never got to meet felt wrong. The fact that I’d kept all this stuff this long felt embarrassing. It felt like something was wrong with me. It’s not like I’d been keeping it all here because I sat in here every day and cried or anything. I was mostly healed from the loss. I kept it because I hated the idea of selling it online to some random buyer in town, like it was just a piece of furniture. It wasn’t. It used to be my future, hopes, and dreams.
And now, I was walking Ella down the hallway towards the room. What was I thinking? Why did I want to show her this? I stopped in front of the door.
“On second thought. It’s getting late,” I told her and spun with a panicked expression.
Ella thoughtfully peered at the closed door behind me. “Whatever is in that room, I want to see, Seth,” she told me with a voice full of compassion.
I swallowed hard. No one outside my family knew about the room. Scarlett and I never got to officially name her, but the top name on our list was June. It had felt wrong to name her without Scarlett’s input, so I never did. She was buried in her mother’s belly at the local cemetery, and I told the guy just to writeunborn childon the headstone.
I wanted Ella to see this part of me—this dark part, the sad part, the pathetic part that I kept hidden. I opened the door wide before I could lose my nerve, and Ella walked inside.
I watched her face with rapt attention and felt shame when I saw tears line her eyes. I hadn’t meant to make her sad. She walked over to the crib and ran her fingers over the spindles. Then she walked over to the bookcase and traced each title of every baby book, and I just watched her in silence, wondering what she was thinking of the fact that a grown man had kept a nursery in his house for five years.
“It’s beautiful, Seth,” she finally said.
I breathed a sigh of relief and stepped deeper into the room. “It’s been five years. It’s probably time I pack all of this up and sell it,” I told her. “Or…you could have anything in here you want. Though I’m sure your mom and Anna and Maggie and everyone will want to spoil you at the baby shower.”
Maggie and the widows’ club were throwing her a shower in a couple of months.
Ella smiled at me, not a trace of judgment in her gaze. “I don’t think there is a timeline for this kind of thing. I stillsmell James’s sweater every morning, and I’m still wearing my ring.” Ella held up her left hand.
I nodded. “I used to do the same to Scarlett’s pillow,” I told her.
Ella nodded. “I didn’t wash my sheets for longer than I care to admit after James passed.”
I smiled. “No judgment here.”
She was so easy to talk to, so easy to love.
Ella peered at the rocking chair. Next to it was a picture of the last ultrasound photo we’d had taken. She shook her head. “How can you not just be so mad at God when you come in here? Our great God, who can raise Lazarus from the dead. And He let our spouses die. Your daughter.” By the time she was done, her voice shook and her hands were fisted.
It pained me to see that she still had so much anger towards God. But I understood it.
I walked over to a picture on the wall. It was of an elephant. I pulled it down to showcase the hole I’d punched in the wall with my fist after I’d learned of Scarlett’s death and the death of my child.
“I broke down in this room. But God put me back together here, too.” I replaced the photo and then opened the top drawer, where my grandfather’s old Bible sat, worn and well read. Like every good Christian, I had about fifty-six copies of the good Word, and I kept this one in here for days I was really down. I held it out to her. “This is what kept me from drowning.”
She shook her head, looking at the Word of God like it was a venomous snake. “You’re right. It is getting late.”
Lord, please help me with this stubborn woman, I asked God.
Feed my sheep.The thought was pressed upon my mind.
I’m trying.I felt resigned.
“I’m glad that worked for you,” she said with a tight smile.
Oh no. That’s what someone said when they were giving up on something. She was completely walking away from God. Had she cracked her Bible at all in the past few months?
“Listen, I know how you feel about church and all this.” I shook the Bible in the air. “But this Sunday, the pastor is out of town and has asked me to fill in.”
She grinned. “Seth Knight is preaching?”
I relaxed a little that her good-natured teasing was back. “I am. And I’m really nervous, and I’d like it if you could come sit in the back row and just?—”
“I can’t,” she said quickly. “And you’re right. It’s late. I think I should be going.”
It was like she’d poured ice water into my veins. I hadn’t expected her to reject a heartfelt plea. The shock must have shown on my face, because she frowned.
