Stitched in blue cursive writing is a name.
Carson.
My eyes dart around the room, searching for anything to help me understand what’s going on, when they land on a small picture frame. A black-and-white sonogram sits in the center, and, like everything else, a thick layer of dust coats it.
The patient name at the top of the scan drains all the blood from my body. My hand flies to my mouth, muffling a sound that’s something between a sob and a gasp.
Alison O’Connor.
This nursery isn’t for the child growing in my belly.
“Hey, I was wondering where…” Marcus cuts himself off. I don’t look at him as he enters the room. “Warren.” He murmurs his friend’s name in such a broken manner, it tells me this is as much a shock to him as it is to me.
Words get lost in my throat. I’m unable to drag my watery gaze away from the perfect picture of a baby. A baby boy who I don’t think ever saw the inside of this nursery.
A nursery, I suspect, that has sat like this, untouched and incomplete for eight years.
Piece by horrifying piece, the truth slots into place.
His initial reaction to hearing about my pregnancy.
His apprehension about taking the sonogram.
His fierce protectiveness and wanting to drive me everywhere.
His avoidance of having me over to his house.
Warren didn’t just lose his wife today. He lost his son.
Marcus isn’t surprisedto find out Warren discharged himself from the hospital. Hurt scores his features, but he keeps it together, mostly for my sake. I’ve somehow mirrored his calmness, even when panic over Warren’s whereabouts crept in.
Warren isn’t answering his phone, and it was a shot in the dark coming here, but as we slowly roll through the quiet cemetery, I spot a lone figure hunched in the grass.
“There!” I tap Marcus’s arm, and he pulls the truck to a stop.
“Thank fuck.” He drops his head forward to the steering wheel.
Relief bleeds out of us.
I don’t believe Warren’s any harm to himself, but considering how disoriented he was earlier and knowing the true meaning behind today’s date, the last thing I want is for him to be alone.
“You go to him,” Marcus says. “I’ll park. Call me when you’re ready.”
“Thank you.” I squeeze his arm before climbing out of the truck.
Warren sits motionless in front of a gravestone as I approach. He might not want me here or to hear my words. For months, I’ve respected and remained patient with him, something I never plan on stopping. Today, I’m being stubborn, because if he tries to push me away, to cover his pain, I’m standing strong.
He’s hurting, scarred from years old wounds, but his pain doesn’t need to be experienced alone. Not any longer.
The damp grass seeps through the canvas material of my sneakers, and the overcast sky shadows the rows of granite and marble headstones from the warm rays of the sun. I approach slowly, not wanting to startle him, and as I draw closer, the deep lilt of his voice floats with the wind.
“I’m so sorry for failing you.”
It’s those words, wrapped in the belief he had anything to do with the terrible tragedy that took his wife and child, that break me. The heart he owns irrefutably bleeds.
He tenses for a beat when I run my hands through his messy hair before he relaxes into my touch. A soft exhale escapes him.
“You never failed them,” I say softly. “Not once, and not now.”
