But that phase has passed.
The kids sleep just fine now.
I’m the one who doesn’t.
Ever since Cora died, sleep has been…difficult. Elusive. Like something I no longer deserve.
After over a decade of sharing a bed with someone, it’s a struggle to sleep alone. The bed is too big. Too cold. Too…empty.
In the weeks following her death, I’d often dreamshe was still here, sleeping in the bed beside me, her skin warm, her chest rising and falling with her even breaths.
But her face was wrong. Blank. Still.
It was the same expression she wore when I was finally allowed into the ICU and they told me there was no neurological activity. No chance. No miracle waiting to happen.
The same expression she wore during the honor walk, the hallway lined with nurses, doctors, and staff as they wheeled her toward the operating room where she would give four people a second chance at life.
While her one chance was erased.
I’ve been on the other side of that conversation more times than I can count. I’ve delivered those words with practiced calm. Explained brain death. Advocated for organ donation. Tried to give them hope in its strangest, cruelest form.
Learning a loved one has died is never easy.
But after losing Cora, I wouldn’t wish losing a loved one to brain death on anyone, even my worst enemies.
Because the body lies to you.
The chest still rises. The monitors still beep. The heart still beats. It gives you hope when every rational part of you knows better.
I knew it was statistically impossible.
Yet as I sat beside her for those few days while they coordinated her organ donation, I prayed for a miracle.
That sliver of hope still keeps me awake, even a year later.
Despite knowing the impossibility, I still wonder if I gave up too soon.
All because I saw her chest rise and fall.
That image will probably stay with me for the rest of my life.
Abandoning all hope of sleep, I throw the duvet off me to stand. Moving toward the windows, I pull back the curtains to allow some natural light into the room, hoping it will help clear away the cobwebs.
But as I do, my eyes fall on a figure in my back yard.
Rowan.
She’s stretched out on a yoga mat, wearing dark leggings and a tank top that clings to her like it were made for her. She moves slowly, her body flowing from one pose to the next with ease.
The morning light catches in her dark hair, highlighting her slender physique. And her tattoo. The vines and roses curl over her skin, beautiful and intricate.
From this far away, it looks like any tattoo.
But I know what I saw last night.
A scar covered by ink, deliberately disguised.
I probably never would have noticed it if she hadn’t tugged her shirt higher. At first, I thought she was uncomfortable because it was obvious she wasn’t wearing a bra.
