The Artist [h.s.]

sixteen

Harry recovered from his bullet wound with astounding quickness, but neither he nor Carter had yet to recover over the loss of their little girl.

The nights were long and the crying was endless. Harry kept it together on most nights, for her sake, but he didn't know how much longer he could handle being the strong one when she hardly acknowledged that he felt her pain almost equally.

He promised that he would always be there for her, and he would be, but he wasn't emotionless and he broke too, it was only a matter of time.

The door at the end of the hall remained shut at all times. Carter couldn't stand to know that it was there, a stark and painful reminder that her baby was gone and that there was nothing that she could do about it.

Sometimes, she wanted to open the door, just to peek inside and pretend that everything was fine and that a sweet little baby girl sat in the crib, wrapped up in soft blankets and sleeping peacefully. Other times, she was tempted to open the door, just to sit in the middle of the floor and cry. Carter never opened the door.

Harry, on the other hand, acknowledged that it was there. Sometimes he went inside just to cry and let his feelings out without having to be the strong one for most of the time, and, sometimes, he went inside to pray.

His relationship with religion had been rocky for years, he would only turn to it when things just became too much for him to handle, or when he was selfish and asking for things that he didn't deserve. When he was a kid, he, along with the rest of his family, were solid in their faith and there was always that notion in the back of his mind. Now, he needed his faith more than ever, even if it was only to understand why God kept giving them little miracles and then taking them away.

Carter was religious, well, religious in the sense that she knew what it was and she prayed sometimes, selfish reasons most of the time, and in the sense that she believed. She nearly stopped believing when she lost the second baby. Harry wouldn't let her slip though and that's what kept her going and that's what kept her faith alive, even if only barely.

Each of them continued to go on with their lives, but the joy was gone, the art lost its vibrancy, their passion dwindled to a point where it was practically nonexistent, and time hardly mattered at all. Days were just days and they would never get their little girl back.

Carter would get home first and spend an hour, or a few, in the shower, drowning in her thoughts and letting her sadness hold her down. She would compose herself and make dinner and then Harry would come home. He would walk over to the kitchen sink and scrub his hands like they were covered in tar, like the very skin that covered his bones was eating him alive.

They would eat dinner in silence. Sometimes, a few words were shared, but it was a rare occasion. At first, things weren't as bad. Harry tried to keep her talking and keep her mind away from her thoughts for weeks, but eventually he gave up because it wasn't making a difference other than making her mad at him and getting the thought in her head that he was pretending like nothing happened.

Harry would shower next and repeat the excessive and painful scrubbing of his skin while crying just like Carter did. Sometimes, they would shower together and just hold each other and cry, clinging desperately to the other in hopes that it would make something feel better.

And each night it would end the same, Carter sobbing into his chest, his arms holding her close and holding the pieces of her fragmented heart together, her arms holding him but not doing the same thing at all. Some nights, Harry would cry with her and hold her a little too tight, and then she would hold him the way that he held her, but she still didn't realize that he hurt just like she did.