This is love

SEVEN

The night when mom passed away, when we were huddled around her bedside watching closely as Nurse Una stood beside the monitors that traced her slowing heartbeat and deteriorating oxygen levels. Our hands were stacked on top of each other, all hovering over mom’s. Her cannula was removed over an hour ago, now her opaque skin was tinted with dark purple bruises and dad did his best to shield them. My eyes stayed trained on the green lines that danced across the small box frame, and I remember seeing them slowly dropping from high spikes to a barely noticeable curve until they finally lay flat. 

Flat.

The pain was nothing like I had ever felt before and after an hour, when my tears dried up and we had to pull ourselves away, I became numb. A literal fuzziness cascaded over me. I didn’t feel pain, I didn’t feel tired, I didn’t feel anything. There was no love, no hatred, no heartbreak - nothing. I lay awake that night listening to dad’s sob in the next room, probably clutching any piece of clothing to remind him of her. I heard Flo bawl down the phone and twenty minutes later the roar of Paul’s mustang pull outside our house. He was in her room within seconds and her cries became louder, but now muffled into his shoulder. 

I had nothing and no one. I lay alone, with no tears, no feelings just like stone. 

Just like how I was now - exactly eight years later. 

I stared out the window of our bedroom, feeling that exact numbness that succumbed me all those years ago, crawl back again. The weather outside resembles my exact feeling inside my heart. Dark, dreary and on the edge of a massive downpour. It couldn’t be more correct. Like the sky that held an image of uncertainty, my head was the same. 

“Hey, baby.” I heard him mumble. I don’t move however, for more than one reason. I don’t have the strength. I didn’t want to. He brings me tea and sets it at my bedside, the two capsules being put down with it. I still don’t move my gaze from the unsettling skies but I feel the bed sink at my feet. “We need to change your dressing today.” 

Right. Every two days that hideous scar needed checked and rebandaged to prevent infection and being unable to do it myself, Jason is roped into dealing with it while I remain mute. 

It’s been like this for four days since getting released from hospital. Me being locked away in this room, completely unable to move without assistance and relying on Jason at my every beck and call - although, it wasn’t really a beck and call more like a brutal force from his end. Forcing me to eat, to shower, to even sit up to prevent bedsores. There was no anger, not even frustration from him. Just me. Not even when I pushed him away at night and turned away in the mornings. He never bickered. 

“Do you want to shower now?” He asks, tenderly touching my leg and making me jerk back quickly. “Alright - in a while then.” with a quick kiss on the forehead, he leaves without another word. I should be overcome with tears, choking back sobs and clinging to him like some lost baby koala but I wasn’t. 

I slip my hand beneath the pillow, grabbing the crumpled pamphlet and staring down at the bold writing written in Times Roman font. 

Ectopic Pregnancy. 

I had read and reread it until the point of the blue paper had begun to lose its colour. Tormenting myself over the pregnancy I had lost and never knew about. 1 in 50 pregnancies are ectopic. 1 in 50. They said usually the egg dissolves before intervention was needed, and because the sac was past the dissolving point, they needed to remove it. Dissolve. They spoke about my baby like some type of coffee granules. They removed my tube too. Just one of them, but lessening my chance of getting pregnant again naturally by over half. The thought made me feel sick.