Chapter 29 – Only Human

A month later

“Do you want any bacon?”

Lance looked up from the newspaper to look at Addy, standing in front of the stove with a spatula in hand, turned around to look at him.

“What?”

“Bacon. Do you want any?” she asked again. “I'm not speaking German.”

“No,” he responded, shaking his head. “You know, you shouldn't be doing that.”

“Making you breakfast like a wonderful wife?” she asked with a smile.

“Making breakfast at all,” he responded. “You know this, Addy.”

“Damn it, Lance,” she said with attitude, even though she was still smiling. “Shut your mouth, read your paper, and let me make you your damn pancakes, okay?”

He pursed his lips but looked away.

“Do you need to wear a helmet when you ride a bike? I mean, you're so hard-headed.”

“Oh, funny,” she said as she approached him with a plate in hand. She sat it in front of him and took the opportunity to use the spatula in her hand to smack him lightly on the back of the head.

“Ow,” he said.

“Eat your food.”

He couldn't help but smile at her, grabbing her arm to bend her down closer to him, kissing her on the lips.

“Stubborn woman,” he said.

“And you love me anyway,” she responded.

“Yeah,” he said before kissing her again. “I do.”

She giggled, but he knew she was only hiding her anxiety and worries behind a constant smile. It was the only way she could cope with the day she had ahead of her.

Today was the exact day in her first pregnancy that she had lost her daughter, at a few days past 20 weeks. He had been counting down, dreading when this day would come, not knowing what the day would bring – for her, and for him.

He had enough common sense to know that it wasn't the exact day that was “cursed” - but he knew that was little consolation to her. It was something about the day. It was the top of her proverbial hill – if she made it to the top, if she made it through this day, the other side was a little easier to walk down. It was a milestone.

But the top of that proverbial hill was rough terrain. The day itself was hard to get past, with a lot of emotions and unwanted memories that he was sure would come washing back to her.

He was trying to be prepared for this day. He was skipping his show tonight and running a Best Of so he could stay home with her. He had a stack of movies they could watch, ones that he had picked out to be less emotionally triggering for her. He had a short list of places they could go if she needed a distraction. But he knew he could be prepared for this day every way except emotionally.

She smiled at him one last time before she leaned up and walked back toward the stove.

“I thought after breakfast, we could make a run to the store,” he said, lifting his coffee mug to his lips. “We could get some snacks and you could get out of the house for a while.”

“You can run there alone,” she said. “I think I'd rather stay home and knit.”

“You've gotta be dying to get out of the house though,” he said. “We'll make it quick.”

“I'm good,” she said, flipping a pancake over.

“Addy, you don't have to--”

“I said, I'm good Lance.”

He looked up to see her staring at him, all traces of the happy smile she had this morning gone.

“Okay then,” he said, knowing not to push her. “You're good.”

He took another sip of coffee as he heard the noises of her cooking resume.

“I'm almost finished with the blanket,” she said. “I might be able to finish it today if I don't make any mistakes. I think I'll try a hat next. What do you think?”

“I think...I sit and watch you and it all confuses me so much that I keep my nose out of it and let you go on being amazing,” he said. “I'd get tangled up and you'd have to cut me out of the mess.”

“I'd leave you tangled up,” she said, her smile returning. “You'd be easier to deal with. Maybe I'll pass the idea along to Mel, to deal with Chris.”

“Could you imagine Chris trying to knit?” he asked, slightly amused. “Trying being operative. I'd pay a hell of a lot of money to see that one happen.”

“I'll threaten to do his makeup next time he passes out here in front of the football game, unless he lets me teach him,” she said. “Not with my good needles though. Knowing Chris, they'd end up tossed across the roo--”

He looked up startled when he heard her lightly shriek and saw her put her hand on her stomach. Panic immediately sank in.

“What's wrong?” he asked, getting up from the chair in haste and walking to her.

He saw her wide eyes and shocked face, trying to gauge whether she was in pain or worried.

“Addy...”

“He kicked,” she said, looking up at him.

“Are you sure?” he asked. Well on his way to becoming a nervous father, he had done his research – and he knew that sometimes it could be hard to distinguish the first kicks from other things.

“Yeah,” she said. “It was low but I felt it. Come here.”

She grabbed his hand and pulled him closer toward her, putting his hand on her bump near her hip bone. When he didn't feel anything for the first minute or so, she pressed his hand into her stomach lightly to move it, and he was surprised to feel a slight, sharp movement.

“Did you feel it?” she asked, seeing the shock register on his face.

“Yeah,” he said quietly.

Seeing a look on his face that she didn't like, she squeezed his hand.

“Hey, what's wrong?” she asked.

He didn't answer her. She looked over his face, watching for any reaction she could. It was several seconds before she finally started to see that his eyes had started to water.

“Oh, Lance,” she said.

All she could do was wrap her arms tightly around him, letting him rest his head on her shoulder as she massaged a hand through his hair.

She knew this moment. It had finally hit him. Her moment had come when she'd first visited April's grave by herself – they'd had a small funeral ceremony of sorts, but she was mostly numb during it, not allowing herself to feel anything. Somehow, finally visiting it alone was what triggered the fact that it was real. It was really happening.

There was only so long of a period of time that you could deny it to yourself, and when it hit, it felt like a ton of bricks. She had collapsed into a heap on her knees in front of the gravestone, not having anyone there to comfort her as she had cried. That was officially when she had started her grieving process, when she opened herself up to finally feel it instead of keeping herself numb.

She had sat by for the past two months and wondered when it would happen for him, or if it even would. They had run off to get married, sat together as they broke the news to his parents, and gone to doctor appointments together. He'd had the chance to hear the heartbeat, see her get rounder every day, and see his child on the ultrasound screen.

He could disconnect from all of that. It was the movement – the very real movement – that had finally triggered it.

“I'm sorry, Addy,” he said. She noticed he wasn't fully crying, but she knew he wouldn't be hiding his eyes if he didn't have some tears. “It just hurts. I want this so bad.”

“So do I,” she said.

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“We're here.”

She heard him speak softly from the driver's seat, followed by the sound of his seatbelt retracting.

She stared out into the lush, green cemetery in front of them. Reaching down to her side, she clicked the button to release her own seatbelt, letting it slide back from across her slowly.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked. “We don't have to do this.”

“Yeah,” she said. “It's okay.”

She hadn't planned on going anywhere today. She had planned on staying home, curling up in Lance's comfiest sweatpants and one of his t-shirts, and watching movies with him as she ate her own weight in comfort food. She wanted to hide away from the world. She didn't think she could stand going into even a grocery store and seeing a child in a cart, or even a pregnant woman – as it was, she could barely look at herself in the mirror that morning.

But after both of them had broken down in the kitchen this morning before breakfast had even been eaten, she realized whether she wanted to do this or not – it was something that they both needed.

Hiding away from the world, whether it was too painful or not, was not the solution to the problem. It had to be faced head-on.

“Is today the best day for this?” he asked. “Today will be hard enough. Maybe tomorrow would be a better day to come back.”

“Tomorrow will be like any other visit,” she said. “If we leave and come back tomorrow, we're sweeping it under the rug. We're running away. It has to be today. We have to face this, Lance.”

He nodded, and they both paused a moment before reaching over to their respective car doors, opening them at the same time. She closed her door shortly after she heard his shut, turning around to face away from the car.

It was late August, and as the days of summer were starting to wind down, the ground would be covered with snow before they knew it. But for now, the grass was thick and green. The leaves were only now starting to turn, and a few were already scattered across the Glendale cemetery grounds. She was surprised at how many sprays of flowers covered gravestones, and she instantly felt bad that she hadn't been out here to lay out flowers for months.

Life had been busy – and complicated. Having to live in Los Angeles for over a year for the divorce had left her little chance to fly all the way to New York to visit the cemetery for a day. After they had moved back to New York, the pregnancy had made her constantly tired and nauseous. Now that she was finally feeling better physically, she was on too many restrictions to make regular trips out here – and not in the right place emotionally, either.

So much had changed in the past two years. She had gone from married, to separated, to divorced, and now that she was back out here, she was married again – and pregnant. Something she never expected that she would ever experience again. It was something she didn't think she ever wanted to experience again – but somehow, this time had been different.

As anxious and sad as she was, something about knowing what could happen and expecting the worst made her cherish every moment this time around. There were times that being pregnant was miserable – between the weight gain, the back aches, the constant nausea, always feeling tired, and every other symptom under the sun that she had felt this time – and there were times she would admit that secretly, she didn't want to be pregnant; she wanted to feel like her old self again. But there wasn't a time she wished she wasn't pregnant anymore. She didn't take it for granted, because if it was gone tomorrow, she would miss it.

“How do you carry this weight with you everywhere?” he asked as they stood in front of April's gravestone quietly, his arms wrapped around her chest. “Sometimes I feel like I'm on the edge of a cliff and I have no hope of keeping my balance.”

“You assume I don't feel the same way,” she said. “You find ways to cope because that's the only choice you have. You feel like the world stops turning, but it doesn't – and it goes on with or without you. I had to choose to go with it when I was ready. It gets better as time goes on, but it never goes away. Sometimes I act so normal people forget that it ever happened. Sometimes I stumble but I do a good job pretending that I'm fine. And sometimes I crash face-first. I'm only human. It happens.”

“I never thought I'd have to think about this stuff,” he said.

“None of us do,” she said. “It happens all too often and people don't talk about it. Being pregnant is supposed to be such a joyful thing that it's taken for granted. It's supposed to be innocent. Nobody wants that ripped away from them.”

“Nothing will ever be innocent anymore,” he said softly.

All she could do was nod in agreement and grab his hand, giving it a squeeze.