For as long as he lived, he would never forget that call.
“You need to get down to the hospital. It’s Kelly...”
It came, he remembered, no more than a second before he’d opened his mouth to sing into the microphone that hung in front of him. He could still hear it, the melody for which the accompanying words were never voiced, a melody that still reverberated off the walls of his skull, along with the sobs that had tied in with her tears.
Her tears.
Each tiny drop held more pain than he’d ever bared witness to before, more pain than he’d ever wanted to witness. Enough pain to last a lifetime. Too much pain for one person to take on alone. Too much pain for one person at all, really. A pain that she carried by herself, one that no one truly knew the depths of.
Except him.
Taking in a deep breath, the crispness of the February New York City air burning and refreshing his lungs at the same time, his eyes lingered on the image that hovered in the window of the record store in Times Square. The lines of her features stared back at him and he had to restrain himself from reaching up to trace the contours of her jaw, the way he used to so many times just before she’d fall asleep next to him.
He pulled up the collar of his jacket to wield off the frigid gusts of wind that passed down the street, trying and failing to prevent the icy chill that trickled up and down his spine. He glanced up once more at her image, the subtle sexiness seeping through the glass piercing his heart. Shaking his head once before he turned away, he continued the walk to his hotel in which he’d stopped mid-step when he saw her staring back at him through fallen locks of hair, shaking him almost to the center of his very being. Much like the sight of her did, so distraught, the day she was released from the hospital.
“Don’t tell me it’s going to be alright, Josh! It won’t be!”
He could still hear it, the way her voice broke as she cried tears that were drawn from the depths of her soul. Tears he couldn’t stop, fears he couldn’t take away, no matter how desperately he tried. She simply wouldn’t let him.
It was a laugh that had him angling his head, straining to hear more. Her laugh, that unmistakable, musical sound that he’d never wanted to end after it had started.
A sound he hadn’t heard in almost a year.
He knew it was her before he’d even turned in the direction from which the sound came, but the sight of her stepping out of the yellow taxi with her assistant close behind, a taxi that had brought her to the very same hotel he where was staying, still caused the ache that had settled deep in the pit of his stomach to rise again, the kind of ache that grabs at your heart and squeezes until you want to beg for the mercy you know it won’t give. The kind of ache he’d gotten used to feeling day in and day out, sometimes sharper than others, for the better part of a year.
It seemed they turned toward each other at the same time, the almost magnetic force that had brought them together for the first time five years before still holding the same power over them now that it had then. It was over her shoulder, from twenty feet away with her body turned slightly toward his, that she caught his stare. It was then her breath stopped in her lungs. It was then he forgot how to speak.
It was then that both of their hearts fell to the floor and shattered all over again.
Instinctively, her hand found it’s way to her lower abdomen, and even from the distance between them he saw her eyes darken. He knew what it meant, the sudden clouds that dominated her usually sunny stare. How could he not, when it was an emotion he was very familiar with himself?
She was remembering, too.
“What about Alyssa?”
Pulling her hazel eyes away from the rack of little dresses dripping with ruffles and bows, Kelly made a face, scrunching up her nose and shaking her head. “Can’t. That’s my sister’s name,” she answered, returning a sunshine yellow two-piece set to the fixture.
Standing off to the side, JC flipped through the pages of the baby name book he’d picked up from the rack at the front of the store. Abigail, Amanda, Bethany, Brianna... “You know, I never would have guessed naming a child would be so hard,” he said, snapping the book shut and taking steps toward where Kelly stood, holding a tiny pair of K-Swiss sneakers.
“Have you ever seen anything so adorable in your entire life?” She let out on an almost breathless sigh, clearly enamored with the miniature pair of shoes.
A deep, sweet laugh escaped him as he moved behind her, snaking his arms around her barely swollen middle and resting his chin on her shoulder. “Every morning I wake up with you next to me,” he whispered close to her ear, and from the corner of his eye he saw he smile.
“You know, if you keep saying sweet things like that to me, I think I’ll get a cavity,” she said, laughing with him as he pressed a kiss to her temple.
“Maybe, but you love every word I say,” he responded, re-opening the book as she moved on to itty bitty sandals.
“Yes I do...”
She didn’t know what to say to him.
It was sad, really, considering all they’d gone through together. Countless nights, thousands of whispers, hundreds of kisses and one deep, scarring void... all in the span of the four short years he’d been the vein of her existence.
The shaky breath she released as they stood with eyes locked was a dead giveaway that the brave front she put up was just that, a front. The painfully liquid expression in her eyes was more than enough confirmation that, as much as she tried to deny it, she clearly wasn’t over losing that part of herself she’d never regain again.
She wasn’t sure when she’d begun to take the slow, measured steps toward him vaguely recalling uttering soundless words -at least to her ears- to Ann, but as she found herself inching toward him, his own footsteps echoing her pattern, her heart all but stopped in her chest, vivid pictures of that final day sifting through the hourglass of her memory.
“It’s over, JC. You and I both know it.”
Oh, how hard it had been to walk out those doors, how her heart had broken for a second time in a few short months, another time in her short life. She’d lost the two things that had mattered most to her in life too closely together, and it had taken her a very long time just to get to the point where she could smile again and not feel guilty. And truth be told... sometimes, it still burned.
“Hey Kel...”
No one could say her name like he could. No one had ever been able to, and she was pretty sure no one ever would. The tone of his voice, the level of the volume... the emotion behind it all. Like when he used to sing to her at night, songs he’d written that no one had ever heard but her, the melody swirling around in her mind the last thing she would remember before sliding into sleep. She hadn’t slept that peacefully in a very long time.
“Hello, JC... it’s good to see you.”
It killed him to hear her voice, while at the same time he craved to hear more. Memories of countless conversations surfaced in his mind, snatches of them floating around in the air, and he actually found himself glancing around to see if she’d heard as well. But her despair-coated hazels never left his equally aching sapphires and the sudden urge to break down and cry right there on that busy New York sidewalk was one that attempted to overtake them both.
He let his eyes drift over her features, barely changed since he’d seen her last. Her dark hair, falling to frame her winter-flushed cheeks, was covered by the fuzzy white Kangol hat she’d had since her days on American Idol, a scarf of the same color and texture wrapped around her throat and disappearing underneath a black, button-front Pea coat. Faded denim jeans clothed her lower half, running down her legs to almost hide the black boots that barely peaked out from underneath the hems. Her breath came out in short, white clouds and her mascara and eyeliner-framed eyes were wide, staring unblinking at his loss of what to say next.
Coughing lightly to clear the painful tightness in his throat, he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, raising his eyes to hers once more. Gesturing to the hotel lobby they stood in front of with one hand, he followed her lead as she stepped inside, making their way to the small coffee shop in the ground floor. They found a small table near the back, one out of the view of the other patrons inside, and he helped her slide her chair closer to the table before sitting in the unoccupied chair next to her. They let the distraction of the waitress approaching them to take their drink orders take over the awkward lull in their conversation, but as soon as she left them alone and Kelly reached up to slip her hat off, the question of what to say hanging over their heads once more.
That therein lay the problem. What do you say to someone who still, even after such a long frame of time had passed, carried a piece of your heart? The dilemma wasn’t in what to say. It was in what not to say. Treading too deeply would hurt them both, and he was sure neither of them could withstand that kind of pain all over again. So despite the thousand and one thoughts echoing through his mind, the only thing he thought appropriate was the most generic conversation starter known to mankind.
“How’ve you been?”
He should have known, however, that she wouldn’t let it stay that way between them. It wasn’t Kelly’s way to simply gloss things over and hope the hard parts would pass. It hit him as she looked him square in the eye, that silent pain she never fully shared with him clearer than anything he’d ever seen in her eyes before. “I’m.... I’m okay. Some days are better than others. But I’m sure you know how that goes.”
He simply nodded, not daring to speak for fear that if he so much as uttered a single syllable, the resolve he spent close to twelve months building would crack up the center and come crashing down.
She saw his struggle, remembering so vividly the way in which he’d tried to be strong for her, when inside she knew he was broken just as much as she had been. He’d strived to make things as easy for her as possible, and it was with a heavy heart that she remembered she hadn’t done the same for him. It was selfish, she knew, but at the time, all she could think about was her pain, her suffering. She hadn’t given a second thought to his.
Paintbrush in hand, she watched as he made careful sweeps with the brush around the trim of the window, concentrating hard on the task at hand. A small smile began forming at the corners of her lips and she stopped in mid-stroke to watch his painstakingly precise work, going, it seemed, to great lengths to make sure what he did was absolutely perfect.
“Nothing. You just looked so into what you were doing,” she responded after he’d questioned her about what she found so funny.
“Hey, only the best for my baby girl,” he said, dropping the paintbrush into the can of light lavender paint that sat by his feet and crossing the room to where she stood.
“I thought I was your baby girl,” she joked, receiving the soft kiss he brushed against her lips.
“You are,,” he said, sweeping his finger across the purple smudge on her cheek as he smiled down at her. “Now I have two.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to apologize to her once more, but he held back, knowing it wouldn’t matter now. He hadn’t been the reason everything fell apart any more than she had, which was something both of them knew, though there was that part of him that couldn’t help but wonder, maybe...
She was looking at him with those eyes again, the ones that spoke volumes of her desire to have that day back, along with the ones that had ultimately followed. It was a sentiment he silently echoed, one that he’d practically gotten down on his knees and prayed for every day since they’d been apart, one that held little to no hope of ever becoming reality. But still...
“I’ve missed you, Kelly.”
He heard her take in a difficult breath as she fingered a sugar packet, one filled with the searing pain he couldn’t seem to let go of himself. He wasn’t sure if that meant she felt the same, or if his comment had done nothing but strengthen her resolve to move on with her life the only way she knew how- by leaving him and what they’d had behind.
But as her slowly-filling eyes held his again, he had his answer before she even expelled her words on a shaky whisper. “I’ve missed you, too.”
He lifted the fingers on his right hand to brush away the tiny teardrops that formed underneath her lashline, stopping in mid-air when she turned her head away from his touch. “Don’t. Please. I just... I can‘t,” she continued, her tone still that of a woman who’d been to hell and back and hadn’t completely recovered.
“I-I’m sorry, Kel...”
“No... It’s okay. It just that... it still hurts, you know.”
And he did.
They stood just inside the threshold of the door, she accepting the soft, slow kisses he rained upon her lips, he holding her tired, still half asleep frame securely in his arms. He knew if he didn’t leave soon he wouldn’t at all, but “one more kiss” turned into two, two into four, four into however many they were up to now, and with each passing second he thought of blowing off his studio time just to be with her. She’d never let him, he knew that, but he entertained the thought for a few more seconds, and kisses, until her soft, sleepy laughter seeped passed the lips that were pressed against his own.
“Okay, now you’re really late,” she said, turning her head away from his inviting lips.
“They can’t start without me. What’s a few more minutes?” He spoke, burying his face in the crook of her neck as he held her tighter.
“Jace...” she spoke, a playful warning tone to her words.
“Okay, okay... I’m going,” he said, pressing one last, brief but sweet, kiss to her smiling lips, then one to her clearly rounded belly. “Call me if you need anything.”
Leaning her aching frame against the doorjamb, she watched him half-jog down the front walkway, messenger bag slung over one shoulder. He gave her a quick wave before jumping into his car and driving down the street.
Her eyes stayed on the taillights of the car until they disappeared, and as she turned to go back into the house, a short, stabbing pain gripped her lower body, all but knocking the breath from her lungs.
‘Just a cramp, nothing to worry about,’ she thought, laying down on the couch.
She turned her head away, looking down at her feet, but not before he caught a glimpse of the tears that began to build in the corners of her eyes. ‘She’s reliving it,’ he thought, mentally screaming at himself to prevent any movements he would have made to hold her, though his arms ached to do just that.
Tapping his pencil against the metal stand holding his music, he hummed a beat to himself before jotting a few notations in the margins. He slid the pencil behind his ear, nodding to the techs in the sound booth before sliding on the headphones that hung over the sheet music. The melodic sounds of violins and the light, airy chords of the piano filled his ears, his eyes following the notes on the paper, fully prepared to sing the words written just for them when the music abruptly stopped in his ears, looking up as it was replaced instead by the voice of his co-producer.
“Jace, you just got a phone call. You need to get down to the hospital. It’s Kelly. They think she went into labor...”
“In other news, pop superstars JC Chasez and Kelly Clarkson suffered a heartbreaking loss last night. Paramedics were called to the couple’s LA residence yesterday afternoon to rush Clarkson to the hospital, where the singer gave birth to a stillborn baby girl. Chasez and Clarkson’s reps issued a statement last night saying, ‘Both JC and Kelly are deeply saddened by this loss and ask the public to give them an adequate length of time to grieve.’ The two met in 2003 at the Billboard Music Awards and began dating soon after. That’s all the news for now, stay tuned to MTV, at ten to the hour, every hour or log on to MTV.com for more information.”
Her breath came in short, rapid gasps, as painful for him to watch as they were for her to take. He’d tried so hard to block that day from his memory, as he was sure she did. Their entire relationship had balanced on that one moment, teetering perilously before it toppled over the side and shattered when it hit bottom, which didn’t happen until a few days after she’d come home.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d sat in that room, painted pale purple for a little girl who would never see its walls. From the open closet door, tiny garments hung in a multitude of colors, shoes in a multitude of styles lined up neatly beneath the hems. In the corner a rocking chair sat lonely, its only occupant a small, soft teddy bear with fur of bright white. Muted by gauzy white curtains, sunlight streamed through clear glass, freshly washed in anticipation of little fingers that would never smear sticky substances across its thin panes. A mobile made of butterflies swayed slowly, almost as if not at all, over a white crib that would never hold a sleeping infant, the tiny comforter draped over the rails.
Unmoving from the place she occupied, sitting on her knees in the center of the floor, her eyes rimmed in red, she let her gaze drift over her surroundings. They’d chosen every single item in that room with such care, making sure that everything was absolutely perfect, and all for what? She’d come home that morning, arms holding nothing but her own trembling body, and gone straight to this room... the room where her daughter should have slept.
He watched from the doorway as she bowed her head into her hands and cried, the sobs of a woman who’d lost the core of her heart and soul filling the almost-choking silence that hung in the air. Her entire body shook as she bent over forward, her heartbroken wails the only sound at all throughout the entire house. Embracing herself, she rocked back and forth, crying too hard to catch her breath, and he didn’t hesitate another second before joining her in the center of the room where she sat on the little area rug, the most intense pain she’d ever felt engulfing her whole heart.
Kneeling down next to her he took her shaking form into his arms, holding her tightly as she sobbed hysterically and clutched at his shirt, her almost incoherent cries allowing him only to make out a vague plea to God that He give her back her baby. He cried with her, bowing his head into the crook of her neck as she laid her head against his shoulder, feeling her hot, stinging tears seep through the material of his shirt as his fell into her tangled hair. And all he could do was hold her.
“I think about her.”
The slightly choked, tear-filled sound of her voice had him leveling his eyes with hers again. The wetness that surrounded her beautifully heartbroken hazels made the tight band that had already formed around his throat seem tighter, and he didn’t know if he could speak even if he wanted to.
“I think about if she’d look more like me or you. I think about if she would have taken her first steps by now, or if she’d have blue eyes, if she’d sleep though the night. I think about what she’d sound like when she laughed, or when she’d cry.”
Her breath caught in her throat as the emotions she’d worked so hard to get away from hit her like a freight train once more. “I... think... about... what it would... be like... to… hold her,” she spoke between painful gasps of air, losing her grip on her composure as she cried. “To... hold her... and know...that I have... never loved... anything more.”
The tightness in his throat became unbearable and with a agonizing breath of his own, he began to cry with her, bowing his head as quiet sobs wracked his entire body. “Kelly, I’m so sorry...” he spoke, not caring who passed by and saw their emotional display. This wasn’t about the strangers in a coffee shop. This was about them.
She continued to cry, and even though she’d pushed him away once before, he attempted to reach out to her again. This time she fell into his arms, still holding back, but experiencing, just a little, the true extent of his loss as well, not just her own.
He tapped a few keys on the piano, his head propped up by his free hand as he sat on the wooden bench slouched against the instrument. His whole body felt tired, almost weak. He couldn’t sleep, though for her it was the complete opposite -even if she did have prescribed help- and it was the hours between when the sun would set and rise again that he found himself most alone with his thoughts.
Above him, in the bed they’d shared for the majority of the previous three years, she slept unaware of his actions. He’d watched her before sliding from under the sheets, feeling the tears well up in his own eyes while hers dried on her cheeks. It had been like this for weeks; she’d fall into a heavily-sedated slumber while he couldn’t find the comfort of rest and he’d watch her. Just watch her.
Lifting his exhausted, red-tinged cobalt eyes to the page that sat leaning to one side on a folded corner in front of him, he felt the prickling sensation he’d begun to grow accustomed to burn his eyelids, the words blurring on the page before him, though he didn’t have to read them to know what they spoke. He knew them by heart –he’d written them himself- and despite the eagerness he’d felt to record it before, now there was nothing. Half the inspiration for the lyrics was gone and the other half was rapidly slipping away, retreating further and further into herself with each passing hour.
He sighed heavily and pushed his fingers back through his insomnia-induced tangle of hair, covering his face with shaking hands as he struggled to keep his breathing even. He knew she was hurt, he knew her feelings well, but she refused to let him in after she’d allowed him to hold her in the nursery the day she came home. It was almost as if she didn’t feel worthy of the comfort he was so willing to give her. Little by little, she’d begun to close off her heart, starting with the moment she’d lain on the table in the operating room, squeezing his hand as tightly as she could, tears sliding from the corners of her eyes and trailing back into tangled hair, while remnants of a life that hadn’t had the chance to begin were stripped from inside her body.
He sensed her there before he heard the movement behind him, and it wasn’t more an a few seconds before he turned in the doorway, seeing her standing in the opening completely dressed and holding a small suitcase. He sat up straighter, pushing himself off the piano bench to join her where she stood, questioning her with his eyes before he even used the words.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going home,” she answered, her simple statement bringing him more confusion.
“Baby, you are home.” He reached out to take her hand, but she pulled back, taking a large step away from him.
“I’m going home, Josh. To Texas.”
The air rushed from his lungs in the same manner it would had he been sucker punched and he had to grip the edge of the doorframe to keep his balance. “So, I’ll go with you-“ he started, but she was quick to cut him off.
“You can’t go with me.”
“Why not?”
“Because. You just can’t.”
“Kelly, I don’t understand where this is coming from. Can’t we talk about this in the morning?” he asked, reaching out to take the suitcase from her hand
“No!” She cried, pulling the suitcase out of his reach. “No, we can’t talk about this in the morning. There’s nothing to talk about. It’s too hard to stay here, to walk by that damn room every day knowing what I lost.”
“I’ll have someone put everything in storage or something. You don’t have to leave, Kelly.”
“Yes I do. It’s not getting easier, JC. I’m not getting any better, I’m getting worse. My God, I can’t even sleep without taking some kind of pill and it’s the only thing I do anymore because it hurts too much to be awake! I can’t be here and be reminded of what I lost. And I can’t stay with you,” she finished softly, shaking her head as the familiar pattern of tears coursed down her cheeks.
“Kelly… please. Give it a little more time and everything will be all right,” he spoke, reaching out to brush the tears from her cheek.
“Don’t tell me it’s going to be all right, Josh! It won’t be! I don’t like what I’ve become, can’t you see that?” She cried, shoving his hand away.
“Don’t do this,” he begged, fighting off the sudden urge to vomit that lay lodged in his throat. But even as he pleaded, he knew her mind was made up, and there was nothing he could do to persuade her otherwise.
“I have to. It’s over, JC. You and I both know it.”
“I should… I should probably go,” she said, sweeping underneath her eye with the knuckle on her thumb to brush away any remnants of her breakdown.
Panic rose in his throat at the thought of her leaving so soon. “Wait… Kel, I… can you stay? Just for a little while longer?” he pleaded, forcing the desperation out of his voice.
“I left Ann…” she started, pointing over her shoulder towards the door, but his hand covering hers on the table, bridging the gap between their bodies, had her words stalling in her throat.
“Please… there’s something I’ve been wanting to give you,” he replied, his voice catching as he stared into her not quite dry eyes.
She hesitated, not sure what to do. The shock of seeing him had worn off some time ago, but now it was replaced with the raw pain of a re-opened wound, the one she’d tried so hard to close within the last year. One look into his eyes and it all came back again, that intense, searing grief she’d thought she’d finally gotten past.
But there was something else behind those crystal clear baby blues, something that spoke of a time before her world fell apart, that had her reconsidering the refusal she was about to offer to him. “Okay,” she exhaled on a soft whisper.
The sliver of pale yellow that that preceded them into the otherwise darkened hotel room gave her chills, but she couldn’t put her finger on why. Maybe it was because instant memories of other darkened hotel rooms filled her mind. Or maybe it was because the emptiness of the space reminded her of the gaping void in her life without him and the child they had wanted so badly. Maybe it wasn’t because of anything at all. Maybe it just was.
She found herself standing in the doorway as he moved inside, almost afraid to step over the threshold in the fear that she wouldn’t have the ability to leave if she did. It was like the childhood fear of the monster under the bed; you knew it wasn’t there, but there was always that chance…
He looked back after snapping on a single light, one that cast weak rays throughout the room, brightening the room but the slimmest of margins. Watching as she took slow, careful steps into the suite, he didn’t push her to move faster as he pulled a letter sized envelope from his bag, one that was slightly torn and rumpled, as if he’d carried it with him every day since he’d seen her last… which he had.
She was no more than five feet away when he extended the envelope for her to take, which she did slowly and with an air of uncertainty. She had no idea what lay concealed within the thinness of the paper enclosure, and as she ever-so-carefully pealed back the top she wondered if she even wanted to know.
He watched her remove the folded sheets of paper covered with his masculine handwriting, watched her eyes scan the greeting, and watched as her eyes misted over once again as she took in the words that had poured from his heart mere hours after she’d walked out of his life.
She looked back up at him once before continuing, slowly lowering herself to the edge of the bed, and as she took in his musings, tears blurring her vision, little by little
My Dearest Kelly,
It’s been more than four hours since you walked out of the door I’m still sitting in, the doorway your ghost still haunts. I can’t bear to stand and walk out of this room, because if I stay right where I am I can hold onto the fragile hope that maybe you didn’t really leave, and I can keep my heart from breaking again.
I want to go after you, but for some reason I just can’t. Maybe because, on some deeper level that I don’t understand just yet, I know that if you stayed, piece by piece you would fade away eventually, dying in time just like our little girl. These last few weeks, as much as I’d give anything to change it, I just couldn’t help you get over losing that baby. How could I even try, when I’m not over it myself?
I wish you would’ve held her, Kelly. I wish you would have looked at her, even if it was with tears clouding your view. I wish you would have seen how beautiful she was, even without a single breath escaping her tiny body. I wish you would have seen the perfect little fingers and toes, all twenty of them. I wish you would’ve seen the tiny little mouth that was an exact miniature of yours. I wish you would have taken that gorgeous little person into your arms and seen with your own eyes how absolutely perfect she was, even in death.
I can’t tell you how deep the pain goes, not that I would have to. In my mind, I know she’ll never smile, she’ll never take her first unsteady step with either you or I holding her tiny hands with each attempt. I know she’ll never climb a school bus for Kindergarten while you cry from the sidewalk as you watch her. I’ll never chase the monsters from her closet, or the teenage boys from our front porch that would have no doubt flooded our home, all while she’d roll her eyes looking so much like you I’d have to smile despite my best efforts not to. She’ll never grow up to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or even sing as beautifully as her Mommy does. She’ll never be anything but that precious little creature I held once and only once before they took her from my life, and yours, forever. But I had that moment, as brief as it was, and it’s something I’ll thank God for every day of my life.
There’s nothing in this world I want more than for you, and she, to be here and it’s all I wanted every day since I rushed to that hospital to be with you. I feel like I’m walking in a horrible dream, and pinching myself does nothing to break me from it. And now, since you drifted from my life as well, the nightmare has gotten worse.
Loving someone is never easy, but no one said it had to be this hard either. Even though I love you more than life itself, I can’t make you come back no matter how hard I pray for it to happen, and it hurts just to think of you. Every hour is painful, every minute torturous, but what can I do except try and live without you? In time, I hope you’ll see that her death was not your fault, or mine. And maybe it’s cliché to think that she’ll stay that perfect little doll of a child forever, but that’s how I’ll think of her. At least when it stops hurting just to breathe.
I love you, Kel.
Forever,
Josh
She didn’t wipe her tears away this time. Instead she let them fall, silently counting the drops as each piece of her heart slid down her cheeks and fell onto the pages she held in her trembling hands. As she sniffled, he looked up from the item he held clasped in his hand, and when he turned to face her with the look of a man who’d lost the love of his life not only once, but twice, she finally understood.
He returned his eyes to his fisted palm, clutching at whatever he held so tightly his knuckles began turning white. “For a while I felt cheated. All I could think of was that I didn’t understand how God could be so cruel, so compassionless, to take away that beautiful, perfect little girl. But then I knew why. He wanted her for himself.”
He crossed the small space separating them, kneeling in front of her as his renewed tears slipped freely from his eyes. “I don’t think I’ll ever fully get over losing her Kelly. Which is why I held onto this,” he whispered, pressing the treasure he held into her hand.
She kept it closed for a moment, feeling the texture of it before she slowly uncurled her fingers. The gold chain caught the light, as did the tiny, golden baby block letters spelling out her name. Their angel who’d never tested her wings on Earth. Isabella.
Her chest heaved with every ragged breath she took, and her eyes closed as she cried, closing her fingers around that little gold necklace meant for a child and holding it close to her heart. She felt his hand, as warm and familiar as it had been so many months ago, cup her tear-damp cheek, felt his forehead press to hers, felt his warm breath tickling her lips as he whispered in a voice as uneven as her breathing. “I may not get over losing her… but I will never get over losing you.”
She let him hold her, really hold her, for the first time since the horrible day in the nursery outfitted for a princess who’d gone on to another castle. And as she cried with her head cradled against his chest, hearing his heart beat in time with hers, she did something she hadn’t been able to do since the moment her child had slipped away.
She let go.
