If Forever Comes (21 page)

A delicate script was inscribed across the
top.

Lillie Ann Davison

Forever In Our Hearts

There was no date.

He’d simply stated her time as
forever
.

And for a moment, all I could feel was
Christian’s grief. It broke over me in a crashing wave. I gasped as
it knocked me forward, and I held myself up with one hand as I
struggled to breathe.

Had I been unable to recognize it then? Or was
I just imagining it now?

But it was strong. Overpowering. As
overwhelming as the confusion he spun up in me.

I fought against the oppressive weight that
suddenly crushed my shoulders.

I couldn’t bear his sorrow, too.

I became frantic, picking up her things,
pressing them to my face, to my nose, before I rushed to put her
pictures and small things back into the box.

I thought…

I thought I could do this. I thought I was
ready, but I realized then, I was not. I didn’t know if I ever
would be. I couldn’t look at them because I didn’t want to let her
go, and somehow holding all of her things made me feel as if I was
trying to. It was just so much easier to hold it all inside, to box
it up with all these things that I wanted to treasure, even when
they just seemed to cause me more pain.

Sobs racked through me as I folded her blanket
and hurried to place it on top of everything else.

But I couldn’t.

I couldn’t let her go.

My pulse stuttered as everything slowed. My
fingers curled into the fabric, and I cautiously drew the blanket
back out. My eyes dropped closed as I held the satin trim at my
cheek.

Early June, Four Months
Earlier

Frantic.

I couldn’t breathe.

No
.

I clutched her to me, rocked her at my
chest.

No
.

“You have to let her go.”

This was all I had of her, and they were
trying to take it away.

I fought, fought for her as I crushed her to
me.

I just needed a little longer. That’s all I
asked. Just a little longer.

I needed to remember, needed to
feel.

This was all I had.

I begged.

Fingers dug into mine, pulling me apart,
tearing her away.

“No!” It wept as a ragged scream as the place
inside me that had been carved out for her was ripped wide
open.

Oh my God. Oh my God.

That was all I had. Didn’t they
understand?

Pain slammed me from all sides, pushing in and
pressing out, rending and severing and destroying. It all spread
out in a consuming agony.

Subdued, quieted footsteps pierced the room as
they resonated across the hard floor, fell silent as the door was
opened then fell shut.

They took her.

It throbbed, this hollowness that swallowed me
whole.

She was gone.

Then I felt his breath at my cheek, heard his
voice as it prodded, seeking to penetrate my ears.
I’m
sorry
.

I wanted to lash out at him, spit in his
face.

He let them take her. He was the one who’d
said it was time.

He forced me to cast her aside.

She was gone.

Gone.

Pain clamped down on my pelvis, and my breasts
ached to feed.

There was no air.

I couldn’t breathe.

Six Weeks Later

“Mommy.” My name floated from her mouth on a
whisper. A tiny hand pressed to my face. “Mommy, are you
awake?”

I forced my eyes open.

Grief surged in.

I fisted the sheet against me and struggled to
focus on my little girl. On the mattress, she leaned on her
forearms, her chin to the sheets. Wide eyes peered into mine, her
face two inches from my nose.

Rapidly, I blinked.

Lizzie turned a grin up at me, as if seeing my
eyes open was the best thing she’d ever witnessed.

“Hi, Mommy,” she said.

“Hi, baby girl,” I whispered back, my voice
hoarse from lack of use.

“You wanna play? I got my tea party all set
up, and you have a special spot.” She smiled at me with wide,
hopeful eyes.

I swallowed. The motion hurt. Everything hurt.
My arms. My stomach. My head.

My soul.

My voice cracked. “Not today, baby.” I
mustered a smile and reached out to gently touch her
chin.

Her face fell with disappointment. “You don’t
want to play any day,” she contended, almost whining, so out of
character for my little girl.

Guilt slashed, raking its claws down deep in
my skin, cutting as it splayed me wide. The wounds wept. I wasn’t
strong enough for her. Wasn’t strong enough for either of
them.

“I’m sorry, baby, Mommy doesn’t feel very well
right now. Maybe a little bit later, okay?”

She nodded, watching me with an expression
that read too much. She inched forward and placed a kiss on my
forehead. “Okay, Mommy. Feel better.”

I mashed my eyes closed as she backed away,
held them as I listened to her withdraw from my room. The gush of
stagnant air I’d been holding in my lungs left me as I heard her
retreating down the hall.

Within the safety of my bed, I burrowed
deeper, tried to snuff it all out. The pain, the voices that
continually told me one day it would be okay, as they spoke words
that meant nothing.

I’d almost dozed off when I felt
it.

Anxiety ratcheted through me the second I felt
him emerge behind me in the doorway. Sickness crawled, slithered
along the wounds that dripped from the surface of my skin. I could
sense him, his intent stare as it swept over me. What used to feel
like a caress now felt like an intrusion.

I pressed my eyes tighter, pretending to be
asleep, praying that he would just leave.

I couldn’t handle him. Couldn’t handle his
scrutiny, couldn’t handle the way he looked at me as if he
understood.

I couldn’t stomach the anger.

“Elizabeth.” My name from his tongue was
frustration and sympathy and raging disappointment. “You can’t keep
doing this. Your daughter needs you. You need to get out of that
bed.” His voice softened in appeal. “Baby, get up…let’s spend the
day with Lizzie. Let’s go to the beach…do something.”

I stilled myself, trying to hold in the sob
that rattled in my throat. If I just held fast long enough, he
would go away. He would give up.

He would leave me.

This time, that’s what I wanted him to
do.

When I didn’t respond, he released a frayed
breath. “God damn it, Elizabeth, I know you’re awake. Stop ignoring
me. You’ve been ignoring me for weeks.” He hesitated before he
continued. “
Please.
”

I swallowed hard, curled in tighter on myself,
couldn’t stand the sound of his voice landing against my ears. In
my mind, I begged for him to just go. I couldn’t do this with
him.

But he just stood there. I could feel his eyes
burning a hole into me. Subdued footsteps began to slowly move
across the room, and he came around to my side of the
bed.

Cold gripped me as he approached.

This was the man I thought I was going to love
for all my life.

Even under the piles of blankets, I still felt
frozen from the inside out. My pulse stuttered as I searched for
the breath I could never seem to find.

A too-warm hand pressed to my ice-cold cheek.
I tried not to cringe, but I couldn’t stop the anxiety from seizing
me, from yanking at my heart and sinking like a rock to the pit of
my stomach.

I gagged when he ran his thumb under my eye,
his breath spreading over my face.

“Baby, you have to get up. You’ve been in this
bed for six weeks. We need you.”

I flinched and jerked my face away.

Frustration left him in a weighted huff, his
voice tight. “Damn it, Elizabeth, you have to get out of this bed.
We can’t do this any longer.”

“Please, just leave me alone,” I begged,
turning my face the other direction.

“I’m not going to leave you alone any longer.
I’ve let you lie here and lie here, and nothing is going to change
until you
make
a change. I know you’re hurting, but you have
to do something different than this.”

Until I make a change?

A fresh charge of anger needled into my
senses, pricking as pain in the deepest places of my soul. “Just
leave me alone.” The words were hard, hoarse as they scraped up my
dry throat.

He shot off the edge of the bed, and I buried
my face deeper in my pillow and pulled the blanket over my head,
praying for him to leave. I just wanted to sleep. Still, I could
feel him pacing, could almost see him tugging at his hair as he
stormed around our room.

I jumped when he tore the blanket from my
face, and I jerked around to stare up at the man who I wasn’t sure
I recognized any longer. He was raging, his jaw clenched as he
glared down at me as if I made him sick.

Or maybe it was the other way
around.

And I felt it, something well in the air that
made it harder to breathe than it already was.

“Elizabeth, baby,
it’s
time
.”

Flashes of them ripping my little girl from my
arms slammed me, Christian making me, telling me it was
time
.

It’s time.

It clattered around in the bowels of my brain.
Memories. That day. What he forced me to do.

A roil of too many emotions boiled in my
blood. Burst free.

I pushed to my hands and knees. The effort
took just about all I had. My head sagged between my arms, and I
struggled to lift it as I leveled my eyes on Christian.

“Just leave me alone.” All the bitterness I’d
been feeling manifested on my tongue. “Just leave me alone! You
have no idea what I’m going through.”

“How can you say that?” he shot back. A deep
line dented his brow. “You think I don’t understand what you’re
feeling?” he demanded in sheer disbelief.

Incredulous laughter shot from my mouth in a
contemptuous scoff. “What do you mean, how can I say that?” I
pushed from my hands, sitting all the way up on my knees. “I was
the one who carried her, Christian.” I jabbed my finger to my
chest. “I was the one who loved her and cared for her. She died
inside of me, and I had to give birth to her.” I lifted my chin.
“So yeah, I can say that…you have no idea what I’m feeling.
None
.”

His entire face twisted in contention. “You
think she meant less to me than to you? You think my heart isn’t
broken over this?”

“You wouldn’t even touch her.” It dripped from
my mouth as a sneer.

He blanched, like I’d just slapped him across
the face.

Maybe I wanted to. I had to admit I did. I
wanted to hit him, to pound whatever feeble excuse he had out of
him. To demand to know how he could reject her that way. Our baby
girl. The child we’d created. All those excruciating hours I’d held
and rocked her, that I’d shown her all the love I possibly could
before I wouldn’t be allowed to anymore, he never even looked at
her.

All that time I’d tried to love her for the
both of us.

If it was possible, it’d broken me a little
more.

Then he let them take her before I was ready
to let her go. I begged him for one more hour. Just one more hour
and he couldn’t even give me that.

His entire body shook, and he blinked as if he
couldn’t believe what I’d said. “You think because I didn’t
hold
her, I didn’t
love
her?” His raised, caustic
voice bounced against the walls.