Letters Written in White (9 page)

More mirrors.

More reflecting.

More regret.

More pain.

I’m not sure how much more I can take. Watching Grayson suffer is almost unbearable. I start writing, and the words flow rapidly.

As I watched you sort through photos today, I found myself lost in our past. You never revisited our wedding album, but once you got yourself together, you started going through our family photos. I haven’t looked through them in so many years. I should have. Desiree and Devin were such precious little babies. You sat and stared at the photos from the hospital for a long time. My eyes followed your finger as you traced my face, and the tiny bundle of baby I was holding. It was a hard labor with Desiree. Twenty hours it took for her to come into this world, and she was perfect. When I held her in my arms, the world felt complete. Devin came fast and with lungs full of power. He was so full of life and energy.

We were a family.

Sadness encompassed me looking at those photos. I had so many dreams for our life. How could I allow my dreams to be stolen from us? I wish I had an answer for this question. I don’t. I never asked for depression to follow me everywhere I went. It wasn’t something I felt I could control. I fought it for so long. When you’re fighting a raging war inside your own head, the rules of engagement aren’t clear. Nothing is. We all have a piece of darkness inside us. Some just have a depth of it that overshadows everything, causing us to question every single good thing we have.

You chose twenty photos for the memorial montage. You struggled with which ones to select. I know it wasn’t easy because there weren’t many to choose from. I hated being in photos because I hated how I looked. After having the kids I was never was able to get all of the extra weight off until the depression ate it away. So, I was always behind the camera. You flipped through page after page of the kids, you, other family members, and there was no evidence that I even existed for pages and pages. You’d come across a photo of me, and it was as if you’d found a rare treasure the way you quickly removed it from the album so you could look at it more closely. Why did I do that? What will our children have to remember me by with so few photos to look back on? I now regret trying so hard to not to be seen. Yet here I am, invisible forever and at my own hand.

I grip the pen and warm tears fall down my face. I don’t want to see any more. I don’t want any of this.

“GRAYSON, ARE YOU sure you want to do this alone?”

I look at Riah’s mom and nod. Dark circles have settled under her eyes. She’s a basket case. I know she’s hurting, but I can’t help her right now. I can’t be her strength. I’ve reserved my only strength for Desiree and Devin. They’re the only reason I’m holding any semblance of myself together.

Gripping a picture of Riah in my hand, I just stare. It’s the photo she always had on her nightstand. It’s us when we were young and so in love. I have to tell the kids when they get home where she is, what happened. What am I supposed to tell them? Is she in a silver drawer right now? Is she still cold? Are they cutting her chest open and removing
my heart
? Is she still hurting? Or is she free wherever she is? I have none of these answers, yet so many questions.

Lyla, Riah’s mother, begins weeping. “How could she do this to us? Why didn’t I see how much she was hurting? My baby girl is gone, Grayson. She’s gone. What are we going to do without her? I’m glad her father isn’t here for any of this tragedy. Losing our boy was more than he could take. This would have done him in.”

She leans over and wraps her arms around me and cries into my shirt. I glance up at the clock. The kids will be here in ten minutes. She has to go. This is going to be traumatizing enough for them. I can’t have their nana falling apart in front of them.

“I don’t know. Just please allow me to tell the kids on my own. I’ll call you after. Let me walk you to the door. They’ll be home soon.”

She sniffles. “Okay, you’re right. I should go. I can’t let them see me like this.”

I give her one last hug and watch her walk to her car.

As she reaches for the car door, I see her hand trembling. I look down at my own hands. Mine are shaking too. I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to be strong for them right now because all I feel is loss and an uncontrollable pain. I want her back. I just want my wife back.

“I need you both to come and sit on the sofa. Daddy needs to talk to you,” I say.

My palms are sweaty. My mouth is dry.

“Daddy, what’s wrong? Your eyes look funny,” Desiree says.

“Yeah, what’s wrong? Where’s Mom?” Devin says.

Even though I’ve rehearsed this in my head several times, it doesn’t matter now that the moment has come.

“Mommy’s gone,” I say as I kneel down on the floor in front of them.

“Gone where? Did she go on another trip?” Desiree says casually.

I shake my head slowly. “No, honey, she didn’t go on a trip. She went to Heaven.”

They’re both silent for a moment, but I see it in their eyes when it hits them.

“No she didn’t!” Devin says, popping up off the sofa. “Dead things go to Heaven, like my goldfish and Desiree’s hamster. Moms don’t go to Heaven. Moms don’t get dead!”

“Devin…” I try to find the right words when he takes off toward the kitchen. Desiree is just frozen, saying nothing.

I jump up and go after Devin. He can’t see the room. It’s still not cleaned up. I couldn’t do it. I just closed the door. I didn’t think this out very well. That’s probably because I’ve not had one free moment to think about anything but a funeral and two children I had to tell that their mother was dead. I was bound to leave some important details out.

“Devin, stop!” I yell.

His footsteps pounding up the stairs vibrate in my head. He can’t see that. He can’t.

I top the stairs and it’s too late. Shrill screaming comes from the guest room. As soon as I run into the room, I find him standing motionless, staring at the bloodstains on the carpet and on the tile floor of the bathroom. Just before I grab him, I see the urine soaking through his blue jeans. He’s wet himself at the sight of his mother’s blood.

“Oh God, Devin, come here,” I cry, pulling him up into my arms.

He begins to pound his little fists into my chest. “Moms don’t get dead. They don’t. You’re a liar. Liar. Liar. Liar.”

“Shh, shh, shh,” I whisper and embrace him tighter. “I’m so sorry. Daddy’s so sorry.”

“Daddy.” I hear Desiree’s small voice from behind me.

I spin around quickly toward her. She’s standing just outside the bedroom door in the hallway. Holding Devin tightly, I leave the room, closing the door behind me and kneeling down.

“Desiree, honey, don’t go in there. Come with Daddy,” I say, grabbing her hand.

I get them both into the master bedroom and try to get Devin calmed down. Desiree is still quiet.

“Dev, let’s get you some clean undies and pants, okay?”

“You peed your pants?” Desiree asks Devin, shocked.

“Shut up, jerk!” he says.

I drop my head and take a deep breath.

I can do this.

I have to.

They need me.

“Desiree, be nice. He just had an accident. It’s no big deal. He’s very upset, so don’t be mean. Okay?”

She just nods.

“I’ll be right back. I’m going to grab you some clean undies and pants.”

Devin doesn’t respond. He just sits on the bed, staring at the wall.

I hear crying as I make my way back to the bedroom. When I walk in, I see them both sitting there, sobbing.

Desiree looks up at me and says, “Daddy, why did Mommy get dead? Was she sick?”

Tears prick my eyes and a lump forms in my throat. I nod my head.

“Yes, sweetie, she was. She was really sick.”

Devin looks up with bloodshot eyes and says, “No she wasn’t. Mom was fine. She didn’t even look sick. Liar!”

Desiree whimpers and sniffles. Devin is seething with sadness mixed with anger. I look at both of them and wonder how they’ll ever recover from this day. I wonder if Riah even considered this very moment. They’re changed forever. These two innocent little human beings will never be the same again. For the first time since I found her, I feel something other than sadness. I feel anger.

After I got Devin into clean clothes, I tried to talk to them, but Devin refused to talk about it anymore. He’s been in his room ever since and won’t come out, not even for dinner. Desiree hasn’t left my side. She’s clinging to me quietly, desperately. As it gets later, I broach the subject of bedtime and she immediately asks if she can sleep with me.

“Daddy, can I sleep in your bed tonight?”

“Of course you can,” I tell her, and I try to start her bedtime routine.

As soon as I get her into bed, I take a deep breath and go into Devin’s room. He’s curled up on his bed asleep. As I get closer to his bed, I realize he’s got something in his arms. When I see what it is, I have to cover my mouth in order to keep the cries I want to let out in. It’s a framed picture of his mother. It’s a picture of Riah standing in front of the Potomac River under her favorite tree, a weeping willow. I snapped that photo many, many years ago. She loved it, so she framed it, and it has sat on a shelf in our room since.

His little eyes are puffy from crying, and he’s holding the picture tightly against his chest. My hearts breaks into a million tiny pieces at the sight of it. I want it to all be a nightmare and him to be able to wake up tomorrow and have his mom back. I pick up a blanket that’s folded at the end of his bed and cover him with it. Leaning down, I softly kiss him on the head.

When I get back to my room, Desiree is cuddled up under the blankets, waiting for me. Her sleepy eyes are straining to stay open.

“Try to close your eyes, baby girl.”

She nods her little head. “Daddy?”

“Yeah?”

“Mommy isn’t coming back, is she?”

“No, baby, she’s not,” I whisper, my voice cracking.

She’s not coming back, and that’s one thing their daddy can’t fix for them. I always fix their broken toys or air up their bicycle tires, but this isn’t something I can make better for them. I can’t make it better for myself either. This is the kind of broken that can’t be fixed.