In Our Darkness - 4. Chapter 4: Moving On

Moving On

Moving on is supposed to be good for the soul—healthy. But for David, it seemed unthinkable.

He wondered how it was possible for everything surrounding him to continue appearing so normal. Something tragic had happened, yet he was expected to go on. Get over it, like it was just a bad cold. Of course nobody had told him that to his face, but he could feel it—the expectation in his family and friends for their conversations to return to how they used to be—easygoing and fun. To chat about nothing in particular without the tragedy of a dead child looming over the conversation like a black cloud.

Nothing in their house changed, nothing in Elisabeth’s routine changed, and absolutely nothing in the world changed since the accident. The sun came up, the grass grew, the microwave made a beeping sound to signal that his meal was ready, meanwhile his heart had stopped and didn’t want to start again. He couldn’t understand how it was possible for the world to go on like nothing had ever happened. How was it fair? It felt like just yesterday when he was driving his beautiful and very pregnant wife home to get ready to give birth to his beautiful son the very next day. He could still latch onto the sense of carefree happiness he had felt that day. All the love that filled his heart and made his whole entire body warm. All the images he already had in his head of coming home from work to see his wife and their baby and to kiss them and love on them and bask in how amazing the circle of life was.

While Celia harped on about the nursery being finished during their last dinner, he imagined Elisabeth and him holding their baby boy completely unprepared for it all, yet drowning in love and laughter. At that time he felt like it was sweet, they would put the finishing touches on the nursery when the time came. What did it matter? They were young, happy, and in love. But now he wondered, did God punish them because they were arrogant? Should they have been meticulously preparing like Celia and Frank would have done? Elisabeth had one baby book—given to her by Celia—which laid unopened on the nightstand for the past six months. People had done this for thousands of years after all, did they really need to plan out every single detail? Couldn’t they just let things happen naturally? But now he wondered, was it their egotistical approach that made them deserving of this tragedy?

And what was even more confusing was Elisabeth’s conduct after coming home from the hospital. Every morning she would get up, do yoga—or as much activity as her recovering body would allow her to do—shower, put on her make up, do her hair, pick out her outfit, and go about her day like she did before. For David, time seemed to have slowed down, grinding to a halt. He didn’t know day from night, he couldn’t tell his leg from his elbow. And his arm continued to be useless for months to come. Yet his wife was moving on, living her life. He would lay in bed and not know if a minute had passed or if it had been five hours. It all seemed the same, it all blurred together now. Every day was just a continuation of hurt and pain. Every day was a reminder that he was alive, but his son wasn’t.

Some days he would spontaneously burst out crying when Elisabeth was gone. He would sit at the kitchen island and just cry, until his head pounded with pain. At some point he stopped shaving, and started wearing the same shirt all week long. He started to smell. He could smell himself, yet it still wasn’t enough motivation to shower. Elisabeth said nothing. He wondered if she even noticed.

He stopped going in to work and let his partner Tom take over most of the responsibilities at the firm, with Elisabeth pitching in as well. She spent more and more time away from home, meanwhile he almost never left anymore.

David had always loved drinking. But he was known as an exceedingly fun drunk. Everyone loved being around him, he was the life of the party. He would crack people up and usually physically injure himself in some small way. Even Elisabeth loved his drunken antics. But now, alcohol became a crutch for him. It wasn’t a happy drink anymore, it was medication, it was numbing. And he found himself drinking more and more, as time continued to slip through his fingers, until he no longer knew if it was Tuesday or Friday.

“Do you think we should have finished the nursery?” he asked out of the blue one day, staring blankly at Elisabeth’s dinner plate. She seemed surprised.

“What do you mean?”

“Hubris. ‘Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall’”

“Is that from the Bible?” Elisabeth asked, perplexed at his train of thought.

“Why didn’t you read that baby book?” he asked.

“What baby book?”

“The one from Celia. The one sitting on the nightstand.” Elisabeth thought for a second.

“I don’t know. Why didn’t you?”

“You were about to have a baby, didn’t you want to prepare a bit more?” his tone of voice implying many things that Elisabeth did not want to take into consideration.

“We were about to have a baby. And we were prepared. Maybe not as meticulously as Celia would have been, but we were prepared David,” she replied, trying to remain calm even though his words had pricked her.

“Were we? I’ve never changed a diaper. We didn’t have the nursery finished. I’ve never even held a baby, Elisabeth. Can babies look at a TV screen, or does it hurt their eyes, because I don’t know. When do they start eating solids? I don’t know anything about children. Why was I one day away from having a child, without knowing anything? For God’s sake, why weren’t we at home? Why did we go out when you were 9-months pregnant, that’s asinine,” he said raising his voice. She got up, overwhelmed, and walked to the bedroom. He followed her. The perfectly made-up facade of okay-ness she created seemed to finally be tumbling down.

“Tell me, did we do this? Did we cause this somehow?” he asked her feverishly.

“I don’t know...I don’t know,” she answered honestly as tears rolled down her face. “But, I don’t think so. Remember how happy you were when we found out? I was so scared at first. Scared of giving birth, scared of having a child, scared of being stuck at home and changing diapers and scared we’d drift apart eventually like all those miserable married couples you see. I had so many doubts, David. I was full of doubts. But you…you were so happy right off the bat. You never had a single doubt about this. Your face just lit up when I told you, and you forced me to do a little dance with you, remember?” she asked and laughed fondly at the memory. “It was contagious. My fear melted away because you wanted this so much, I knew that we could figure anything out.”

“It wasn’t hubris David, we just forgot to be afraid because we were too busy being deliriously happy.”

David swallowed, her words soothing him like a balm. The happiness they experienced then felt palpable to him now. If only he could reach a little further, it would wash over him in waves again. That euphoric state of mind when he first found out that he would be a father. The joy he couldn’t contain. He felt like his true life was just beginning. They were going to be parents. He was going to teach his son all about baseball and cars and women. He would be attentive, understanding, but firm. He would be a good father.

And Elisabeth would be such a good mother, he could already see it. Happy, lovely, fun, the kids would never be bored with her. Kids, plural, because he already couldn’t wait for more. They would give little Andrew some brothers and sisters. They would have a booming, beautiful, and large family of amazing kids. Yes, he could still remember that pure ecstatic feeling. He laughed through his tears as he gazed at Elisabeth. They could be happy again, he thought.

He kissed her. Slowly at first, but when she kissed him back and he realized she had probably missed him, he kissed her more hungrily. He forgot about everything for a moment and got lost in the taste of her mouth, the smell of her hair, the feel of her skin underneath his fingers. Her hands running through his hair, frantic for his body to be close to hers. Her legs enveloping him with passion. They had sex. It was fast, it was good, and they both came. But when the high wore off and she smiled at him gently he couldn’t force himself to smile back. His insides were being swallowed up by the darkness again, and fast. He lost his grasp on the happy feeling he got from remembering. It was gone. Andrew was gone. How could they ever be happy again?

He got up and locked himself in their bathroom. He punched a hole in the wall with his only working arm and the pain felt good. He took out the bottle of Jack he had hidden under the sink, climbed into the bathtub, put a rolled-up towel under his head and slowly drank himself to sleep.

The next day Elisabeth hired someone to come in and patch the hole in the wall, never making mention of what happened.

This was their life now. They were married strangers.