They shut it off.
“It’s okay, Maggie. Mommy’s here. Mommy’s here,” I cry into her hair, my arms squeezing her small body tight, inhaling her sweet, sugary scent. Running my hands down her sticky, crimson-tinted hair. “Oh, Maggie baby, no.”
I can’t hold it back anymore. I’m rocking her and sobbing, and even though I know she’s gone, I can’t accept it. I can’t accept it.
“Go again!” I yell out at the faces staring at me.
“Kate.” That’s Dr. Philip Turbin. “I’m so sorry.”
“No,” I spit at him. “Go. Again. Philip.”
He shakes his head, walking to me, taking my hand and pressing it over her small chest. She’s not breathing. Why isn’t she breathing? Oh Maggie, breathe for me, baby. Please just breathe for me.
“She’s gone, Kate. I’m sorry.” I’m shaking my head. “Hold your little girl, and say goodbye.”
“I can’t,” I wail, because I can’t. How can someone possibly say goodbye to their baby? To their almost three-year-old? It’s an impossible task. My heart is shredded. Annihilated. So broken that all I feel is searing agony crushing my chest and stealing my breath.
I want to die with her.
Please, God, just kill me with her.
I need her. I need to be with her. She needs her mommy.
I pull Maggie into me, holding her so tight. I know I need to ask. But I can’t. I’m terrified of the answer, even though I think I already know it.
So I say the only word I can choke out, “Eric?”
My eyes leave Maggie at their silence, pulling up to their reluctant, horror-filled faces. Philip steps forward, his hand covering mine that’s still resting on Maggie’s chest.
“He never made it in.” His soft voice is meant to help ease the blow, but it doesn’t. Nothing can.
My head drops onto Maggie’s, and I let my world end with theirs.
1
Kate - 2 years later
* * *
Freshly baked zucchini bread fills the air with the scent of cinnamon and chocolate. It should be comforting, but it’s not. Partially because comfort and I haven’t been on speaking terms for quite a while, and partially because I have the unhappy task of trying to speak to my mother about something important this morning.
Never a pleasant thing.
The couch cushion sinks beneath me as I shift my position to cross my legs, taking my can of Diet Coke with me. I haven’t slept much this week. Not that I’ve been sleeping all that great over the last two years, but it had been better until now. My fingers go up to the pendant hanging off my neck, touching it gently, a reflex when I think about them.
I should be in a better place than I am.
At least that’s what my therapist says. She hasn’t been too pleased with my progress to date. Every time she mentions something along those lines in her perfectly crafted, psychobabble way, I remind her—far less subtly—that I lost my reason for living, so she should just back the fuck off. I think the fact that I haven’t offed myself should be considered a major accomplishment.
Apparently it’s not.
I’m done with therapy.
I made the changes I had to, and the rest is just a matter of getting through each day.
But now those changes are no longer enough. I don’t see them in my car or my tiny studio apartment, because they were never in either of those places. I don’t even see them at work, because I switched hospitals too.
But I see them everywhere else.
I see them in the grocery store, at the movies, in the coffee shop, and walking around town. Everywhere. And it’s killing me. Little by little. Day by day.
It’s killing me.
And even though I make that daily promise that today won’t be the day I kill myself and end my misery, it’s happening anyway.
I can feel it, and I need to do something. I need to get out of here. Away from the place that I spent my entire life with Eric, and then the last few years with Maggie.
So I’m sitting on my mother’s couch, nursing my Diet Coke and avoiding the guilt zucchini bread in front of me. Her small frame is sitting across from me in her hideous floral chair, patiently waiting for me to say something. Here goes.
“I’m leaving, Mom.”
“Leaving?” she asks, her dark blonde eyebrows raising up to her hairline. “But you just got here.”
I sigh. This isn’t going to be fun. “No, Mom. I mean, I’m moving away. Leaving town.”
She leans forward with a scowl etched on her wrinkle-free surgically enhanced face. “Where do you intend to move to? You know your problems will follow you wherever you go.”
Right. And that’s why I hate talking to my mother.
Couldn’t she have just wished me well? Given me some modicum of encouragement?
“I don’t know where I’m going,” I say, ignoring her jab. “I haven’t decided yet.”
“Well,” she leans back, crossing her arms and legs, essentially dismissing the idea. “Be sure to let me know when you figure it out.”
Now it’s my turn to lean forward. “Actually, I plan to just get in the car and drive around the country until I find a place that speaks to me.”
“That’s absurd,” she shakes her head, her lips pursing off to the side. “You can’t just drive across the country—” Her arm sweeps out in front of her toward the window, before folding it across her chest again. “—by yourself, until something speaks to you.” Her head is shaking back and forth, her blonde bob swinging around her shoulders. “It’s not safe for a young woman to go off on her own with no plan or agenda. No, Kate. No.” She points her finger at me as if that makes it final.
“Mom, I’m twenty-seven years old. I am perfectly capable of not only making my own decisions, but I don’t need your permission.”
Yeah, I’m trying to hold firm, but this woman has always had a way of reducing me to a weak puddle of coward.
“I’m going,” I huff out, setting my can on the coaster and rubbing my hands up and down my face. “I need this, Mom,” I confess, my hands still covering my eyes. I hate speaking to my mother this way. She’s never been loving or nurturing, which makes emotional confessions that much harder. “I’m drowning here, and I can’t find my way back.”
She scoffs. Actually freaking scoffs at me. “That’s ridiculous. You’ll be fine. You just need to get yourself back out there.”
I suck in a deep breath, holding it tight in my lungs before I let it out and explode at her. Because I’m this close.
Instead, I sit back, squaring my shoulders and looking her dead in the eyes. The same blue as mine.
“I’m going, Mom. In two days. I’ve given up my apartment, packed my things, and that’s it.” I stand up, glaring back at her narrowed eyes, wishing I had her love and support because I desperately need both right now. “I was just letting you know.”
I take two steps toward the front door before she calls out to me. “Wait,” she sighs, sounding just a little defeated and a lot annoyed. “Fine.”
I turn back to her, but don’t bother to sit again.