And now I am pregnant again.
Now I will need to come up with another name.
The transition from staring to crying comes quickly, effortlessly. A tear slips down one cheek, and then the other. Sometimes I wonder how Daniel bore it. I wonder if his anger was a mask for pain.
I could never forgive him, but I also couldn’t deny he probably was suffering, too. For me, I never got over losing a child. I just learned to live with the weight.
Some days I was numb. Some passed achingly slow, with an unbearable sting. And the first time I smiled? I spent the whole next week burdened with guilt.
“Arlet?”
Suppressing the pain I felt over her loss was necessary for survival. But it was wrong for healing. Somehow, I give in. I close the small distance between where Vann and I sit. I lean onto him. Though he freezes for a moment, he then wraps his massive arm around me.
I hate that it feels like home.
I love that it feelslike home.
I take a deep breath, preparing to utter her name for the first time.
My hands tighten into fists, twisting the fabric of my skirt in my lap.
“I called her Lirio.”
The emotions crash into me all at once. Speaking her into existence is like allowing myself to feel something I’ve kept locked up and hidden away. It fills me up, from the tips of my toes to the top of my head. She was alive. My body cared for her. Gave her life for as long as it could.
I had done enough. As much as was humanly possible.
I feel Vann’s exhale on the side of my neck.
“Lirio,” he murmurs. “A lily.”
I nod. “My daughter.”
“Your daughter.”
He brings me closer, pulling my cheek to his chest. “Tell me more about her.”
“She had red hair. Even being that small.”
I feel his smile like warmth through my body. “Beautiful.”
“She was. I had just started to feel her movements more consistently. Each little roll or kick almost felt like bubbles popping in my torso. Sometimes, it overwhelmed me to know she was there. That I was the one thing keeping her tethered to life. When I was pregnant, there was a part of me that felt like the whole world had been keeping a secret from me. All my life, I’d been called the weaker sex. But in those moments, I realized that creating her, growing her, housing her…I was powerful and divine. Until I wasn’t. And she? She was so…” I trail off.
“Loved. I don’t think anyone who’s been around you could feel anything less.”
More tears.
“And you are a goddess in some way. You bring life, not death. You could keep doing it for as long as you wanted. It is something, I confess, that I dream of. Something extraordinary.”
I don’t answer. Just let his words thread through my mind.
“You—” He stops.
“Yes?”
“And you are sure you’d like to try again?” he asks.
I take a deep breath. It’s a fair question. Some might not feel the way I do. And maybe…maybe I needed to be more realistic. Maybe it wasn’t the answer to have a dozen children to make up for the moment. Maybe…