“We can hurt differently without destroying each other.”
Violet left.
***
Cecelia was born two weeks later in a quiet, uncomplicated delivery.
When they placed her against my chest, she tucked her thumb into her fist.
She went quiet.
Mark slept like that too.
“Of course you sleep like your dad.”
When Violet came to meet her, she asked, “Can I hold her?”
That question mattered.
I handed Cecelia over.
Violet looked down at her.
“Can I hold her?”
“Hi, sweetheart.”
Cecelia yawned.
Violet smiled through tears.
“I knew your daddy when he didn’t have teeth either.”
For a minute, grief stopped fighting us.
Then, a few weeks later, I heard Violet talking to Mark’s aunt in my living room.
“Hi, sweetheart.”
“Mark wasn’t himself at the end.”
I stopped in the kitchen.
“Sally handled those decisions. He never would’ve chosen that if he’d been thinking clearly.”
I walked into the room.
Violet was holding Cecelia.
Don’t miss
“Mark wasn’t himself.”
“Give her to me.”
Her face changed.
“Sally, I was just…”
“Give me my daughter.”
She handed Cecelia over.
I settled her against my chest.
“Give her to me.”
“You will never say that in front of her again.”
“She’s a baby.”
“She won’t always be.”
Violet’s eyes filled.
“You still have something of him.”
“She’s a baby.”
I stared at her.
She looked at Cecelia.
“You wake up and see him in her. What do I get?”
“Me.”
Violet froze.
“You had me.”
Her face crumpled.
“Me.”
“I loved you too, Violet.”
She covered her mouth.
“You’ve spent weeks making me the enemy because it’s easier than admitting Mark chose something you couldn’t stop.”
She shook her head.
“He wasn’t himself.”
“I loved you too, Violet.”
“He knew you’d say that.”
Violet looked up.
“What?”
