#TGIF: Short story #2

A soft knock on the door, so soft one could have missed it, but not her. She could hear everything. The whispers of people saying how sorry they were, her mother's muffled sobs, the careful steps people took as they walked toward her, her own beating heart, reminding her that she was still alive.

But not her husband. Her husband was gone.

"Jane, there are people here. Would you...be okay if they want to see you?" Her sister's head peeked through the threshold of the door. Still walking on eggshells, voice soft and coaxing, trying to pull her out of her grief before it could swallow her whole, hoping she could be herself again someday soon.

Hope. What a feeble thing. She would know. She had once hoped too, so big and so intensely, for a future that felt so near and attainable. For family, kids running around the house, vacations, school recitals. She had imagined all of it too soon, even before she ever got to carry a child in her womb. Now that hope had been shattered, as suddenly and as cruelly as fate allowed. Like a bullet through a glass pane, it did not have time to crack. It just shattered.

What does she do now? Who would she be, and how does she live, now that he is no longer here? What about the life they had planned together, the dreams they had built, the travels they had yet to take?

~~~

Connor would have hated this. The quiet, the careful voices, the way everyone moved around her like she was something that could break. He was never one for that kind of stillness. He filled every room he walked into, not loudly, not the way people who needed to be noticed did, but warmly. Like a light left on.

She remembered something he said to her, not long after they started trying. She had been sitting on the bathroom floor, back against the tub, another month gone. He sat down beside her without a word, their shoulders touching. After a while he said, quietly, almost to himself: "Whatever our life looks like, Jane. As long as it's with you, it's enough for me."

She had cried harder after that. But differently.

He used to say he loved how strong-willed she was. That God had hand-picked her out of everybody to go through this, because He knew she could persevere through hard and painful things. "Whatever happens," he would tell her, "never lose that."

She had not understood it then, not fully. She had been so fixed on the shape she wanted their life to take, so sure she knew what it was supposed to look like, that she almost missed what they already had. He never missed it. He counted it, every day, without making a show of it. That was Connor.

And now she had to figure out how to count it too, without him here to remind her.

She did not know how. She did not know who she was supposed to be on the other side of this, or whether there even was another side. All she knew was the armchair she had not left, the flowers on the nightstand, and the sounds of people downstairs who loved her and did not know what to say.

She was not ready. She did not think she would be ready for a long time.

But Connor would have hated this.

~~~

She gave her sister an assuring smile and nodded. "Yeah, that would be fine. I'll be down in five." Her sister looked relieved and gently pulled the door closed behind her.

Jane pushed herself up from the armchair she had been occupying for the last three hours and walked toward the bathroom to freshen up. Before she got there, she glanced back at the calla lilies on the nightstand, and this time, she smiled.

Her life had turned out different from everything she had planned. She had no idea what tomorrow would look like, or the days after. But she knew this: Connor would not want to see her grieving him like this. He would want her to celebrate his life instead, by doing what she loves and honoring what he loved. By carrying his spirit, and his belief that whatever shape a life takes, it is enough.

It will not be easy. But beautiful things need time to become.

[the end]

It was a lot harder to write this part of the story. I knew it had to be a hopeful ending - it's the whole premise of the story! Just like the first part, I struggled with the middle section; bridging grieving Jane to optimistic Jane, was not easy to crack.