Anguish

He found her in the morning when the light came through the window like it had been cut with a blade. Pale and sharp and without warmth she lay upon the bed as though she’d grown out of it. The air was still and he could hear his own breath rattling inside him like a small animal in a box.

He sat beside her and touched her hair and it was dry and he said her name again and again but the world did not answer. He waited for the rise of her chest and the proof of life in her womb but the stillness only deepened and in that deepening he felt a terror so old it seemed to belong to the earth itself. He told himself she was sleeping and he told himself she’d wake soon feeling hungry just the way she always was and he said it aloud.

You’ll wake. His voice cracked but he did not hear it. You’ll wake and I’ll make you breakfast.

He brushed the dust from her cheek and spoke of the unborn child in her belly and he said the name they had not chosen and he said it like a prayer and he whispered to her about the nursery still unfinished and about the crib that hadn’t yet assembled and he said he’d paint it blue even though they never knew if it was a boy. He said all this until his throat went dry like he was reminding her of small promises they made but everything went unanswered as she lays pale and cold and lifeless like an ancient marble statue fallen from its pedestal never to rise again.

He sat with her through the morning and into the afternoon as if time itself had forgotten them. The light crept across the room and it reached her hand and her shoulder and it kept going over her like a blessing too late. He spoke to her softly the way one speaks to a child who dreams too deeply. Said she’d love the bright sunny day. Said she ought to wake. He laughed once and told her she’d scare him half to death if she didn’t move soon.

He spoke again to the child in her belly telling it that its mother was only resting. That soon they’d all sit at the table together and that the world hadn’t ended but it had only paused. He said these things with a kind of calm that frightened him as if his voice no longer belonged to him but to something deeper that refused to let go.

When the sun rose higher, he finally stood. He washed his hands though they were clean and he poured water from the basin for her and it hit the metal sink with a sound that startled him. The farm sat quiet around him. Just the wind moving the long and gold and unending grass outside.

When the hours passed and she still lay there he grew quiet. The wind pushed at the windows and the curtains swayed like breath and he stood at the doorway and watched her and in his mind she still moved the way memory does when the world refuses to. He saw her rise and stretch and in that moment he almost smiled but the image broke apart as thin as smoke.

You shouldn’t be cold. His voice was steady, as if explaining something simple. Y'all shouldn’t be cold out there, both of you.

He fetched the old blanket from their bed, the one she liked to be wrapped in every winter and he wrapped her in it. His movements were slow and careful like the way one carries something fragile. He lifted her and for a moment he thought she weighed nothing at all. The day had already begun to fade into dusk when he stepped outside. The farm stretched out in every direction with pastures and hills and the wooden fence running along the edge like a border between worlds and he walked until he reached the big oak tree behind the house. They’d sat there often in the evenings with her head on his shoulder and the child still nothing but a long awaited dream.

He set her down gently beneath it. The earth smelled of rain that hadn’t come yet and he went to the shed for a spade and came back without hurry. The birds had gone quiet or maybe simply unwilling to sing. The ground was hard at first but he worked at it until the sweat ran into his eyes and the shovel struck roots that wound deep through the dirt and each one felt like a rejection. He paused often to rest. His hands blistering. His breath heavy. When the hole was finally deep enough he stood for a long time staring into it and he knelt beside her once more. The blanket had come loose at the edges and he tucked it around her shoulders and whispered to her telling her the things he hadn’t before about the first time he saw her and about the way she laughed when he told her he loved her and about the night they found out about the baby and how she cried from joy.

It’s a fine spot right here. You always liked the tree and the view. He brushed dirt from his hands. You can rest here awhile. I’ll just be over yonder.

Then he lowered her into the earth and the sound of the soil falling over her was soft in reality but as loud and unpleasant as the sound of a hail storm crashing down the roof in his ear. He covered her slowly making sure the ground lay even and he pressed it down with his palms and smoothed it with the back of the shovel until it looked untouched. When it was done he sat against the tree and closed his eyes.

He looked at the mound of earth expecting movement. Some shift. Some sign. There was none. Only the slow settling of soil and the low hum of insects beginning their night song as he told himself she’d gone to sleep because she was tired and when morning came he’d bring her coffee and they’d talk about painting the nursery. He smiled faintly at that though it felt wrong on his face.

The sun had set turning the sky red and the world smelled of dust and pine sap. He listened to the wind in the leaves above and thought it sounded like breathing. He stayed there until dark and when he finally rose to go back inside he paused at the door and looked once more toward the tree where the moonlight had found her resting place and made it pale and silver. Then he went inside and closed the door and the house fell silent again as the night wind moved through the open fields and the old oak tree stood still guarding what it now held as he lays on an empty bed surrounded by darkness and silence.

You’ll wake. He said softly as if promising her. You’ll wake and I’ll make you breakfast.