The Shadow in the House
Content: Contains references to child loss
There were boxes everywhere in the house. Every corner of every room, behind doors and under tables, in the recesses where bookcases should have been and in the spaces under counters usually reserved for cookers and dishwashers. It was a metropolis of brown cardboard. Upstairs was no better: bin bags of clothes, towels and bedding; crates of nicknacks; deconstructed furniture. Lucie didn’t know where to start. Didn’t know where she could start, with her arm still in a cast and her hip still stiff enough that it hurt to bend. She headed for the driveway, for fresh air and freedom.
She realised Josh had had the same idea. As Lucie stepped outside and saw him sat in the middle of the driveway her stomach did the little flip it always had, then the rock settled back into place. For seven years she had felt a little lighter every time she saw him. Now that lightness didn’t last. Instead, it sank and sat in her gut like two day old takeout food.
Josh was sat staring at the remaining things to bring into the house. More cardboard boxes, more bin liners of clothes, and the rocking chair. The rocking chair that had been passed down his family from his grandmother, to his mother, and finally to him, the only child. His grandfather had made it himself nearly 70 years ago. There were tears in his eyes as he looked at it. Lucie felt the tears prick in her own eyes as she slowly advanced on the chair. How could a lump of wood have such power over them both? It was just a chair.
She reached it and ran her plaster-encased hand softly along the curved back, the wood smooth and cool beneath her fingers. The patterns were so familiar after countless nights rocking and sitting and comforting. She read the grooves and marks of time as if reading Braille, recalling the stories of previous children and parents. The tears began to fall.
“We should get rid of it,” she said softly, pushing it gently back and forth. Josh shook his head.
“No.” Gentle but firm. Sick of this discussion yet again.
“I can’t have it in the house reminding me.”
“No.” Firmer again. He rose to his feet. “Don’t say it again.”
Lucie nodded, resigned. “Fine. Do what you want.” She turned away.
“Don’t,” Josh begged. “Don’t walk away from me again.”
Lucie turned to look at him, the lump in her stomach cold and hostile and alien to her. This wasn’t how she felt when she looked at him. At least, it wasn’t how she was used to feeling. But it was becoming more and more familiar.
“I cannot look at it every day. Isn’t it bad enough without yet another reminder of her? Tell me you don’t think about her every time you look at it, that you don’t remember her smile and her laugh and her falling asleep in your arms.” She stared stonily into his eyes. “Tell me that.”
He took a deep breath, glanced at the chair, and he saw the last six years all at once. The day they first brought Lyra back from the hospital, and his two favourite girls slept together in the chair. Night time feeds, getting one-on-one time with his beautiful daughter in the nursery, snuggled together in the darkness. Reading stories together — first picture books, then Enid Blyton, Philip Pullman, and starting to get to know J.K. Rowling. So many beautiful, peaceful memories together, bound together and infused in the wood, lacquered with love.
He took a deep breath, glanced at the chair, and Lucie saw those warm brown eyes turn cold and brittle. His voice became soft and even and overly controlled. “Tell me you don’t think about her every time you look at me. That you don’t blame me every time you see me. That you don’t wish it was me that died and not her.”
Now it was her turn to look at the chair. To see the broken, twisted metal of the car seat Lyra was trapped in. See the shiny, padded seats beside her hospital bed as she lay beeping and breathing through the ventilators. The soft, homely seats of the funeral home as they made their decisions about the colour, finish and cushions of the casket.
Lucie slowly raised her eyes. It hurt to look at Josh now. The pain was everywhere, not just in her broken bones but in her belly where their baby had grown, in her head where the memories burned. There was no water that could quench this fire. She had been fighting the blaze with thoughts of good times and happy days but she was running out now. The pain was too strong, the loss too much to put out.
“It hurts,” she choked out.
Without knowing how she was wrapped in Josh’s arms. The fire still burned but it was softer now, warming rather than burning. She knew he burned too, but he was so strong, and she could be strong too. She couldn’t lose them both, wouldn’t survive losing him as well as her. She had to be brave and see what could be, not focus on what was.
“I can get rid of the chair,” he whispered in her ear, hands gently rubbing her back.
“No.” It was her turn to refuse now. “She’s a part of it now.” They stepped apart, watching the chair slowly rock back and forth.
