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She takes my hand and sets it low on her belly where I feel incremental little jerks. “Does he get them too?”
“Sometimes. Not as much as she does.”
I look into her eyes. “I hope she’s just like you. Beautiful. Fun. Kind.”
She smiles, the gleam of a tear in her eye. “And I hope he’s just like you. Charming and thoughtful.”
I open my door and race around to help her out. I lower my lips to within an inch of hers. “Come inside. I have something to show you.”
She lowers her gaze to my pants. “I’ve seen it, Asher. Quite a lot.” I know she’s making a joke, but her smile fades. “And as glorious as it may be, I just don’t think I’m in the mood for it today.”
“I knew you wouldn’t be, considering the date. I have something else in mind.”
She narrows her eyes but allows me to help her up and take her inside. When she sees the birthday cake with ten candles on top, a hand flies up to cover her gasp. “Asher.”
“I know it’s a bit unconventional. But you’ll be an Anderson soon if I have anything to say about it. And Andersons celebrateallbirthdays, even heavenly ones. It’s tradition. One I’m sure you heard about from Marti, or maybe Dallas.”
She nods. “I had, but I’d completely forgotten.” She touches each of the ten candles, one at a time.
“I’m sorry we don’t have a picture of Christopher, but you can still light the candles and remember what it was like to hold and love him. You can say a few things about who he would have been.”
“I can’t believe you remembered the date.”
“Babe, when are you going to get it through that pretty little head of yours that I hang onto your every word?” I gesture to the lighter next to the cake. “Can you do the honors?”
Carefully, and with tears pooling in her eyes, she lights each of the candles.
“Idohave pictures. I never showed Jason. He didn’t have the right or privilege to know even a little piece of Christopher.” She turns to me with red-rimmed eyes. “Do you want to see them?”
“I’d be honored, sweetheart.”
She scrolls through her phone and hands it to me. What I see almost wrecks me. A young, beautiful, devastated Allie is holding what looks to be a totally healthy baby. She isn’t looking at whoever’s snapping the photo. She’s looking down at her son. The love in her eyes practically jumps through the phone and pierces my heart. I know right here and now what an amazing mother she’s going to be to our children.
She scrolls to the next photo of Christopher in his hospital bassinet, sleeping peacefully. There’s another with Sarah. In the last photo of Allie and the baby, she’s in a rocking chair holding him against her chest. A flexible tube snakes over her shoulder and is pointed at his face. Oxygen, I presume. His skin is much more ashen than in the other photos. This one must be shortly before he died.
“Does it hurt to look at these?” I ask.
“I look at them almost every day.”
“Does it ever get any better?”
“Are you asking me if time heals all wounds?”
I shrug.
“I’ve always hated that saying.” She scrolls back to the first picture. I think it’s her favorite. “Time doesn’thealall wounds. Just ask Addy. It’s not like her leg grew back after a time. And ask Marti and Dallas and Serenity and anyone else who’s lost something this significant. I think they should change the saying to ‘timedealswith all wounds.’ That would be more accurate. Because the hole in my heart left by him will never be healed. There’s a big ugly scar in its place. And sure, when the babies come, I’ll be happy, and maybe I won’t even look at these pictures every day. But that won’t mean I’m missing him less. It won’t mean I still don’t dream about the kind of boy he would have been or the man he’d have grown up to be. Christopher will always be my first child. When the twins come, I’ll be the mother of three. One of them just happens to be in heaven. So, yeah,time may be helping me deal with his loss in healthier ways, but it will sure as hell never heal me.”
“Wow. That’s… existential.”
She laughs sadly and puts her phone away.
“Tell me about the kind of person Christopher would have been.”
“He’d have been like you.” She threads our fingers together. “Caring. Protective. Loving. He’d have loved chocolate—that I’m sure of considering how much of it I ate when I was pregnant with him. He’d love playgrounds, especially swings, and he’d swing so high I’d get scared he would fly off. But he never would because he’d hold on tight and say‘Don’t worry, Mommy’.” Tears make her eyes sparkle. “He’d have been very smart. But the one thing I’m sure of is that he’d have done something important and altruistic with his life, like become a doctor or firefighter.”
“Sounds like someone I’d want to know.”
She nods, and lets the tears roll down the sides of her face. I kiss them, wanting to absorb all her pain. Needing to be the one who helps her deal with it. Work her way through it. Live with it in a way that brings her peace.