‘I’m sorry.’ I told him. ‘This is terrible but I can’t help myself.’
‘It’s okay.’ He was so weary. ‘It’s okay.’
When the inevitable call from HR came, I said I couldn’t come back just yet. ‘Can you use the therapist you’d got to cover my maternity leave?’
‘Oh … yes, I guess.’
But a report from my family doctor was required so Luke helped me into the shower, to wash myself for the first time in six days.
Dr Esposito – Carlotta – had been our GP for about three years and she was kindness itself. After she’d written the report which said I wasn’t faking my devastation, she offered me antidepressants.
I was reluctant. ‘I don’t know … I’m not depressed. This is grief, right? Shouldn’t I just feel it?’
‘But look at you, Rachel!’ She waved her hand at my swollen eyes, my baggy sweatpants, my grey skin. ‘You’re not doing well here.’
‘Carlotta, you know I’m in NA, don’t you? I shouldn’t take tablets.’
‘Antidepressants aren’t addictive. They’re not mood-altering – well, I guess they are, but the change is subtle and slow, it’s hard to abuse them. They don’t get you high. Hey, your call. I’m here if you need me.’
With some information about self-help groups for bereaved parents, she sent me on my way.
As a result of her letter, Hope House gave me three months’ leave at full pay and, yes, that was a relief. It would be impossible to return because I literally couldn’t stop crying.
Every day I told myself, tomorrow will be better. I’ll get up, I’ll tidy the apartment, I’ll go to a meeting, I’ll sit in the park and let the sun shine on my face. But tomorrow would come and I’d stay in bed, choking with tears, looking for the moment when I’d done the thing that had hurt her.
I hadn’t been to a meeting since that first one with Olga Mae, and when Nola got wind, she said she was coming to New York. I said, ‘Not right now. I’m in no condition to be minded.’
‘What do you mean?’
I meant that it would put pressure on me to perform. I loved her too much to let her think she was failing me. But there was more: Luke and I were reeling – we weren’t connecting. Having another person in and out of our home would just make it harder.
But I didn’t want to worry her, so I promised to go to meetings.
My greatest fear was what verdict the hospital would produce for Yara’s death. I’d been wondering – terrified – if the reason was simply me. If it had been crazy to expect that a person with my defects could do something as beautiful and loving as give birth to a child.
It was years since that self-hatred had had any real hold but now it was on the rampage. There were times when I wondered if my drug use had somehow damaged my body, making it incapable of keeping a baby alive, but more often, my fear was that the flaw was my personality, my spirit, whatever essence makes up a person.
Fear and shame kept me suspended in a silence that became increasingly difficult to endure and in the end I blurted it out to Luke. ‘I think it’s my fault. She knew she wasn’t safe to be born to me because I’m a fuck-up.’
‘That’s –’ He frowned. ‘Crazy. Stop. Don’t say stuff like that.’
‘I’m just afraid that –’
‘Don’t!’
I should have been glad that he wouldn’t let me diss myself but because he wouldn’t actually talk about it, I couldn’t shake the horrible feeling that maybe he shared my worry.
And when the nice doctor finally called, the news couldn’t have been worse – they’d found no reason for Yara’s death.
He was keen to stress that sometimes it just happened. But if there was no obvious cause – no virus, no blood clot – then it was definitely my fault.
Telling Luke was hard. ‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered.
‘For what?’
‘I must have done something. Or maybe it’s just me –’ Tears choked me.
‘It’s not your fault.’ He gathered me to him, but not before I’d seen the flatness in his eyes.
Then came the funeral. Luke in a suit. That tiny white coffin. Luke reading the heartbreaking poem.
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day