The Shape of Absence

There’s a park bench up the hill, nestled between two trees. A few leaves have fallen to the ground, but most are still clinging to the branches.

This October, the air is warm and dry. You don’t need your coat quite yet.

It still feels like summer, though the calendar promises fall.

I sit alone with my thoughts. There is no breeze, nothing to distract me from the heaviness resting on my heart.

If I close my eyes, I can see them.

A little boy, six years old, sits on a blanket with his seven-month-old sister.

The boy looks like his daddy. Shaggy brown hair, ice-blue eyes, and a crooked grin.

The girl looks like her mommy. The first glimpses of red hair forming a halo around her small head. Her skin is the color of porcelain.

She sits beside him, holding his fingers and pulling them toward her mouth. She laughs when he pulls them away.

He does it again.

And again.

She squeals, delighted by a game only the two of them understand.

I wonder what their voices would sound like. Whether she’d follow him everywhere, whether he’d complain about having a little sister only to defend her whenever someone made her cry.

Would they have gotten along?

Would he have been gentle with her?

There are so many things I don’t know.

I watch him pick up a fallen leaf and hold it out to her. She reaches for it, but he pulls it away before she can put it in her mouth.

I smile.

For a moment, I almost forget.

A sound from somewhere down the hill interrupts my thoughts.

I open my eyes.

There is no blanket.

No little boy.

No baby girl.

Only the grass beneath the trees and a few scattered leaves.

I have imagined them so many times that I feel as though I know them.

But I never got the chance.

The first time, we were full of hope.

I told my boss, my coworkers, my friends, and my family. Even my first two children were excited. They argued over whether the baby would be a boy or a girl, laughing about the possibilities.

At night, I lay beside the man I loved and placed my hand on my belly.

I had done this before, with my other children. It was too early to feel anything, but I could imagine the little life growing inside me.

I closed my eyes and drowned in visions of what could be.

Then, at work, I started bleeding.

And then I bled some more.

At the hospital, I waited.

They ran tests. The doctor left the room. I sat there, frightened, not knowing how to call my fiancé or what I would tell him.

It was purgatory.

Then the doctor returned.

His eyes were full of pity.

No heartbeat.

I wanted to throw a chair across the floor.

I wanted to scream.

Instead, I went home.

I sat in my living room, still and quiet, letting the tears wash over me. My eyes were swollen, my nose was running, and the future I had imagined was gone.

When I told my children, my daughter began crying. She was angry, inconsolable. She beat against my chest, screaming that it was my fault.

I was inclined to believe her.

I called my fiancé. He didn’t want to believe it.

He rushed home, and together we cried for the baby we would never hold.

I didn’t think I would ever get pregnant again.

After the first loss, my body seemed to turn against me.

Fibroids. Surgery that only partially solved the problem. Treatments that failed.

I bled constantly.

Through clothing. Through bedding.

I tried hormones, birth control, bed rest. Nothing seemed to help.

Eventually, I stopped the medications out of frustration.

And somehow, the bleeding stopped, too.

Then came another positive pregnancy test.

I could hardly believe it.

After everything my body had endured, I was pregnant again.

I was frightened, but I was also excited. I imagined another baby. Another chance to build something beautiful with the person I loved.

Some people didn’t believe me. Others questioned why I would want another child at my age.

But they didn’t understand what it meant to me.

I had begun to believe that part of my life was over. That my body had taken the possibility away.

Now, suddenly, there was hope again.

Then came the ultrasound.

They couldn’t find my left ovary beneath the tumors. There were more inside my uterus.

No yolk sac.

No heartbeat.

The technician tried to reassure me. Perhaps it was simply too early.

But I knew.

I miscarried before my doctor called with the results.

When he finally called, he confirmed that the pregnancy had been ectopic.

Another baby I would never meet.

Another future that would exist only in my imagination.

I told my family and friends.

There were condolences. A few expressions of sympathy.

Then silence.

Most people stopped asking.

I wondered whether they understood that I wasn’t only grieving a pregnancy.

I was grieving someone I had already begun to love.

And I was grieving the person I might have been if things had turned out differently.

I look toward the empty patch of grass.

Who would they have become?

What would their favorite things have been?

Would they have loved October, running through piles of leaves and laughing when the wind scattered them again?

I don’t know whether I would have had a boy or a girl. I don’t know what they would have looked like, what their voices would have sounded like, or who they might have become.

But when I close my eyes, I can see them.

The boy with his daddy’s crooked grin.

The girl with her halo of red hair.

A leaf finally lets go of its branch and drifts toward the ground.

I watch it fall.

The grass is empty.

I remain on the bench a little longer.

And for a few more minutes, I let them play.