Part 1 — The Room That Stayed Ready
Three weeks after I buried my newborn son, his nursery still looked as though he might arrive at any moment.
Morning light slipped through the blinds and stretched across the pale rug. Tiny clothes sat folded in perfect stacks on the changing table. Packages of diapers remained sealed beneath it. A stuffed giraffe leaned against the side of the crib.
And the crib itself had never been slept in.
I stood in the doorway, gripping the frame with one hand.
Some mornings I couldn’t bring myself to enter.
Other mornings I couldn’t make myself leave.
His name was Noah.
For months, I had imagined carrying him into that room. I pictured late-night feedings in the rocking chair, sleepy mornings, tiny socks disappearing in the laundry, and Thomas complaining jokingly about how one baby could somehow require so much equipment.
We had prepared for everything.
Everything except coming home without him.
Thomas had been struggling too, although grief had changed us in opposite ways.
I wanted to remain close to every reminder of Noah.
Thomas wanted every reminder gone.
A week earlier, I had walked into our bedroom and found an open suitcase on the bed.
He was folding shirts into it.
For several seconds I just stared.
“You’re leaving?”
Thomas stopped, but he didn’t turn around immediately.
“I can’t do this anymore, Kate.”
“Do what?”
“Live here.”
His voice sounded exhausted rather than angry.
He finally looked at me.
“Every time I walk down that hallway, I see that nursery door. Every time I see it, I think about him.”
“He was your son.”
“I know.”
“Then how can you walk away?”
His jaw tightened.
“Because he was my son.”
The answer knocked the air out of me.
Thomas dragged a hand across his face.
“I asked you weeks ago if we could put the nursery away.”
“And I told you I’m not ready.”
“When will you be ready?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s the problem.”
He looked toward the hallway.
“We built an entire room for a baby who’s never going to use it, and now we’re both pretending that leaving everything untouched somehow keeps us close to him.”
“I’m not pretending anything.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“Surviving.”
The word came out sharper than I’d intended.
Thomas sighed.
“Kate, this house is swallowing us.”
“No. You’re choosing to leave.”
“Maybe because I don’t know how else to breathe here.”
I wrapped my arms around myself.
“Do you think I know how?”
His expression softened for only a moment.
Then he closed the suitcase.
“I called someone about putting the house on the market.”
My head snapped up.
