“You did what?”
“We can’t keep living like this.”
“I’m not selling Noah’s home.”
“It’s our home.”
“Then why are you abandoning it?”
Thomas picked up the suitcase.
“I’ll come back next week for the rest of my things.”
“You can’t make this decision for me!”
He paused at the bedroom door but never turned around.
Then he walked out.
A moment later, the front door closed.
Not dramatically.
Not loudly.
Just one quiet click.
Somehow that made it worse.
I went straight to Noah’s nursery.
For the first time that day, I stepped inside.
I sat on the carpet beside the crib and rested my forehead against its wooden railing.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
My voice disappeared into the room.
“I would’ve given anything to bring you home.”
Above me, the little mobile slowly turned in the air from the heating vent.
That evening, I ate crackers over the kitchen sink because cooking felt pointless.
My mother called three times.
I ignored every call.
I left the television dark.
When I finally went upstairs, I slept on Thomas’s side of the bed because mine still carried too many memories of pregnancy—of lying awake with my hands over my stomach, feeling Noah move beneath them.
But sleep never came.
Neither did tears.
Grief had moved beyond crying.
It had become silence.
For illustrative purposes only
