Sexual Tension Grows Between Ex-lovers

Erik folded his hands beneath his black sweater, his thumbs fidgeting with the wool.

“I know we' re supposed to go to dinner,” he said, “But I don't know if I can even eat right now.”

I laughed. “What? Am I making you sick?”

“No, no, not at all, it's that . . . it's just a lot, being with you.”

Our break-up three years ago was the farthest thing from civil, and I knew, after not seeing eachother for all of that time, we were both uncertain of what we should do with the palpable sexual tension that now filled the two-foot gap between us on the couch.

“I was just teasing. I know exactly what you mean. I didn't think I would be so happy to be with you. Oh, wait, that came out wrong. It's not that I didn't want to see you, but something feels different. We really should plan to see eachother more often.”

Erik scooted towards me, speaking softly. “Hyla, I would really like that, but, you know, after being with you this past hour, well, I don't really know how to say this, but I don't think I can be your friend.”

“Oh.”

“This might come out sounding crazy, but, um, I am still in love with you.”

I grabbed a burgundy pillow and held it to my chest. “Oh, wow, that is amazing that you would just come out and say that.”

How could he still be in love with me?

“It is what it is. I guess I can't help it. For the past three years, my friends have been telling me to forget about you, and, even though we weren't in touch, well, I just couldn't let go. I tried dating. I really tried.”

“I am sure you did. You're a total catch.”

“But, everytime I went out with someone, all I could do was compare them to you. You have to understand that I really meant those words when I proposed to you in college. There is something about you, about us, that has always made sense to me.”

“I don't know what to say. I feel honored.”

Erik took off his glasses and exhaled. “Having essentially poured my heart out to you, what I am trying to say is that I need you to feel more than honored. I need to you to feel like there is a chance for us again. Otherwise, it would be too painful for me to see eachother as friends.”

Each word he spoke brought me closer to him, each truth he revealed seduced me deeper into his heart. He wasn't playing games like so many men I had been dating. Erik was real. Erik was unbelievably masculine and also willing to share his soul. That, to me, was the definition of sexy.

I got up from the couch, stood directly in front of him, and then climbed into his lap, wrapping one leg at a time around his waist, so I could align our bodies. “Does this feel like friends?”

“Yeah, uh, no, this definitely does not feel like friends.”

“Listen, I may have some catching up to do on the love front because I just got out of pretty bad relationship, but, no, I do not want to be your friend.”

My pelvis pressed against his and I let out a moan, grabbing his jaw with both of my hands, pulling his lips close to mine.

“Watcha doin?” he said impishly.

I knew I was already being devious enough by straddling his lap, but I smiled. “You don't mind if I kiss you, do you?”

“Hmm...I'm guessing you can probably feel how hard I am beneath you right now, so I think you can figure the answer to that question out on your own.”

We kissed, and then we kissed some more, our bodies merging into eachother. We were fully clothed, but my back arched again and again. His fingers tugged at my long brown hair.

Oh, it felt so good to be with him. A comforting distant memory given a new life. A chance. He had grown up. I had grown up. We were both established in our careers, in our selves. Was it possible that he was the one after all?

We could not contain our sounds of pleasure, nor did we want to.

I whispered, “You make me feel, oh, uh, mmmmm, incredible . . .”

“That's because you are . . . and I am going to show you.”

Erik forcefully grabbed my hips and slid our still-clothed pelvises up and down, harder and harder, rubbing his jeans on me in all the right ways, until both of submitted to the wet euphoria and orgasmed with sheer ecstacy, as one.

We collapsed into the scent of our sweat, our breath, the sex-tainted musk of my perfume.

For several minutes, we remained in eachother's arms, both of us quiet, gratefully consuming the moment.

“I certainly wasn't expecting that,” I said.

“Are you alright with what just happened?”

“Hmmm....let me think about that. Silly! I'm just thinking we need to do it again. Like, right now.”

And so, we did it another time, and another time after that, melting into the familiarity of what once was and what was yet to become.

God Inflicts Anger

I walk out of the closet, my arms full of Erik’s shirts, all still on hangers. My 8-month-pregnant belly acts as a shelf, enabling me to carry more.

“I hope you’re alright with this,” I say to my brother, Troy. “That you don’t think it’s weird I’m giving you Erik’s stuff.”

I pile the shirts on top of my bed, the white plastic hangers clinking together like falling dominoes.

“No, I don’t think it’s weird, as long as you’re fine, as long as you feel ready,” Troy holds up a navy blue button-down. “This one will definitely fit.”

“Erik would be really happy you had these, I’m sure of it.”

It hasn’t even been three weeks since the blood trickled down the side of my husband’s mouth on Easter Sunday, but I have to give some of his things away.

His clothes keep calling to me. The soothing vanilla scent of Erik draws me into the closet again and again. I embrace his sweaters, his white t-shirts, inhaling the last remnants of his physical body. I imagine Erik following me into the walk-in to grab my ass, to tickle me, to tell me that none of this really happened, but I have to stop pretending he will reappear.

“I’ll be honored to wear them,” Troy says.

We have not spoken much about that night that my brother worked to resuscitate Erik, but I hope that Troy has let go of his guilt. There was nothing he could have done. Nothing any of us could have done to save him.

“I kept the things I know I will wear . . . or that his family may want.” It felt right to keep his underwear—all 23 pairs—for whatever reason, and I put Erik’s shoes in a box until I can figure out who will fit into them.

His mom, Jeanette, wants Erik's silver-framed eyeglasses because she said he got on her case all of the time about hers not being cool enough. How ironic that she also lost her first husband when she was 29. Then her second husband when Erik was 11. And now Erik, her youngest and most beloved child. The pain she has endured in one lifetime is unfathomable.

Jeanette is probably the only person I know who can understand what I am feeling—what it’s like to be a young widow with babies.

Later that day, after Troy has left with several bags of Erik’s clothes, Jeannette calls to say she will be flying out next month for Keira’s birth. “I’ll stay as long as you need me, or until you kick me out. I want to be there for you, to take care of Tatiana, to help you with Keira.”

Our phone call is filled with recollections of Erik and tears.

“I miss him so much,” I tell her.

“Me too, sweetheart. I know exactly what you mean. But, you know, every time I think about how much I miss him, it occurs to me that, maybe, I am being selfish. I know he’s in a much better place. I know he’s with his daddy and I know he’s with God. It was his time. God brought him to a better place.”

What did she just say?

Her words infuriate me. I grip the portable black phone tighter, doing my best not to chuck it against the wall.

I restrain myself from screaming, “What a crock of shit!”

What a major crock of shit!

My face burns as if it had been shoved into a lit fireplace.

I take a breath, slowly, intentionally, and say, “I know everyone has their different opinions on this, on God, on an afterlife, and, well, right now I am just too upset with what I once thought was a higher power—call it God, call it whatever you want—for taking him from me, from us. Why would a higher power do that? Why would God do that? Quite honestly, I know there was no better place for Erik. This was it. He was happiest here. So, forgive me for saying this, but I’m having a hard time believing that this God wouldn’t have known how happy Erik was, that this God would have ripped him away from everything he loved.”

Pregnant Widow Shutting Down

Tatiana clings to me, her legs wrapped beneath my 9-month pregnant belly, while the other Marin Day School toddlers push balls, rakes, miniature vacuums, and each other around in the outdoor play area of the preschool.

Primary colored toys are scattered everywhere—many of which Erik had cleaned only two months before, when he donated his time to Tatiana’s school to make some “minor repairs.”

Erik was supposed to fix a couple of loose locks over a weekend, but the teachers returned to a new garden of potted flowers, re-stained benches and sandbox, and a large rainbow play-structure that had been flipped and scrubbed from bottom to top.

When he walked through the metal gate to bring Tatiana there the next day, the entire staff gave him a standing ovation. "Look, Honey!" he said, as he showed me the thank you card made out of red construction paper and a dozen one-year-old hand-prints. "Can you believe they did this for me?"

And now, at Marin Day School, there is still story time, singing circle time, and “tick-tocking” clean-up time, but something has changed. Now there is a solemn understanding between all of us.

It could have been any one of those toddlers' daddies. Any one of those daddies could have dropped dead on the kitchen floor, but it was Tatiana's daddy, the man whose flowers continue to grow, who had his life cut short.

The teachers huddle around me and Tatiana, their tears bringing tears to my eyes.

“I don’t know how I’d survive any of this without you,” I say, as I pass a resistant Tatiana to her primary care-giver, Dani.

Dani’s long, straight blond hair reaches to the bottom of her back. “Whatever I can do. Whatever any of us can do,” she says. “You know how much we love Tatiana. Let me take her after school, over-night if you want.”

Still trying to sort out the details of Erik's death, I could use the break, but the thought of being away from Tatiana too long is unfathomable to me.

“I think she’d freak. But I am so grateful to you. This is the one place she seems happy, unless she’s with me. The routine is good for her.”

When I leave, Tatiana reaches through the gate, smashes her face against the black bars, and screams, “Mama, Mama, Mama.” Her screams are like pin-pricks, sharply threading their way down through my swollen ankles. I hear her wails, again and again, as I pull away in my dark grey VW station wagon.

Sometimes when she cries, it’s like watching Erik fall in a graphic flashback—like I am right there, feeling everything. The blood on the side of his mouth. The pain of his un-medicated amputation from our lives.

Just one month after he died, Tatiana lay on her back, on the kitchen floor, in her purple butterfly dress, and started to shake. She looked all around the room. Then she let out a choking sound. She flipped her head from side to side, the back of her curly blond hair sliding against the white tile.

It took me a minute to realize what she was doing—that she was reenacting what she had watched happen. My 18-month-old daughter was sorting out her daddy’s death.

And now, anytime I lie down, Tatiana says, “Up,up, up,” in a panicky tone, as if she thinks I am going to die, too.

I am not getting sleep because the doctor won’t give me anymore sleeping pills and, at night, my feet itch like I’ve stepped into a huge mound of fire ants—an itching like none I’ve ever felt before. Nothing can stop this itching. Not scratching with my nails, not the pumice stone. I even tried one of those special callous shavers, so I could remove the top layer of the skin. I scrapped and scrapped at my feet until I bled and, still, the itching remains.

So, after I drop Tatiana off at her school, I drive to Diane’s house. Diane is my friend and incredibly gifted massage therapist, who I have been seeing once a week since Erik's death. The grief counselor helps, but Diane gives me something different, something that I can’t get from talking. She gives me her calming touch.

Touch is what I yearn for. I yearn for Erik’s touch. I yearn for him to hold me, for him to curl up behind me in our bed and spoon me one more time. That is what I miss the most. I miss his touch.

Diane knows things about me, about what is going on inside of me, even before I do. She is trained in intuitive therapy and, as long as I stay open to her insight, she has a way of revealing things of which I am not yet aware.

I curl up on my left side, on her massage table, and look up at her wavy brown hair, her green eyes. She has such a presence about her, a universal connection, and I aspire to be as aware as Diane throughout my grief process. I hope to manifest the strength to be a good mother to this unborn child of mine and to continue helping Tatiana through her loss.

I tell Diane about the itching in my feet, about how I can’t sleep.

She stands at the end of the table, holds onto my feet with her soft, powerful hands, and says, “I’m getting that the itching is from your nervous system. Your nervous system is on overload, understandably, and it wants to shut down. Your organs are fighting too hard to stay functional.”

“And that’s making my feet itch?”

“Yes, this is a really hard time. You need to be very gentle with yourself. Your body wants to give up . . . but I know . . . I know you won’t let it.”

“No, I won’t.”

“Do you mind if I take a minute to re-balance your energy?”

“I’m open to anything, if you think it will help.”

“Just close your eyes, now, and feel only love and healing.”

Her hands grow warmer as they make their way, without hurry, from my calves, to my ripe stomach, to my temples, and then, finally, to my chest.

I can feel my heart beneath her touch. The blood pulsating. An echo bouncing within her palms, as if there are things being said, things being resolved.

My breathing slows. My muscles relax.

Tears come. A release.

I am safe right now.

The itching. It isn’t there.

How did she do that?

I stay in that healing state, not a word spoken, for at least five minutes. I feel like I am swimming under clear blue water, tropical fish caressing my naked skin. We circle one another—angel, rainbow, and clown fish—as they effortlessly guide me to the surface.

My eyes open. I notice Diane’s dangling, multi-colored earrings. “I can’t believe how much better I feel,” I say.

We share a respect for the healing, in silence, while a nurturing energy floats between us.

Then Diane says, “Good. Good.” Her hands hover near my belly button. “And, well, the baby . . . Keira . . . she . . .” Diane hesitates.

“What about Keira?”

Is she alright?

“I’m getting the sense that she wants me to check in with her.”

I look into Diane’s eyes. “You can do that?”

“Yes, well, I can connect with her energy, and see how she’s doing, if you don’t mind.”

I feel more peaceful than I’ve felt since Erik died, amazed at my friend’s ethereal powers. “No, I don’t mind. I really want you to. Anything you can sense into would be very helpful to me.”

Diane stretches her arms to her sides, palms up, fingers spread, as if asking for wisdom.

Then she places her hands carefully on my womb.

She speaks in a whisper. “It’s alright, you know. It’s alright that you don't feel connected to the baby right now.”

How does she know?

Tears push themselves down the sides of my face, seeping into the lavender-scented towel.

I want to feel connected to her. I do.

I listen intently, knowing that, somehow, Diane can feel what is going on between this grieving mother and fatherless child.

She continues. “Keira is an understanding, compassionate soul, who will be just fine.”

Guilt overcomes me. During my pregnancy with Tatiana, I always felt close to her, but, now, with Keira, I just feel like an emotional collision.

Diane lets out a slight laugh. A laugh of realization. “Erik is here. Erik is giving her enough love for both of you. I can feel him here, right now, loving her. It’s amazing. Truly exquisite. He is loving her all the time. And loving you . . . and Tatiana.”

11-Year-Old Boy Tries to Save his Father

Erik told me about his dad, Hayden, when we first started dating. We were both 20, both students at Florida State University. Erik majored in computer science while I studied creative writing. Within days of knowing one another, it was obvious that Erik's rational, organized side would compliment the artist in me.

Erik spoke slowly, with quiet intensity. “We were on vacation.”

I sat cross-legged, on Erik's bedroom floor, soaking in the masculine whisper of his words. My attention was focused entirely on him.

He stretched out on his back and put his head in my lap, his eyes directed at the circulating ceiling fan. “We were on vacation, at the beach . . . I was eleven. It was just me, my mom, and my dad. My dad had brought me out windsurfing for the first time. I kept falling off the board.”

He laughed, more to himself than me. “It was a really great day.”

“Sounds like it.” I kissed Erik’s forehead where the peach-colored candelight reflected off of his skin.

“They had just come back from a walk . . . my mom and dad . . . and I was digging a big hole in the sand.”

Erik closed his eyes, pausing for a few seconds, like he was there, like he was re-living that day. “My dad sat down in his chair and then he . . . he just . . . he just fell over in his chair. He just fell over in his chair. Out of nowhere. He just fell over . . . right near the hole I was digging. He wasn’t breathing.”

“I can’t even imagine.” I ran my fingers through Erik’s thick black hair. “I can’t even imagine.”

“My mom lost it . . . she told me to run for help . . . so I did. I ran as fast as I could. My legs were burning."

I saw Erik in my mind—this innocent, dark-haired little boy running as fast as he can, fine grains of white spitting up all over everyone’s beach blankets. He’s running and screaming, looking for help, not knowing what else to do.

"My mom was hysterical. She already had one husband die of a heart attack, but I . . . I did the best I could. I couldn't have run any faster."

"Of course not."

"It was Miami, you know, so I was able to find a doctor right away, but it didn't matter."

"You did everything you could do."

"My dad was turning blue. Nothing worked. They were pounding on his chest."

I wanted to help that little, out-of-breath, 11-year-old Erik. I wanted him to know he had run fast enough. That it wasn't his fault.

Erik started to cry. "It was supposed to be our vacation. I just wanted him to sit back up in his chair."

But his dad never did sit back up in that chair, and Erik spent the rest of his life wondering if his father would still be alive if he had just run a little faster.

Father and Son's Ashes Scattered Together

I give Troy the burgundy velvet bag that contains Erik’s ashes. “Do you mind holding them? I may need to run down to the beach by myself.”

“I’ll put them in my back pack.” Troy rests the gray sack by his feet and slides the ashes in. He starts to zip up the backpack, but pauses. “Jeanette, I might be able to fit yours in, too.”

Jeanette hugs her pine box closer to her chest. “No, I want to hold him. Hayden’s fine right here.”

My mother-in-law, Jeanette, has held on to her husband’s ashes for 17 years now.

When we talked about scattering Erik’s ashes, she said, “We’ll scatter them together. It’s never felt right to do it before, but it feels right now. Erik can be with his daddy. They can finally be together.”

And now Jeanette’s eyes are glossy with the tears she has been unwilling to release for decades.

I think of my pain—this pain from losing Erik—and know it cannot compare to hers. Two husbands and her youngest son, all dead. If a heart is broken into pieces, how can she have anything left?

Jeanette has never been to therapy, never gone to spousal loss support, never been willing to talk about her losses. Maybe she thinks some things are inexpressible. I imagine all of that grief stuck in her body, crawling through her limbs like a poisonous snake, and I want to reach inside of her and pull it out.

I look at her and vow, to myself, that I will deal with my pain. I will take hold of my sadness, wrestle it if I have to, letting its wild head hiss at me, so that I can come out on the other side more capable of being an example for my baby girls.

I do not want to be broken into pieces. I want to be broken open. I want to find love again.

“It’s a two mile hike, you know,” I tell Jeanette.

“Don’t you worry about me, sweetheart. I’ll be fine.” She nods down at Hayden's box. “It’s not like he weighs very much.”

We all begin to walk.

Jen says, “I brought hot tea for afterward. Gonna be even colder by the water.”

“That was thoughtful of you,” I say, but I don't really care about hot tea. I don't care about anything other than making sense out of things. But, how do I make sense out of Erik's death? Out of the fact that I am here to scatter his ashes? How? Why?

The pressure in my chest is unbearable--a grief-filled hammer repeatedly pounding against my ribcage.

There is so much to figure out. Do I stay in California, amongst my memories of Erik, or do I move back to Florida to be closer to my family?

Everyone has an opinion, but I need to silence their words. Silence everything. I need quiet so that I can let the answers come to me, but I am afraid. Afraid of trusting myself. Afraid of messing up Tatiana and Keira. How can I be a good mother when I feel too damaged to take care of myself?

Erik would know what to do. Erik could fix anything. He had a way of holding me, of comforting me, of taking care of me, and now, now there is no Erik. Now I must do this without him.

I do not want to feel the clawing of my emotions, so I quicken my pace into a slow run.

I run ahead of Troy, Jen, and Jeanette at Tennessee Valley, my feet pounding out aggression on the orange dirt trail. I turn back to them, for a brief moment, and yell, “I’ll meet you there.”

Troy shouts, “We’ll see you soon.”

"Do your thing, girl,” Jen says.

Jeanette says nothing, but I know she understands the feeling of needing to be alone.

Running is my way of coping, a form of meditation without sitting still. Sitting still means feeling the entirety of my emotions and that I am not ready to do. So I run and move my body to shed the angst. Without exercise, I want to rip off my skin.

Not even three weeks after my c-section with Keira, I started doing this hilly two-mile run again. My five-inch incision was red, but without stitches—the healing showing signs, but not nearly there. Throbbing pain and all, I had to push my way, ever so slowly, through the valley and down to the beach.

And, now, Keira is two months-old and my pace has quickened. My body is getting stronger from running, from lifting weights with a trainer, from lifting babies. I am determined to get healthier everyday and, already, want to rid my body of its excess baby weight so that I may attract men.

But, who will want me? Who, at the age of 29, wants a woman with two babies? I feel insecure. Fat. Ugly. Unworthy. Erik is not here to tell me I am beautiful. Erik is not here to say that I am an amazing photographer or the best mother in the world.

This was not the plan. This was not the way things were supposed to be.

Or maybe it is the way things are supposed to be.

Maybe I have somehow manifested it all.

I look back at the trail. I am alone, running, and no one is in sight.

I need you, Erik. Help me find my way.

The wind tosses my hair in all directions, slapping the brown strands against the front of my neck. Every few strides, I stoop down to scoop up rocks, and slip them into my waist pack.

This is where it all started. Tennessee Valley.

The day after Erik and I moved from Florida to California, we visited Tennessee Valley, and I was immediately filled up with the power of a universal force that I had never experienced before.

I will never forget that first time I spread my arms out to the powerful Pacific Ocean. Such a sense of clarity and euphoria. My soul was consumed by a spirit much greater than mine, and I felt, without a doubt, that my life had deeper purpose.

Never could I have imagined then that Erik's death would be a part of this universal plan. That I would be here, just eight years later, asking the Ocean for answers to such unfathomable questions.

Today, Tennessee Valley is veiled by thick fog. There is no sun shining on my face.

On my way up the mountainside, I want know why. Why did this happen to me? To us? To Erik? He was so happy and had it all taken away. Why?

I bend down to pick yellow and purple wildflowers. Flowers for my Erik. This is one time, I am certain, I will be forgiven for taking from the earth.

Drops of sweat slide down my neck, into the crease between my breasts. The sounds of ten-foot waves slam against protruding boulders.

I hike up to the old army bunker in the side of the hill that I have visited many times before. It is dark in the cement bunker and there are no people around, but I assume it is safe, as I normally do, and decide to step in.

Pathetic streams of foggy daylight illuminate the graffiti-like words that have been written in chalk, crayon, and lipstick on the gray walls. I walk to the corner, where my favorite words are written in red, and squint to read them.

And we will find that wherever we step, the path appears beneath our feet

Now, more than ever, these words speak to me. Wherever we step, the path appears beneath our feet.

From the opening of the bunker, I look down to see Jeannette, Troy, and Jen beginning their trek up the mountainside.

I am grateful for the few minutes I still have by myself.

The rocks slip underneath me as I climb up the rest of the way, where we have all agreed to meet. I get to the top of the mountain and sit crossed legged next to the edge of the cliff.

I toss a piece of wood, watching it fall eight-stories down to a deserted beach.

This is it.

This is where we will scatter the ashes, where I envision Erik and Hayden will soar off the mountainside, into the Pacific Ocean. They will swim with the kelp, the sea lions, and the occasional whale.

I hear a rustling sound in the bushes and turn around, suddenly worried about the rumored mountain lion.

Instead, two deer spring down the hillside ten feet away.

I plant my palms in the red dirt, the jagged rocks making indentations in my skin.

Probably too close to the edge

Not the most stable person these days, I scoot back six inches, ever aware of orphaning my girls.

My waist pack feels tight and heavy around my belly, so I unhook it and take out the rocks I have collected along the way.

Be with me, Erik.

Now a foot away from the edge of the cliff, I lay the yellow and purple wildflowers down with a handful of rocks on their stems.

I imagine myself on our wedding day, holding two dozen tightly wrapped white roses as I walk towards Erik, down the grand marble staircase. He stares at me with certainty.

Erik's fingertips connect with mine, beneath my bouquet. He is a handsome vision in his black tuxedo. This is the beginning of submitting to happiness, of letting myself be loved in a way most people will never experience.

I hear Eriks' voice. Deep, soothing, authentic. His wedding vows surround me:

I believe that I know love because I have known you. There is nothing more complete than the thought of you as my wife, as the mother to my children, as my best friend.

I set the rest of the rocks down, one by one, in deliberate formation. The experience of forming these words is surreal. Slow. It’s as if I am removed from my own body, hovering above it all. Instead of being in it, I am watching myself.

Floating above, I take in this scene of a young woman who is leaving flowers and a message to her dead husband. It isn't me. It can't be me.

The widow forms her words in black and orange rocks.

I L O V E Y O U E R I K

This is my way of coping, so that I can do what I am here to do.

I am here to scatter Erik’s ashes.

Another pushing through.

I hunch over, crying for this widow and her two babies. I mourn for the 29 year-old man who was yanked away from everything he had ever wanted.

But, again, I am numb.

My tears are on automatic.

I am detached. Staring at nothing and everything, all at the same time.

The words are blurry, the wind and the waves are white noise.

“How ya doing?” Jen says.

I am startled back into my body when I realize that Troy, Jen and Jeanette stand only steps away. “Oh, um, you made it.”

Jen squats down next to me. “You need a sweatshirt?”

I use my index finger to wipe beneath my eyes. “No, I’m alright.” I don’t really want to look at her.

“We don’t have to do this today, if you’re not ready, you know.” She strokes my hair.

“Jeanette will still be here for another week. We can come back another day.”

“No, today is the day. It’s just . . .”

“Fucked up?”

“Yeah, any way you look at it.”

“You just tell me what you need, and I’ll make sure you get it.”

“You’ve already done too much, Jen.”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

“I do wish it wasn’t so, um, foggy out. I was hoping for a sunny day.”

“Now, that I can’t help you with

I stand up and wave to Troy and Jeanette to come over to us. “I was thinking we could do it here. What do you think? Look like a good . . . scattering spot?”

“It’s beautiful,” Jeanette says. “They’d like it here.”

“I thought we could toss them off the side so they can be in the ocean.”

“Hayden loved the ocean.” She starts to cry, too.

I hold Jeanette in my arms, Hayden’s scatter-box pressed between both of our chests. I want to take care of her the way she has taken care of me and the girls the past few months.

Jeanette pulls away, determined. “Well, I think 17 years is long enough to hang on to your ashes, Hayden.” She sits down and undoes the twist-tie around the protective plastic bag.

“Troy, can I have Erik’s?”

He hands me the burgundy bag. “Already got them out for you.”

I sit next to Jeanette and take Erik’s dark brown scatter-box from its velvet cover.

Flipping up the wooden lid, I peek inside. I haven’t looked at his ashes before. They are in a clear, plastic bag, inside the wooden box. They look like fine white sand.

For a moment, I wonder how I would really know if these were Erik’s ashes. I didn’t see him get cremated. Last I saw of him, he was in his casket, and then the funeral home gave me this box full of sand.

No, it must be Erik. Why would the funeral home do that to me?

I pull the plastic bag out of the box and set everything else aside.

Jeanette now has her hand inside of her bag. “Mine don’t look like yours.”

“No, they must have cremated differently back then.”

“It’s almost like I can feel some bones in there.”

“Yeah, it looks like they only put the fine particles in Erik’s.”

Jeanette and I stare at each other for a while, both of us knowing the unspoken impact of this situation.

“Well, are you ready?” she asks.

“Do you mind if I take some of Hayden’s, too? I want to scatter some of them together first.”

“That’s a beautiful idea.” She holds Hayden’s bag out to me. “I’m not ready yet. You go first.”

“Now?”

“Now, sweetheart.”

I reach deep into her bag with my right hand and pull out a fistful of Hayden’s ashes.

Jeanette is correct. Hayden's ashes are much coarser than Erik's. It makes me a little sick to my stomach, holding what I know are nickel and dime sized pieces of my father-in-law.

I keep my right fist tight around them while I let my left fingers wrap around Erik’s soft ashes. Some of Erik’s ashes slip through the cracks, into the wind.

“Here we go.” I step to the edge of the cliff, peering over my running shoes, at the Pacific Ocean.

My hands are filled with father and son, two generations that are now together in some other world.

I tuck my fists into my chest, my elbows pushing at my belly.

“We love you, Erik,” Jen says.

“You’ll always be with us,” Troy says.

I raise both of my hands to the sky, making a ‘V’ with my arms. “I’m sorry I never got to meet you, Hayden. I know I would have . . loved you. And, Erik, I don’t even know what to say. You have given me so much . . . and I can’t believe you’re gone. But it makes me feel good to know you’re . . . you’re with your dad. And . . . I love you. I wish I could tell you how much I love you, but I hope you know. And the girls love you. We will always . . . love you.”

I clasp both of my hands together, mixing their ashes, and fling them off of the cliff side.

The wind blows hard, a massive gust with purpose. The ashes are lifted away from the direction of the ocean.

They do not soar down to the sea lions. Instead, they whip right back into my face.

What remains of Erik and Hayden is all over me--in my hair, on my clothes—and I cannot help but laugh. I laugh and cry, and then laugh some more.

“Whoa, that was intense.” I breathe in the cool air.

“They’re all over you.” Jen dusts off my face.

“Take some.” I shake my whole body out. “Everybody take some.”

I feel exhilarated.

“Maybe you want to try scattering towards the valley,” Troy says.

“I don’t mind them on me.” I laugh more deeply. “You know it’s Erik playing tricks on me. Jeanette, you first. It feels really good to let go.”

“If you say so.” Jeanette digs both of her hands into Hayden’s scatter bag. “But I’m not getting them in my face.” She turns towards the Valley, careful not to fight the wind. “Be free, my love. Be with our son.”

Jeanette's ashes saunter down the hill, settling near the spot where I had just seen those deer, and a sliver of light pierces the fog.

Birth of a Fatherless Child

My body is as still as a corpse while my obstetrician shaves the rest of my pubic hair, so that she can neatly slice my womb open.

I stare at my right hand, into the dark eyes of the black and white photograph I am holding of my husband, Erik. I study his black hair, his defined jaw, his young 29-year-old skin, probing his face for answers, but the picture has no reply.

He should be here. How can he not be here for Keira's birth?

Instead, my mom positions herself to the right of the steel operating table, a piece of her curly black hair straying from her cap.

Mom speaks in a whisper. “I am going to be next to you the whole time.” She lightly intertwines her fingers with mine, leaving enough space for Erik's photograph.

I strain my neck backwards, peeking at the door to the operating room.

Please be here, Erik. I need you.

I imagine Erik walking through the door, perspiration on his brow from running late. We kiss as if it is our first kiss, slow, with exploring connection. I feel relief, forgiveness, elation, immense gratitude that he is back in my arms.

But Erik is not in my arms. Erik is no where to be seen, and the thought of my life as a 29-year-old single mom with two babies makes me want to throw up all over the cold cement floor.

“I don't . . . feel so good.”

My insides twist around and around, filling with dusty angst. The agitation pounds at my abdomen, scrapping at the deep layers of my skin. Anger. Sadness. Confusion. Hopelessness. I have no idea how I will raise these girls without him.

The tall, male anesthesiologist leans in to comfort me, his green eyes peering over his surgical mask. “Let me know what you need.”

Every one of the hospital staff knows Erik is gone and no one can believe it. Just 19 months before, the same doctors and nurses had witnessed Erik's tears of joy at our first daughter's birth.

Now the room is somber, filled by the presence of educated individuals who have no explanations.

I nod to the anesthesiologist. “I need, uh, something else. Feeling . . . very upset.”

Lizellen, my obstetrician, says, “Give her the works. She has had to go without medication for far too long, but you did good, kid. You’re going to have another healthy baby girl here in just a few minutes.”

Mom squeezes my hand. “I can’t wait to see her.”

“I just hope . . . Keira is OK.” I'm worried that my new daughter will be born feeling the same sense of abandonment, or, even worse, wrought with illness or deformity from being housed in her mother's grief.

Please let her be alright.

I am entirely numb from the chest down—the epidural takes care of that, but the real relief comes when the extra IV drugs start to work.

My consciousness enters an altered state. Eyelids fall. Breathing releases. Everything and everyone in the room seems out of focus. Disoriented. Floating.

Feels incredible not to feel . . . anything.

Stay here forever.

“Hyla, you still with me?”

Dry mouth. Lick lips.

Where am I?

Muffled sounds. Shuffling feet. Clanking metal.

“Erik?”

Erik’s face. Penetrating. Eyes connected.

I’m here.

Tears. So many tears.

Tissue on my cheek. Mom wiping my face. “I’m right here, honey. It's OK.”

How could you leave us?

Mom stroking my hair.

I didn't want to go, Hyla. You know I didn't want to go.

Soothing voice. My Erik.

“Hang in there now.”

I can't see you.

“Almost there.”

Feel me. Let yourself feel me.

“I see a hand.”

But, I'm so sad. We didn't get to say goodbye.

“Here she comes.”

My love is around you . . . and the girls.

“Erik, our baby, she's coming.”

The photograph. Blurry.

“Oh, honey.” Mom cries. “I know this is so hard.” Speckled water stains on her surgical mask.

Our baby.

“I see that little cutie in there.”

I am always here.

“There she is. She’s out, Hyla.”

No sounds.

No first breath.

She should be crying by now.

“Mom? Mom, is she alright?”

I can't lose her, too.

“Just give her a second.”

Words between the doctors.

She has to be alright.

And then, finally, a scream.

“That's a good set of lungs there.”

A powerful wail.

The proclamation of life from our new baby girl.

Death Caused by Thoughts?

I folded our warm white towels while Tatiana, only twelve months old then, napped in her bedroom. Erik and I had been married just over two years and, already, I was four months pregnant with our second daughter, Keira.

Erik and I both felt the same intense love for Tatiana and were excited to have another baby right away.

But there was no excitement in the house that day.

The house was quiet, except for the annoyed thoughts I could hear myself thinking about Erik.

Sick of his crap.

We had not been speaking to each other for hours.

I stacked the towels neatly into the closet, passing Erik in the hall. I did not look at his brown eyes or admire his thick black hair. Instead, I grabbed a new set of sheets and I walked away from him, into our bedroom.

Erik followed me, past our black and white wedding photos, but still, we did not speak.

He began helping me stretch the black fitted sheet so that it hugged our king-sized mattress.

Why is he helping me? Doesn’t he have somewhere else to be?

We stood on opposite sides of the king-sized mattress, doing our best not to make eye contact as we tucked in the corners.

I spoke, finally, with repressed force. “I can’t stand when you accuse me of things.”

Erik came around to my side of the bed and smoothed out the part of the sheet that I had already tucked in. “It’s all about you, isn’t it?”

I stomped past him, got the three black pillowcases, and flung them on top of our red comforter.

My tone deepened, anger rising. “Don’t give me that, Erik. You’re the one who has to go off and sleep in the guestroom.”

“Why would I sleep in the same bed as you when you act like this? It’s like I can’t even reach you.”

I felt a hint of guilt, knowing that Erik was constantly sex-deprived during my pregnancies, but I was standing firm. “Don’t you think my feelings should be hurt when you jump to conclusions? You immediately assumed that I was the one who lost the video camera.”

“Of course I thought you lost it. You don’t keep anything organized.”

“Some people don’t need to be obsessive compulsive to know where things are. You act as if I don’t run a successful business.”

“It still amazes me how.”

Erik shoved the white, down pillow into its black cover. The cotton made a flapping sound as he shook the case in front of him.

A sheet of Bounce fell from the pillowcase, its fresh scent a contrast to my rising irritation.

"You know, you can really be a jerk sometimes. I’m tired, I’m pregnant, and I already have enough on my plate.”

I kept my mouth shut, but my mind was loud.

I don’t need you anymore. You can just disappear. I have Tatiana and another baby on the way. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. I have my two babies. What do I need you for?

We glared at eachother with obvious contempt.

********************

Later, we made up, as we always did, and laughed at our ridiculous behavior. We apologized for the hurtful words, acknowledged that the nasty thoughts had come from an insecure place. We were both tired, both stressed from working too much so that we could save enough money for our first house.

We did not know Erik would drop dead on our kitchen floor just three months later. We were both 29. We thought we had another fifty years of fighting and making up.

The grief process has led me back to this argument again and again. Did I somehow cause Erik’s death with the awful thoughts I had that day?