This Used to Be Us by Renée Carlino

Author:Renée Carlino [Carlino, Renée]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2024-07-09T00:00:00+00:00

Song 2: “Sweet Jane”

I’m wondering if you remember our game about this song when we moved into this house. Things have changed a little. All good things though. I’m watching you hold Ethan. He dozes off as you’re feeding him in your arms. He’s just over a year old—beautiful blond curls. Noah is climbing on the back of the couch, wrapping his arms around your neck, choking you, but you don’t care. You’re still smiling as you look up at me. Noah is giggling. It sounds like the music you would hear in heaven. This is the moment that represents exactly what love is to me. You look up and smile again. We found out three days ago that we’re having a girl. I haven’t told you this yet…but I want to name her Jane.

I never knew. Why didn’t I ever read these? A tear streams down my cheek. It feels like a foreign invader. I do the math; Dani miscarried the week after she’d written this. She was nineteen weeks pregnant…almost halfway. We’d heard the heartbeat already three times and had seen the tiny baby on the screen twice. She was far enough along for them to know the sex. Dani had a small baby bump that didn’t go away for several days after the miscarriage. It was hard for me to see, so I can’t even imagine how it felt for her.

She never told me she had thought of names. After it happened, we didn’t talk about it…about her, the baby, or who she might have been. I didn’t want to make it worse for Dani. That day she had been writing at home while the boys were toddling around her feet. I was at the clinic. She said she had felt crampy in the morning, and by the afternoon, she was bleeding.

Her mother came over and took her to the hospital. I met them there. At that time, Irene still acted like a grandmother, but she wasn’t as sympathetic toward Dani’s pain as I thought she should have been. Maybe she was comparing it to losing a child that had already grown into a man. She took the boys back to our house and told me to go in and be with Dani.

The hospital room was dark when I walked in. Dani was lying on her side, facing the window.

“Dani?” I said softly.

She sniffled. I could see her body start to shake. She was crying. When I came around to the other side of the bed, she broke down.

All I could think to do was simply hug her. I lay down next to her on top of the blankets and took her in my arms. She cried. Her body shook. She sobbed. Tears drenched her gown and my shirt. I rocked her back and forth until she fell asleep. We said nothing.

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