Ah! But these are too existential for the sleepy, these vivid distractions to cover up something larger. Exhaustion will eventually take over; by then it won’t much matter. A deep sigh arose from his left. “A crescent moon. What am I to make of that?” she asked.
“Fondue,” he joked.
She took her hand wiped it down his face. “You’re fondue,” she retorted. She thought that the best kind of romance was cheesy, especially when it isn’t processed. She snickered. By this time her hand had been covered by his, resting on his chest. They had made mention of their equal level of immaturity, how a hand on her breast triggered a desired for sex in both of them. Though for a while they had been avoiding it. They thought of this every time her hand was on his chest, in a way making it meaningless to place it there. But they were both restless and drained physically. So they lay speaking the third language that most never learn: quiet. Breathing was so faint it was almost inaudible.
September, chilly and windows were open. The chill in the room was crisp. The covers were a heavy protection to keep them from moving. “Is it,” she started and stopped. He didn’t say anything, letting her sort it out for herself, for both of them. “I miss her so much, ya know?” She paused again. “Is that weird? I mean, I miss the memories that aren’t there, that could’ve been there. She was right there in my arms.” Her grip tightened on his hand. “Those are like the worst words ever: ‘I’m so sorry.’” After all the months, she has started talking about it. 6 months had come and gone and it hadn’t become duller. The loss was still sharp in her.
Why does she fight to hold back the tears? Why do any of us? But she just doesn’t want to cry. She doesn’t know why but just that she doesn’t. Trying to lay still, she begins to take manual control of her breathing. He know that when she breaks, he will too.
They are of one flesh. While not everything can be fully shared, they can bear this loss. There is something about sorrow when it immediately follows a moment of sublime happiness. She pushed in that room that now seems so far back and still coming. And then everything fell silent. And they looked at her with the red on their gloves and she could see that something was wrong beneath the masks. Blurs of white moved in and out of the room frantically. Her right hand reached out for stability, finding it on her kneeling husband’s chest. His hands, the left one wrapped in a chotki let down from his arm enveloped hers. She grabbed it and both began to work it through, their quiet lips writing barely legible whispers in unison upon some invisible letter already ascending and descending, moving from left to right, to reach everywhere and fill all things. It reached her mind that she hadn’t heard a cry.
How do you keep calmness and peace? She may yet be in paradise today but not in accordance with anyone in the room trying to bring her back. And yet her parents pray for and against the inclusion of some further deification, all depending on whether or not they can get the baby breathing.What is in the laying down of a will? Maybe it is knots running through fingers and making the effort to see what you want and what might happen.
In the bed of that cold autumn night, she is curled in a ball in her husband’s stomach, weeping uncontrollably and pulling the chotki into her own. She thought: my heart and my flesh, they fail me. He curls his arms around and can feel the heat pulsating through her quaking body. He is weeping now, quietly and wondering about the carrying of 9 months and then a sudden absence in single night. Is it like this? Is this like singing to ears that cannot hear, kissing a forehead that cannot feel and gripping hands that do not react? How long have those knots been moving and those hearts breaking with it? Unanswerable.
At times, for separate reasons that are yet the same they think of how long this has gone on and how long it will continue. Only today, the only confidence that anyone has. “Is it okay if we go now?” she whimpers.
“Of course. Yes. Yes we can,” he tries reassuringly to reply. They put on warmer clothes and she grabs a book of hand-copied prayers for the deceased prepared right after the burial, first used this night. 1:30 A.M. and they are on their way to the graveyard of the church. Chanting the prayers and the Psalter does something that is like sobering and consoling but else and other. The warmth that it puts within contrasts the light breeze of frigid air. Slowly, things calm down. The world begins to spin. The ache is not numbed as much as there is no pressure on a fracture. It throbs but outside of trying to support itself. They named her Emilia, sounding like Emmanuel, God with us. The name name turns and revolves with the spinning earth, cycling in and out of mind. She kisses the marker and offers her daughter a paschal greeting. He does the same.
They sit in the cold for a long while, being still and eventually, silently agreeing, to return home. The car ride is without music or voluntary sound. The soft blow of warm air and the engine fill the quiet. By the time they arrive home, they are exhausted as whole beings, as bodies and more. They kiss the icon at the door and do not bother to put on pajamas. They take off their chilled clothing and wrap around each other in bed. The both sigh in the quiet. The look up and stare at each other with their thoughts:
This is the man I married.
This is the woman I married.
They wonder at these thoughts with eyes steadily fixed on each other. She instigates it with a kiss. He follows. All at once, those defenses have fallen over, the paralyzing fear of what a second pregnancy might bring. It floats above the the cord of two and is off on the cold breeze.
Left below are bodies warmed, eventually to be laying still in one another once more with the protection of each other under the warmth the blankets keep in. Eyes meet again; there is co-existing smile in that meeting. It speaks of some final end to the exhaustion of more than a single night, but in some minute way the labor of the past 6 months. For soon a new labor will grip them both.
Soon a naked baby boy, an Immanuel, will be smeared with oil, will have a tuft of hair cut, will be dunked thrice in water, will taste something that is of bread and wine but else and other.
He will join in the pilgrimages no longer at night but regularly. The words, “memory” and “eternal” will mean something that he will keep for the rest of his life. Emilia’s name will revolve for him too. Death will be a consideration from a young age. He will grow into something, though it is not for us to know ahead of time.
She looks into it as well. She sees he and her mother and father. Her words bear no partiality from all else she asks for. But they are of her blood and flesh and she, in her human nature, wishes to offer a grace that they may one day enjoy together. For it is not for her to know either. But she can hope. And what a good hope it is.
