The Puzzle

She first noticed something was off in the final stretch of her third pregnancy.

That morning, she woke as usual, stiff and overly tired, waddling to the bathroom as she already had multiple times throughout the night. But as she dropped down onto the toilet seat, she felt something shake loose inside of her, almost like shaking a box of puzzle pieces. Or somehow like a puzzle had been put together inside of the box, but by shaking it, the pieces began to break apart.

Odd, she thought, but didn’t get much chance to consider it further. Her two existing toddlers had found their way into the room, and were clawing at her legs and begging for breakfast.

The next day felt much the same, but again, she didn’t have time to give much thought to the shift. There were kids to dress, meals to make, toilets to clean, and another job to report to. That night, the oldest woke up to a wet bed. She, as cheerfully as she could, gathered up all his sheets, replaced them with the new, and rocked him back to sleep, assuring him it was okay, accidents happened. If she had been paying very, very, very close attention, she might have noticed the slight emptiness inside her, just a little greater than it was.

The rest of the pregnancy passed, the baby was born, and she found herself back in the routine of feeding so often that she never slept more than two hours in a stretch. And at first, that was bearable. She always found this kind of tired to be much easier than pregnancy-tired.

Then one day, she realized it wasn’t quite so bearable anymore. She realized that not only did she feel like a shaken-up box of puzzle pieces, a lot of the pieces seemed to be missing. There was an emptiness that had been growing, slowly enough she hadn’t noticed at first, but she noticed now. Now that there was enough of a chunk missing to notice.

Very odd, she thought, trying to tamp down the bit of panic that had rose up at the realization that part of her might be missing. Maybe she just needed more sleep.

At dinner, three kids cried at her. One kid wanted more milk, another wanted down from the table, and the last cried because that’s just what he did and it was the only way for him to tell her anything at all. As she scrambled around, fighting back tears and bringing each child what they wanted, she felt herself handing off the remaining pieces of the puzzle as well. Given in a way that she knew she wouldn’t be getting it back.

Over the next days, she became aware of every time she handed over those pieces of herself. When the baby wanted to be held while she was cooking. Each time one of the older kids woke in the night and needed comfort. When her husband came home from work then had to continue working late in his home office after the kids went to bed, leaving her alone to fall asleep until the next middle of the night infant feeding. Piece by piece, she became less stable, more irritable, more pained, clanky and louder – since the extra room in her puzzle box gave the remaining pieces more space to bounce viciously off the walls.

Then she noticed the pieces missing from her skin.

It started on her hand, a faint outline of a square with holes cut out on two of the sides, and tabs popped out on the other two. Her skin seemed… lighter there. (She feared using the word ‘transparent’, though that was probably the more accurate description.) She pulled her sleeves down, covering the spot from view, but she couldn’t help peeking at it throughout the day, praying it would go back to normal.

And by the end of that day, she’d thought about it so much, it had become normal. Her skin had probably always been this way, and some trick of the light made her notice it as abnormal. There was nothing wrong, she just wasn’t seeing objectively anymore.

Then the next day a transparent spot appeared on her knee.

“Do you see this?” she asked her husband, pulling down the leg of her pajamas to show him the odd square of skin.

“Oh yeah, I see,” he said suggestively, reaching over to give her butt a squeeze.

“No!” she groaned, pulling away from him. “On my knee – see how the skin looks funny there?”

He looked for a moment. “I don’t see anything… Looks all the same to me.”

The next morning, in the mirror, the skin of one of her butt cheeks had faded to transparent as well.

Another day passed, and another, and another. And with each one, a little more of her faded away in the outline of a puzzle piece, until finally, she could no longer see herself at all. No one else seemed to notice this – they all saw her just fine. Her boys had no trouble finding her to ask for things, her job continued to demand more of her, even strangers in the grocery store would ask her to reach something on the top shelf.

Everything and everyone continued to take what they needed, although to her, it seemed there was nothing left to give.

In the darkness of that hollow emptiness, she continued to take each day at a time. She didn’t pray for more strength, but she did pray to be given enough. And she wondered just how much more she could take.

***

Then one night – she noticed the hollowness didn’t ache anymore. At least, not in the same way.

She stood over the sink, scrubbing stains from baking pans, bending under the weight of another long day. But instead of feeling as though she were about to shatter, the weight felt… held. As if a steady Hand rested beneath all the broken pieces, keeping them from falling any farther.

The heaviness was still there. The exhaustion too. But the free-fall had stopped.

This was the worst it would get. From here, there was nowhere else but up.

It is enough, a Voice moved through her. She didn’t hear it, only felt it.

She dropped the pan and sponge into the sink, staring at her pruney hands. Tears pricked her eyes as she realized what He was doing.

All this time, as she’d struggled to hold on to the pieces of herself that were being ripped away, as she’d helplessly felt herself torn down to the studs, there was a purpose. It wasn’t in order to destroy her. It was to build something new.

She felt it—faint but present—the first new piece clicking into place, solid where everything else had been hollow. Not the old shape. Something steadier.

A cry broke out on the baby monitor. Her oldest child – still so small himself – needed her. He was probably just cold.

With steadier breath, she dried her hands and climbed the stairs, taking each step with purpose. She wrapped him up, pulled him close, and felt—maybe for the first time in months—that she wasn’t disappearing.