Within Reaching Distance

"Don't. Just…don't"

"You don't even know what I was about to say."

"...Fine."

"I'm not going to leave you."

It is this concession that breaks her, forces her to the ground with an overloaded weight of emotions. One week, three days, six hours and 29 minutes ago, she carried a child within her. Now she carries agony. Fear. That aching crack in her sternum that feels like an itch she cannot scratch. Less blood, now, though - the resultant flow has been sporadic, but enough to serve as a constant, painful reminder of loss.

"Okay," she whispers. "Okay."

The firm, calloused fingers of a gardener find her smooth, muscular, baker's hand as her partner sinks into the soft, newly-turned soil. Her head tilts towards the offered shoulder and an unexpected breeze flips hair strands into her eyes. There is a settling inside her chest…

She works hard to breathe deeply and notes the sweet, sticky scent of rotting fruit as she inhales. She glances up and refocuses her mind on where she is: a grave, yes. But also a garden. A place of life, death, merriment and disintegration. She sits with one beloved pressed against her thigh and the other - the one she never truly got to know - nestled between two wrist-thick roots anchoring a pear tree whose leaves cast a dappled shade.

She sniffles and uses her free hand to stroke the soft crumbs of earth and fallen, yellowed leaves. Within reaching distance is a wasp, determinedly digging out the gritty flesh of a dropped pear. Everyone has their time, she thinks, and she can feel the slow, sensuous cycle of lives moving around her.

She looks skyward again, blinking rapidly, then turns her head to speak.

"This...this is a good place." She smiles, just a bit, trying to push back the threatening tears. "They…they can be happy here. Able to grow amongst the trees, and to become a part of the soil again. A part of the whole universe…" She closes her eyes, trying to stretch her mind out to meet that peacefulness she imagines for her infant, that sense of everyoneverywhereeverythingeverynow that she dreams of.

"He..he..hey, baby." The cracking voice next to her is startling, and her eyelids pop open. She has to reflect for a moment that not all bodies are as linked as those of a mother and unborn child. She cannot predict what they will do. "You'll be safe here. You do what you've got to do, and we won't be leaving. Don't worry about us, now. We're here. We...we love you, baby." And then…"It wasn't your fault, you know. First-time pregnancies…"

"You don't think I know that?" The words come out harsh, clamped between her teeth in pain. As if she needs one more reminder that, "This is perfectly natural, almost half of pregnancies don't make it past the first two months."

"I do know, I just… I think it was easier for me, having people here, having distractions. I don't know what I'm doing now. I don't know what to say."

For the first time, she truly sees the sorrow that everyone else must be experiencing. Not just her tiny, immediate family, but her mother, so excited to pamper a grandchild. Her great-aunt, who had at one point been dropping hints about names every few hours. Her cousins and younger siblings, eager to use her child as a mischief-maker. They had planned all sorts of hijinks, she knows, as revenge for her 'overbearing, annoying attitude'. She smiles again, imagining a toddler muddied from head to toe by a sister eager to create 'humorous' irritations for her.

She unwraps her fingers. She stretches out her arms. She folds into her embrace the woman who has stood by her side, who proposed marriage, then children, in a short enough span of time to make the neighbors talk. Bypassing the scents of fruit and bark, she buries her nose in her lover's hair and hums. It is an old tune, a simple tune, sung to free the souls of those who would fly. It has always been a comfort to the ones left behind, and now it serves as a release for their unhappiness. There will be days when life, living, is the hardest thing to manage. But there will also be days like today. When two women sink their bare feet into dirt, gazing at the rich, darkening sky through rustling pear leaves. When they tuck their promises under growing roots and watch their dreams act as fertilizer and hope. When the child they love becomes inspiration. And when they eventually see the fragile, momentous cracking of spring buds and they, too, decide to try again.