Page 57 of You'll Be Sorry

Theo winced, but didn’t turn away. The pain was right there in his eyes. Still there, would always be there. She ached so much from the weight of it, the sheer unrelenting guilt.

“I never told them the first time,” he answered huskily. “It was still early days. Wait till the three-month mark, right?”

She nodded slightly.

“The second time—”

“Three and half months.”

“I’d just made the announcement and then…the miscarriage. It was all still so new, it seemed easy enough for them to switch gears. That whole ‘you’re both young and healthy, plenty of time ahead, it’ll work out.’”

She nodded slightly. Was there any euphemism they hadn’t been told by well-meaning friends, acquaintances, and healthcare professionals?

“The…the most recent.” Now Theo was struggling to speak.

“Twenty-four weeks.” Approaching the third trimester. All going according to plan; surely they’d gotten it right this time.

“My mom cried,” Theo whispered. “Not in front of me, of course. She got up to fetch a glass of water for cover. My father just kept patting me on the back. I’m not sure he knew what else to do. They mourned, Raquel. They’re not the warmest of people, but they love in their own way. And the idea of having a grandchild, welcoming the next generation…They hurt, too.”

She didn’t know why it mattered to her, but it did. Though again, so foolish, so silly. What was done was done.

“Dorothea,” Theo murmured. And this time, the naked pain on his face seared her all the way to her soul.

“Dorothea,” she whispered back. A name they’d pondered and giggled and built up in the middle of the night.She’ll have your eyes, but my stubbornness,she’d say. No, no, your eyes, but my superior intelligence,he’d counter.My hair— My toes!Her, rolling her eyes:Toes, who wants your toes?Around and around, crafting their marvelous, perfect, couldn’t-wait-to-meet-her baby who would probably have none of those things but they would’ve loved her anyway.

The hospital had offered them a commemorative Certificate of Stillbirth. Raquel hadn’t been able to function, much less process such an idea. Later, however, going through Theo’s drawers, she’d found the document tucked away, along with a medallion on a chain. St. Nicholas of Myra, the patron saint of children. The name Dorothea Lilly Collins had been inscribed on the back.

“When…If you really want,” Theo was saying now, voice stronger. “We could look at other choices. Surrogacy. Adoption. We have options.”

He’d mentioned this once before. She’d possibly shrieked at him and thrown a pillow at his head. She’d been deeply depressed, where the world was so dark, she didn’t even suffer from nightmares of hermother anymore. That pain truly was nothing. This, this kind of relentless, soul-sucking, all-encompassing loss, trumped all.

Unbidden, her fingers came up to her throat, searching for the pendant. She caught the motion, tried to mask it by rubbing the top of the dog’s head. Theo wasn’t fooled. He picked up her hand, held it in his own.

For several heartbeats, they sat there in silence with a loss that still felt so staggering and tender, there weren’t adequate words to define it. They simply had to breathe through the pain.

Eventually, she untangled her fingers from his, returned to the more pressing matters at hand: the ensuing public attention.

Theo acknowledged the change, pushing back his now empty bowl.

“If the media starts digging, how much will you regret it?” he asked.

“Nobody likes the press.”

“Maybe you should return to Boston. I can handle things here.”

She gave him a look. They both knew that wasn’t going to happen.

He sighed heavily. “Next time I fall in love, I’m going with someone more biddable.”

“Next time I fall in love, I’m going with someone who’s an idiot.”

Familiar lines from a familiar play. The good old days. It enabled them to share a smile, take one more step out of the abyss.

“We’ll figure it out,” Theo said.

“How many more skeletons can one property have?” Raquel’s turn to quip. They grimaced simultaneously. That answer was at least six.

“Have you made any more progress on identifying a root cellar?” Theo asked. Which from the beginning had been one of her working theories. Back in the day, all these homesteads had cold cellars. Except none had been listed in the search of this property after the Dixons’ disappearance. Hence Raquel’s deep dive into the historicrecords and property maps, trying to locate what would’ve been a logical feature and excellent place to hide bodies. It’d never occurred to her to look for a hand-dug well instead.