Bo & Ember (29 page)

“You did?” I cut in quietly.

Bo nodded and then addressed me. “I stormed in and screamed at Him … God.” His eyes filled with tears as he choked out the rest of his words. “I told him I was tired of playing his games … and that we were done. I was done. With Him.”

My jaw swung open as I stared at Bo with wide eyes. “You’ve been different since that day, and I thought it was just from the miscarriage … I … you didn’t tell me, Bo. Why didn’t you tell me?” My cheeks burned as I waited for his answer.

“I’d failed in my relationship with God, Em.” He shrugged. “I didn’t want to fail with you, too. I thought if I stopped relying on God that I could make myself a better man. One that wasn’t at His mercy.”

“Ember,” Dr. Bittman cut in, “you look shocked.”

I turned toward her, my throat having run dry. “I’d never prayed in a church before the day that Rae died,” I admitted. “Bo’s faith through everything is something that I’ve always admired.”

“It is?” he asked.

I nodded then continued. “I prayed, too, the night we got home from the hospital. I talked to God about how certain you were about His existence. I wanted that. I felt okay when I fell asleep that night.” I sniffled as my throat tightened. “I never felt God before that night. Ever. But I felt
something
around me as I slept that night … then the next day it felt like you were a stranger.” I wiped under my eyes, feeling some of the confusion that Bo had written on his own paper earlier.

Dr. Bittman checked her clock. “This is a good place to stop for today. I want you two to go home and be gentle with each other. No yelling. If one of you wants to yell, get up, walk out of the room, and go scream in the pillow, another room, or the freezer for all I care. No yelling
at
each other. Let’s meet again in ten days so we can get through Christmas, okay? Today, I want you to talk about the baby.” She paused as she waited for it to sink in. “Talk about what you’d hoped and what you felt when it was taken away. Remember to use
I feel
statements, okay?”

“Okay,” we answered in unison.

The drive home was as silent as the thick snowflakes falling around us. Heavy and cold, but somehow peaceful. As I watched the wind whip the snow into frozen circles above the sidewalks, I felt lost. I’d failed in my understanding of my husband. He’d had a major falling out with God and I hadn’t had the faintest clue. Instead, I spent the following days taking it out on him and myself, thinking he was being cruel when, really, he was as lost as I felt.

“I’m sorry,” Bo seemed to be answering my thoughts as he placed his hand on my leg, running his thumb over my knee.

Not wanting to tease out his apology in the car, I nodded and placed my hand over his.

“I am, too.”

Now, the work was to begin. We had get back to a place of
us
. We had to be Bo and Ember again.

Bo

W
hen Ember and I arrived home and I turned off the car, she remained still for a moment. The wind was howling outside as winter finally decided to make its appearance.

“How are you feeling?” I asked as I studied her profile. Through this entire ordeal, the color remained in her face … the life in her eyes. She was incredible, and I was undeservingly fortunate.

“Can you start a fire in the living room when we get inside?” she answered softly.

“Of course.” I exited the car and walked to her side. She’d remained in her seat while I made the walk around the vehicle.

I knew she often felt uncomfortable about waiting for me to open the door, but I was grateful she let me do it. My father always did it for my mother, and I remember asking her in high school why she sat there and waited because it sometimes seemed to make her uncomfortable, too. My mother looked back at me and smiled.
“Because it means more to him than it does to me,”
she’d answered.

Once inside, Ember put a kettle of water on the stove and pulled tea down from the shelf above the sink.

“Tea or coffee?” she called as I started the fire.

“Tea’s fine,” I answered back as I adjusted the flue, thankful I’d had the foresight to have the chimney cleaned before we arrived back in New Hampshire.

Once the kettle whistled and the flames were taking hold, Ember appeared with two steaming mugs of herbal tea.

“Thank you.” I took my mug and followed her to the couch, where she waited with a soft and oversized blanket.

I climbed under the cover with her and watched her face as her eyes fixated on the orange flames. I sat there for a moment in silence, appreciating the peace she brought to my life. Ember took a careful sip of her tea, and eyed me for a moment as a melancholy smile pulled at her lips. She rested her head on my shoulder, and in her next breath, she spoke.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the pregnancy right away,” she started. “I was freaked out, and I wanted to be sure because I didn’t want to throw a monkey wrench into anything unless it was real.”

I squeezed my arm around her waist. “I get it. It’s okay.”

“I feel like I cheated you out of … time, or something.”

“Time?” I questioned.

She nodded. “Like, time with the baby, even though it was inside me. I kept it to myself longer than I should have.”

“Oh, Ember,” I sighed, “you had no way of knowing…”

“Still,” she replied.

After another few minutes of silence, I gathered the guts to speak.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. I was so
angry
with God, and I took your sister and parents for granted. I knew I was being a shit, but knew I wasn’t leaving you with
no one
to talk to. I can’t believe I wasn’t there for you … I never meant for that to happen. Shit…” I rested my chin on her head.

“Bo,” she sat up and set her mug down, facing me with pure intensity, “neither of us knew what was going to happen, but we were emotionally unprepared. We both went into our own corners to lick our own wounds when we should have been doing that together. I feel like you pushed me away, while I did the same to you by not demanding that you do something for me. I had no idea what to even ask for … or how to ask for it.”

“Where do we go from here?” I asked, looking down.

“We need to talk about what Dr. Bittman said.” Ember’s voice shook as she continued. “I really did want that baby, you know. I felt like a mom.” Her mouth formed a perfectly horrible frown as she looked down and let her tears fall freely.

“You looked like a mom,” I admitted as my own tears took over. “It was the most beautiful I’d ever seen you, knowing you were carrying our baby inside of you.”

Ember’s head collapsed against my shoulder as she fell into heavy sobs. “I’m so sad, Bo.”

I held her close and closed my eyes. “Me too, love. Me too.”

She pulled back, wiping under her eyes. "And here I was clinging to this spiritual lifeguard you introduced me to, and at the same time you were, like, breaking up with it. Why didn’t you tell me? Do you really believe all the things you yelled at him? God, I mean.”

I felt like my nerves were going to claw their way through my skin. I’d never felt more watched in my life. And, not just by Ember in that moment.

“I just don’t understand,” I confessed as I rested my forehead on her shoulder. Her arms draped around me as her fingers clenched the fabric of my shirt. “Why? Just … why? My parents, Rae, our
baby
. I don’t know how to make sense of it. Any of it.” A low growl started deep in my soul and pushed its way out into a full yell as I screamed into Ember’s shoulder. I yelled out until my voice cracked and the sobs took over.

“I don’t know if there’s a sensible reason for everything,” Ember whispered as she rubbed my back. “But I know that I love you with every fiber of my being. More than that, I know that when I prayed to the same God you disowned, I felt hugged, Bo. I felt like someone put a bandage on my heart and told me it would be okay.”

“I’ve felt like that before,” I admitted as I sat up. “When my parents died. After Rae died, it was a little harder to get there. A few weeks ago … I just … I couldn’t take it anymore. How much am I supposed to shoulder?”

Ember’s eyes stayed on mine for a few moments, as she seemed to be weighing her answer. “As much as you’re given,” she stated definitively. “No matter where you and I are on what we believe and who we believe in, and all of that, I believe we are to take what we’re given and go with it. All of those things happened, Bo, and wouldn’t you say you got through them in much better shape with God than you would have without him?”

I nodded as more tears rolled down my face. “I said some really awful things in that church, Ember.”

She shrugged. “I’ve said some really awful things to my parents … to you. But all of your love for me hasn’t changed, has it? I called you an asshole last night, for God’s sake. Did it make you love me less?”

I shook my head.

“And,” she continued, “what I believe aside, don’t
you
believe that God is like a father?”

I nodded again.

“Then,” she sighed, “can we agree, for tonight at least, that you and God just kind of … had a fight?” She shrugged and looked at me with hopeful eyes and a comically twisted mouth.

I chuckled. “It was kind of a one-sided knock-down drag-out. I lost.”

Ember shook her head. “You don’t lose until you give up. Have you given up?”

I looked down and realized that the longing in my gut showed me I still had hope. Still had a need—a desire—to be taken care of beyond what I could do for myself. The couple weeks I tried to do it myself ended up with my wife and me in a disastrous mess on a therapist's couch.

“No,” I answered. “I haven’t given up.”

Ember sighed, seemingly in relief, as she leaned against the arm of the couch and opened her arms, encouraging me to lay on her. It wasn’t often that we took this position, but I realized in that moment that’s exactly what I needed.

To just be held.

“God,” Ember grumbled in frustration. “Only
you
could make yoga stressful. Relax, damn it!”

I broke into laughter as I bent forward, trying to touch the ground. “Is that how a yoga instructor talks?”

“What is with your shoulders?” She ignored my question as she stood to my side and pushed down on my shoulders. “Get them away from your ears. What the hell?” She broke into laughter.

“Come on, Ember! Help me!” I laughed some more, and it felt good.

It was Christmas Eve, and Ember and I had spent the past week doing exactly what Dr. Bittman had asked—being gentle with each other. After our night by the fire, where Ember had soulfully encouraged me to find my peace again, I promised her I’d try. Today, though, I asked her to show me hers.

I’d known for years that yoga was Ember’s go-to therapy. Through our time in California, I’d gotten used to seeing her in every pose. Headstands in the sand as the sun rose were her favorite, though she told me I wasn’t allowed to try that yet.

“Okay,” she composed herself, “time to get serious.” Ember closed her eyes, took a deep breath, splayed out her fingers, and exhaled. I swear I could see all of the wild energy leave through her fingertips.

“Wow,” I whispered. I’d intended for it to be in my head, but it flew out of my mouth while I watched her physically relax.

“Now,” she spoke quietly as she slowly opened her eyes, “let your arms hang by your side, palms forward, your feet hip-width apart. Good. Breathe in through your nose, filling your toes all the way up to your mouth. Then,” Ember closed her eyes as she once more demonstrated her impeccable exhale, “let it all out.”

I did as instructed, remembering to keep my shoulders away from my ears.

“Excellent.” Ember’s voice sounded like she was narrating a guided meditation. I’d buy that CD. “This is Tadasana. Mountain Pose.”

“I’m doing a pose?” I said a little too excitedly.

Ember simply nodded, keeping the slightly drunken smile on her face. I knew this to be her “ohm” smile, and I wanted to wear the same one.

“Now just watch me once,” she continued. “So you can see what I’m doing and the language I use. We’re going to do a full sun salutation.”