I barely slept at all that night (or many nights to come).  Every time I woke up, I would remember and cry.  It was a cry I had never heard come out of me before, accompanied by a pain I had not encountered before.  My stomach hurt, but it went further than that.  There was a deep pain inside my pelvis…deep inside my womb.  I never knew that was possible, but there it was. 

My brother…my brother who tried so hard.  My brother with the saddest life story I’ve ever heard…my brother who almost made it.

And the children…Ohhh, the children.  I had a flashback to the night of the wedding reception when the children were laughing together.  They were so happy to be a family.  Everything seemed so right.  What could they be thinking?  How would this affect their lives?  God, pleeeaaase be with the children.

And his wife…gone.  I believe she tried so hard too and carried a sad life story herself, but she also carried great, soft love in her.  I saw it with my own eyes. 

What happened?  How?  The why, I could deduce from everything leading up to that day.

My love stayed on the phone with me for a long time that night.  He let me cry and talk nonsense in his ear and cry again when it would hit me again.  He came over the next morning and was just there with me that day.  I was getting lots of text messages and phone calls from various people…my brother’s friend, his ex-in-law, detectives.  It was all over Facebook and articles were starting to come out.

I remember sitting on the ground in my backyard trying to address everything coming at me.  I held my phone in one hand and I waved my other hand lightly over the tips of the grass, feeling the tickle on the palm of my hand.  I would stop and focus on a single blade feeling the texture between my fingers…yearning for that grounded sensation, I guess.

My love stood quietly nearby.  Like he was watching over me…

My psyche couldn’t take much more external intrusion.  I suggested we take a walk (of which I unfortunately remember nothing).

Luckily my daughter had been with her father but was due to come home that night.  I would have to tell her somehow.  What’s a kid-friendly way to explain something like this?  I had been preparing her for my brother moving in with us and now…this.

The next few days were a blur.  I know I went to a few meetings and cried a little and talked about it in a general way.  But I was crying less than I thought I should have.  I took note of that but tried to just be there for whatever emotion wanted to come.

Eventually it was the weekend and time for our little getaway. 

I think of our love as an entity in itself and this makes me sad…our poor love could never catch a break. 

We drove to the shore late Friday night.  I wasn’t myself, I’m sure.  I felt so fucking dejected and seeing the world through these new eyes was surreal.

The next day was a nice beach day though.  We sat in the sun and talked a little and read our respective books a little.  I recall feeling peaceful (or maybe numb) for the most part.  The sun and the sea do that. 

We ended up going for a walk.  I was on the lookout for sea glass as usual.  My mother was an avid collector, and it rubbed off on me.  Something shiny in the sand caught my eye, so I picked it up.  Oddly enough, it was half of a sliver of a geode.  Not a natural one, a store-bought one, perfectly smooth to the touch.  We were both surprised by it.  How odd is that?  My love said (kind of sadly), “I wish I could find the other half.”  It struck me.  It was like he knew something I didn’t know.  Why would he say that? 

We went out to dinner that night.  He was so sweet that day and all the days since everything happened.  I remember sitting across from him at the restaurant and though I was beyond exhaustion from all the days of chaos and confusion (months even, from all of our own issues preceding), I felt overflowing love for him.  It was making me emotional and I said, “We’re so close, my dear.  We’ve come so far.”  The way he looked at me was with love and, I think, regret.  There were things he wasn’t saying.

The next morning was my birthday.  When I woke up, I glanced out the window hoping for sunshine, but all I saw was gray…the only color out there was gray.  The crushing reality forced a heaviness upon my chest that made it hard to move my body. 

That would be the first day it fully hit me.  He said, “Happy birthday, Love.”  I was still for a moment until I was somehow able to flop onto my knees on the bed, turn my body into a ball and cry.  He slipped his arms around me as I sobbed into the blanket inconsolably. 

He’s the only person I ever cried like that in front of.

Eventually, he left to go make me breakfast.  And although it was a good breakfast that he made, I ate it only because I was grateful for his effort and not because I wanted to eat.

His family would be coming in the afternoon to have their portrait done on the beach.  I remembered that that had happened another time too right before we broke up.  He asked me to be in the photos and each time, I felt it best to decline (he’s probably glad for that now).   

I didn’t want to be there when his family got there.  I’m not a good actor and I was a mess.  It was cold but I drove 10 blocks away and sat on the beach for hours.  Cuddled in a towel, crying then catching my breath again and again.  Eventually he texted, “Love, please come back soon.”  I’d have to face them at some point.  I collected myself and my belongings and tried my best to get it together.

When I got back to the house and opened the door, they were all there with smiles and a nice, “Happy birthday,” in unison.  I tried not to, but my voice broke as I summoned a weak smile and said, “thank you.” 

Then his mother hugged me. Something always stirred in me when she did.  Her hugs came with a feeling.  A genuine feeling of how I imagined a pure love from a mother would feel.  My tears spilled over again, and I walked back to the bedroom.

All I could do on that first day of my 39^th year of life was cry…all the live long day…I cried.

When evening came, the family was going to watch a movie together and I think I remember his sweet niece (who I was very fond of) asking me to sit beside her.  I told her that I was so tired that I didn’t think I could make it through.  “Oh, then you should go to sleep,” she said.  Thank you little one.

I went back to the bedroom.  I took the comforter off of the bed and went onto the deck to lay outside on a lounge chair.  The clouds had finally cleared, and the stars were bright.  I gazed up as thoughts floated through my mind…

How am I going to proceed with my brother?  I’m all he has now (our mother had been out of the picture for years).  What should I do, God?  I hate this.  It doesn’t matter what she did.  She didn’t deserve this.  He didn’t deserve what he got either. Still, how could he do this??  But how could she??  They destroyed each other.  Literally. 

Love doesn’t do any of this…

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