LP_One Shot: To Wish Impossible Things Teen

[aheartthatbends]

Title: To Wish Impossible Things
Fandom: One Tree Hill
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 7466
Pairing: Lucas & Peyton
Summary: This is a one shot that plays with the idea of what had happened if Peyton’s first child didn’t survive birth. How will newly married Lucas and Peyton deal with the loss of their first child? Will their marriage be able to handle the stress of losing a child so soon? Will Peyton ever be able to recover from a loss so cutting and unexpected?

A/N: Just a warning that this is an incredibly dark one shot. I think this is probably the darkest thing I have ever written. It is incredibly sad. If you’re likely to cry, get your Kleenex. If you’re not really in the mood for a good cry, then this probably is a one shot better skipped. You’ve been warned.

To Wish Impossible Things
Lucas’ POV
Three days have passed since the death of our child. Three days have passed since I have looked into Peyton’s eyes. Three days have passed since I smiled. Three days have passed since I have been able to take a breath that didn’t feel like it was going to take all the strength I had. Three days have passed since the world made any sort of sense to me. Three days have passed, and I still don’t know what I am going to say to Peyton when she opens her eyes. That is assuming she is ever going to open her eyes again. I keep holding on to the notion that there is no higher being that would be cruel enough to take both my wife and child from me, but perhaps there is. I never gave much thought to religion, or whether or not there is a God. After Keith’s murder, I was torn between believing and not believing. I want to believe that wherever Keith is now, he’s taking good care of the baby that Peyton and I won’t have the chance to care for ourselves. I want to believe he has become a guardian not just to this child, but to me and my wife. I want to believe that there is a heaven, because if God is going to take my wife, she most definitely belongs there.

But I have also seen the evil that leaks into this world, and that has to be of God’s creation too. I don’t understand how those two things can coexist the way they do. I have seen the way some people can act with such malice and disregard for the lives of others, only to expect forgiveness and mercy for themselves farther down the line. I don’t understand how, or why, I am being punished. I have made mistakes, and the only way I can make any sort of sense out of all of this is to assume that there is something I must have done at some point in my life to deserve all of this. Haley tells me that God doesn’t work in such a fashion, and what is happening to me, and to my wife, has nothing to do with God punishing either of us. She tells me that this is nothing more than a tragic accident, but I have witnessed accidents before. All of this feels a little too deliberate to be an accident.

I have been parked at Peyton’s bedside for three days. I have envisioned the conversation I must have with her when she finally opens her eyes. I have seen the way the light in her eyes will go out when I tell her that our baby, our daughter, didn’t make it. I will assure her that we can try again, but I know this will be little solace for her. Trying again will not bring this child back. Peyton didn’t even get the chance to see our baby before she was whisked away to be examined for a cause of death. A cause that has yet to be determined, even though her body is tiny, and three days have passed. I almost hope no reason for her death is given, because then maybe we can wrap ourselves in Haley’s tragic accident theory. Knowing the reasons why our daughter didn’t live won’t change anything.

I see Peyton’s eyes flutter from time to time, and my heart jumps in my chest. I am aching for her to wake up, but I am also dreading it. If my own sadness is too much to bear, how can I possibly hold her up when she needs me to? I have had three days to adjust to a world that leaves us childless. Peyton was so certain that she and our baby were going to be perfectly fine. How will she ever trust her own instincts again after this? My biggest fear is that she is going to expect me to say something along the lines of, “I told you so.” I could never say that to her. I would never say that to her.

I hold her hand because there is nothing else I can do, and I wonder if she can feel my grief through just that littlest bit of contact. In the three days that have passed, I don’t think I have said more than a few words. They just aren’t coming to me. I have been urged to start planning a funeral for our daughter, but I will not do that until Peyton is awake. I will not bury our child without Peyton being there. Peyton never even got the opportunity to hold our daughter. I held her because her mother couldn’t. Her little face was so beautiful. Her eyes were closed, and I wonder what color they were, or what color they might have become. I wonder if her legs would have always stayed as thin and long as they were the day she was born. I wonder if she would have known her mother’s voice right away. I wonder what her cry would have sounded like. I will never know the answers to any of these questions, and I know they will haunt me for the rest of my life.

I find myself wondering if my love for Peyton is enough to see her through the nightmare is going to wake up in the middle of. Can I get her through this? Can I help her find some sort of resolution to this crisis? Am I strong enough to heal her broken heart along with my own? Is this the sort of tragedy that brings a couple closer together, or wedges them apart? I’ve had three days to find some sort of answers, and I am lost. Yet, my grief is very different from Peyton’s. She has had nine months to get to know our daughter. She has lived with this baby inside of her. She knew our daughter’s habits even before she took her first breath in this world. It doesn’t seem fair that we will return home to a nursery that that baby will never sleep in.

I lean over, and rest my head on Peyton’s chest, hoping that the weight will somehow jolt her into being herself again. Her hand is still clutched in mind. Her fingers are cold. I kiss them gently. My eyes are closed. I am exhausted. It has been three days since I have gotten any kind of sleep. All I want is to climb into that bed beside her, and hold her close to me. I want to wrap myself around her so that she knows she is not alone. She will never be alone. I’m not going anywhere. I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. This is were I belong. This is where I will stay until she finally opens her eyes, no matter how long it takes.


Peyton’s POV
There is a weight on my chest that is unfamiliar to me. There is warm air flowing around my fingers. There is a moistness to the air, and it occurs to me that someone is holding my hand near their mouth. I want to open my eyes, but they are not yet ready to open. I hear faint beeps around me, and the lights wherever I am are bright. My body feels almost as if it is weightless. Then I remember what happened to me.

Our wedding night. We just got home from the wedding, and Lucas went out to the garage to get me a surprise. The house looked so beautiful. There were twinkle lights and white rose pedals everywhere. It was a lovely surprise, but I would expect nothing less from Lucas. There were candles all lit up in the bedroom, but I went across the hall to look into the nursery. In my belly, our baby was pressing its little feet against my hands as if it were trying to kick its way out. I remember seeing the little rocking chair near the window, and this feeling of excitement flood over me. I can’t wait to spend hours in that chair with our child. I am going to hum songs to our baby there, and read stories. I am going to tell our child how he or she came to be in this world. I will tell this child how loved it is while we are sitting in that chair together. I will comfort our baby when it wakes from nighmares in the middle of the night. I will rock that baby to sleep every single night in that chair. I will watch that baby sleep from that chair. Someday, when that child has a child of its own, I will give our child that chair so that he or she can do all the same things for its own child that I did.

And then, all of a sudden, my eyes pop open. My vision is a little fuzzy. I look down to see dirty blond hair resting on my chest. Lucas. My Lucas. I lift my left hand, and gently put it on his head. His head pops up the way my eyes just popped open, almost as if he is surprised to see me looking at him. “Hi.” My throat is scratchy and dry.

His face contorts into this expression I have never seen before, and then he starts to cry. I don’t know why he is crying, but I can tell that whatever the reason, these aren’t tears of joy flowing down his face. I run my fingers through his hair, my heart racing with fear. I have never, in all my years of knowing Lucas, seen him act this way. Something is horribly wrong, and that is when I realize that I am in the hospital. I am not waking in the comforts of my own bed. I did not dream the blood that was running down my leg the night of our wedding. The baby. What has happened to our baby?

“Lucas, honey, what’s wrong?” I try not to panic on the chance that I am wrong, and he really is just relieved to see me coming back to him. “Baby, what’s wrong?” I ask him when he doesn’t answer me.

He puts a hand on my wrist, and pulls it away from the top of his head. He is bent in the most awkward position I can imagine, but he doesn’t seem to care about that. He looks ten years older than I remember, and I wonder how long I have been asleep for. What, exactly, did I miss while I was out of it?

“I missed you, Peyton.” He kisses both of my hands.

“I missed you too.” I tell him.

He moves quickly so that he is sitting on the edge of my bed, and he rests his forehead against mine. He kisses the tip of my nose and my lips. I can taste the salt in his tears. “You scared the hell out of me.” He says.

“I scared the hell out me too.” Our hands are still connected. “Can I have some water?”

“Of course.” He lets go of my hands to get me some water. He holds the cup for me, and bends a straw toward my mouth.

“Where’s the baby?” I ask him once he puts the water down. I watch his face closely, hoping he will tell me that we have a daughter with curly blond hair, or a son with squinty blue eyes.

He looks at me with pained blue eyes, and I know then that something has definitely gone terribly wrong. “Peyton, there were some complications...” He trails off, and I don’t even need to hear the words that are sitting on the tip of his tongue, just waiting to clobber me with their barbed-wire weight.

“Where is the baby, Lucas?” I ask him again because even though I know I’m asking for the worst case of heartbreak I have ever had, I need to hear him say it. I don’t want to hear it from some doctor who won’t feel the loss the way I am about to.

“The baby didn’t make it.” Lucas tells me.

I have to replay the words a few times in my head before it makes any sort of sense. My breathing becomes labored and faster than before. I feel a sob building in my throat as tears well in my eyes. Lucas can’t look at me. I can’t look at him either. My eyes close, and tears escape them quickly. I squeaky sob escapes my mouth, and is followed by a louder, more primal sob. It’s a sound I didn’t think a human being could make, and it takes me a minute to realize that I am the person who made that noise. My hands cover my face, and I sob until I think I might just pass out again. When I finally pull my hands away from my face, Lucas is still sitting beside me on the edge of my hospital bed.

“When?” I ask him.

“She never even took a breath.” Lucas tells me.

“She?” He nods, and I close my eyes again. A daughter. I have a daughter. We have a daughter. “Did you see her?”

“I was there the whole time.” He tells me. “She never cried-“ He stops there, and I assume it’s to protect me from the images that are dancing in his brain.

“Tell me.” I urge. We have to face this loss together. “I want to know everything.”

Lucas takes a deep breath, and I can tell that he’s having a hard time keeping his emotions in check. “She had blond hair. Her eyes were closed, so I don’t know what color they were. She had chubby cheeks and your lips. She was six pounds, eight ounces. She was twenty-one inches long. She had a long neck and a birthmark under her left ear. The nurse said she looked like a tiny ballerina since she was long and thin. She had big feet for a baby.” Lucas recalled for me.

“Did you take her picture?” I know this sounds like a morbid question, but I have to see her. I have to.

Lucas nods and gets off the bed to find the camera in his jacket pocket. He hands the camera over to me, and I begin to go through the images he has captured for me. The only pictures that will ever exist of our child are in my hands, and for a split second, I contemplate hurling this device across the room. I am almost sorry that I looked at the pictures, because now I see the beauty that will be missing from my life. Her lips are blue. Her cheeks are chubby, but they are pale, and have taken on an almost grayish hue. This is not what our first baby photos were supposed to look like, and I feel my stomach starting to churn.

“I’m going to be sick.” I tell Lucas, and he hands me one of those emesis basins in the nick of time. My stomach is empty, and all that comes up is that little bit of water I’ve just had.

I don’t know what else to say after that. My stomach continues to do flip flops, and all I see when I close my eyes is our baby with those little blue lips and eyes that never opened to see the world around her. I lay there in an almost comatose state, staring at the wall to my left. I’m not ready to talk about it yet with Lucas. He is still sitting on the edge of the bed with my right hand held firmly in his to let me know that he is there whenever I am ready to talk about it. I am thinking about it constantly, but my voice just can’t seem to force he words out of my mouth. I’m not ready.


Lucas’ POV
Peyton will be coming home tomorrow. I am home for the first time in three days. Brooke is at the hospital with her now. The first thing I notice when I walk into my house is that the twinkle lights are still lit up. It is a reminder of the night we were supposed to have, instead of the night we got. I unplug the lights, and begin the task of cleaning up our house. I close the door of the nursery because I can’t bear to look inside that room. I am tempted to nail the door shut, and never set foot inside the room ever again. I am also tempted to destroy all of the hours of work I put into that room to make it beautiful for a baby that will never see it. I am afraid that if Peyton sees it, she is going to lose whatever composure she has. I don’t know how many more times I can watch her fall to pieces, or get lost in reveries of guilt and grief. She has only been awake for four hours, and already, I can tell that she is never going to be the same. When we bury our child, we will be burying a piece of Peyton’s heart along with it.

I get a bucket of hot soapy water, and start scrubbing the floor. There are dead rose pedals that are now a ruddy shade of brown on the floor mixed in with the blood that alerted her that something was wrong. I am angry at myself for leaving the house that night. Maybe if she could have called out to me, just those couple of minutes could have been the difference for our baby. Maybe it was my need to surprise her that killed our child. That damn car. In that moment, a flash of white hot anger runs through me. Why did Peyton need that damn car to be okay? I am filled with this rage that tells me to go out to the garage and smash the car like a tuna can, but I won’t do it. There has to be something good that comes from all of this, and if I can give Peyton a restored Comet, maybe that will cheer her up some. She once said she wanted to make a hundred babies in the backseat of that car. We can try again.

I keep telling myself this as I continue to clean up the remnants of our wedding night. I put away the twinkle lights and sweep up the rose pedals. With the help of a plastic spatula, I remove the wax that has leaked onto the furniture and the floor. The house smells like cleaning products and dead flowers when I’m done. I open the windows to remove all the traces of death I possibly can. I am just about to throw in a load of laundry when Nathan walks through the front door. He was at the hospital every day to bring me fresh clothes and check on how Peyton was doing. He has said about as much as I have, at least while he’s in my presence. Being that he is a father, he understands what I am starting to know for myself: when it comes to the death of your own child, there are no words to describe the pain. I appreciate his silent support, and the worry he has for my wife. I know he cared deeply for her too, at one point in his life, even if he could never quite find the words to say such things to her.

“How’s it going?” This is the closest my brother has come to asking me how I’m feeling.

“It’s going.” I shrug, and close the lid on the washing machine. “Peyton is coming home tomorrow, so I wanted to get the house cleaned up.”

“How’s she doing?” Nathan asks because it’s the right thing to ask.

“She’s devastated, for lack of a better word. I want to help her, but I don’t really know how.”

“Just give it time, Luke.” He advises me.

“Do you think you would be okay if something had happened to Jamie?”

“Probably not.” Nathan sets down a casserole dish that he’s holding. “Haley asked me to bring this over for you. She said there isn’t much in the world that mac ‘n cheese can’t fix. I love my wife, but I think this might be one of the exceptions.”

“I’ll try anything.” I put the casserole dish in the refrigerator.

“Is there anything we can do for you, Lucas?” Nathan sounds helpless, and that’s not a tone he wears well.

“You got a time machine? The only way this can possibly be fixed is if we can somehow go back in time, and get Peyton to the hospital before it’s too late.” I realize then that helpless doesn’t sound that good on me either.

“I wish. Believe me, if I had those kinds of powers, there are a lot of things I would fix.” I know he’s telling the truth when he says this. “It really will get easier though.”

“I don’t know about that. I think we just learn how to make ourselves numb to loss. I still miss Keith as much as I did when he was killed. I’ve just learned how to live with that pain. No one ever prepared me for what this would feel like.”

“There is no preparing for something like this Lucas. No one ever wants to think that something like this is going to happen to them-“

“But I knew there was a chance, Nate. I knew there was a chance, and I let Peyton take it anyway. Our doctors told us that this could happen, and-“

“Did you really think you were ever going to talk Peyton into ending her pregnancy any other way, Lucas? It’s different for them than it is for us. You know that now as much as I do. I look at Jamie, and I am amazed every single day that he once lived inside Haley’s body. Without her, there wouldn’t be a Jamie. Just like there wouldn’t have been a baby for you and Peyton to be mourning the way you are. You can’t keep thinking retroactively, Lucas, because Peyton is going to think that you blame her for what happened to your daughter.”

“I don’t blame her.” I say in my own defense, although there is a part of me that wonders if maybe I’m lying just a little bit. I don’t feel good about this, and I don’t want to feel it, but I’m searching for reasons why this has happened. I need someone to explain it to me.

“I know you don’t, but she’s going to think that you do. If you think you’re feeling guilty for what has happened, imagine how she feels.” Nathan points out, and sits down at the kitchen table. “Whenever Haley and I are having trouble, whether it’s with our marriage, or just in life in general she always says the same thing. She says that it’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it. She’s right, Luke. So lean on Peyton. Let her lean on you. Hold each other up when you’re too weak to stand alone. That’s what a marriage really is.”

“When did you get so smart?” I tease my little brother because I need to feel normal again, and what could be more normal than teasing my little brother.

“When my wife told me to.” He says without missing a beat, and for the first time in three days, I am smiling again.


Peyton’s POV
Never underestimate the power of a best friend. I love Lucas, and he gets to see every side of me there is to see. But there is a special space in my heart that is reserved for Brooke Davis alone. We have been through so much together in all the time that we have been friends. She has been there for moments in my past I didn’t think I could survive, and I know I have done the same for her. And now here we are, at another of those moments, and her face is the only thing keeping me from losing what is left of my mind. She is crying right along with me, trying any way she can think of to shield me from the pain I am feeling. If our roles were reversed, I would do precisely the same thing for her. Only she can’t save me from this any more than I could save her. I have to go through this. I have to bear this loss and carry it with me.

“So what’s her name?” Brooke sniffles, and dabs at her cheeks.

“Who’s name?”

“Your daughter.” Brooke squeezes my hand.

“I don’t know.” I close my eyes again.

Lucas and I had talked about names a few times. I think we had settled on Anna for a girl and Sawyer for a boy, but now I’m not sure. I thought that when I looked at my baby’s face, I would know what his or her name should be. But when I look at the pictures of my baby girl, all I see is death. No names come to mind, just sadness. I am not supposed to leave this hospital with empty arms, and yet, that is exactly how I will go. I will be wheeled out of this hospital to a car that no longer has a car seat set up in the back for a baby that won’t be coming home.

“Let me see the pictures again.” Brooke holds out a hand, and I give her the camera. She turns on the camera, and she begins to go through the pictures Lucas has taken. “She’s so beautiful, Peyton.”

Brooke is seeing something in these pictures that I’m not. But then, she is not this child’s mother. She didn’t spend the last nine months dreaming of what this baby’s life is going to be like. She didn’t stop what she was doing the first time she felt the baby move inside her, and she certainly didn’t whisper silent prayers every few hours when she started feeling contractions a month too early. She wouldn’t have to spend the next couple of weeks experiencing phantom kicks in her belly, or watching her body change back to the way it was before a child began to live inside of it. Brooke hands me a book of baby names that she had tucked inside her purse.

I flip through a couple of pages, and I come across a name I wouldn’t have considered just a few days before. “What do you think of Ashlynn?”

“Ashlynn? Ashlynn.” Brooke tilts her head. “What’s the middle name?”

“Anne.”

“Ashlynn Anne Scott.” Brooke says in a contemplative tone. “I like it, but you should probably run it by Lucas.”

“I was going to name her after my Moms.” I call with the faintest hint of a smile. “Her name was going to be Anna Elizabeth.”

“Well that’s pretty. Why can’t you still call her that?” Brooke asks me as she sets down the camera.

“It just seems strange to name my baby after two dead people when she’s de-“ I stop short of saying that my baby is dead, even though that is precisely what she is.

Brooke puts her hand on mine and gives me a small sympathetic smile. She knows what I was going to say. I can see sadness in her eyes that almost mirrors my own. “Peyton you were going to name your baby after your Moms to honor them. Just because your daughter isn’t coming home with you the way you planned doesn’t mean that she isn’t still a part of your family. None of us will ever forget her. I promise you that. So if you want to name your daughter Anna Elizabeth, then that is exactly what you should name her. I think your Moms would be honored.”

I nod, but am no closer to knowing what to do. “Thank you, Brooke.”

She nods and says, “You would do the same for me.”

“I hope I never have to.” I sniffle, and set aside the book so I can take a nap.


Lucas’ POV
I have always thought it is inappropriate to bury someone on a sunny day. Most people, when they think in terms of what they want their funeral to be like, think they don’t want those around them to be endowed with this heavy grief or devastation. They want to be remembered for their laughter or humor. They want people to celebrate their life, rather than mourn their death. The first funeral I ever went to was for my Mother’s father. I didn’t really know him well. My Mom’s parents didn’t really support her decision to have me after Dan left her. They were religious people, and rather old fashioned when it came to things like this. But I guess things change when a person dies. We try to search for their best qualities since they are no longer able to defend their flaws, or work to change them. We forget that a person can be reckless with other people’s hearts, or quick to judge. What we choose to remember instead is the way they laughed, or maybe more so, the way they made <i>us</I> laugh.

I will have no such memories of my daughter. I have no stories to tell. All I am left with is this vast space stuffed with all the possibilities there were for her. I will not know much about the baby that isn’t coming home. I won’t know her favorite color, or her attitude when she first wakes up. I won’t know her favorite food, or what career she would have chosen for herself. I will never walk her down the isle at her wedding, and I will never teach her to ride a bike. I will never watch Peyton braid her hair, or help her mend her first broken heart.

What I will do is hear phantom crying in the middle of the night that will jar me from my sleep. I will spend hours standing in what was supposed to be her bedroom, trying to wish her back into existence. I will watch Peyton chew herself up over this loss, and try to glue together the pieces of her shattered heart. There will be heavily silences filled with all the words we can’t say to each other, and the tears we have shed over the things we could. If we are ever going to try again to have a child, it will be in the future. How long? I don’t know. Maybe never. Maybe this is God’s way of saying that Peyton and I aren’t meant to be parents.

I am holding Peyton up as our daughter’s tiny white coffin is being lowered into the ground. I will stand there with her for as long as it takes for her to be ready to go home to our empty house. I will be silent until she speaks to me, because this is one of those times when I know she has to be the one to speak first. I will give her all the time she needs. I will be strong, although I don’t know where this strength will come from. I kiss the side of her head, and I feel her shiver in my arms. She presses her face into my neck. I can feel her tears falling from her jaw, soaking into my shirt and my neck. I want to find the right words to say to stop her from crying, but I don’t know what those words are.

John Steinbeck once said, “In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the unexplicable.” I have not words, no explanation. All I have is this overwhelming sense of loss, and a frail woman in my arms who is about to crush me with her sadness. And yet, I must stand as the pillar in her world that she can always lean on, even if that is all I can do for her. Hopefully, that will be good enough.


Peyton’s POV
It’s a strange thing how Grief will tell you it is acceptable to do things you wouldn’t normally do. For instance, when I woke up this morning, I went to the refrigerator. I saw a bottle of wine at the back of the top shelf. That wine has been there since before I found out I was pregnant. I have been saving it for several reasons, but mostly, because I liked it. A week has passed since our daughter was buried. And at eight o’clock this morning, while Lucas was out for a run, I sat down with that bottle of wine, and I drank. Actually, I chugged like I was in some drinking contest I would have entered back in high school. I’m old enough to know better now, but somehow, Grief tells me that what I’m doing is just fine. I’m mourning. I’m allowed to be a little eccentric and wild. There is nothing tame or ordinary about the loss of a child, after all.

So I drink until there is nothing left in the bottle. And since I haven’t had anything to eat in almost twenty-four hours, it doesn’t take long for the alcohol to hit my system. I am light headed, and stumbling. There is the nursery door ahead of me. It has been closed since I came home from the hospital. I have not gone in that room once, although I have stopped in front of the room several times. I plan to go in, but I never do. I put my hand on the doorknob, and sometimes I even twist it, but I do not actually open the door, or go inside the room. I simply stand there, and try to convince myself that when I do finally go in, the room will look the way it once did before Lucas turned it into the prettiest nursery I have ever seen.

Today is different. Today, I have the courage to go into that room. And so, before I can talk myself out of doing it, I twist the doorknob, and shove the door as hard as I can. The knob bounces off the wall, and the door comes back at me. I put a hand up to stop it from closing in my face, and I prop the door open. My eyes go directly to the rocking chair in the corner. I had plans for that chair. That chair was going to be a big part of my future, and not it just stands there mocking me. I want to destroy that chair. I want to chop it into tiny pieces and use it to start a fire in the living room.

Then there is the crib beside it. Anna should be sleeping in that crib right now. She should be dozing between meals, and my chest should be heavy with milk. Instead, my knees are knocking together, and my stomach is churning with guilt. I hear voices in my mind whispering various words of encouragement to let me know that I am not alone with Grief.

“Blessed are the hearts that can bend, for they shall never be broken.” Lucas tells me before kissing my cheek.

“The best thing God has created is a new day.” Brooke hugs me, and then she’s gone.

“God can heal a broken heart, but He has to have all the pieces.” Haley pats my back ever so lightly.

“Every song has a coda, a final movement. Whether it fades out or crashes away, every song ends. But is that any reason not to enjoy the music?” Ellie strokes my hair.

“There is no grief like the grief that does not speak.” Nathan doesn’t even touch me as he passes by me.

“I hurt myself today to see if I still feel.” My father touches the tip of my nose the way he used to do when he would tuck me into bed at night.

“A mother’s arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them.” My Mother’s voice. The original Anna is talking to me.

“But my baby will never sleep soundly.” I whisper to myself.

“Peyton, are you okay?” I didn’t even hear Lucas come back into the house. “Who were you talking to?”

“I think we should take all of this out of here.” I sniffle, and wipe at the tears that have started to run down my cheeks, and onto my shirt.

“Okay, but do we have to do it right now?” Lucas says in the calmest voice I have ever heard, and all it does is feed my rage.

“Yes, right now. Help me.” I start pulling stuffed animals off the changing table and out of the toy box. “Help me!”

“Peyton, hey, come on, calm down.” He grabs my shoulders, but I yank away from him.

“Either help me, or get out.” I say through a clenched jaw.

“Okay, okay.” He lets go of me, and delicately takes the toys I am holding in my hands. “It’s okay if you want to clear this room out, Peyton. I just don’t want you to destroy it.”

“Why not? If I could, I’d burn it down.” That’s Grief talking, not me, but Lucas already knows this.

“But it wouldn’t bring her back, Peyton.”

“Say her name, Lucas. You haven’t once said her name!” This upsets me in ways that I can’t even begin to describe.

“I’ve said her name.” He says weakly.

“Then say it right now.” I challenge him, and he looks away from with those squinty blue eyes of his. “Say it! Say her goddamn name, Lucas!”

At this point, I’m not sure who is doing the talking for me, but it doesn’t matter. Lucas can’t say Anna’s name. He refers to her only as ‘the baby’ or ‘our little girl’. He can’t bring himself to utter those two little syllables that make her her own person. In fact, at this moment, he can’t even look me in the eyes. Grief tells me that Lucas is blaming me. I can feel it in the way he can’t look at me.

“Why don’t you just say it, Luke? Just tell me that you were right, and I was wrong, and I never should have let the pregnancy go on for as long as it did. I know it’s what you’re thinking.” I accuse.

“We are not doing this, Peyton.” He finally says to me. “We are not going to blame each other for what has happened here. Do you think this is what Anna would want?”

The sound of her name on his lips sounds foreign, and yet, it completely breaks me. I feel myself dissolving piece by piece, starting with my toes. One piece at a time, I am disappearing, and Grief covers me like a blanket. I am washed away in its vast ocean, and I am traveling quickly away from the shores of sanity. There are never enough tears. I am searching for a reason to hope, but it feels like I am grasping at straws.

Lucas sinks to the floor with me, and his body curls around mine. I use his arm for a pillow, and I start to think that maybe this is what I have needed all along. Maybe we were wrong to try and go about life as usual. Maybe what we should have been doing is what we are doing right this very second. “It was the sweetness of your skin. It was the hope of all we might have been that filled me with the hope to wish impossible things.” Lucas whispers to me, and I can hear the violins that are meant to accompany those words playing their sorrowful melody all around us.

“But now the sun shines cold. And all the sky is gray. The stars are dimmed by clouds and tears. And all I wish is gone away. All I wish is gone away.” I answer him, and kiss the inside of his arm.

“She’s not gone, Peyton. Anna is here. She will be with us every single day.” Lucas’ grip tightens around me to the point that I feel a little residual pain from the c-section I had just two weeks before. I actually find myself rejoicing in that pain because it’s real. It’s anchoring me to the world in ways I didn’t think anything could any more.

I don’t know how long it was we stayed on that floor, but when we finally decide to get up, the sun is already starting to set. I sit up first, but Lucas stands before I do. He reaches for my hand, and offers to help me with the nursery. If I want to take it all apart, then that is what we will do.

“No lets leave it a while longer.” I have changed my mind.

“I still have a surprise for you. I never got to give it to you after the wedding.” Lucas tells me.

“Okay.” I nod, wondering what he could possibly have that could have waiting for two whole weeks. Obviously it’s not a pet of some kind, which I sort of think would actually be a good thing. I wouldn’t mind cuddling a puppy.

Lucas takes my hand and leads me out of the house back to the garage. “Close your eyes.” He says before opening the garage door. I do as he asks, and walk when he tugs on my hand. I hear the sound of material being gathered, and then yanked with a flourish from whatever it is he plans to surprise me with. “Okay, open your eyes.”

My Comet. He fixed it. “Did you do this?” My jaw drops in shock. My Comet is fully restored, and looks even better than it did before the accident. He has reupholstered the seats and removed all of the scratches there were on the hood that had been there for as long as I could remember. My Comet looks brand new, even though it is older than both of us combined. “It’s beautiful.” I am smiling for the first time in two weeks. “Thank you.” I throw my arms around him.

“You said the Comet was more than just a car, and you were right. It is the start of us, and you were right to want to save it.” Lucas hands me the keys. “What do you say we go for a drive? We can listen to The Cure, and maybe even get started on baby number two in the back seat?”

I want to chastise him for even suggesting that now is the right time to try to have another baby, but I am too happy in this moment to say such a thing. “You drive.” I give him the keys, and he opens the passenger’s side door for me. “I got an A in backseat, you know?” I remind him as he walks around to the driver’s side to get in.

“I remember.” He puts the key in the ignition, and pushes the button to open the garage door.

I immediately go to the stereo, and push the buttons to get the cd player working. I can see that he has also installed a new cd changer for me. “Lucas, this is amazing.” I shake my head as he backs the car out of the garage.

“Push play.” He tells me, and I do.

The Cure fills the air around us, and I feel Grief slide into the backseat. For just a little while it isn’t wrapped around me, and I can breathe like a normal person. As we coast along the highway with Lucas’ arm wrapped around me, and the Cure working its magic on my broken heart, I see Grief becoming smaller and smaller, until finally, it disappears. I know it will be back to claim me later on, but for now, I’m with my husband, and that’s all that matters.

“We’re going to be okay.” I tell him when we come to a stop at the beach. The ocean roars as it slams against the shore.

“Yeah, we are.” He tilts my head back and kisses me. He always loved kissing me to the Cure, and tonight is no exception.



A/N: Just so you all know where those quotes come from when Peyton is hearing voices in the nursery: Lucas’ quote is by Albert Camus. Brooke’s quote is lyrics from a Sigur Ros song, Haley’s quote is from an unknown person, Ellie’s is a line from the show, Nathan’s quote is by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Larry’s quote is by Trent Reznor, and Anna’s quote is by Victor Hugo. The song that Lucas and Peyton quote on the nursery floor is To Wish Impossible Things by The Cure.