On the Way Back Read online

  On the Way Back

  Ella Fox

  Copyright © 2019 by Ella Fox

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  On The Way Back

  ISBN 978-1-945399-25-1

  Cover design: Kari March of Kari March Designs

  Editing: Gemma Rowlands

  Contents

  Author Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Epilogue

  End of book thoughts

  Also by Ella Fox

  About the Author

  Author Note

  Dear Reader,

  After you’ve read On The Way Back I’d be super grateful if you’d leave a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads.

  I humbly request that you PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE not detail the entire story in your review.

  Some people got snippy when I made this same request for my last book but as an author one of my priorities is preserving every readers experience as best I can.

  You can love or hate a book and leave an honest review without revealing every single plot point—at least that’s what I believe.

  Happy Reading! Xo

  Ella Fox

  May 2019

  Chapter One

  Garrett - July 2000

  The phrase one of the nurses told us was used for babies like Melody repeated in my head on a loop.

  Born asleep.

  It was a heartbreakingly accurate descriptive. It was difficult to grasp the full reality of our situation when they’d brought Melody to us because our daughter looked as though she was resting peacefully. If I didn’t know that she’d never taken a breath, it would’ve been easy to believe that the beautiful infant tucked in Shaelyn’s arms was alive. Melody was perfect from head to toe, her facial features mini replicas of her mother’s.

  The seesaw of emotions that cycled through me on a second-by-second basis were staggering. I wanted to wake up from the nightmare but at the same time, I knew I needed to commit every single second of being with our daughter to memory. I never wanted to forget a moment of being with her.

  I swallowed past what felt like a boulder of emotion lodged in my throat as I watched my wife traced her fingers over Melody’s face. It was alternately one of the most staggeringly beautiful and agonizingly painful things I’d ever experienced. I’d spent months anticipating the joyous arrival of our daughter, had looked forward to seeing my girls together for the first time— but never like this. I’d blindly assumed that my wife’s healthy pregnancy would result in a live birth and I’d never considered or tried to prepare myself for the alternative.

  It wouldn’t have mattered much, really. The truth was that all the preparation in the world wouldn’t have made the situation easier. Nothing could’ve prepared me for the level of hell I was currently in. I’d had so many hopes and dreams for our little family, but instead of the joy I’d spent months looking forward to, I felt choked out by a mountain of sorrow and rage that had taken up residence on my chest.

  All the firsts I’d dreamt of would never occur. I’d never hear Melody’s voice, or watch her take her first steps. There would be no Father’s Day cards made at preschool, no loose teeth, no teaching her how to tie her shoes. We’d never argue about how young was too young to date or share a laugh about the way her mommy stopped everything to dance whenever a song with a great beat was on.

  I was doing my best to stay strong for Shaelyn, who’d had no choice but to endure the agony of delivery knowing our baby was already gone. I had no clue if what I was doing was enough. There was no handbook for what to say to a woman after she’d carried a baby for nine months only to lose her in the blink of an eye. Other than repeatedly telling my wife how much I loved her and doing my best to be a rock for her, I felt completely ineffectual. I hated that I couldn’t protect her or take her pain away.

  That was the most unbearable thing of all.

  * * *

  The hours spent with our daughter were only a temporary reprieve from our reality. When the moment came for the nurses to take her, Shaelyn lost it. Nothing could’ve prepared me for the agony of watching her heart shatter more than it already had. Her agonized sobs fucking destroyed me. She held tight to our daughter and shook her head frantically as the nurses spoke to her in soothing tones.

  “I’m not ready,” she wailed, her cries slashing at the tenuous grip I had on my emotions. “Please let us keep her. Please.”

  We’d had Melody with us for more than three hours, time that alternately felt as if it stretched out over a century but was also gone in the blink of an eye. Cupping Shaelyn’s cheek, I got her to look at me.

  “Shae—”

  “Don’t let them take her from us,” she pleaded.

  I was vaguely aware of the nurses quietly talking, and I’d heard the words doctor and sedative. I could guess what was coming, and I didn’t want that for my wife. In this sea of sorrow, I wanted her to be able to hold onto the memory of Melody in the most positive way possible.

  “We have to let her go, Shae. There’s no other option.”

  She shook her head frantically as tears spilled down her face. “Once they take her we’ll never see her again. I can’t, I can’t… please. I’m not ready!”

  The absolute worst thing was that I knew, to the depths of my soul, that she would never be ready. I understood that all too well since I knew I never would be either. Once the nurses took Melody out of the room it would be final, an end to a chapter that hadn’t even really begun. If it were possible I’d have kept our daughter with us forever, but that wasn’t in the cards for us. From the moment we were told our baby had no heartbeat, we’d had no choice but to bear the reality of letting her go.

  “I feel the same way,” I told her, my voice thick with emotion. “But we knew when we said we wanted to spend this time with her that this moment would come.”

  Shae leaned her cheek into my hand and sobbed harder. “I thought I could… but… I… can’t,” she cried. “It’s too much. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.”

  I did my best to reason with her, but there was nothing to be said to calm her down. When the nurse who had left the room came back with the doctor, I knew there was only one choice.

  Whatever they gave Shae took effect quickly. Her lids fluttered as she struggled to stay awake. She whimpered softly as I lifted Melody from her arms and brought her cheek to her mother’s lips for one last kiss. Her words were slow but insistent. “Mommy loves you so much, baby. Forever… and ever… and ever. I’m so sorry… I failed you, little one.””

  Her apology pierced my heart like an arrow and caused a frisson of alarm to roll through me.

  “Shaelyn—”

  I barely had her name past my lips before her eyes drifted all the way shut. I could tell by the way she was breathing that sleep had claimed her, and I knew I’d have to wait until later to talk to her about what she’d said to Melody.

&n
bsp; Bringing our little girl close to my face, I rained kisses on her beautiful face. I was crying so hard that my tears left both of our cheeks wet. When the sound of a throat clearing behind me let me know that my time was up, I forced myself to get it together. Cradling Melody to my chest, I whispered in her ear that I loved her and would carry her in my heart until we met again. With one last kiss, I let her go.

  The hardest thing I’d ever had to do was hand her to the nurse and watch as they rolled her away, knowing when the door closed behind them that I’d never see her again. Half of my heart went with her. The other half was asleep on the hospital bed.

  The room was eerily silent after everyone was gone. The absence of our daughter was painful, the weight of her loss like an anchor around my soul. I held onto Shaelyn’s limp hand and watched her sleep, knowing all the while that when she woke up the agony of losing our baby would hit her all over again.

  Devastated by what had already happened and terrified of what was yet to come, I bowed my head and cried.

  Chapter Two

  Garrett- November 2000

  I’d hoped the autopsy we’d approved would provide us with a definitive reason for the loss of Melody, but it hadn’t. There was no medical reason that our baby girl’s heart stopped. When I’d angrily insisted that there had to be an explanation, our doctor reminded us—again— that on average seven children out of a thousand were stillborn and that it wasn’t uncommon not to be able to find out exactly why, even with an autopsy.

  The lack of answers hit Shaelyn hard. More than ever, she blamed herself. There was no shortage of people who had told her otherwise— our doctor, the nurses in the hospital, our family, her best friend, and, of course, me, but nothing got through to her. If anything, all the things we said caused her to lose more ground. It felt like the harder I prayed and the more I tried to show her how much I loved her, the further she drifted away.

  Case in point was the scene in front of me. I stood silently in the doorway to our living room, stomach churning as I watched her. As usual, she was seated in the center of our sectional sofa with a soft cream-colored throw over her legs. Her hair was pulled back in a severe-looking bun, and the dark circles beneath her eyes were more pronounced than ever. The room was silent, the TV and the stereo both off the same as they had been since the day we came home from the hospital. A dog-eared but currently unopened manuscript sat on her lap, as if she’d been reading but was taking a break. I know better, though. The script was a prop, something she only opened and pretended to be engrossed in if she heard me coming. She’d been using the same script for weeks.

  She thought she was keeping me from noticing what her attention was on, but she wasn’t. Without fail, every time I came upon her quietly, I found her in this same spot, staring across the room at the mantle. Melody’s urn was front and center, and next to that was a white candle that my wife lit whenever she was in the room, which was most of the time these days. The only other things on the mantle were two framed photos— one of Melody alone, and one of the three of us together.

  I’d once made the mistake of suggesting we stop lighting the candle and move the urn and photos somewhere else for a while because it was obvious that having that little memorial wasn’t doing anything to heal Shaelyn’s heart. If anything, the little shrine made things worse. The sound of her sobs when I tried to talk to her about it left my hands tied. Making my wife cry, however unintentional, went against every instinct I had.

  We were trapped in the gray space tragedy left in its wake, and I didn’t know how to get us out. Everyone mourned in their own unique way, but to the depths of my soul I knew that Shaelyn’s way was only breaking her more. Something needed to change, but I had finally accepted that it would never happen if I went it alone. She needed more than just me to pull her out of the quicksand that sprung up around us when Melody died.

  Clearing my throat, I stepped into the room and walked over to the couch. Dropping down next to Shaelyn, I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, pulled her in close, and dropped a soft kiss on her forehead. “My parents asked us to drop by tonight, and I said yes.”

  There was a long pause before she nodded. Leaving the house— specifically Melody’s urn— was an issue for her, but with the way her grandmother and I kept after her about it she was doing her best to leave a few times a week. It had been harder to get her to agree when the paparazzi was camped on our street in the days after the news of our loss went public, but once another story became more popular they’d mostly moved on.

  “When do we need to leave?” she asked.

  “In about ninety minutes.”

  Her brow furrowed as she looked over to the clock on the table. “I didn’t realize it was so late in the day.”

  The thing nobody tells you about mourning is that entire cities could be erected around the things we think and feel but are unable to say. Case in point, it was on the tip of my tongue to tell my wife that losing time staring at the shrine to our daughter wasn’t good for her.

  I wanted to tell her that shutting down and retreating inside was a recipe for disaster.

  I wanted to tell her she was scaring the fuck out of me.

  I wanted to beg her for assurance that at some point she’d tune back into the world.

  Instead, I bit my tongue. I’d said some variation of all of those things to her at some point, and the takeaway every time was that she shut down even more. I knew I needed to try something different— which was why we were going to see my parents.

  * * *

  My wife was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t on that list. She knew the moment she walked into my parents’ house and saw her best friend, Tia, and her grandmother, Goldie, that dinner wasn’t just dinner. My parents and my uncle, Alan, rounded out the group. It was the first time the seven of us had been together since about a week after we lost Melody, and I could tell that thought was forefront in everyone’s minds.

  The smile on my wife’s face was forced because she sensed what was happening. I’d been conflicted about getting our family involved, but the bottom line was that there was nothing I wouldn’t do to help my wife heal—including risking her being mad at me. Hell, the truth was that any sign of anger from her could be an improvement at this point. At least it would be a sign of life. Other than crying over Melody, Shaelyn no longer showed much emotion at all. She was too still, too placid.

  She clung to my hand as the group of us made our way into my parents’ large sunken living room. I guided her to the plush indigo colored couch and made sure she was comfortable before I took a seat next to her. Once she was in place, everyone else chose seats accordingly.

  Shaelyn swallowed nervously as she looked around at the assembled group. “I feel like I’m in the hot seat here,” she admitted.

  I laced my fingers with hers and squeezed encouragingly. “It’s not like that, baby,” I assured her. “Everyone is here tonight because they love you and they’re worried.”

  She shook her head weakly. “I’m doing… okay.”

  That was a lie. Okay was several galaxies away from what she was.

  “Don’t lie to us, Peanut Breath,” her grandmother said. “You’re a piece of my heart, little girl, and I have never seen you as lost as you are right now. When I call to talk to you, I feel like I’m talking to a ghost. Physically you’re there, but mentally you’re nowhere to be found.”

  Tia nodded, agreeing with Goldie. “It’s true, Shae. You’re scaring the shit out of everyone.”

  Shaelyn chewed her lip nervously as she turned and looked at me. I didn’t need her to speak to know that she was asking if I agreed with what they’d said. Not only did I agree, I knew that they were unaware of how bad it really was. Only I knew what it was like to live with her, feeling as though she was breathing but not alive. I nodded to tell her I agreed with what they’d just said.

  “We love you so much,” my mom said softly as she caught Shaelyn’s gaze. “All of us are heartbroken about losing Melody. We
know that you feel that loss even more deeply because for nine months, your body was her home. Everyone here understands that you’re mourning, sweetheart. But the truth is that what’s happening with you feels like it’s going beyond that. You spend all of your time staring at her urn, and that’s breaking you down a little more each day.”

  “I’m trying to be better…” Shaelyn whispered.

  “It’s not about being better,” my uncle said firmly. “It’s about being present and healthy. You’ll miss that little girl every day of your life and we all understand that. At the moment, you’re not really living, and it feels like we’ve lost two people. Knowing you the way I do I know that you’ve been a fighter your whole life— but right now you’re not fighting at all. We all understand that you’re hurting, Shae, but you can’t curl up in a ball and quit. Do you think your daughter would want you to give up on life?”

  My eyes widened at the almost too direct way Alan spoke.

  Silent tears ran down Shaelyn’s cheeks. “I don’t know what she’d want because she died before I ever got to know her,” she said in a strangled voice.

  “We all saw that little angel, and she was as perfect and pure as a little soul could be. I don’t believe for one second that she would want her mother to suffer,” Alan assured her, his tone firm.

  “Even if the reason that she died is because I somehow failed her?” Shae whispered.