Still. Emma Hansen

      WE ARE FINALLY alone. The echo in our apartment seems amplified in the absence of the noise that should have filled it on our return from the hospital. I look around at all the evidence of our plans. The infant tub on the back of the door, the room stacked ceiling-high with baby gear, the pregnancy books scattered across tables. Then the magnet with the paging details on it, sitting right where we left it on the coffee table.

      I close my eyes and whisper to Aaron, “I need to shower, but I need help.” He holds me as we shuffle toward the bathroom. He supports me under my arms and lowers me down on the toilet. He undresses me, slowly. As my shirt brushes past my face I catch a scent that is both foreign and familiar to me. It is the scent of him—of his birth.

      In Dr. Patrick O’Malley’s book Getting Grief Right, I’ll later read about a similar experience he had upon sensing something that reminded him of his infant son who’d passed. As a psychotherapist, he researched all aspects of his grief, and wrote:

      That innocent sensory stimulus had cut straight to the place in my brain where the memories and feelings of Ryan would be forever stood. It is called the limbic system, a primitive part of our brain where human emotions are believed to be centered. A sight or smell might register there and is then interpreted and named by more advanced parts of our cognitive apparatus. The pungent aroma of antiseptic soap produced tears, which my brain could eventually link to the hospital.

      At first, I notice the Ivory Snow. I recall the days I sat in his nursery with his hand-washed outfits in my lap. The smell of the detergent would travel on the breeze coming in through the corner window and I’d close my eyes, basking in it. Even though he only wore one outfit, I know that smell will probably always tie me to his life. It will always remind me of the days I spent washing his things and organizing his drawers.

      Then I notice the Johnson’s baby shampoo that Rose washed his hair with. I summon the hazy memories of her lathering his head with bubbles and gently rinsing them out with water that spilled from the yellow plastic cup.

      And another scent, one I can’t recognize, one I can only assume is death. I inhale deeply, bringing my hands up toward my nose, as close as I can. “I still smell like him,” I whisper to Aaron.

      “Me too,” he whispers back.

      A single tear rolls down my cheek. I don’t want to wash it off. I don’t want to be one step closer to reaching our first day without Reid. I don’t want any of it. The minute I enter that shower it will all be gone. The beginning of erasing what little proof I have of his existence.

      Once in bed, I look at the packets of sleeping pills beside me. They have given me enough to put me into a deep, medically induced sleep, nothing more. I punch two out into my palm and stroke their shiny blue surface before placing them on the tip of my tongue.

      I wait for sleep to come, but it never does. My insomnia is as much biological as situational. I am supposed to be up all night with a baby depending on me for survival. I know that he has died. But my body doesn’t.

      In the morning, Susie comes over. I am still in bed, the covers drawn up underneath my chin. She sits next to me and talks about the birth, discussing the stiches and some of the changes my body is going through. I ask her to tell me about her son, the one who died, and listen closely as she does. When it is time for her to leave she hands me a brown paper bag, crumpled at the top to keep whatever it is holding contained. “You’ll want to wash these,” she says.

      I peer inside. Neatly folded at the bottom are Reid’s clothes. I sigh, “Oh.” I roll the top down again and thank her.

      I don’t know why, but I assumed he would be cremated in them. Or at the very least make it to the funeral home wearing them. All I can picture is that somewhere in the basement of the hospital he is lying naked on a cold metal tray, sealed in a bag and completely alone. Someone would have been tasked with undressing him. I cringe at the thought of him being handled by strangers.

      After Susie leaves, when I can allow myself to surrender to the pain, I take his clothes out of the bag and gently lay them on my lap. They smell sour and are stained through with blood. Then, at the very bottom of the bag, I find the small bracelet with a metal heart that I’d been allowed to tie to his wrist. I have the matching necklace, a heart with its middle punched out—the middle that makes up his pendant—sitting on my bedside table. It is meant so that the griever can always feel close to the one they grieve. They can look at the hole in the heart and imagine it tethered to their loved one, as it was when they left them. But here it is in my hands. I throw the bag with the bracelet against the wall and scream into my pillow. Someone lied. Or someone made a mistake, placed it in the bag of his belongings instead of tossing it in the trash and letting us continue to believe that it remains with him. I’m not sure which of the two options feels worse.

      The midwives pay their official visits and then many more, bringing their love and grief with them as they enter our apartment. Fiona, the midwife who cared for us during our pregnancy, visits this afternoon. She was out of town when Reid was born. The team called her while she was on vacation to let her know and she broke down. “But her pregnancy was perfect!” she sobbed. “And they’re so young!”

      When she arrives at our door she is already red-faced from crying. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be for her to step into our pain, to have cared for us as she did and then have this be the outcome. I wonder if she thought we’d blame her. She could have easily never come and we wouldn’t have faulted her for that. But the fact that she does means the world to us.

      Fiona says that she was there when they told the other couples in our prenatal group, that they all send their condolences and their love. She says that one of the fathers was so upset he had to leave the room. It relieves me to hear this—not because the father had hurt, but because his act of mourning somehow acknowledges our grief in a way I need.