Free The Night We Met by Tara Taylor Quinn Page B

with tears.
    "I can't, Nate." My voice broke and my body shook with sobs that hurt my bones. "I just can't do it." I heard my wails, wondered in some obscure part of my brain what the mortician must think of me, but didn't have the strength to give a damn.
    Nate stood beside me, holding me up as I held on to the silky fabric lining our baby's casket, crying with me. I could feel his tears dropping on the back of my neck and knew he was grieving, too.
    The weight of his pain was too much to bear.
    I'd done this. To Sarah. To Nate.
    This was my penance. The price I guess I'd always known I would someday pay.
    This was God's way of punishing me for breaking my word to Him. I should never have left the convent.
    This was my fault.
    I begged God to have enough mercy to take me home.
    My chest was soaked. I felt something sticky on my breasts. Pulling myself up out of a deep sleep I knew I didn't want to leave, I thought of Sarah, hungry, needing to eat, and opened my eyes.
    And then closed them again. Remembering.
    The setting sun was shining in on me. I could feel its warmth on my face.
    It was afternoon and I was in bed.
    I didn't care. Another drop of milk slid down the side of my breast to the mattress beneath me. The thick protective pads I wore inside my bra were drenched, heavy with unused milk.
    There were no tears left to cry, just this weighty sadness that infiltrated my bones and pinned me to the bed.
    "How long's she been asleep?" Nate's voice. Home from work.
    "More than an hour." Mama was there, too. In the room. They were probably staring at me. I didn't have to feign sleep. I was comatose whether I was conscious or not. "I'm worried sick about her, Nate. I told James I'd be home by the end of the week, but I can't leave her. Or the boys."
    The boys. My sons. They deserved better than me. I wasn't good enough to earn the honor of raising Sarah. Would I harm them, too?
    And James, my father. He knew about me. I didn't blame him for staying away al these years. Even the death of my precious little Sarah hadn't been enough to bring him back.
    "I think you should go." Nate's voice sounded tired.

    He needed a woman who was worthy of him.
    "Who'll watch over her? And the boys? She's barely twenty-three, Nate. Still a baby herself. Too young to handle...this...and two small boys. I can't leave her."
    "She's been in bed for a week. Refusing to take the medication her doctor gave her to dry up her milk and to help with depression. We can't continue this way."
    Was he ready to dump me then? I couldn't blame him.
    "I don't know what else to do..." Mama sounded like she was going to cry.
    I was responsible for that, too. If I hadn't been so numb, I'd have hated myself.
    "We're not helping her, Mom. As long as you're here, she doesn't have to do anything."
    "You think if I go she's just going to get up and be fine?"
    "I think she has two sons to take care of and if no one else is here to do it, she'll have to."
    Dear Nate. He still thought a person was in control of her own life, that we actually had choices and our own inner strength would see us through. I used to believe that, too.
    Not anymore.
    "I'l call the airline after dinner, but, Nate, you have to promise me you'l call if she gets into any trouble...."
    Mama didn't mean breaking laws kind of trouble; I knew that. She was afraid I was going to kill myself.
    I wasn't afraid of that. I was thinking about it, though.
    I got up when Mama left the next day. Waved goodbye to her and Nate. He was going to work after dropping her at the airport. It was mid-January, busy season for him. And too cold for the boys to play outside. I brought toys to the living room, put up the gates, brought in a box of graham crackers, turned on the television set and lay down on the couch. I didn't move—except for one trek to the kitchen, some diaper changes for Jimmy and a couple of trips to the potty with Keith. I was stil there when Nate got home.
    "Why didn't you turn on any lights?"
    I