The lights of the police officer's car reflected off his face. He was handsome, ginger, but I could see his hands playing anxiously with his hand and I knew that something was wrong.
"Mrs. Waters? There's been an accident." His voice was regretful, as if he was sorry that he was tearing my life to pieces in front of my eyes. My legs gave out. Not them. Anyone else. Not them. The police officer reached out to catch me and I remember his eyes. So young. So unmarred.
I don't remember what happened next, but I remember being on the couch, a blanket tucked around me, watching the lights in the corner of my eye fade away as he drove off. It took a minute for the tears to come, but they came fast once they did and all I could feel was the aching hole.
On the table, directly across from me, there was a picture of the three of us at the beach. Alex, my husband, and I are sitting next to each other, and I'm holding our daughter, Rosa, in between us. She was one month old then. That was nearly five months ago. It was a five hour car ride, which was challenging with Rosa, but we made it. We rented a hotel that was two blocks from the beach and brought a pack and play. Rosa had a little baby bonnet and the most adorable sailor dress I had ever seen. We tried putting her toes in the water, but she did not like that. So she took a nap under the umbrella while Alex and I exchanged kisses. We were still newly-weds, more or less. That was the happiest ordinary day of my life.
The me in the picture is smiling so much that I take the picture frame and fling it across the room, where it hits my wedding china and both shatter. That sets me off again and I cry into the pillow on the couch. I cried until around four in the morning, which is when I fell asleep, although not of my own free will. I just crashed.
When I woke up, the sunlight was streaming through the open window, which meant that it was late. I'm supposed to work today, but I don't want to. All I want to do is sit here. So that's all I do. For days. I stayed on the couch. I didn't want to eat. Or drink. Or get up. Just sit here. And that's what I did. I didn't want to think either, but I couldn't stop. Several times, I wanted to kill myself, but I would have to think more and get up and find a means. And do things. So I sat here. And cried. I lost track of how long it was. But they haunted my dreams and turned them into nightmares.
The most popular one was our wedding. I went shopping my her mother for the perfect dress. It was white and had little flowers all over it. And I was so nervous before hand. I almost puked up my breakfast. But the most powerful memory, now the most painful, was the look on Alex's face as he saw me for the first time, all dressed up. He looked so handsome, with his tux on and his hair combed, but the thing that attracted him to me the most was the glow on his face that looked like he was the happiest man alive.
The second was birthing Lisa. That one is less clear because I did it while hopped up on epidurals, so there was less to haunt me. But Alex was glowing again, looking at his newborn daughter and smiling and I kept picturing his body, mangled around the frame of a car, or bloody, in an ambulance. And I cried.
After what felt like years, but could have been days, I heard a knock on the door. I didn't answer it, didn't even get up, but it opened by itself. It was my boss at the restaurant, Ms. Gram. I was a full-time waitress. Ms. Gram looks like a sweet, grandmotherly-type figure, but she's not. She is sassy and mean to you if you're her friend and God help you if you're her enemy. She also has a tendency to take people under her wing, which defines the parameters of our relationship pretty well. She cared for me and gave me advice, but she did not hesitate to mess with me if I needed messing with. And apparently, I needed messing with. She took one look at me, hair matted, still red from crying, my face covered in a mess of snot and tears, and shoved me, clothes and all, into the shower.
I think I stayed in the shower for several hours. When I got out, there was a plate of warm bacon waiting for me. Ms. Gram explained that I needed to come to work because there was a crisis. Meaning, one too many of the new workers had done something wrong and she had fired too many and now they were understaffed and couldn't afford to have one of their workers sobbing into a blanket for a month.
She offers me a ride, which I accept. I don't trust myself to drive. Once I got to work and got into it, it was easy to fall into the rhythm and let myself forget for brief periods while I swept myself up in work. But then, in came a family of three, a mom, a dad, and a new baby girl and in their eyes, I could see that glow again and it broke me. I ran to the bathroom and started wailing. After half an hour, the sobs fade to dry heaves. I have used up my stash of tears, but I can't face them. So I hide behind the toilet.
I hear Ms. Gram call my name, which is unusual. She usually finds me and drags me out. I stand up shakily and look at myself in the mirror. Thank goodness, the redness and blotches had faded earlier, with the wet tears. But there was a look in my eyes that I didn't recognize. I hadn't looked in a mirror since the accident.
Dismissing it, I left the room and walked to Ms. Gram at the matre-d podium. She was standing across from a tall man in a dark blue pinstripe suit. As I watched, he pulled a badge out of his pocket and showed it to her. She nodded, then turned to me.
"Lily," She said, with a look of forced patience. "This is Mr. John Smith, a health inspector. He's come on a tip for an inspection. Would you show him around?"
I nodded, and the man and I made eye contact. In his eyes, I saw the same look I saw in my eyes earlier. But in his eyes, it was easier to understand. It was loss.