Remember

by melissaeverdeen13

Things often fall apart, but April never thought it would happen to her and her husband, Jackson. Yet here they are, in the beginning stages of a divorce, with too much pain between them to make their relationship worth it any longer. Just as they're getting used to the fact that they'll have to move on from one another, fate hands them a reminder of how much they need each other.

3. Chapter 3

I get a sick, twisting feeling in my stomach as I shake my head and stare at Alex's face. "No," I say. "I won't do that to him. I'm not gonna lie to him."

Alex sighs, tapping his pen on his clipboard. "I'm not saying that," he says. "I'm saying you can't shove a bunch of information at him all at once. It has to be spread out and on his terms. If you just go telling him everything he missed in the last year, he's gonna go freakin' psycho."

I pause for a moment, turning over what he said.

"I mean, wouldn't you?" he prompts.

"Yes, yes," I say, pushing my flat hand out at him. "I'm thinking. Just let me think. This is a lot… a lot to take in."

"I understand," he says, glancing in at Jackson.

I follow his eyes. "He doesn't even know," I say. "He doesn't know anything he missed. My birthday party, the one he's talking about, that was April 23rd of last year. And you're telling me...nothing? He has nothing after that?"

Alex shrugs slightly. "I'm gonna have to get neuro down here to do some tests on him. We'll know more after that."

I sit and wait in Jackson's empty hospital room while that happens, worrying over the myriad of possible outcomes. He remembered me easily, but what about his daughter? Will he get freaked out when she's a year older than he remembers? Will he get scared when he realizes that life has gone by for an entire year without him having any recollection of it happening? I think I would.

When he gets wheeled back into his room with Derek Shepherd behind his chair, he looks content and pleasant. He doesn't look like whatever tests they did upset him, which comforts me.

"So," Derek says, after Jackson lies back down. He sits down at the foot of the bed and flips through some papers he's holding. We've known Derek for a while - Jackson met him at the hospital, then we learned that he's Amelia's brother. Chicago really is a small town when it comes down to it. "We're looking at a pretty clear case of retrograde amnesia. Dr. Karev hit it right on the head." He shoots a look over to Jackson. "Apologies for my poor choice in words, but you understand."

Jackson nods. This must not be the first time he's hearing his diagnosis.

"So you can't remember anything following April 23rd, 2016," Derek says, then looks at me. "But he has no trouble forming new memories. There's no trace of anterograde in his case, which is a good thing." He looks back to Jackson. "But that year - roughly, a year - is completely blank."

"He can't remember anything about it?" I ask, stunned. It still doesn't seem real. This happens in soap operas and romance novels. I still can't wrap my head around the fact that it's happened to us.

"He can't," Derek says. "We did extensive testing. Right now, it's a blank spot in his memory. He can recall memories as far back as you or I could prior to that date - he was telling me all about your honeymoon, actually." He chuckles. "But that year, for the time being, is erased."

I furrow my eyebrows. "What do you mean by 'for the time being?'"

Derek nods. "The human brain is the most complicated organ in the body," he says. "It's hard to predict nearly anything about it, though we can try. Amnesia is one of the lesser explored anomalies, mostly because there's not really a clear reason as to why it occurs. Sometimes, patients with a prognosis like his have memories that come back. He could get that year back tomorrow, or he never could. It really just depends."

I clasp my hands together. "Depends?" I repeat. "Depends on what? Are they pills he can take, medicine to help him remember? Some sort of treatment you can give him?"

I don't like talking about Jackson like he's not here, but I can't help it. I feel like I have to be his voice right now.

"There's currently no medication that treats amnesia," Derek says. "But occupational therapy can help. So we've organized him to come see a therapist once a week, and I have hope that that will do him some good." He looks up from his papers to meet my eyes. "The person who can help him the most, though, is you, April."

I chew on the inside of my bottom lip. "Me?"

He nods. "You know him better than anyone else. You've been married for almost ten years, you've shared a life. Everything he experienced, you were there for. He's gonna need you now more than ever, to help him get back that information."

Suddenly, the weight of that daunting task settles on my shoulders and threatens to make me collapse. I glance down when I feel Jackson's hand on my thigh, then over to his face. His eyes are warm and loving, and he's looking at me with an expression I haven't seen him wear in so long.

This is a dangerous game. It's like everything that happened in the past year - everything bad, everything that made our marriage take a nosedive - is gone, erased. How many times have I wished for this exact thing to happen? And now it did. His memory is wiped and as far as he knows, we're just as happily married as we were during my surprise birthday party last year.

This isn't right. My hands are cold and clammy with nerves; I don't know if I can do this.

But I have to.

"Are you okay with that?" Derek asks. "Can you handle it?"

"Of course I can," I answer, quickly.

"Good," he says. "But there's no shame if you can't. There are caregivers-"

"My wife is the best caregiver around," Jackson says, piping up for the first time. He strokes my thigh with his thumb, and I get goosebumps because of it. His simple, routine touch is capable of doing that to me, just because I haven't felt it in so long. I didn't realize just how much I missed it, how much I missed him.

I'm already feeling guilty for how much I'm enjoying this, though I'm trying not to.

"She'll take good care of me," Jackson says, squeezing my leg.

I overlap his hand with my own, and it feels natural. "I'll take good care of him," I echo, like a promise. "What about work? Will he be able to work?"

Derek shakes his head. "No," he says. "Not at first, at least. We'll watch his progression, see if there are any improvements. If it looks like his memory isn't going to come back, then we'll talk about his returning to the hospital. But he needs time. So take him home, let him rest, remind him of things." He looks at me pointedly. "Slowly. Pace is very important. Don't overload, that won't help anyone. It'll overwhelm him and frustrate you. So just do a little bit at a time, and have fun with it. Just reminisce, talk about memories. The littlest things can help."

I nod slowly. "Okay," I say. "I can do that."

When I switch on the lights in the apartment, Jackson looks around curiously.

"What are you looking for?" I ask. During the car ride, he was watching the city like something might have changed on him, but nothing had. He held my hand for the entire ride, maybe for comfort and stability, or maybe just because that's what he's used to, but I let him do it either way.

It made me feel good, too.

"Just looking around to see what's changed," he says, chuckling softly. "I feel like I need a tour of my own house."

"Well, we got new countertop," I say, laying my hands flat on the black surface. "Remember? It used to be-"

"White," he says. "But I like the black."

"You should," I say, smiling. "You picked it out."

He nods and smirks. "Good job, past me." He keeps looking around. "What else is new?"

"Um…" I say, following his eyes. I try and find things that we've updated in the past year, but things like that slip my mind easily. For the past ten months, I haven't been home as much as I used to be. "Well, we painted Avi's room."

He raises his eyebrows and walks toward it. "Oh, yeah?" he says.

"Yep," I reply. "She said that she wanted a 'big girl' color, and the baby pink wasn't good enough anymore. So…" I push open her door and flick on the light, welcomed by a lilac purple.

"Purple," he says, one hand resting on her low, white dresser by the door. "Where is she?"

I flick the light back off and walk to the doorway, where I leave my shoes on the mat. "With Owen and Amelia," I say. "I asked Amy to pick her up after Vivian got off. I… told her I'd call and say goodnight, but it got late. I'd just be waking her up now."

"How's she doing?" he asks. "She must be… six?"

I nod. "Six, yeah," I say. "She's good. She's… great. She's almost done with kindergarten, smart as a whip."

"Well, that's nothing new," he says.

"You were teaching her to ride a bike," I say. "I hope you can teach her to ride better than you can ride one yourself."

He pretends to be offended, screwing his face up in fake-pain. "Ooh, low blow," he says.

I giggle and lock the front door, wondering for the first time where he'll sleep. I'm not ready to tell him about our downward spiral yet. Derek said not too much at once, and that is the exact definition of too much. He can't remember the past year in its entirety - what kind of monster would I be to tell him that we were about to file for divorce? I can't do that to him. I'm not sure how I'm going to handle it yet, but I tell myself that tonight is not the night.

"You must be tired," I say, trailing my hand along the back of the couch as I turn the lights off in the kitchen.

"I'm actually not," he says, eyeing me.

"No?" I ask. "Are you hungry? Do you wanna eat something?" I open the fridge and peer inside, but feel his arms snake around my waist before I can get far. "Jackson…" I trail off.

"What?" he murmurs, his face in the side of my neck. The fridge's cool air is blowing on me, which is good, because my skin feels like it's on fire. He spreads his fingers out on my belly and bunches my dress up in his fists when he closes them, pressing his hips insistently against my ass.

I try not to let myself get lost in the way his body feels pressed against mine. I haven't felt his lips on my neck in so, so long, so the feeling nearly makes me melt into a heap to the floor. His mouth is open as his tongue runs over my skin and his arms wrap tighter around my middle, and I feel an insistent tightening in my groin.

I pull my lower lip into my mouth and moan, but pull away at the same time. "I…" I say, closing my eyes. "I don't think we should…"

Everything in my body is protesting my protests. I want nothing more than to let him take me in a way he hasn't in months, but I don't know how wrong that is. Wouldn't that be taking advantage of him in some sort of way?

"What?" he says. "Because you think my brain's all blended?"

Now the fridge is closed, with my back resting against it. He's standing in front of me, hands resting on the flat wooden paneling on either side of my head.

"Well, I wasn't thinking those words, but…" I sigh and lift my eyes to meet his.

"It's only the year I can't remember," he says. "Baby girl, I'm still me. Ask me anything, and I'll know it."

"Jackson…" I say, hands pulled up close to my chest.

"Come on," he says. "Fine. I'll prove it to you. You work at Clifford Law Offices, you're an attorney there. A badass one, might I add. We met at Three Dots and A Dash, when your ballsy little ass came up to me and basically asked me to kiss you, back in 2008. Right when you finished law school and passed your Bar. Our first date, we went to Navy Pier and rode the ferris wheel, except you didn't tell me you were afraid of heights until we were already at the top, and you had your eyes closed the whole time."

We both chuckle a little bit at that.

"We got engaged on New Year's Day in 2009 and married on October 18th of that same year, and god, you looked beautiful. I cried when you walked down the aisle because you were officially gonna be mine. Like, forever. I'd never seen someone look as beautiful as you did, and now I get to see that every single day." He lowers his arms from the fridge to rest on my hips, and I let him. "We went to Bali for our honeymoon and spent more time naked than not. I remember that really damn clearly."

He's breaking me down and he knows it.

"Baby bird was born on August 8th, 2010. It was the happiest day of our lives. Aveline Claire, the most gorgeous baby to ever live. Her first word was 'mama,' of course. But 'dada' didn't come long after." His grip tightens on my hips and he presses his forehead against mine. "Your birthday is on April 23rd - the last one I remember is when you turned 32, but 33 never looked better on anyone." He turns his face to press his lips against the corner of my jaw, and heat pools between my legs. "And I know it's not your birthday anymore… but we can pretend that it is, as long as I can give you some well-deserved birthday sex."

My breath escapes me in a shaky gust. "Yeah," I agree, eyelids fluttering as I nod.

I can practically hear his smirk. "Yeah?" he says, one hand sneaking lower to roughly grab my ass.

I press my lips together tightly and bite my lip with my eyes closed, then feel him tug it out from between my teeth. "Let me take you to bed," he breathes, his nose pressed against my cheekbone. "I need to have sex with my wife."

That does it. I nod slightly and he picks me up from the ground, which causes me to shriek excitedly as he carries me to our room, turned my room, now turned back into our room.

He sets my feet down on the ground and grips the skirt of my dress to pull it off over my head, and I lift my arms to help. As I stand in front of him in the matching black bra and underwear set that he'd seen this morning, he doesn't look away. He skims my body with his eyes and drinks it in, which makes me feel special and wanted. I haven't felt this way as he looks at me in a long time.

He strips down to his boxers and wraps his arms around my waist, walking with me to fall back onto the bed where I lie on my back and watch him as he joins me. I want to touch him, I need to get my hands on him, and I don't want to wait any longer. I push myself up on one elbow and grapple for the waistband of his boxers, but he moves my wrist away.

"You're overdue for a birthday present," he says. "I'm treating you first."

I flop onto my back with a breathless sigh and watch his lips pull up in a sly smirk. He winds one arm around my back and unclasps my bra with the expert ease he's always had, and I straighten my arms so he can pull it off. He throws it to the end of the bed and dips his head to my chest, where he wastes no time in covering my breast with his warm, wet mouth.

His lips feel amazing. I can't remember the last time he really touched any part of my body, no less gave me attention like this. I spread my legs and his hand sneaks down my torso to rest between them, over my underwear.

I can't resist. As he nips small sections of my skin underneath my breast, I lift my hips to meet his hand that's stroking me. My arms are bent at the elbows, resting above my head as my chin is bent to watch him do what he hasn't done in months.

He continues to work on my breast, centering in on the nipple and pulling it between his teeth, which makes my hips jolt up out of my control. I feel him smile against my skin as he rubs a hand higher on my belly, over the soft peach fuzz as he scoots his body closer to mine.

"You're a damn masterpiece," he says, lips moving against the soft skin around my nipple. "God, I can't believe you."

I smile breathlessly and wrap one of my arms around the back of his neck, touching the shell of his ear with my fingertips. He looks up at me as I do so and we lock eyes, then he pushes himself up to kiss me on the lips.

It's the first time we've kissed in ages, but I could never forget how his mouth feels on mine. He pushes his tongue past the seam of my lips and I raise my eyebrows as one hand sneaks back between my legs, still rubbing me over the material of my panties. I rest my free hand on the flat plane of his chest and kiss him harder, opening my mouth wide as I turn my head at an angle, and I feel his erection pressing insistently to the side of my thigh.

As we continue to kiss more passionately than we've kissed in months, his hand keeps working through my underwear. My legs are parted as far as they'll go and I keep raising my hips to meet him, but it's not enough. And he knows it. He scoops his hand lower to stroke my inner thigh and I copy his motion, slipping my hand between our bodies to graze over his penis, but he makes a sound of protest into my mouth.

"This is for you," he murmurs, lips moving against my own.

With that, he slips his hand inside the front of my underwear and touches me - skin on skin. I lose my breath and gasp as he still kisses my parted lips and chin, feeling the pads of his fingers rub in circles right on the place he used to be so familiar with.

I can barely kiss him back. My mouth is loose against his as he makes me lose my breath, and I keep twisting the fabric on the hip of his boxers with my fingers as he pushes his inside of me. The room is filled with sounds from our bodies - the wet smack of our lips as they part and rejoin, and my soft sighs as he teases me. It's so much better than the silence this room usually finds itself in.

After a few minutes, he starts kissing me harder - his head moving forcefully against mine as his fingers keep working, and my hips writhe from his touch. I wind my arm around his back and trace the muscles of his shoulder blades, my feet flat against the mattress as my knees are still spread wide - now his fingers are pinpointing a specific spot and changing speed every few seconds.

He pulls away from my lips and tucks his face into my neck, opening his mouth and sucking on sections of my skin, leaving trails of saliva in his wake. I lean my head to the opposite side and sigh loudly, keeping my eyes closed as he gives me everything I need.

When he moves back to my mouth, the sound of our sloppy kisses fill the room again and I plant my hand on his chest, circling his nipple with my manicured fingernail. It hardens quickly beneath my touch as I rub my thumb over it, and he moans into my mouth as he pulls at the waistband of my underwear and takes them off, and I help by lifting my legs and welcoming his hand once they're gone.

He teases me with one finger and moves his mouth back to mine, kissing me hungrily as he gently strokes my outer lips as my hips continue to squirm.

Then, with his mouth attached to my breast again, he pushes one finger all the way inside me.

"Yes…" I moan, grip tightening on his shoulder. He moves it around and I can't help the moan that escapes me as I throw my head to the side, my hand gently ghosting over his before moving back to rest on the pillow above me. I spread my legs further as he pushes another finger inside me, and open my mouth to let out a struggled-sounding groan. "Oh…" I sigh. "My god…"

I can't help the way my legs are moving as he pumps his fingers roughly, or the way my mouth falls open as he tries to kiss me.

I let out a high-pitched gasp as I feel the muscles in my lower belly tense, and he kisses my chin and the area around my mouth as my lips part. I gasp again, one hand rushing down to grip his wrist as he continues to pump his fingers.

I kiss him desperately, my knees pressing together instead of falling apart, and keep a good grip on his wrist as I make involuntary sounds. It feels so good, but it's so much, so part of me wants to push him away. But at the same time, I want him closer, so my fingers just end up dancing around the heel of his palm as he gets me closer and closer to coming.

When it happens, I cry out and I don't try to keep quiet. There's no kid in the house to explain myself to in the morning, and I have him where I haven't in a long time. He kisses me as best he can as I turn this way and that, and when it's over and my chest is heaving, I roll on my side and kiss him slowly, holding the side of his face.

"Oh, my god," I breathe, the space between my legs still pulsing.

He smirks. "That good, huh?"

I nod shakily, my whole body buzzing. He starts to move away from me, and the conditioned part of me thinks he must be leaving to go back into the guest room. But of course, he doesn't. He doesn't even know that the guest bedroom is where he's been staying.

Instead, he pries my legs apart again and settles between them, running his hands up my hipbones as he gets comfortable. "Oh, Jackson," I whisper. "You don't have-"

"Happy belated birthday," he says, kissing the most intimate part of me.

I don't say anything else. I press my eyes shut and concentrate on the way his tongue feels, and let myself get lost in what he can do to me. I almost forgot how good he is. Almost.

Before he makes me come with his tongue, he re-situates and covers my body with his own, pushing his erection inside of me slowly and deftly.

He makes slow, vocal love to me in a way we haven't in what feels like forever. When he comes, his face is buried in my neck and he has one hand on my breast, hips still thrusting against me so I can go, too. I clutch at his shoulder blades when it happens, and let a shuddering breath escape me.

We don't move after it's over, which is something I relish. I've grown accustomed to him pulling out quickly and leaving the room, so the fact that he wants to stay close is so much to handle that it almost makes me cry.

I drag my fingernails down his back as he breathes on top of me, pressing lazy kisses to my sternum. "April," he murmurs.

"Hmm," I say softly in response.

"I love you."

Tears spring to my eyes and my breath catches in my throat. I take a moment to respond just because of how much his words shock me, but I do respond.

"I love you, too," I whisper, hugging him close.

I close my eyes and find it hard to believe that just a month ago, a very different birthday of mine had passed. Unlike the year before, where Jackson organized a surprise party to end all surprise parties, my 33rd birthday had passed without any pomp or circumstance. I had gotten home from work late and found Aveline already in bed and Jackson watching TV in the living room. He looked over his shoulder, given me a half-assed smile and muttered the sentiment. He got me flowers that were sitting on the kitchen counter - my favorite, like always - a bouquet of peonies and snapdragons. There was a little card inside, but it didn't say anything personal, really. Just a 'Happy Birthday' with a heart drawn underneath it and his named signed.

We hadn't been doing well, though, so I'd appreciated that small gesture. It was more than I'd expected, so it was alright with me. Aveline had made me something at school, a card of some sort, that was already hanging on the fridge. I had turned 33 without celebration, but that was just the way life had grown to be. Everything happened without much celebration, we'd fallen into a dull and predictable routine.

But now, lying here in Jackson's arms, things feel like they used to. Before our downward spiral began, before things turned bad. Looking into his face, I feel renewed and refreshed. His eyes are sparkling and he's present, holding me and telling me he loves me. This is the husband I knew, this is the husband I missed.

"Monkey," he says, and I let out a little giggle at the nickname. I almost forgot he used to call me that, it had long since been buried in my subconscious. I hate the nickname 'Ape' and 'Apes,' and told him this not long after we started dating. He agreed and said that apes aren't cute, but other monkeys are. So, it came to be. And it stuck.

"Yeah?"

We're lying nose-to-nose now, and he curls a bit of my hair behind my ear. "Tell me about Avi," he says.

I smile softly. "She's getting tall," I say, holding onto his wrist. "She gets that from her daddy, I think."

"She definitely didn't get it from her tiny-ass mama," he says, chuckling.

I laugh, too. "She loves math," I say. "Sometimes, in the car, she'll ask us to give her numbers to add and subtract for fun. She wants to start learning multiplication and division. She's so smart, Jackson. She likes fashion, she spends a long time picking out her outfits in her morning. She's gonna buy us out of house and home when she's a teenager, we've joked about that."

I lift my eyes to look at him and see that he's listening, enraptured, to every word I'm saying.

"Is it scary?" I ask.

He takes in a deep breath. "Yeah," he admits. "A little. It's just… weird. It feels like it's a year ago, it doesn't feel like I missed anything. It doesn't feel like there's a big blank space or anything like that. It feels like that whole year never happened. Even though I know it did. It's like I went back in time or something."

As he runs his fingers through my hair, a very selfish thought runs through my mind. I don't want him to remember.

A year ago, everything was great between us. Everything was like it is right now, nothing had gone wrong yet. The three events that pushed us over the edge hadn't occurred and we were still in a simple, beautiful marriage. We said 'I love you' multiple times a day, we sent each other texts when the other crossed our minds, we made dinner together and took Avi on little outings after school when we could. We were still, of course, busy working parents, but we made it work.

There was no animosity. There wasn't even the thought that animosity between us could ever be possible. We had the relationship that all of our friends coveted and the one they all talked about.

A year later, now they talk about us for a different reason. With hushed tones and sympathetic glances, because they remember, too, what we had once been.

"Can you tell me a few things?" Jackson asks, leaning forward to press a soft kiss to my lips.

I nod.

"I still work at the hospital, right?" he asks.

"Yes," I answer. "You're head of plastics at UIC Medicine, just like you were a year ago. Nothing's changed there, except they did give you a raise."

"Nice," he says, nodding to himself. "And what about you? Did you make partner?"

A sour taste appears in my mouth and I find it hard to meet his eyes, but I still answer him. "No," I say, without elaborating.

His forehead crinkles a bit, but he doesn't ask questions. "And… are we still trying for another baby?" he says.

I blink and roll over onto my back, taking the covers with me to cover my chest. "No," I answer again, just as simply.

"Oh," he says, sounding confused. "Why not?"

I swallow hard. The story is more than I'm willing to burden him with at the moment. "Not the right time," I say, and hope he accepts the answer.

Jackson without amnesia wouldn't have. Not in a million years. But this Jackson - the soft, unaware Jackson who lost a year of his life - does. "Oh," he says, wrapping an arm around my belly. He kisses my shoulder and asks, "You sleepy?"

I stare at the ceiling. Right now, I'm more awake than I've been all day and I know that there's no way I'll be able to shut my eyes. "Yeah," I lie.

"It's been a long day," he says.

I turn my head to look at him and skim my fingertips over his closely-shaved head. "Are you feeling okay?" I ask. "I want to make sure before we go to sleep."

"I'm fine," he says. "You can help me remember more in the morning. But right now, I just wanna go to sleep. Here, with you."

"Okay," I say, overlapping his forearm with one hand. "Goodnight."

"And?" he prompts, eyelids heavy.

It takes me a second to remember what he's waiting to hear. It's been such a long time since we fell asleep together, no less went through this routine.

"And I love you," I say. Back when everything was good, we never went to sleep without saying it.

"And I love you," he repeats back, quietly. He closes his eyes with his head rested on my bare chest, rising and falling as I breathe.

I try and fall asleep, too, but just as I thought - it doesn't work. His words ring back through my mind as his body is heavy on top of me.

Are we still trying for another baby?

I think of the empty, unused office that we'd planned on turning into a nursery had it ever happened. We had pink paint left over from Aveline's old room that we were going to use if we had another girl, but we didn't want to use blue if it was a boy. Yellow. If we had a little boy, his room was going to be yellow.

Jackson brought up the subject last March. We'd been in a good place with our marriage and our jobs, and he said that he hated growing up as an only child. He didn't want Avi to be lonely like he'd been, only relying on herself, her parents and her nanny for companionship. He wanted another kid for her, another baby, another little life that was a mixture of the both of us running around the house.

I had joked with him and said that we'd have to pay Vivian double, but he'd been serious. He wanted another baby. I wasn't sold on the idea, but I was sucked in by his passion. He loved Aveline with everything he had, and he still does. His little girl was and is his world. I knew he'd be a great father to two, I just didn't know how well I'd be able to match his abilities.

But I went for it. Without having the same dedication to growing our family that he did, I played along. I went off the pill and tracked my ovulation and best fertility times with an app on my phone that has long since been deleted. We tried, and we didn't even have to try that hard. By May, I missed my period, took a test, and found out I was pregnant.

May 23rd, 2016. That was the day we found out. Even though I hadn't been crazy about the idea beforehand, now that it was real, I matched Jackson's excitement. We went out to dinner with Aveline, but didn't tell her what we were celebrating - we wanted to wait just a little bit longer.

But she was happy that we were happy. I don't know if I'd ever seen Jackson happier than when we found out except for the day we got married and the day Aveline was born. He couldn't wait to be a dad again.

And two weeks later, I found out I was in the running to make partner my firm. Ever since I passed my Bar exam, making partner had been a dream of mine. It's every ambitious lawyer's dream - I'd make more money, have more responsibility, and own part of the company. That was what I'd been striving for, I just never thought the opportunity would be presented to me so soon.

Jackson didn't match my excitement for my potential promotion, though. He didn't want me putting unnecessary stress on the baby as I tried to prove myself to my higher-ups. He was also worried that I wouldn't have enough time for the baby once it was born if I did end up getting the position, and I couldn't see why he found it impossible to be happy for me in regards to something I'd been working for my entire law career.

It's when the fights started.

I'm starting to think that your job means more to you than our baby.

How could you say something like that? Of course my family is the most important thing. You, Avi, this baby - you three come first.

Then why do you seem more excited about this job than you ever did about getting pregnant?

You sprang the idea of another kid on me! I've been working towards partner since I was 25.

It was the argument that we had in hushed tones after Aveline went to bed. They were small in comparison to the ones that would follow. This was something we could get over - it was a hurdle to jump. Both of us knew that we could do it together - I could do the same amount of work pregnant, at least for the most part, as I could when I wasn't with child. Once I made partner, I'd have the baby and Vivian would have to work extra hours, but we could afford to pay her double if that's what she needed. We'd figure it all out. We could have everything. A two-child family with a father who was the head of his department at the hospital and a mother who was partner at her law firm.

But things fell apart.

It was the last day of June when it happened. I woken up in the middle of the night with severe cramps, and saw that I'd soaked through my underwear with blood. I left them on the bathroom floor and woke Jackson up, and he called Vivian at 3:30am to stay overnight and watch Aveline while we rushed to the hospital to find out that I'd had a miscarriage at four weeks.

We sat in the car after I was sent home with special pads to staunch the blood flow, empty and silent. I had nothing to say, but could tell that he wanted to fill the silence. He didn't, though.

He waited two weeks, until after I found out I didn't make partner. It was early July, and I called to tell him the news, crying. I was sitting by the Daley Fountain, not caring who saw my breakdown.

I didn't get the position.

Oh, I'm sorry.

You don't care. You never wanted it for me, anyway. What you wanted was that baby.

And you never wanted it. Now we have neither. Was it worth it?

Was what worth it?

Fighting for partner put too much stress on you. There's no other reason you'd lose that baby. It was a healthy pregnancy. That's the only reason I can think of.

He never stopped blaming me. I had no promotion, no baby. I held the same office and was told that I'd be next in line if the position were to ever open up again, which it wouldn't for a long time. I knew that, and my boss knew that, too.

At home, we were left with an empty office with paint cans sitting inside of it and a name book, gathering dust, with page-corners folded down.

Things weren't the same for us after that, but it didn't stop there. Our next big argument happened over where we'd send Aveline for kindergarten. I wanted to send her to Queen of Angels Elementary School, which is private and Catholic. Tuition was high, but it was nothing we couldn't handle.

Jackson had no interest in that, though. Instead, he wanted to send her to Oscar Mayer Elementary, which wasn't private and involved a lottery to get in because there were so many kids on the waiting list. Queen of Angels didn't involve anything like that, and I wanted a sure spot for her. There was no way I was making our child wait a year for kindergarten and letting her fall behind the rest of her peers.

I'm not putting my kid through Catholic school for nine damn years!

What's so wrong with that?

Catholic schools turn kids out to be psychos. She'll get ruler-slapped by nuns and think that anything to do with sexuality is wrong. They don't teach sex-ed there, April, all they teach is abstinence.

And she should be abstinent, the school goes up until eighth grade. Would you like our daughter to be having sex in middle school?

Of course not. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying by a certain age, she needs to learn.

She'll learn in high school.

It won't be the same.

I went to Catholic school and I turned out fine, didn't I?

You had no idea what sex was until you met me. Don't you want an education for Aveline that's less old world?

We put her in the lottery for Oscar Mayer and she didn't get in. There was nothing we could have done, but still Jackson blamed me. He said we should've done it sooner, made sure she had a spot the year before. When she was in preschool, we should have enrolled her and registered when it was time for kindergarten.

No matter what I said, no matter what I did, nothing was right anymore. Ever since I lost the baby and lost partner, everything about me was wrong in his eyes.

He stopped putting forth as much of an effort in our marriage and because of this, it was hurting me to do double the work. He had so much resentment for me that he couldn't see straight, yet would never own up to it.

Aveline had a First Communion ceremony before she started at Queen of Angels. I dressed her in the Communion dress that I'd worn when I was a little girl and made her look and feel so special. When she stood at the church altar and looked out, beaming, at her family that came to witness the ceremony, she saw everyone sitting there but her daddy.

He didn't come.

He's done a lot of things wrong. So have I. I can own up to that, but he never has. Maybe now is our God-given second chance to go back and do things over again. As I lie here stroking his head that rests over my heartbeat, I tell myself that that has to be why this happened to us.